Art movements

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 non-traditional 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.
Elaine de Kooning coined the term "Abstract Impressionism"^[1] and it was soon used by critic Louis Finkelstein in an attempt to distinguish for Philip Guston the difference between the two forms.^[2] The primary difference is in approach. The similarity between the two forms, however, is in the final outcome – what is acceptable as a finished piece.

Art Nouveau

Art Nouveau is an international philosophy^[1] and style of art, architecture and applied art—especially the decorative arts—that were most popular during 1890–1910.^[2] The name "Art Nouveau" is French for "new art". It is known also as Jugendstil, pronounced [ˈjuːɡn̩tʃtiːl ], German for "youth style", named after the magazine Jugend, which promoted it, as Modern (Модерн) in Russia, perhaps named after Parisian gallery "La Maison Moderne", as Secession in Austria and Hungary after the Viennese group of artists, and, in Italy, as Stile Liberty from the department store in London, Liberty & Co., which popularised the style. A reaction to academic art of the 19th century, it was inspired by natural forms and structures, not only in flowers and plants but also in curved lines. Architects tried to harmonize with the natural environment. It is also considered a philosophy of design of furniture, which was designed according to the whole building and made part of ordinary life.

Alphonse Mucha

Alphonse Maria Mucha was born in the town of Ivančice, Moravia (the present Czech Republic). Although his singing abilities allowed him to continue his education through high school in the Moravian capital of Brno, drawing had been his main hobby since childhood. He worked at decorative painting jobs in Moravia, mostly painting theatrical scenery. In 1879, he relocated to Vienna to work for a major Viennese theatrical design company, while informally augmenting his artistic education. When a fire destroyed his employer's business during 1881 he returned to Moravia, to do freelance decorative and portrait painting. Count Karl Khuen of Mikulov hired Mucha to decorate Hrušovany Emmahof Castle with murals, and was impressed enough that he agreed to sponsor Mucha's formal training at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts.
Inspired by nature

Minimalism

Minimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is set out to expose the essence, essentials or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or concepts. As a specific movement in the arts it is identified with developments in post–World War II Western Art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with this movement include Donald Judd, John McCracken, Agnes Martin, Dan Flavin, Robert Morris, Anne Truitt, and Frank Stella. It is rooted in the reductive aspects of Modernism, and is often interpreted as a reaction against Abstract expressionism and a bridge to Postminimal art practices.
The terms have expanded to encompass a movement in music which features repetition and iteration, as in the compositions of La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, Philip Glass, and John Adams. Minimalist compositions are sometimes known as systems music.
The term "minimalist" is often applied colloquially to designate anything which is spare or stripped to its essentials. It has also been used to describe the plays and novels of Samuel Beckett, the films of Robert Bresson, the stories of Raymond Carver, and even the automobile designs of Colin Chapman. The word was first used in English in the early 20th century to describe the Mensheviks.

Lawrence Alloway curated an exhibition of the same name in 1958 and included, among others, Bernard Cohen, Harold Cohen, Sam Francis, Patrick Heron, Nicolas de Staël. A contemporary heir to the Abstract Impressionist form is William Duvall, whose Eco-Abstract paintings are done outdoors.

Futurisim

Futurism was an artistic and social movement that originated in Italy in the early 20th century. It emphasized and glorified themes associated with contemporary concepts of the future, including speed, technology, youth and violence, and objects such as the car, the airplane and the industrial city. It was largely an Italian phenomenon, though there were parallel movements in Russia, England and elsewhere. The Futurists practiced in every medium of art, including painting, sculpture, ceramics, graphic design, industrial design, interior design, theatre, film, fashion, textiles, literature, music, architecture and even gastronomy. Key figures of the movement include the Italians Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Umberto Boccioni, Carlo Carrà, Gino Severini, Giacomo Balla, Antonio Sant'Elia, Tullio Crali and Luigi Russolo, and the Russians Natalia Goncharova, Velimir Khlebnikov, and Vladimir Mayakovsky. Important works include its seminal piece of the literature, Marinetti's Manifesto of Futurism, as well as Boccioni's sculpture, Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, and Balla's painting, Abstract Speed + Sound (pictured). Futurism influenced art movements such as Art Deco, Constructivism, Surrealism, Dada, and to a greater degree, Rayonism and Vorticism.

