Impression, Soleil Levant
Impression, Soleil Levant
MODERN ART began after photography was invented, as photographs realistically depicted the world. Challenging this
notion of art, artists experimented with the expressive use of colors, materials and new techniques and media.
Art Movements
1. Impressionism – a style that emerged in the mid-19th century, was coined from Claude Monet’s work entitled
Impression, Soleil levant.
− This style captured what this group of artists sought to represent in their works, which was the viewer’s
momentary “impression” of an image.
2. Post-Impressionism – a European outgrowth movement wherein artists continued using the basic qualities of
Impressionism yet expanded and experimented with it in bold ways.
Paul Cézanne
− His work exemplified the transition from late 19th-century impressionism to a new and radically different world
of art in the 20th century—paving the way for the next revolutionary art movement known as expressionism.
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Some of Paul Cézanne works:
1) Still Life with 2) Boy in a Red Vest
Compotier
3. Expressionism – an art movement seeking to depict the subjective emotions and responses that objects and events
arouse in the artist.
− They worked more with their imagination and feelings, rather than with what their eyes saw in the physical
world.
− To achieve this, artists distorted outlines, applied strong colors, and exaggerated forms.
Amedeo Modigliani
− A Western artist who used the oval faces and elongated shapes of African art in both his sculptures and
paintings.
b) Fauvism – a style that used bold, vibrant colors and visual distortions.
Henri Matisse is the most known among the group of French expressionist painters who used this style.
Some of his works:
Blue Window Woman with Hat
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c) Dadaism – the child’s term for hobbyhorse, dada, to refer to their new “non-style.”
− A style characterized by dream fantasies, memory images, and visual tricks and surprises.
Giorgio de Chirico is known in this style as this artist emerged in protest to the civilization, which brought
him suffering in World War I; he rebelled against established norms and authorities, and against the traditional
style in art.
d) Surrealism – a style of painting depicting strange subjects like those seen in dreams and fantasies.
Salvador Dali depicted morbid or gloomy subjects.
Marc Chagall, Paul Klee and Joan Miro depicted subjects which were quite playful and even humorous.
Some of their works:
1) Persistence of 2) Personages with Star
Memory Joan Miro
Salvador Dali
e) Social Realism – an art used to comment on or protest against social ills such as injustice, inequality, war,
poverty, industrial hazards, environmental destruction, etc.
Ben Shahn used this style in his painting, to speak out against
the hazardous conditions faced by coal miners in a tragic
incident and the mourning of their wives and children.
Miner’s Wives
4. Abstractionism – is an artistic style in which the natural appearance of objects becomes unimportant, and images are
reduced to geometrical shapes, patterns, lines, angles, textures, and colors.
a) Cubism – a style derived its name from the cube, a three dimensional geometric figure composed of strictly
measured lines, planes, and angles.
− The cubists analyzed their subjects’ basic geometrical forms, and broke them up into a series of planes, and
re-assemble these planes, tilting and interlocking them in different ways.
Pablo Picasso was a Spanish painter/sculptor who was notable among the cubists.
Some of his works:
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b) Futurism is a movement in art, music, and literature which began in Italy about 1909 and marked especially by an
effort to give formal expression to the dynamic energy and movement of mechanical processes
c) Mechanical Style – a style in which the figures and images were reduced to basic elements, such as planes,
cones, spheres, cylinders, and other mechanical components; even human figures were mere outlines without
expression.
d) Nonobjectivism – a style that had no reference to recognizable objects; lines, shapes, and colors were used in a
cool, impersonal approach that aimed for balance, unity, and stability.
b) Color Field Painting – used different color saturations (purity, vividness, intensity) to create their desired effects.
Some of Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman works have huge fields of vibrant color.
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c) Pictograph – filling the canvas with repeating picture fragments or symbols.
2) Conceptual Art – artworks for which the concept or idea behind the artwork, and the means of producing it, are
more important than the finished work itself.
3) Op Art – a form of “action painting,” with the action taking place in the viewer’s eye.
− Lines, spaces, and colors were precisely planned and positioned to give the illusion of movement
Current
Bridget Riley
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2. Benedicto “BenCab” Cabrera (Social Realism)
− National Artist for Visual Arts (2006)
− Has been noted as “arguably the best-selling of
his generation of Filipino artists.”
Scavenger
Fishermen
Space Transfiguration
2) Performance Art – the actions of an individual or a group at a particular place and in a particular time constitute
the work.
− The performer himself/herself is the artist rather than the actor playing a character.
− It involves four (4) basic elements:
time the performer’s body
space a relationship between performer and audience
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