FAUVISM
Synopsis
Fauvism was the first twentieth-century movement in modern art. Inspired by the examples of
van Gogh, Gauguin, Seurat, and Cézanne, 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," and like the group, he emphasized the use of intense color as a vehicle for describing
light and space, as well as for communicating the artist's emotional state. In these regards, Fauvism
proved to be an important precursor to Cubism and Expressionism, respectively, and an inspiration
for future modes of abstraction.
Key Ideas
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 emphasis 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 personal expression.
The Fauves became renowned for using pure and unmixed colors, which they intensified
further by applying paint in 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 without allegiance to realistic representation; in
this sense, color existed on the canvas as an independent characteristic, with its own rhythm and
mood.
Beginnings
In the opening years of the twentieth century, Post-Impressionist painters such as van Gogh,
Gauguin, Seurat, and Cézanne were considered the leaders in avant-garde art. Collectively, their
experiments with paint application, subject matter, form and, most importantly, pure unmixed color,
were the seeds that brought forth Fauvism.
Henri Matisse Develops His Style
Matisse, the principal founding artist of Fauvism, was like many of his contemporaries a great
admirer of the Symbolist painter Gustave Moreau. In the closing years of the nineteenth century,
Moreau's teachings that personal expression was among the most important attributes of a great
painter were very influential for Matisse, who turned away from using subtle hues of mixed paints
and began applying bright, unmixed color to his paintings as a means of personal expression.
Also of considerable import to the young Matisse were the applied techniques and visual
language of Pointillism, which had been spearheaded by fellow countryman Georges Seurat.
Although Matisse did not apply Pointillist theory to his own work, Seurat's unique application of tiny
dots of paint in varying colors to create a harmonious visual tone was something that fascinated
Matisse, and in large part led him to develop "color structure," or large areas of color that served to
create a deliberate, decorative effect and sense of mood.
In 1905, Matisse invited André Derain to visit him in the fishing port town of Collioure in the
south of France, where Matisse had made his home after leaving Paris. The two men spent the
summer working and maturing their styles and technique. While a great many paintings were
produced during that time, a stand-out piece is Matisse's Olive Trees, Collioure (1905) wherein the
artist delicately applied small daubs of pure color to create a composition that is both representational
and abstract. When considering Matisse's early body of work as well as that of other Fauvist artists,
this painting can be considered the first definitively Fauvist work of art.
Later that same year, the Salon d'Automne held an exhibition at the Grand Palais in Paris.
Included were several works by Matisse, Derain, Maurice de Vlaminck, and Albert Marquet.
Although their work received a tepid response from the public, the paintings on display were quite
distinctive, particularly in the use of bold, vivid color and heavy brush work. Included in the
exhibition was an Italian-like bust by Marquet, and its proximity to the Fauve paintings prompted the
critic Louis Vauxcelles to describe the scene as that of "Donatello parmi les fauves" ("Donatello
among the wild beasts"). Thus, the Fauve name was coined.
Concepts and Styles
Color Structure
The Fauves' preoccupation with surface effects, color, and personal expression meant that they
were generally less concerned with the individuality of their subject matter. The Impressionists and
Post-Impressionists had depicted scenes of modern life, such as the cafes and alleyways of Paris, and
the Expressionists would do likewise in the years to follow, painting street scenes in Berlin and
portraits of prostitutes and other social outcasts. The Fauves, much like van Gogh, Gauguin and
Cézanne (all skilled colorists in their own right), wanted to paint what they saw and to turn that act of
painting into an emotional and often spontaneous journey; their work, a record of each journey, was
defined by the colors and evident brush motions on the canvas.
The work of Henri Matisse, in particular, whose own development as an artist is nearly
synonymous with the development of the Fauvism movement, was largely preoccupied with color as
a means of personal expression. Color in its pure and unmixed state composed in the artist's mind a
form of pure expression. A sky could be orange, a tree crimson red, a face any combination of
seemingly clashing colors, with the end result being a wholly independent abstraction of the artist's
perception, rather than an abstraction of the physical form as was common in Impressionism. For
artists like Matisse, Derain and Vlaminck, color and the combination thereof constituted the singular
subject, form, and rhythm of the painting in its entirety.
