EUROPEAN ART

MAJOR PERIODS IN WESTERN ART HISTORY

EXPRESSIONISM, CUBISM AND SURREALISM

a. Expressionism 1905 – 1933

- Is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the
beginning of the 20th century.
- Movement in fine arts that emphasized the expression of inner experience rather than solely realistic
portrayal, seeking to depict not objective reality but the subjective emotions and responses that objects and
events arouse in the artist. He accomplishes his aim through distortion, exaggeration, primitivism, and
fantasy and through the vivid, jarring, violent, or dynamic application of formal elements.
- A style that made an impact in the arts in the 1920s, particularly in Germany. Expressionists abandoned
realistic, accurate representations in favour of exaggerations and distortions of line and colour that were
intended to carry far greater emotional impact.

b. Origins of Expressionism
Antonin Matejcek - is a Czech art historian who coined the term “Expressionism” on year 1910.
- Expressionists sought only to express inner life, often via the painting of harsh and realistic subject matter.
The origins of Expressionism are often associated with two German groups of artists known as Die Brücke (The
Bridge) and Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider).
Die Brücke formed in 1905 in Dresden and was led by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner.
Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider), formed in Munich in 1911 by artists Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc.

How to identify Expressionist art?

1. People, places and objects are distorted or exaggerated. The scenes show a modern world which is hostile
and alienating. The sinister feeling is amplified by aggressive and raw brush strokes.
2. People seem sickly or in emotional pain and anguish. The faces are always gloomy.

3. colors are unrealistic but Expressionists were not obsessed with red. The unnatural colors are often dark to
“express” their feelings about the modern world.

c. Expressionism in other form of arts

1. Film
- the earliest Expressionist films set out to convey through decor the subjective mental state of the
protagonist.
Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari (The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari) (1920) by Robert Wiene. The
cinematography included vivid colors, distorted lines, and angles. The film’s actors had exaggerated faces
with eyes outlined in black make-up. All of which are meant to represent the madman’s mental state.

2. Literature
- Expressionist poetry arose with the same intentions as art and film; to break from life’s conformity and
express feeling. Poets began to use more nouns, fewer adjectives, and infinite verbs. Popular themes of
 expressionist poetry were horror, revolution, and the collapse of civilization. Some of the most famous
Expressionist poets were Georg Heym and Ernst Stadler of Germany. As well as the Czech poet Franz
Werfel.

d. CUBISM

Cubism as an art movement emerged in Paris between 1907 and 1908. It is a collaborative creation by artists like
Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque and is classified by its avant-garde appearance. The main idea of cubism is to
decompose realistic subjects into geometric shapes to help give them perspective and distinct impressions.

e. History of cubism

Paul Cezanne, the Post-Impressionist French painter, is the foremost precursor to Cubism in many respects. In
1906, he explained that every visual object could be traceable to geometrical forms.

Louis Vauxcelle- an art critic coined the word ‘Cubism’ . He called works of Braque “bizarries cubiques” or cubic
oddities.

Pablo Picasso - The primary founder of Cubism, together with Braque, Picasso explored a number of different
styles of art throughout his career. Some say that he produced enough innovative and unique art for five or six
different famous artists.

f. The 3 Types of Cubism

Cubism developed in two distinct phases: Analytical Cubism, and Synthetic Cubism.

Proto-Cubism - is the initial phase that marked the evolution from Impressionism to Cubism, occurring at the start
of the 20th century until the birth of Cubism as a movement. Proto-Cubism is often called Cézanian Cubism because
this phase was dominated by French artist Paul Cézanne’s avant-garde, highly geometric representations of
landscapes and other subject matter.

Analytical Cubism - emerged around 1907 and lasted until 1912 and is the first official phase of Cubism. The
subject matter is divided into flat planes representing the object, person, or landscape from different angles.
Muted colors and dark, earthy tones and shades are commonly used by artists in Analytical Cubist
paintings.

Synthetic Cubism - occurred between 1912 and 1914 and is the second major phase of Cubism. Features
fragmented subject matter but with a flatter composition, leaving little trace of three-dimensional space.
Synthetic Cubism was also about artists experimenting with patterns and textures, adding objects such as
newsprint and other paper-based ephemera to their paintings.

g. SURREALISM

Surrealism - is an artistic, literary, and philosophical movement founded by French poet, André Breton in the early
20th century.

- published in 1924, Breton posited that the primary aim of the Surrealist movement was ‘to resolve the
previously contradictory conditions of dream and reality into absolute reality, a super-reality’. Believing
 that the source of artistic creativity came from the unconscious mind, the Surrealists focused on exploring
notions of the irrational and the subconscious as a means of breaking free from the rational order of
society. The movement was also largely influenced by psychoanalytic theory, with Sigmund Freud’s
theories on dreams and subconscious informing works by Salvador Dalí, Max Ernst, and René Magritte.

h. History of surrealism

The word ‘surrealist’ (suggesting ‘beyond reality’) was coined by the French avant-garde poet Guillaume
Apollinaire in the preface to a play performed in 1917. But it was André Breton, leader of a new grouping of poets
and artists in Paris, who, in his Surrealist Manifesto (1924), defined surrealism as: “pure psychic automatism, by
which one proposes to express, either verbally, in writing, or by any other manner, the real functioning of thought.
Dictation of thought in the absence of all control exercised by reason, outside of all aesthetic and moral
preoccupation.”

i. Key Ideas & Accomplishments

•André Breton defined Surrealism as "psychic automatism in its pure state, by which one proposes to express -
verbally, by means of the written word, or in any other manner - the actual functioning of thought." What Breton is
proposing is that artists bypass reason and rationality by accessing their unconscious mind. In practice, these
techniques became known as automatism or automatic writing, which allowed artists to forgo conscious thought and
embrace chance when creating art.

•The work of Sigmund Freud was profoundly influential for Surrealists, particularly his book, The Interpretation of
Dreams (1899). Freud legitimized the importance of dreams and the unconscious as valid revelations of human
emotion and desires; his exposure of the complex and repressed inner worlds of sexuality, desire, and violence
provided a theoretical basis for much of Surrealism.

The Metamorphosis (Franz Kafka)

In Franz Kafka’s 1912 book The Metamorphosis, the main character (Gregor Samsa) literally turns into an insect
throughout the course of the book, a concept that is purely surrealistic. It’s widely recognized as a social
commentary on the way people are valued in capitalistic society and the dehumanization that occurs when one loses
the ability to financially provide for others. Upon losing the ability to financially support his family, which seems to
be all they care about, his physical being devolves to that of an actual insect, which, of course, cannot actually
happen.
Characteristics of surrealism
Automatism- was the practice of drawing, painting, or writing automatically or without thought to the greatest
extent possible. This was intended to free up the unconscious mind and produce images that were ambiguous and
allowed many audience interpretations.

Combined image- Collages, mixed mediums, and other techniques that combined images not normally
seen together could be used to create strange and unsettling results

Symbols- are elements that look like one thing but stand in for something else. Many Surrealists
communicated their ideas through judicious use of symbols.

Exquisite corpse- An exquisite corpse is a drawing made by several people, each of whom adds a new
body part to a creature. This was a game that many Surrealists employed for inspiration.