{"id":3273,"date":"2026-06-17T19:22:47","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T19:22:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/chapter\/early-20th-century-modern-art\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T17:19:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T17:19:15","slug":"early-20th-century-modern-art","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/chapter\/early-20th-century-modern-art\/","title":{"raw":"Early 20th Century Modern Art","rendered":"Early 20th Century Modern Art"},"content":{"raw":"<h2 id=\"chapter-overview-and-introduction-11\">Chapter Overview and Introduction<\/h2>\r\nThe period of Modern art occurred between 1900-1945. There are many different styles that fall under the term Modern art: Fauvism, German Expressionism, Cubism, Futurism, Abstract art, etc.\u00a0Each style has distinct characteristics; yet they share common features related to their larger historical context of the early 20<sup>th<\/sup> century. Modern art was built upon the foundations of Post-Impressionism. The color experimentations of Gauguin and van Gogh transformed into the arbitrary use of color by Matisse in Fauvism. The deconstruction of pictorial space begun by C\u00e9zanne was pushed further by Braque and Picasso in Cubism. While Post-Impressionism served as the foundation, Modern art was dramatically shaped by the cultural context of the early 20<sup>th<\/sup> century. The 20<sup>th<\/sup> century introduced new ways of thinking about science, spirituality, and how to represent the truth. In addition, in the early 20<sup>th<\/sup> century, World War I profoundly affected the way artists thought about the modern world in which they lived.\r\n<h3 id=\"focus-artworks-11\">Focus Artworks<\/h3>\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li>Henri Matisse,\u00a0<em>Bonheur de Vivre (Joy of Life)<\/em>, 1906, oil on canvas<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Ernst Ludwig Kirchner,\u00a0<em>Street, Dresden,<\/em>\u00a01908, oil on canvas<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Vasily Kandinsky,\u00a0<em>Improvisation 28<\/em>\u00a0(second version), 1912, oil on canvas<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Pablo Picasso,\u00a0<em>Les Demoiselles d'Avignon,\u00a0<\/em>1907, oil on canvas<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Pablo Picasso,\u00a0<em>The Guitarist<\/em>, 1910, oil on canvas,<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Georges Braque,\u00a0<em>Violin and Palette<\/em>, 1909, oil on canvas<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Pablo Picasso,\u00a0<em>Still Life with Chair Caning<\/em>, 1912, oil and oilcloth on canvas framed with rope<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Piet Mondrian,\u00a0<em>Composition with Red, Blue, and Yellow<\/em>, 1930, oil on canvas<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<h3 id=\"term-list-11\">Term List<\/h3>\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li>Modern Art<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Avant-garde<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Fauvism<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Fauve<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Salon d\u2019Automne<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Primitivism<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Expressionism<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Die Br\u00fccke<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Der Blaue Reiter<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Synesthesia<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Naturalism<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Linear perspective<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Foreshortening<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Multiple perspectives<\/li>\r\n \t<li>X-ray<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Spiritualism<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Cubism<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Curiosity cabinet<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Social Darwinism<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Cultural relativism<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Analytic Cubism<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Synthetic Cubism<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Collage<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Abstract<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Non-representational<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Non-objective<\/li>\r\n \t<li>De Stijl<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Neo-Plasticism<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Theosophy<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<h2 id=\"fauvism-an-introduction\">Fauvism, an introduction<\/h2>\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"1296\"]<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/Matisse_Green-Stripe_sm.jpeg\"><img src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/Matisse_Green-Stripe_sm.jpeg\" alt=\"A portrait painting showcasing a woman with dark hair rendered in blue and black and a red garment with a patterned neckline. The background features bold blocks of green, orange, and pink colors, emphasizing the subject's face and attire with expressive brushstrokes.