FUTURISM


Futurism came into being with the appearance of a manifesto published by the poet Filippo Marinetti on the front page of the February 20, 1909, issue of Le Figaro. It was the very first manifesto of this kind. 
   Marinetti summed up the major principles of the Futurists. He and others espoused a love of speed, technology and violence. Futurism was presented as a modernist movement celebrating the technological, future era. The car, the plane, the industrial town were representing the motion in modern life and the technological triumph of man over nature. Some of these ideas, specially the use of modern materials and technique, were taken up later by Marcel Duchamp (French, 1887-1968), the cubist, the constructivist and the dadaist. 
    Futurism was inspired by the development of Cubism and went beyond its techniques. The Futurist painters made the rhythm of their repetitions of lines. Inspired by some photographic experiments, they were breaking motion into small sequences, and using the wide range of angles within a given time-frame all aimed to incorporate the dimension of time within the picture. Brilliant colors and flowing brush strokes also additionally were creating the illusion of movement. Futurism influenced many other 20th century art movements, including Art Deco, Vorticism, Constructivism and Surrealism.
    Futurists mixed activism and artistic research. They organized events that caused scandal. Everything was there to help them to glorify Italy and lead their country into the age of modernity. Certain Futurists vehemently promoted themselves to try to join forces with the Fascists, who were coming to power at the time. But Mussolini showed a preference for the Novecento Italiano, movement of artists who identified with the classical order and Italian heritage.
    Futurism was a largely Italian movement, although it also had adherents in other countries, France and most notably Russia. Close to Futurism with its inspirations and motivations was Precisionism, an important development of American Modernism. 
   Although Futurism itself is now regarded as extinct, having died out during the 1920s, powerful echoes of Marinetti's thought, still remain in modern, popular culture and art. Futurism influenced many other 20th century art movements, including Art Deco, Vorticism, Constructivism and Surrealism. 

           DİE BRÜCKE 

The founding members of Die Brücke in 1905 were four Jugendstil architecture students: Fritz Bleyl (1880–1966), Erich Heckel (1883–1970), Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880–1938) and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff (1884–1976). They met through the Königliche Technische Hochschule (technical university) of Dresden, where Kirchner and Bleyl began studying in 1901 and became close friends in their first term. They discussed art together and also studied nature having a radical outlook in common. Kirchner continued studies in Munich 1903–1904, returning to Dresden in 1905 to complete his degree. The institution provided a wide range of studies in addition to architecture, such as freehand drawing, perspective drawing and the historical study of art. The name "Die Brücke" was intended to "symbolize the link, or bridge, they would form with art of the future".

Die Brücke aimed to eschew the prevalent traditional academic style and find a new mode of artistic expression, which would form a bridge (hence the name) between the past and the present. They responded both to past artists such as Albrecht Dürer, Matthias Grünewald and Lucas Cranach the Elder, as well as contemporary international avant-garde movements. The group published a broadside called Programme in 1906, where Kirchner wrote:

We call all young people together, and as young people, who carry the future in us, we want to wrest freedom for our actions and our lives from the older, comfortably established forces.

As part of the affirmation of their national heritage, they revived older media, particularly woodcut prints.The group developed a common style based on vivid color, emotional tension, violent imagery, and an influence from primitivism. After first concentrating exclusively on urban subject matter, the group ventured into southern Germany on expeditions arranged by Mueller and produced more nudes and arcadian images. They invented the printmaking technique of linocut, although they at first described them as traditional woodcuts, which they also made.

The group members initially "isolated" themselves in a working-class neighborhood of Dresden, aiming thereby to reject their own bourgeois backgrounds. Erich Heckel was able to obtain an empty butcher's shop on the Berlinerstrasse in Friedrichstadt for their use as a studio. Bleyl described the studio as:

that of a real bohemian, full of paintings lying all over the place, drawings, books and artist’s materials — much more like an artist’s romantic lodgings than the home of a well-organised architecture student.

Kirchner's became a venue which overthrew social conventions to allow casual love-making and frequent nudity. Group life-drawing sessions took place using models from the social circle, rather than professionals, and choosing quarter-hour poses to encourage spontaneity. Bleyl described one such model, Isabella, a fifteen-year-old girl from the neighbourhood, as "a very lively, beautifully built, joyous individual, without any deformation caused by the silly fashion of the corset and completely suitable to our artistic demands, especially in the blossoming condition of her girlish buds."

The group composed a manifesto (mostly Kirchner's work), which was carved on wood and asserted a new generation, "who want freedom in our work and in our lives, independence from older, established forces."Emil Nolde (1867–1956) and Max Pechstein (1881–1955) joined the group in 1906. Bleyl married in 1907, and, with a concern to support his family, left the group. Otto Mueller (1874–1930) joined in 1910.In September and October 1906, the first group exhibition was held, focused on the female nude, in the showroom of K.F.M. Seifert and Co. in Dresden.

Between 1907 and 1911, Brücke members stayed during the summer at the Moritzburg lakes and on the island ofFehmarn. In 1911, Kirchner moved to Berlin, where he founded a private art school, MIUM-Institut, in collaboration withMax Pechstein with the aim of promulgating "Moderner Unterricht im Malen" (modern teaching of painting). This was not a success and closed the following year.

In 1913, Kirchner wrote Chronik der Brücke (Brücke chronicle), which led to the ending of the group

                              LES FAUVES


Fauvism was the first twentieth century movement in modern art. Inspired by the examples of van Gogh, Gauguin, and Neo-Impressionists such as Seurat and Signac, it grew out of a loosely allied group of French painters with shared interests. Henri Matisse was eventually recognized as the leader of Les Fauves, or The Wild Beasts as they were called in French, and like the group, he emphasized the use of intense color as a vehicle for describing light and space, but also for communicating emotion. The style proved to be an important precursor to Expressionism, and an inspiration for other, painterly modes of abstract.

Fauvism never developed into a coherent movement in the manner of Impressionism or Surrealism, but instead grew from the work of several acquaintances who shared common enthusiasms. Many, such as Matisse, Marquet, and Rouault, had been pupils of the Symbolist Gustave Moreau, and admired his stress on personal expression.

The Fauves generally rejected the fantastic imagery of the Post-Impressionists, and returned to the more traditional subjects once favored by the Impressionists, such as landscapes, cityscapes, and scenes of bourgeois leisure.

Rather than extend the quasi-scientific investigations of artists such as Seurat and Signac, Fauves such as Matisse and Derain were inspired by them to employ pattern and contrasting colors for the purposes of expression.

The Fauves became renowned for using pure and unmixed colors which they intensified further by applying thick daubs and smears.

Although the Fauves were not well-versed in academic color theory, they sought out unique and unnatural color combinations in their paintings with the purpose of evoking a variety of emotional responses; in that sense, color was used arbitrarily and was subject to the painter's own emotional response to the canvas.