Giacomo Balla

Born in Turin, in the Piedmont region of Italy, the son of an industrial chemist, as a child Giacomo Balla studied music.
At 9, when his father died, he gave up music and began working in a lithograph print shop. By age twenty his interest in art was such that he decided to study painting at local academies and exhibited several of his early works. Following academic studies at the University of Turin, Balla moved to Rome in 1895 where he met and married Elisa Marcucci. For several years he worked in Rome as an illustrator and caricaturist as well as doing portraiture. In 1899 his work was shown at the Venice Biennale and in the ensuing years his art was on display at major Italian exhibitions in Rome and Venice, in Munich, Berlin and Düsseldorf in Germany as well as at the Salon d'Automne in Paris and at galleries in Rotterdam in the Netherlands.
Influenced by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Giacomo Balla adopted the Futurism style, creating a pictorial depiction of light, movement and speed. He was signatory to the Futurist Manifesto in 1910 and began designing and painting Futurist furniture and also created Futurist "antineutral" clothing. He also taught Umberto Boccioni. In painting, his new style is demonstrated in the 1912 work titled Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash. Seen here, is his 1914 work titled Abstract Speed + Sound (Velocità astratta + rumore). In 1914, he also began sculpting and the following year created perhaps his best known sculpture called Boccioni's Fist.

 

 

Realism

Realism in the visual arts and literature refers to the general attempt to depict subjects as they are considered to exist in third person objective reality, without embellishment or interpretation and "in accordance with secular, empirical rules." As such, the approach inherently implies a belief that such reality is ontologically independent of man's conceptual schemes, linguistic practices and beliefs, and thus can be known (or knowable) to the artist, who can in turn represent this 'reality' faithfully. As Ian Watt states, modern realism "begins from the position that truth can be discovered by the individual through the senses" and as such "it has its origins in Descartes and Locke, and received its first full formulation by Thomas Reid in the middle of the eighteenth century."
Realism often refers more specifically to the artistic movement, which began in France in the 1850s. Realism in France appears after the 1848 Revolution. These realists positioned themselves against romanticism, a genre dominating French literature and artwork in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Seeking to be undistorted by personal bias, Realism believed in the ideology of objective reality and revolted against the exaggerated emotionalism of the romantic movement. Truth and accuracy became the goals of many Realists. Many paintings depicted people at work, underscoring the changes wrought by the Industrial and Commercial Revolutions. The popularity of such 'realistic' works grew with the introduction of photography — a new visual source that created a desire for people to produce representations which look “objectively real.”
The term is also used to refer to works of art which, in revealing a truth, may emphasize the ugly or sordid, such as works of social realism, regionalism or Kitchen sink realism.

Pop Art

Pop art is an art movement that emerged in the mid 1950s in Britain and in the late 1950s in the United States.^[1] Pop art presented a challenge to traditions of fine art by including imagery from popular culture such as advertising, news, etc. In Pop art, material is sometimes visually removed from its known context, isolated, and/or combined with unrelated material.^[1][2] The concept of pop art refers not as much to the art itself as to the attitudes that led to it.^[2]
Pop art employs aspects of mass culture, such as advertising, comic books and mundane cultural objects. It is widely interpreted as a reaction to the then-dominant ideas of abstract expressionism, as well as an expansion upon them.^[3] And due to its utilization of found objects and images it is similar to Dada. Pop art is aimed to employ images of popular as opposed to elitist culture in art, emphasizing the banal or kitschy elements of any given culture, most often through the use of irony.^[2] It is also associated with the artists' use of mechanical means of reproduction or rendering techniques.
Much of pop art is considered incongruent, as the conceptual practices that are often used make it difficult for some to readily comprehend. Pop art and minimalism are considered to be art movements that precede postmodern art, or are some of the earliest examples of Postmodern Art themselves.^[4]
Pop art often takes as its imagery that which is currently in use in advertising.^[5] Product labeling and logos figure prominently in the imagery chosen by pop artists, like in the Campbell's Soup Cans labels, by Andy Warhol. Even the labeling on the shipping carton containing retail items has been used as subject matter in pop art, for example in Warhol's Campbell's Tomato Juice Box 1964, (pictured below), or his Brillo Soap Box sculptures.