\" width=\"1296\" height=\"1632\" \/><\/a> Henri Matisse, <em>The Green Line<\/em>, 1905, oil on canvas, 40.5 x 32.5 cm (<a href=\"https:\/\/artsandculture.google.com\/asset\/portrait-of-madame-matisse-the-green-line-henri-matisse\/pQER-gMjYy2etA?hl=en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Statens Museum for Kunst<\/a>, Copenhagen, Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Matisse_-_Green_Line.jpeg\">Wikimedia<\/a>, License: <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/publicdomain\/mark\/1.0\/\">Public Domain<\/a>)[\/caption]\r\n<h3 id=\"distinctive-brushwork\">Distinctive brushwork<\/h3>\r\nFauvism developed in France to become one of the first new artistic styles of the 20th century. In contrast to the dark, vaguely disturbing nature of much fin-de-si\u00e8cle, or turn-of-the-century,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/nabis-symbolism\/\">Symbolist art<\/a>, the Fauves produced bright cheery landscapes and figure paintings, characterized by pure vivid color and bold distinctive brushwork.\r\n<h3 id=\"wild-beasts\">\u201cWild beasts\u201d<\/h3>\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"805\"]<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/Matisse_Woman-with-Hat.jpg\"><img src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/Matisse_Woman-with-Hat.jpg\" alt=\"A colorful abstract painting depicting a figure wearing a large, elaborate hat and holding a fan, created with bold brushstrokes and vibrant hues of blue, green, purple, and orange. The composition emphasizes texture and movement, with a mix of organic shapes and contrasting colors that create a dynamic visual effect.\" width=\"805\" height=\"1102\" \/><\/a> Henri Matisse,<em> Woman with a Hat<\/em>, 1905, oil on canvas, 79.4 x 59.7 cm (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sfmoma.org\/artwork\/91.161\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">San Francisco Museum of Modern Art<\/a>, Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Matisse-Woman-with-a-Hat.jpg\">Wikimedia<\/a>, License: <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/publicdomain\/mark\/1.0\/\">Public Domain<\/a> in the United States)[\/caption]\r\n\r\nWhen shown at the 1905\u00a0Salon d\u2019Automne\u00a0in Paris, the contrast to traditional art was so striking it led critic Louis Vauxcelles to describe the artists as \u201cLes Fauves\u201d or \u201cwild beasts,\u201d and thus the name was born.\r\n\r\nOne of several\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/expressionism-intro\/\">Expressionist<\/a>\u00a0movements to emerge in the early 20th century, Fauvism was short lived, and by 1910, artists in the group had diverged toward more individual interests. Nevertheless, Fauvism remains significant for it demonstrated modern art\u2019s ability to evoke intensely emotional reactions through radical visual form.\r\n<h3 id=\"the-expressive-potential-of-color\">The expressive potential of color<\/h3>\r\nThe best known Fauve artists include\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/henri-matisse-open-window-collioure\/\">Henri Matisse<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/andre-derain-the-dance\/\">Andr\u00e9 Derain<\/a>, and Maurice Vlaminck who pioneered its distinctive style. Their early works reveal the influence of Post-Impressionist artists, especially\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/introduction-to-neo-impressionism-part-i\/\">Neo-Impressionists<\/a>\u00a0like Paul Signac, whose interest in<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/neo-impressionist-color-theory\/\">\u00a0color\u2019s optical effects<\/a>\u00a0had led to a divisionist method of juxtaposing pure hues on canvas. The Fauves, however, lacked such scientific intent. They emphasized the expressive potential of color, employing it arbitrarily, not based on an object\u2019s natural appearance.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"2246\"]<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/Matisse_Calme.jpg\"><img src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/Matisse_Calme.jpg\" alt=\"A pointillist painting depicting a group of people relaxing by the water with a sailboat in the background during sunset. The scene features vibrant colors with dotted brushstrokes, highlighting figures in various poses, a tree on the right, and a colorful sky blending pink, yellow, and blue hues.\" width=\"2246\" height=\"1845\" \/><\/a> Henri Matisse, <em>Luxe, Calme et Volupt\u00e9<\/em>, 1904, oil on canvas, 98.5 x 118.5 cm (Muse\u00e9 d\u2019Orsay, Paris; photo: <a href=\"https:\/\/flic.kr\/p\/2jRUFyG\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Steven Zucker<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-sa\/2.0\/deed.en\">CC BY-NC-SA 2.0<\/a>)[\/caption]\r\n\r\nIn\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/henri-matisse-luxe-calme-et-volupte\/\"><em>Luxe, calm et volupt\u00e9<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(1904), for example, Matisse employed a Pointillist style by applying paint in small dabs and dashes. Instead of the subtle blending of\u00a0complementary colors\u00a0typical of the Neo-Impressionist painter\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/georges-seurat-a-sunday-on-la-grande-jatte-1884\/\">Georges Seurat<\/a>, for example, the combination of fiery oranges, yellows, greens and purple is almost overpowering in its vibrant impact.\r\n\r\nSimilarly, while paintings such as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.metmuseum.org\/art\/collection\/search\/490034\">Vlaminck\u2019s\u00a0<em>The River Seine at Chatou<\/em>\u00a0(1906)<\/a> appear to mimic the spontaneous, active brushwork of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/a-beginners-guide-to-impressionism\/\">Impressionism<\/a>, the Fauves adopted a painterly approach to enhance their work\u2019s emotional power, not to capture fleeting effects of color, light or atmosphere on their subjects. Their preference for landscapes, carefree figures and lighthearted subject matter reflects their desire to create an art that would appeal primarily to the viewers\u2019 senses.