POST-IMPRESSIONISM

Breaking free of the naturalism of Impressionism in the late 1880s, a group of young painters sought independent artistic styles for expressing emotions rather than simply optical impressions, concentrating on themes of deeper symbolism. Through the use of simplified colors and definitive forms, their art was characterized by a renewed aesthetic sense as well as abstract tendencies. Among the nascent generation of artists responding to Impressionism, Paul Gauguin (18481903), Georges Seurat (18591891), Vincent van Gogh (18531890), and the eldest of the group, Paul Czanne (18391906), followed diverse stylistic paths in search of authentic intellectual and artistic achievements. These artists, often working independently, are today called Post-Impressionists. Although they did not view themselves as part of a collective movement at the time, Roger Fry (18661934), critic and artist, broadly categorized them as "Post-Impressionists," a term that he coined in his seminal exhibition Manet and the Post-Impressionists installed at the Grafton Galleries in London in 1910.

SURREALISM
Surrealism originated in the late 1910s and early '20s as a literary movement that experimented with a new mode of expression called automatic writing, or automatism, which sought to release the unbridled imagination of the subconscious. Officially consecrated in Paris in 1924 with the publication of the Manifesto of Surrealism by the poet and critic Andr Breton (18961966), Surrealism became an international intellectual and political movement. Breton, a trained psychiatrist, along with French poets Louis Aragon (18971982), Paul luard (18951952), and Philippe Soupault (18971990), were influenced by the psychological theories and dream studies of Sigmund Freud (18561939) and the political ideas of Karl Marx (18181883). Using Freudian methods of free association, their poetry and prose drew upon the private world of the mind, traditionally restricted by reason and societal limitations, to produce surprising, unexpected imagery. The cerebral and irrational tenets of Surrealism find their ancestry in the clever and whimsical disregard for tradition fostered by Dadaism a decade earlier.

IMPRESSIONISM
In 1874, a group of artists called the Anonymous Society of Painters, Sculptors, Printmakers, etc. organized an exhibition in Paris that launched the movement called Impressionism. Its founding members included Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, and Camille Pissarro, among others. The group was unified only by its independence from the official annual Salon, for which a jury of artists from the Acadmie des Beaux-Arts selected artworks and awarded medals. The independent artists, despite their diverse approaches to painting, appeared to contemporaries as a group. While conservative critics panned their work for its unfinished, sketchlike appearance, more progressive writers praised it for its depiction of modern life. Edmond Duranty, for example, in his 1876 essay La Nouvelle Peinture (The New Painting), wrote of their depiction of contemporary subject matter in a suitably innovative style as a revolution in painting. The exhibiting collective avoided choosing a title that would imply a unified movement or school, although some of them subsequently adopted the name by which they would eventually be known, the Impressionists. Their work is recognized today for its modernity, embodied in its rejection of established styles, its incorporation of new technology and ideas, and its depiction of modern life.

CUBISM
Cubism was one of the most influential visual art styles of the early twentieth century. It was created by Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 18811973) and Georges Braque (French, 18821963) in Paris between 1907 and 1914. The French art critic Louis Vauxcelles coined the term Cubism after seeing the landscapes Braque had painted in 1908 at L'Estaque in emulation of Czanne. Vauxcelles called the geometric forms in the highly abstracted works "cubes." Other influences on early Cubism have been linked to Primitivism and non-Western sources. The stylization and distortion of Picasso's ground-breaking Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (Museum of Modern Art, New York), painted in 1907, came from African art. Picasso had first seen African art when, in May or June 1907, he visited the ethnographic museum in the Palais du Trocadro in Paris.

FAUVISM
Fauvism was the first of the avant-garde movements that flourished in France in the early years of the twentieth century. The Fauve painters were the first to break with Impressionism as well as with older, traditional methods of perception. Their spontaneous, often subjective response to nature was expressed in bold, undisguised brushstrokes and high-keyed, vibrant colors directly from the tube. Henri Matisse (French, 18691954) and Andr Derain (French, 18801954) introduced unnaturalistic color and vivid brushstrokes into their paintings in the summer of 1905, working together in the small fishing port of Collioure on the Mediterranean coast (1975.1.194; 1982.179.29). When their pictures were exhibited later that year at the Salon d'Automne in Paris (Matisse, The Woman with a Hat), they inspired the witty critic Louis Vauxcelles to call them fauves ("wild beasts") in his review for the magazine Gil Blas. This term was later applied to the artists themselves.

