AH/FP 315 - Revolutionizing Art by Breaking the Rules: From Manet to the Surrealists

“If, on a sunny morning at the beginning of the century, Matisse hadn’t stopped in front of an antique shop on Rue de Rennes and admired a few statues of African art, one of the most important pictorial revolutions of the 20th century, and of art history as a whole, would never have happened.”

When considering the history of modern art, the question of its origins is often neglected. However, it is indeed possible to distinguish certain sources of influence in order to reveal some of the essential moments that brought art into modernity.

From the end of the 19th century, artists hoped to grasp modernity by freeing themselves from the traditional model of representation. This model was based Greek statues, in which the ultimate goal was imitation. To break with the secular, western tradition, and in order to renew their formal language, these artists looked for inspiration outside of the traditional framework: Japanese prints, African art, and Islamic decorative arts, which would all become models of reference and sources of major inspiration for artistic rebirth through the 1920s.

After having defined modernism, this course will be based around three approaches. Each section will be introduced with a presentation on the specific types of art mentioned in each region:

The Far East and Beginning of Modernity in the 19th century

After 1860, the Far East (and especially Japan) became a major source of inspiration for French painters who were in the midst of revolutionizing their art. With the opening of the Meji, Franco Japanese relations intensified. In addition to other marvels, European artists discovered the prints of painters like Ukiyo-e (Pictures of a Floating World) at the London exhibition in 1862 and the Paris exhibitions in 1867, 1878, and 1889. They also discovered private art collectors such as Samuel Bing and Félix Bracquemond. The Goncourt brothers also published a collection of Hokusai’s work in 1896.

Manet and Japonism

In 1868, in his portrait of Emile Zola, Manet marks Japan’s presence in artistic and literary circles by placing a Japanese-style screen and a print next to the founder of naturalism. In his works, Manet uses familiar techniques first introduced by Ukiyo-e: subjects whose bodies are cut off by the frame, the suppression of the horizon to obtain a flat plane (En bateau, 1874) or the intrusion of vertical objects, which affect the painting’s unity (Le Chemin de Fer, 1873)

The Impressionists and Japanese Prints (series, framing, perspective) –

Claude Monet, Cezanne, Degas, Van Gogh, Toulouse Lautrec, Gaugin and the “Nabis” (Bonnard, Denis, Vuillard)

Primitivism in Modern Art

With the rise of 20th century painters, so too came an interest in African Art, which would heavily influence Fauvism, German Expressionism, and Cubism. Primitivism gave birth to modern art. Young artists were inspired by Van Gogh and Paul Gaugin, and found new artistic horizons (notably in the Far East and Polynesia), as well as in the themes of the cosmos, nature, and the preservation of civilization.

1. African Art: A 20th Century Pictorial Revolution
2. Primitivism and Fauvism (Matisse, Vlaminck, Derain, Braque)
3. The German Expressionists: simplification of pictorial technique and expression (Kandinsky, Macke, Marc, Nolde)
4. Cubism (Picasso and Braque)
5. Modern sculpture (Brancusi, Giacometti, Modigliani)
6. Primitivism and the subconscious (Dada and Surrealism)
7. Primitivist tendencies in abstract art: the search for “basic” forms (Kanidnksy, Malevitch, Kupka, Mondrian)