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"2224\"]<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/Matisse_Bonheur-sm.jpg\"><img src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/Matisse_Bonheur-sm.jpg\" alt=\"Outdoor landscape scene featuring several groupings of nude human figures, some dancing, some relaxing on the ground. The work uses bold colors of orange, yellow, green, and blue applied non-naturalistically to the canvas surface. \" width=\"2224\" height=\"1612\" \/><\/a> Henri Matisse, <em>Bonheur de Vivre (Joy of Life)<\/em>, 1905\u201306, oil on canvas, 176.5 x 240.7 cm (<a href=\"https:\/\/collection.barnesfoundation.org\/objects\/7199\/Le-Bonheur-de-vivre-also-called-The-Joy-of-Life\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Barnes Foundation<\/a>, Philadelphia, Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Bonheur_Matisse.jpg\">Wikimedia<\/a>, License: <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/publicdomain\/mark\/1.0\/\">Public Domain<\/a>)[\/caption]\r\n\r\nPaintings such as Matisse\u2019s\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/matisse-bonheur-de-vivre\/\"><em>Bonheur de Vivre<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(1905\u201306) epitomize this goal. Bright colors and undulating lines pull our eye gently through the idyllic scene, encouraging us to imagine feeling the warmth of the sun, the cool of the grass, the soft touch of a caress, and the passion of a kiss.\r\n\r\nLike many modern artists, the Fauves also found inspiration in objects from Africa and other non-western\u00a0cultures. Seen through a colonialist lens, the formal distinctions of African art reflected current notions of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/primitivism-and-modern-art\/\">Primitivism<\/a>\u2014the belief that, lacking the corrupting influence of European civilization, non-western peoples were more in tune with the primal elements of nature.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"2000\"]<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/Matisse_Souvenir_de_Biskra.jpg\"><img src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/Matisse_Souvenir_de_Biskra.jpg\" alt=\"Painting of a reclining female nude facing the front of the picture plane with one arm above her head. The piece is strongly outlined in blue contour lines and set in a lush outdoor scene painted in tones of green and blue. \" width=\"2000\" height=\"1315\" \/><\/a> Henri Matisse, <em>The Blue Nude (Souvenir de Biskra)<\/em>, 1907, oil on canvas, 92.1 x 140.3 cm (<a href=\"https:\/\/collection.artbma.org\/objects\/37470\/blue-nude\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Baltimore Museum of Art<\/a>, Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Matisse_Souvenir_de_Biskra.jpg\">Wikimedia<\/a>, License: <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/publicdomain\/mark\/1.0\/\">Public Domain<\/a>)[\/caption]\r\n\r\n<em>Blue Nude (Souvenir of Biskra)<\/em>\u00a0of 1907 shows how Matisse combined his traditional subject of the female nude with the influence of primitive sources. The woman\u2019s face appears mask-like in the use of strong outlines and harsh contrasts of light and dark, and the hard lines of her body recall the angled planar surfaces common to African sculpture. This distorted effect, further heightened by her contorted pose, clearly distinguishes the figure from the idealized odalisques of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/painting-colonial-culture-ingress-la-grande-odalisque\/\">Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres<\/a>\u00a0and painters of the past.\r\n\r\nThe Fauves\u2019 interest in Primitivism reinforced their reputation as \u201cwild beasts\u201d who sought new possibilities for art through their exploration of direct expression, impactful visual forms and instinctual appeal.\r\n<h2 id=\"fauvism-henri-matisse-bonheur-de-vivre-joy-of-life\">Fauvism: Henri Matisse,\u00a0<em>Bonheur de Vivre (Joy of Life)<\/em><\/h2>\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"2224\"]<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/Matisse_Bonheur-sm.jpg\"><img src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/Matisse_Bonheur-sm.jpg\" alt=\"Outdoor landscape scene featuring several groupings of nude human figures, some dancing, some relaxing on the ground. The work uses bold colors of orange, yellow, green, and blue applied non-naturalistically to the canvas surface.\" width=\"2224\" height=\"1612\" \/><\/a> Henri Matisse, <em>Bonheur de Vivre (Joy of Life)<\/em>, 1906, oil on canvas, 175 x 241 cm (<a href=\"https:\/\/collection.barnesfoundation.org\/objects\/7199\/Le-Bonheur-de-vivre-also-called-The-Joy-of-Life\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Barnes Foundation<\/a>, Philadelphia, Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Bonheur_Matisse.jpg\">Wikimedia<\/a>, License: <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/publicdomain\/mark\/1.0\/\">Public Domain<\/a>)[\/caption]\r\n<h3 id=\"the-joy-of-life\">The Joy of Life<\/h3>\r\nIn 1906,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/henri-matisse-open-window-collioure\/\">Henri Matisse<\/a>\u00a0finished what is often considered his greatest\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/a-beginners-guide-to-fauvism\/\">Fauve<\/a>\u00a0painting, the\u00a0<em>Bonheur de Vivre<\/em>, or the \u201c<em>Joy of Life.