As we step into the twentieth century, we see artists who were continually striving to discover new ways of presenting their ideas. Furthering the attempts the Post-Impressionists had made to extend the boundaries of color, a group of artists led by Henri Matisse (1869–1954) used colors so intense that they violated the sensibilities of critics and the public alike. Taking their cue from van Gogh, these artists no longer thought their use of color needed to replicate color as seen in the real world. Their wild use of arbitrary color earned them the name of fauves, or “wild beasts.”
Picture: Big Ben-London, by Andre Derain, a contemporary of Matisse.
Natural form was to be attacked with equal fervor, as can be seen in developments in Paris around 1908. Pablo Picasso (1881–1973), in close collaboration with Georges Braque (1882–1963), was at work developing a whole new system of art. Picasso and Braque broke down and analyzed form in new ways in the style that came to be known as Cubism. The Cubists were influenced by African art, which they deemed closer to nature than the more intellectualized European art, and favored abstract forms over lifelike figures of the earlier times.
In Germany, an art developed that emphasized emotional responses. A group of artists calling themselves Die Brücke, which included Ernst Ludwig Kitchener and Emil Nolde. They merged the brilliant Fauvist colors with the intense feelings found in the work of Edvard Munch. The resulting movement is now known as Expressionism, with its goal being to reveal the inner thoughts of the mind upon a canvas.
The Great Blue Horses, pictured below, by Franz Marc, part of Der Bleu Reiter movement, similar to Die Brucke.