ABSTRACT IMPRESSIONISM
Abstract Impressionism is a type of abstract painting (not to be confused with Abstract Expressionism, a similar but different movement) where small brushstrokes build and structure large paintings. Small brushstrokes exhibit control of large areas, expressing the artist's emotion and focus on inner energy, and sometimes contemplation, creating expressive, lyrical and thoughtful qualities in the paintings. The brushstrokes are similar to those of Impressionists such as Monet and Post-Impressionists such as van Gogh and Seurat, only tending toward Abstract Expressionism. While in the action painting style of Abstract Expressionism brushstrokes were often large and bold and paint was applied in a rapid outpouring of emotion and energy, the Abstract Impressionist's short and intense brushstrokes or nontraditional application of paints and textures is done slowly and with purpose, using the passage of time as an asset and a technique. Milton Resnick, Sam Francis, Richard Pousette-Dart, and Philip Guston were notable Abstract Impressionist painters during the 1950s. Paul Jackson Pollock (January 28, 1912 August 11, 1956), known as Jackson Pollock, was a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement, and Canadian artist Jean-Paul Riopelle helped introduce Abstract Impressionism to Paris in the 1950s.

POP ART
The term Pop Art was first used around 1954 to describe a group of British artists, but by the early 1960s it had become synonymous with a new American art movement that appropriated images, techniques, and materials from mass media and popular culture and presented them in bold, graphic formats. Notable members of the movement included the painters Robert Indiana, Roy Lichtenstein, James Rosenquist, Andy Warhol, and Tom Wesselmann, and the sculptor Claes Oldenburg. While these artists worked in different styles, they were similarly captivated by everyday consumer products, advertisements, billboard signs, television, films, comic books, newspapers, and magazines. Humor and satire often accompanied their art, which held a mirror up to modern-day society to reflect its values, mores, and obsessions.This installation of drawings and prints from the Museum's holdings includes works by Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, James Rosenquist, Andy Warhol, Tom Wesselmann, Joe Brainard, Jim Dine, Richard Lindner, and Wayne Thiebaud.

ART DECO
Art Deco or Deco, is an influential visual arts design style which first appeared in France during the 1920s, flourished internationally during the 30s and 40s, then waned in the post-World War II era. It is an eclectic style that combines traditional craft motifs with Machine Age imagery and materials. The style is often characterized by rich colors, bold geometric shapes, and lavish ornamentation. Deco emerged from the Interwar period when rapid industrialization was transforming culture. One of its major attributes is an embrace of technology. This distinguishes Deco from the organic motifs favored by its predecessor Art Nouveau. During its heyday Art Deco represented luxury, glamour, exuberance, and faith in social and technological progress. Deco was also influenced by Cubism, Constructivism, Functionalism, Modernism, and Futurism

DADAISM
Dadaism was an art movement of the Europe in the early 20th century. It began in Zurich, Switzerland in 1916, spreading to Berlin shortly thereafter. Dadaism was born out of negative reaction to the horrors of World War I. This international movement was begun by a group of artist and poets associated with the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich. Dadaism rejected reason and logic, prizing nonsense, irrationality and intuition. The movement primarily involved visual arts, literature, poetry, art manifestoes, art theory, theatre, and graphic design, and concentrated its anti-war politics through a rejection of the prevailing standards in art through anti-art cultural works. Key figures in the movement included Hugo Ball, Emmy Hennings, Hans Arp, Raoul Hausmann, among many others. The movement influenced later styles like the avant-garde and downtown music movements, and groups including surrealism, Nouveau ralisme, pop art and Fluxus and laid the foundation for Surrealism.

EXPRESSIONISM
Expressionism was a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas. Expressionist artists sought to express meaning or emotional experience rather than physical reality. Expressionism was developed as an avant-garde style before the First World War. It remained popular during the Weimar Republic particularly in Berlin. The style extended to a wide range of the arts, including painting, literature, theatre, dance, film, architecture and music. The term is sometimes suggestive of emotional angst. In a general sense, painters such as Matthias Grnewald and El Greco are sometimes termed expressionist, though in practice the term is applied mainly to 20th-century works. The Expressionist emphasis on individual perspective has been characterized as a reaction to positivism and other artistic styles such as Naturalism and Impressionism.