<\/em>\u201d It is a large-scale painting depicting an\u00a0Arcadian\u00a0landscape filled with brilliantly colored forest, meadow, sea, and sky and populated by nude figures both at rest and in motion. As with the earlier Fauve canvases, color is responsive only to emotional expression and the formal needs of the canvas, not the realities of nature. The references are many, but in form and date,\u00a0<em>Bonheur de Vivre<\/em>\u00a0is closest to\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/paul-cezanne-the-large-bathers\/\">Paul C\u00e9zanne<\/a>\u2019s last great image of bathers.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"1225\"]<img src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/image324.jpeg\" alt=\"Scene of female nude bathers in the foreground rendered in choppy brushstrokes set in front of a river, trees, and a city-scape in the background. Muted tones of tan, gold, blue, and green are used. \" width=\"1225\" height=\"1024\" \/> Paul C\u00e9zanne, <em>The Large Bathers<\/em>, 1900\u201306, oil on canvas, 210.5 x 250.8 cm (<a href=\"https:\/\/philamuseum.org\/collection\/object\/104464\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Philadelphia Museum of Art<\/a>, Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/File:Paul_C%C3%A9zanne,_French_-_The_Large_Bathers_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg\">Wikimedia<\/a>, License: <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/publicdomain\/mark\/1.0\/\">Public Domain<\/a>)[\/caption]\r\n<h3 id=\"matisse-and-his-sources\">Matisse and his sources<\/h3>\r\nLike C\u00e9zanne, Matisse constructs the landscape so that it functions as a stage. In both works trees are planted at the sides and in the far distance, and their upper boughs are spread apart like curtains, highlighting the figures lounging beneath. And like C\u00e9zanne, Matisse unifies the figures and the landscape. C\u00e9zanne does this by stiffening and tilting his trunk-like figures. In Matisse\u2019s work, the serpentine arabesques that define the contours of the women are heavily emphasized, and then reiterated in the curvilinear lines of the trees.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"1431\"]<img src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/image325.jpeg\" alt=\"Ingres, La Grande Odalisque, painting featuring a reclining female nude viewed from the backside. The elongated figure wears fabric wrapped around her head and holds a peacock feather duster while looking out at the viewer. \" width=\"1431\" height=\"797\" \/> Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, <em>La Grande Odalisque<\/em>, 1814, oil on canvas, 91 x 162 cm (Louvre, Paris; <a href=\"https:\/\/flic.kr\/p\/2kGBiVF\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Steven Zucker<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-sa\/2.0\/deed.en\">CC BY-NC-SA 2.0<\/a>)[\/caption]\r\n\r\nMatisse creates wildly sensual figures in\u00a0<em>Bonheur de Vivre<\/em>, which show how he was clearly informed by\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/ingres-napoleon-on-his-imperial-throne\/\">Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres<\/a>\u2019s odalisques and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/staging-egyptian-harem-western-eyes\/\">harem fantasies<\/a>. Additionally, Matisse references\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/titian-diana-and-actaeon\/\">Titian<\/a>. For like Titian\u2019s<em>\u00a0Bacchanal of the Andrians<\/em>, the scene depicted in<em>\u00a0Bonheur de Vivre<\/em>\u00a0is an expression of pure pleasure. Here is a place full of life and love and free from want or fear. Instead of a contemporary scene in a park, on the banks of the Seine, or other recognizable places in nature, Matisse has returned to mythic paradise.\r\n<h3 id=\"radicalism-or-how-to-color-outside-the-lines\">Radicalism, or how to color outside the lines<\/h3>\r\nBut do not be misled by his interest in myth\u2014Matisse is not joining in with\u00a0William-Adolphe Bouguereau\u00a0or any other\u00a0Salon\u00a0artist. This is the epitome of Fauvism, a radical new approach that incorporate purely expressive, bright, clear colors and wildly sensual forms. Matisse\u2019s paintings are perhaps the first canvas to clearly understand C\u00e9zanne\u2019s great formal challenge, and to actually further the elder master\u2019s ideas. In fact, despite its languid poses,\u00a0<em>Bonheur de Vivre<\/em>\u00a0was regarded as the most radical painting of its day. Because of this, Matisse became known, briefly, as the most daring painter in Paris.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"2224\"]<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/d_.jpg\"><img src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/d_.jpg\" alt=\"Figures in the foreground (detail), Henri Matisse, Bonheur de Vivre (Joy of Life), Outdoor landscape scene featuring several groupings of nude human figure with, some relaxing on the ground. The work uses bold colors of orange, yellow, green, and blue applied non-naturalistically to the canvas surface\" width=\"2224\" height=\"649\" \/><\/a> Figures in the foreground (detail), Henri Matisse, <em>Bonheur de Vivre (Joy of Life)<\/em>, 1905\u201306, oil on canvas, 176.5 x 240.7 cm (<a href=\"https:\/\/collection.barnesfoundation.org\/objects\/7199\/Le-Bonheur-de-vivre-also-called-The-Joy-of-Life\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Barnes Foundation<\/a>, Philadelphia, Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Bonheur_Matisse.jpg\">Wikimedia<\/a>, License: <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/publicdomain\/mark\/1.0\/\">Public Domain<\/a>)[\/caption]\r\n\r\nSo what was daring about this canvas? Here is one key issue: unlike the paintings by C\u00e9zanne, Ingres, or Titian, Matisse\u2019s work does not depict forms that recede in the background and diminish in scale. If you study the figures in the foreground and the middle ground of<em>\u00a0Bonheur de Vivre<\/em>, you will notice that their scale is badly skewed. The shift of scale between the player of the double flute (bottom center) and the smooching couple (bottom right) is plausible, if we take the musician to be a child, but what of the giants just behind them? Compared to the figures standing in the wings, who are obviously mature women (middle ground left), these center women are of enormous proportion. They are simply too big to make sense of within the traditional conventions of\u00a0Western\u00a0painting.