Fauvism and Expressionism
What united the Fauves above all else was their explicit focus on the use of color to convey
emotive expression. André Derain once said, "I used color as a means of expressing my emotion and
not as a transcription of nature." This tendency among the Fauves, to create a free distortion of form
and color to express inner sensations, was of great influence to the Expressionists, whose own artistic
movement proved much longer lived and more cohesive. The German Expressionists, led by Ernst
Ludwig Kirchner and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, took this practice several steps further, downplaying the
use of pure color structures in their work in place of stressing the physical distortion of their subjects
to communicate psychological states.
Fauvism and Cubism
Interestingly enough, unlike his Fauvist brethren, an important motif in Matisse's early work
was his depiction of faces, particularly that of his wife in The Green Line, aka Mme. Matisse (1905),
and Blue Nude (1907), which clearly indicate a fascination with African sculpture. This had a
profound influence on Pablo Picasso (twelve years Matisse's junior), who incorporated African and
Iberian masks into his own work, including a number of self-portraits and most notably the iconic Les
Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907).
During this same time, Georges Braque, who had been a practicing Fauve for a short but significant
period, began to favor a more restricted color palette, focusing more on subtle gradations of color and
scale, much in the style of Cézanne. This led Braque to fill his canvases with an almost overcrowded
abundance of shapes and forms, as with his 1908 work Road near L'Estaque, which is unmistakably a
crucial precursor to the artist's development of the Cubist style.
Later Developments
Parody of the Fauve Painters (1913) - Robert Chanler
Despite some initial hostility from critics, many of the Fauves enjoyed commercial success
following the 1905 Salon d'Automne exhibit, with additional exhibits held in the following years,
notably at the Salon des Indépendants in 1907, where the main attraction was a large room dubbed
"The Fauves' Den." However, by 1908 the Fauves were individually venturing in separate directions;
Braque began developing Cubism alongside Picasso, Derain briefly flirted with the style as well, and
Vlaminck darkened both his palette and subject matter. Meanwhile, artists such as Albert Marquet,
Dufy, and Rouault - none of whom made as much of an impact on Fauvism as Matisse or even
Georges Braque - abandoned the style almost as quickly as they had first adopted it.
Much like Braque, Matisse would also change artistic direction under the influence of Cézanne.
(In 1908 a Cézanne exhibition in Paris helped revive a widespread interest in his work, and notably
his emphasis on natural order and structure. In a sense, Fauvism's demise can be attributed to
Cézanne.) Rather than focusing on color, Matisse aimed to create strikingly simple forms and figures,
carefully balanced and with a distinct emphasis on movement and the expression contained within.
This technique would be a major influence on Hans Hofmann and his development of the "push/pull"
theory. And the influence of Matisse on Hofmann would be important in introducing Fauvist ideas
into the milieu of Abstract Expressionism, which was initially more inclined toward Surrealism and
Cubism.
Ultimately, the Fauves remained a disparate group of artists. Their identity as a group only
grew over time, and almost as soon as it was recognized, they dispersed. Neither did they produce a
manifesto defining their artistic aims, although Matisse's "Notes of a Painter," written in 1908, echoes
many of their concerns.
Original content written by Justin Wolf
QUOTES
"The chief function of color should be to serve expression as well as possible. I put down my tones
without a preconceived plan. If at first, and perhaps without my having been conscious of it, one tone
has particularly seduced or caught me."
- Henri Matisse, from "Notes of a Painter"
"We move towards serenity through the significance of ideas and form ... Details lessen the purity of
lines, they harm the emotional intensity, and we choose to reject them. It is a question of learning and perhaps relearning the 'handwriting' of lines. The aim of painting is not to reflect history, because
this can be found in books. We have a higher conception. Through it, the artist expresses his inner
vision."
– Henri Matisse
–
"One can talk about the Impressionist school because the held certain principles. For us there was
nothing like that; we merely thought their colours were a bit dull."
-Kees van Dongen