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Fauvism is not a Ferocious Beast: Understanding Albert Marquet and the Fauves
Albert Marquet was a French painter associated with the Fauvist movement, known for his subtle use of color and light. While his early work displayed the vibrant, bold colors typical of Fauvism, Marquet’s style soon evolved towards a more subdued and naturalistic approach.
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The Fauvist Revolution: How Colour Became King
Freed from the strict technique advocated by the École des Beaux-Arts, they used blocky colours as their main resource, saturating their stunning paintings. The author invites us to experience this vivid artistic evolution that, although encompassing a short amount of time, left its mark on the path to modernity.
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Emotions through unique color and form in Wassily Kandinsky’s abstract art
Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) was a Russian painter credited as being among the first to truly venture into abstract art. He persisted in expressing his internal world of abstraction despite negative criticism from his peers.
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Vantablack- The blackest black ever
In 2015, sculptor Anish Kapoor bought the black colour from Surrey NanoSystems. Not just any black: the Vantablack black which has specific chemical properties that do not occur in nature. This black, which was created for military use, is so deep that the volumes can no longer be distinguished. So it’s an ideal camouflage. Basically, this event is not new insofar as, in 1960, Yves Klein had deposited a blue colour in his name (the International Klein Blue or IKBlue). Nevertheless, Yves Klein had only legally appropriated the chemical recipe for this particular blue and, unlike Anish Kapoor’s Vantablack, everyone has the right to freely use the IKBlue. What is…
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KLEE AND AGUÉLI: FRIENDS OF LIGHT
Klee and Aguéli are two names you would not normally write in the same sentence. However, the Moderna Museet in Stockholm has just opened an exhibition where these two painters are looked at in the same light. And this is precisely the element of affinity the museum has found between the German and the Swedish. Their travels in the north of Africa, their shocking encounters with the light of this continent, and the spirituality which ensued the life-changing experience: in the form of colour adoption and realisation of the self for the former, and in the shape of religious conversion and language acquisition for the latter. Obsessed by colour. This…
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Oh, If I Were a Symbolist
Symbolism: What is it when it’s at home? What was the point that the artists were trying to achieve? And how should it be interpreted? Let’s start with the what. This was a technique brought into vogue by the young painters of the late 19th Century, stemming from French literature (and later, Russian and Belgian); this is where many of the Symbolists gathered inspiration from. The aim was to portray the idea of a subject, to give the suggestion of the true meaning only; poetry in art. They accomplished this by using line, colour, and composition (other elements include tone, texture, space, and shape) in their work, and adapted the…
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Lessons to be Learnt from The Wizard of Oz and Matisse
Imagine you’re Dorothy. You have just escaped Auntie Em and a life of rusticated farm-life. You step out of your house, and no more black-and-white, but BOOM! It’s a colour explosion, where you are literally on the other side of the rainbow. And never mind those Munchkins… What would you think, honestly? That you are in some strange kind of fever-dream? Or that you have accidentally ingested a potent hallucinogenic (let’s forget for the moment that Dorothy probably doesn’t know what that is)? Or, simply, that you’ve just gone crazy? I think it fair enough to say that these feelings may be eerily similar to those experienced by Matisse and…
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Women of the Pre-Raphaelite Movement: Models, Muses, Lovers, Artists
When you think of “Pre-Raphaelite”, what comes to mind? For me, it is male painters, female subjects, a lot of nature, and vivid colours. And for 95% percent of paintings produced by this movement, this is the reality. The key members of the group (Hunt, Millais, the two Rossettis, Collinson, Stephens, and Woolner) were all men. Together, they created a secret group called the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Like just about every other artistic movement, the Brotherhood wanted reform. They rejected the academic styles of Raphael and artists after him, finding them idealised and corrupted. The Brotherhood sought a return to the Pre-Raphael Italian style with its vivid colours and imitation of…
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