\r\n<h3 id=\"perspective-patronage-and-picasso\">Perspective, patronage and Picasso<\/h3>\r\nSo why has Matisse done this? How could these shifts of scale make sense? Have we seen anything like this before? Well, in a sense we have. C\u00e9zanne\u2019s painting ruptured forms in order to accurately explore vision as experienced through time and space\u2014in other words, forms look different depending on where we are in relation to them.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"1122\"]<img src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/image327.jpeg\" alt=\"Figures in the foreground (detail), Henri Matisse, Bonheur de Vivre (Joy of Life), Outdoor landscape scene featuring several groupings of nude human figure with, some relaxing on the ground and others dancing in a circle. The work uses bold colors of orange, yellow, green, and blue applied non-naturalistically to the canvas surface\" width=\"1122\" height=\"546\" \/> Figures from shifting perspectives (detail), Henri Matisse, <em>Bonheur de Vivre (Joy of Life)<\/em>, 1905\u201306, oil on canvas, 176.5 x 240.7 cm (<a href=\"https:\/\/collection.barnesfoundation.org\/objects\/7199\/Le-Bonheur-de-vivre-also-called-The-Joy-of-Life\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Barnes Foundation<\/a>, Philadelphia, Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Bonheur_Matisse.jpg\">Wikimedia<\/a>, License: <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/publicdomain\/mark\/1.0\/\">Public Domain<\/a>)[\/caption]\r\n\r\nIn fact, this exploration of vision through space is the key to understanding Matisse\u2019s work. By incorporating shifting perspectives, he brought this idea to a grand scale. Put simply, Matisse\u2019s shifting scale is actually the result of our changing position vis-\u00e0-vis the figures. As a result of his experimentation with perspective, the viewer relates differently to the painting and is required to \u201center\u201d the scene. It is only from the varied perspectives within this landscape that the abrupt ruptures of scale make sense.\r\n\r\nThe painting was purchased by a wealthy expatriate American writer-poet named\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/picasso-portrait-of-gertrude-stein\/\">Gertrude Stein<\/a>\u00a0and her brother, Leo Stein, who shared a home filled with modern art at 27 Rue de Fleurus, in Paris. This was also the location for Gertrude Stein\u2019s weekly salon. Here, Matisse,\u00a0Guillaume Apollinaire, the young and largely unknown\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/picassos-early-work\/\">Pablo Picasso<\/a>\u00a0and other members of the avant-garde came together to exchange ideas.\r\n\r\nStein was able to attract such a crowd not only because of her literary skills but because she often provided financial support to these nearly destitute artists. In fact, the Steins bought Matisse\u2019s\u00a0<em>Bonheur de Vivre soon<\/em>\u00a0after its completion and hung it in their dining room for all to see. One person who saw it there was Picasso. By all accounts the painting\u2019s fame was too much for the terribly competitive young Spaniard. He determined to out do Matisse, and he did with his 1907 canvas,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/pablo-picasso-les-demoiselles-davignon\/\"><em>Les Demoiselles d\u2019Avignon<\/em><\/a>.\r\n\r\nPicasso turned Matisse\u2019s sensuality into violent pornography. Matisse in turn responds to the challenge of what was then called \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/primitivism-and-modern-art\/\">primitivism<\/a>\u201d with his own brand of aggression in his\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/Matisse_Souvenir_de_Biskra.jpg\"><em>Blue Nude<\/em><\/a>.\r\n<h2 id=\"expressionism-an-introduction\">Expressionism, an introduction<\/h2>\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"700\"]<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/kirchnerrecliningnudeinfrontof-mirror.jpg\"><img src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/kirchnerrecliningnudeinfrontof-mirror.jpg\" alt=\"Ernst Ludwig Kirchner,\u00a0Reclining Nude in Front of Mirror, painted in bright harsh tones of green, orange, red, and blue. The figure lies on her stomach while her reflection shows from a different perspective. \" width=\"700\" height=\"613\" \/><\/a> Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, <em>Reclining Nude in Front of Mirror<\/em>, 1909-1910, oil on canvas, 83.3 x 95.5 cm (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bruecke-museum.de\/en\/sammlung\/werke\/61616\/liegender-akt-vor-spiegel\">Br\u00fccke-Museum, Berlin<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/4.0\/legalcode.de\">License: CC-BY-SA 4.0<\/a>)[\/caption]\r\n\r\nImagine a painting where the magentas\u00a0scream, the greens\u00a0glare, and\u00a0coarse\u00a0brushstrokes become\u00a0more ominous the longer you look at them. Paintings like this, where the artist uses color, line, and visible techniques to evoke powerful responses from the viewer date from the early twentieth century but continue expressive traditions\u00a0that can be\u00a0found throughout art\u2019s history (see, for