Artists rejected their historical experience. They tried to find a new beginning in art, to update the perception and understanding of art in society.
The most famous modernist trends are styles such as avant-garde, suprematism, primitivism, cubism, surrealism, futurism, expressionism and abstractionism. Each of them has its purpose, on the basis of the original philosophical idea or thought.
Primitivism in art is a deliberate distortion of the image, the method of simplification. This style imitates a primary, primitive stages of the development of painting (Lewis, 70).
Suprematism was presented in simple forms - the foundations of the universe. Kazimir Malevich instead of the usual landscapes and people depicted colored squares, circles, and rectangles on a white background. These figures served as a prototype for all forms that exist in the real world.
Founders of abstract art are Russian artists Wassily Kandinsky and Kazimir Malevich, Dutchman Piet Mondrian, Robert Delaunay (France) and Czech Frantisek Kupka. In the base of their method was a desire to "harmonize", to create color combinations and geometric shapes that would cause a variety of associations.
Modernism is associated with the rejection of realism, with the proclamation of independence of art from reality. Performances of modern artists often took the form of anarchist aesthetic rebellion against the established traditions and canons of art. The concepts of beauty, shape, color and space were revised.
Artists discovered new pictorial means, methods of typification, wanted to increace expression, find universal symbols, compressed plastic formulas. On the one hand, it aimed to show the inner world of man - his emotional psychological state, on the other – it updated the vision of the objective world.
Works Cited
Francis Picabia, 1913, Udnie (Young American Girl, The Dance), oil on canvas, 290 x 300 cm, Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris
František Kupka, Amorpha, Fugue en deux couleurs (Fugue in Two Colors), oil on canvas, 210 x 200 cm, 1912, Narodni Galerie.
Giuntini, Dr. Parme. "Becoming Modern". Khan Academy. N.p., 2016. Web. 21 Jan. 2016.
Kazimir Malevich, Suprematist Composition, 1915; Oil on canvas, 70 x 47 cm (27 5/8 x 18 1/2 in); Fine Arts Museum, Tula
Kramer, Hilton. "Mondrian & Mysticism: “My Long Search Is Over”". Newcriterion.com. N.p., 1995. Web. 1 Mar. 2016.
Lewis, Pericles. The Cambridge Introduction To Modernism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Print.
Niko Pirosmani (Pirosmanashvili). Actress Margarita. 1909 94 × 117 cm. Art Museum of Georgia, Tbilisi.
Piet Mondrian, 1911, Gray Tree (De grijze boom), oil on canvas, 79.7 x 109.1 cm, Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, Netherlands
Piet Mondrian. Broadway Boogie-Woogie. 1942-43. Oil on canvas. 127 x 127 cm. The Museum of Modern Arts, New York, NY, USA.
Robert Delaunay, 1912, Windows Open Simultaneously 1st Part, 3rd Motif, oil on canvas, 57 × 123 cm (22.4 × 48.4 in), Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum81 cm x 65 cm. Oil on canvas. Musee d'Orsay, Paris
