What does it look like when the color takes over the canvas? Something like this? Or this?
Or maybe something even wilder like this?
This early 20th-century movement started in 1905 in France and lasted for just a couple
of years. It was short-lived but had a huge impact on the art of the 20th century. It’s
called FAUVISM and today we’ll find out why this modern art movement is so special.
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Fauvism got its unusual name when the art critic Louis Vauxcelles described these artists
as Les Fauves - meaning wild beasts. The art critic saw their works in an exhibition placed
next to classical marble sculptures and called the scene Donatello among the wild beasts.
And despite the fact that it wasn’t a compliment he was giving them, the label stuck and today
we know these artists as Fauvists!
The best-known fauvist art was created by three amazing artists: Henri Matisse, Andre
Derain, and Maurice de Vlaminck. Their works are known for showing a firework of colors.
They often painted cityscapes and landscapes but created portraits as well. And the bold,
vibrant colors they used weren’t the colors that you get to see in real life when looking
at an object or a place. Fauvists ditched the realistic values and showed the colors
they wanted to show and not the ones you see in nature. Color no longer had a representational
purpose. The ways in which fauvists used color were inspired by the art of magnificent post-impressionists
and neo-impressionists like Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Seurat.
Now let’s take a look at some of the amazing fauvist artworks. Henri Matisse’s Joy of
Life is one of the best-known fauvist works. This large canvas was finished in 1906. We
can see that Matisse used a variety of intense vivid colors to show an arcadian landscape.
The sea is painted in the background, nude bathers are lying around, there are people
dancing and playing music - we really are looking at a scene of pure joy. In the central
background, we can notice a circle of people that look a lot like the ones Matisse painted
in his 1909 masterpiece The Dance.
Another great fauvist artwork is called Charing Cross Bridge and it was painted by Andre Derain.
Just a few years before Derain, the famous impressionist Claude Monet painted the same
bridge. By comparing the works of these two artists we can clearly notice the new tendencies
that fauvism brought to art. In Derains’ work, the Parliament of London is painted
green, the river Thames is shown yellow and blue, the sky is pink, and the shapes seem
almost abstract. While Monet painted the scene in a typical impressionist way by focusing
on the effects of light. Compared to Monet’s, Derains’ London certainly seems less grey
and less moody.
Let’s take a look at a fauvist portrait. Maurice de Vlaminck painted his fellow Fauve
Andre Derain. We can see that this portrait doesn’t look realistic at all. We see a
close-up of Derain’s face painted in red with hints of yellow and green, his head is
outlined with bold black brushstrokes. Derain’s didn’t really look like this, but what we
are presented with here is the artists’ vision of his sitter.
Fauvists represent a very important chapter in the history of modern art. They paved the
way towards abstract art, but the ways in which they used non-naturalistic colors also
influenced German expressionists heavily. They created many fascinating colorful paintings
that are often a pleasure to look at, especially on a grey rainy day!
Hey muses, so what do you think about Fauvism? Who’s your favorite fauvist? And what kind
of effect do fauvist painting have on you? Let us know in the comments and don’t forget
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