example,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/smarthistory.org\/goya-saturn-devouring-one-of-his-sons\/\">work<\/a>\u00a0by Francisco Goya). When capitalized as \u201cExpressionism,\u201d however, the term refers more specifically to an artistic tendency that became popular throughout Europe in the early twentieth century. Like many categories in art history, Expressionism was not a name coined by artists themselves. It first emerged around 1910 as a way to classify art that shared common stylistic traits and seemed to emphasize emotional impact over descriptive accuracy. For this reason, artists like\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/smarthistory.org\/munch-the-scream\/\">Edvard Munch<\/a>\u00a0straddle the line between\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/smarthistory.org\/gauguin-spirit-of-the-dead-watching\/\">Post-Impressionist developments<\/a>\u00a0in late 19th century painting and early 20th century Expressionism. Likewise, the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/smarthistory.org\/a-beginners-guide-to-fauvism\/\">Fauves<\/a>\u00a0in France exhibited similar characteristics in their work and are often linked to Expressionism.\r\n<h3 id=\"expressionism-in-germany\">Expressionism in Germany<\/h3>\r\nThough many artists of the early twentieth century can accurately be called Expressionists, two groups that developed in Germany, Die Br\u00fccke (The Bridge) and Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider), are among the best known and help to define the style. Influenced in part by the spiritual interests of\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/smarthistory.org\/a-beginners-guide-to-romanticism\/\">Romanticism<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/smarthistory.org\/khnopff-i-lock-my-door-upon-myself\/\">Symbolism<\/a>, these artists moved further from the idealized\u00a0figures and smooth surface\u00a0of 19th century academic painting that can be seen in paintings by\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/smarthistory.org\/alma-tadema-listening-to-homer\/\">Lawrence Alma-Tadema<\/a>, for example. Instead of depicting the visible exterior of their subjects, they sought to express profound emotional experience through their art. German Expressionists, like other European artists of the time, found inspiration in so-called \u201cprimitive\u201d sources that included African art, as well as European medieval and folk art and others untrained in Western artistic traditions. For the Expressionists, these sources offered alternatives to established conventions of European art and suggested a more authentic creative\u00a0impulse.\r\n<h3 id=\"die-br\u00fccke\">Die Br\u00fccke<\/h3>\r\nIn 1905, four young artists working in Dresden and Berlin, joined together, calling themselves Die Br\u00fccke (The Bridge). Led by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, the group wanted to create a radical art that could speak to modern audiences, which they characterized as young, vital, and urban. Drawn from the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche, the nineteenth-century German\u00a0philosopher, the name \u201cDie Br\u00fccke\u201d describes their desire to serve as a bridge from the present to the future. While each artist had his own personal style, Die Br\u00fccke art is characterized by bright, often arbitrary colors and a \u201cprimitive\u201d aesthetic, inspired by both African and European medieval art. Their work often addressed modern urban themes of alienation and anxiety, and sexually charged themes\u00a0in their depictions\u00a0of the female nude.\r\n\r\nTheir\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.tate.org.uk\/context-comment\/articles\/everything-illuminated\">first exhibition<\/a>\u00a0was held in the showroom of a lamp factory in Dresden in 1906 for which they published a program of woodcut prints reflecting their interest in earlier traditions of German art. In the introductory broadsheet (above left), Kirchner made clear the group\u2019s revolutionary intentions. He proclaimed,\r\n\r\n\u201cWith faith in progress and in a new generation of creators and spectators we call together all youth. As youth, we carry the future and want to create for ourselves freedom of life and of movement against the long established older forces.\u201d<sup>1<\/sup>\r\n\r\nThis optimism was not long-lived. Internal squabbling caused the group to dissolve in 1913 just prior to\u00a0the start of the First World War.\r\n<h3 id=\"der-blaue-reiter\">Der Blaue Reiter<\/h3>\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"688\"]<a href=\"http:\/\/smarthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/bra.jpg\"><img src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/image331.jpeg\" alt=\"A vintage poster-style illustration featuring a stylized blue and black figure on horseback with bold, blocky text reading &quot;Der Blaue Reiter&quot; on a beige background. The composition uses strong contrasts and abstract shapes to emphasize the artistic movement associated with German Expressionism.\" width=\"688\" height=\"895\" \/><\/a> Vasily Kandinsky, Cover of <em>Der Blaue Reiter Almanac<\/em>, Piper Verlag, Munich, 1912 (Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:BlaueReiter.jpg\">Wikimedia<\/a>, License: <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/publicdomain\/mark\/1.0\/\">Public Domain<\/a>)[\/caption]\r\n\r\nBased in the German city of Munich, the group known as Der Blaue Reiter lasted only from their first exhibition at the Galerie Thannhausen in 1911 to\u00a0the outbreak of World War I in 1914. Created as an alternative to Kandinsky\u2019s previous group, the more conservative\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.oxfordreference.com\/view\/10.1093\/oi\/authority.20110803100229747\">Neuen K\u00fcnstlervereinigung M\u00fcnchen<\/a>\u00a0(New Artists Association of Munich or NKVM), Die Blaue Reiter took its name from the motif of a horse and rider, often used by founding member Vasily Kandinsky.\r\n\r\nThis motif\u00a0appeared on the cover of the\u00a0<em>Blue Rider Almanac<\/em>\u00a0(left), published in May 1912, and reflects Kandinsky\u2019s interest in medieval traditions and the folk art of his Russian homeland. In contrast to Die Br\u00fccke, whose subjects were physical and direct, Kandinsky and other Die Blaue Reiter artists explored the spiritual in their art, which often included symbolism and allusions to ethereal concerns. They thought these ideas could be communicated directly through formal elements of color and line, that, like music, could evoke an emotional response in the viewer. Conceived by Kandinsky and Franz Marc, the almanac included essays by themselves and other German and Russian artists, musical compositions by Expressionist composers, such as Arnold Sch\u00f6nberg, and Kandinsky\u2019s experimental theater piece, \u201cDer gelbe Klang\u201d (The Yellow Sound). This range of content shows Der Blaue Reiter\u2019s efforts to provide a philosophical approach not just for the visual arts, but for\u00a0culture more broadly. These ideas would become more fully developed at the Bauhaus where Kandinsky taught after the war (Marc died during the\u00a0Battle of Verdun in 1916).\r\n<h3 id=\"austrian-expressionism\">Austrian Expressionism<\/h3>\r\nWhile the Die Br\u00fccke and Der Blaue Reiter groups had\u00a0relatively defined memberships, Expressionist artists also worked independently. In Vienna, Oskar Kokoschka and Egon Schiele stand out for paintings that show intense, often violent feeling and for their efforts to represent deeper psychological meaning.\r\n\r\nIn the aftermath of the First World War, many artists in Germany felt that the forceful emotional style of Expressionism that had been so progressive before the war but had become less\u00a0appropriate.\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/smarthistory.org\/christian-schad-self-portrait\/\">Neue Sachlichkeit<\/a>\u00a0(New Objectivity) arose as a direct response to pre-war stylistic excess.\r\n<h2 id=\"die-br\u00fccke-expressionism-ernst-ludwig-kirchner-street-dresden\">Die Br\u00fccke Expressionism: Ernst Ludwig Kirchner,\u00a0<em>Street, Dresden<\/em><\/h2>\r\nBest known as a painter and printmaker, Kirchner was a founder of Die Br\u00fccke whose work focused on the expression of urban anxiety and confusion.\r\n\r\nhttps:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=zfZu--psur8\r\n<h2 id=\"der-blaue-reiter-expressionism-and-abstract-art-vasily-kandinsky-improvisation-28\">Der Blaue Reiter Expressionism and Abstract Art: Vasily Kandinsky,\u00a0<em>Improvisation 28<\/em><\/h2>\r\nA Russian-born artist active in Germany, Kandinsky was a member of The Blue Rider and a Bauhaus instructor whose color theory was highly influential. What would this painting sound like? Yes, you read that right\u2014this canvas blurs the lines between senses.\r\n\r\nhttps:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Sa3FyvaKYVw\r\n<h2 id=\"modern-art-and-reality\">Modern art and reality<\/h2>\r\nIf asked, most people would probably say that modern art is not true to reality. Indeed, modern art is practically defined by its bizarre distortions of reality; this is one reason why Norman Rockwell, whose work is more recent than Umberto Boccioni\u2019s, is not considered a modern artist. But looking like reality \u2014 what art historians call \u201cnaturalism\u201d \u2014 is only one way of being true to reality. As we shall see, the attempt to create art that was more true to reality than traditional naturalism was the motivation for some of the most radical modern art, even including <a href=\"https:\/\/www.moma.org\/collection\/works\/78648\">Boccioni\u2019s\u00a0<em>States of Mind: The Farewells<\/em><\/a>.\r\n<h3 id=\"impressionism-and-optical-realism\">Impressionism and optical realism<\/h3>\r\nWhen the Impressionist style first appeared on the art scene of the 1870s, many hostile viewers dismissed it as art by \u201clunatics\u201d whose color perception was questionable and who did not have the technical skills to properly finish their paintings. Some critics claimed, however, that Impressionist paintings were more accurate than traditional naturalistic representations.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/impressionism-optical-realism-monet\/\">Their argument<\/a>\u00a0was that the Impressionists represented their perception of objects rather than the objects themselves, and that the colors we perceive are often not identical to an object\u2019s actual or \u201clocal\u201d color.\r\n\r\nIn the 1890s, Monet created dozens of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/monet-rouen-cathedral-series\/\">paintings of Rouen Cathedral<\/a> at different times of day and in different weather. At dawn, the cathedral was tinged with blue light; in the late-afternoon, it was radiant with oranges and yellows; while on cloudy days it was a duller grayish tan. By recording how the appearances of objects are affected by different lighting conditions, the Impressionists argued that their paintings were more accurate representations of the way we see the world. What appears at first sight to be a radically unrealistic style is in fact more true to the way things actually look.\r\n<h3 id=\"discarding-artificial-conventions\">Discarding artificial conventions<\/h3>\r\nThe Impressionists recognized that much traditional art was accepted as true to reality only because it was familiar, not because it was accurate. For example, methods of composition taught in Academies tended to emphasize a central focus, equal balance on both sides, and a clear depiction of spatial recession, as in David\u2019s\u00a0<em>Oath of the Horatii<\/em>. Such compositions are, in fact, very artificially staged. When we move through the world, we are more likely to encounter scenes like the one represented in Degas\u2019s\u00a0<em>The Race Track<\/em>: awkwardly unbalanced, abruptly cropped, and spatially ambiguous. Critics who supported the Impressionists argued that artists like Degas were correcting artificial conventions and making art more true to reality.\r\n\r\nAlthough the Impressionist style was new, this form of argument was not. In the sixteenth century artists and critics tried to draw a distinction between a true naturalism and a false naturalism (often derogatorily called \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/a-beginners-guide-to-mannerism\/\">Mannerism<\/a>\u201c). False naturalism involved copying the work of other artists, and thus understanding nature only at second hand. The solution, some felt, was to discard the conventions of art and return to a more careful study of the original source, nature itself, just as the Impressionists did.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"1516\"]<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/David-Degas.jpg\"><img src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/David-Degas.jpg\" alt=\"Two paintings are shown, one above the other. The top painting depicts a dramatic historical scene with Roman soldiers and a man in a red cloak holding swords, while the bottom painting shows a lively horse race with jockeys on horseback and spectators near a yellow carriage.\" width=\"1516\" height=\"2445\" \/><\/a> Top: Jacques-Louis David, <em>Oath of the Horatii<\/em>, 1784, oil on canvas, 3.3 x 4.25 m (Mus\u00e9e du Louvre, Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:David-Oath_of_the_Horatii-1784.jpg\">Wikimedia<\/a>, License: <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/publicdomain\/mark\/1.0\/\">Public Domain<\/a>); Bottom: Edgar Degas,\u00a0<em>The Race Track: Amateur Jockeys near a Carriage<\/em>, between 1876 and 1887, oil on canvas, 66\u00a0\u00d7\u00a081 cm (Mus\u00e9e d\u2019Orsay, Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Edgar_Degas_-_Le_Champ_de_courses._Jockeys_amateurs_pr%C3%A8s_d%27une_voiture.jpg\">Wikimedia<\/a>, License: <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/publicdomain\/mark\/1.0\/\">Public Domain<\/a>)[\/caption]\r\n<h3 id=\"is-naturalism-true-to-nature\">Is naturalism true to nature?<\/h3>\r\nImpressionist artists sought greater truth to nature through more careful observation, but there is a sense in which our eyes inevitably distort the objects they perceive. Three ways they do so are embodied in the artistic techniques of linear perspective, diminution, and foreshortening.\r\n\r\nIn\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/linear-perspective-explained\/\">linear perspective<\/a>, what are actually parallel lines in real life (such as railroad tracks or the edges of floor tiles) converge in the representation. This effect, seen above in the Saenredam painting of a church interior, is integral to what is popularly considered a realistic style, but it is obviously not true to reality. Each of the tiles on the floor is in fact square. Similarly, with diminution, objects appear to get smaller the farther away they are, but this is just an optical trick; each of those windows is in reality the same size.\r\n\r\nForeshortening occurs when we view an object from an angle at which it recedes away from us, so that the object appears to be contracted, shorter than its actual length. In the Academic figure study above on the right, the two thighs appear to be of different lengths and shapes simply because one is viewed parallel to the picture plane while the other is receding sharply away from it. In actual reality, of course, both thighs are very similar (mirror images) in length and shape.\r\n<h3 id=\"correcting-for-perceptual-distortion\">Correcting for perceptual distortion<\/h3>\r\nThe style we colloquially call \u201crealistic\u201d is not literally true to reality, then. It is only a record of our perception of reality, from one angle, at one distance, at one moment in time, and in one kind of light, and all of these factors can distort the object. Some Modern art movements sought a representational system that would be more accurate to the true shapes of objects, rather than representing them deformed by perception.\r\n\r\nCubist paintings seem at first sight to be even more bizarrely distorted and unrealistic than Impressionist paintings. In the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/salon-cubism\/\">Salon Cubist<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.philamuseum.org\/objects\/51056\">Jean Metzinger\u2019s\u00a0<em>Le Go\u00fbter<\/em><\/a>, objects appear to be twisted and broken up, but this is done in order to correct the distortions of perspective and foreshortening. Metzinger shows things from\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/cubism-and-multiple-perspectives\/\">multiple perspectives<\/a>\u00a0so we can better understand their true shapes. The left side of the tea cup on the table is seen from the side at eye level, but from that angle you wouldn\u2019t be able to tell that the cup has a round opening, so the right side is seen from above to complete our understanding of the round lip and concave shape of the cup. Similarly, one of the woman\u2019s eyes is viewed in profile, while the other is seen facing us, and her left shoulder is seen from above, while the right is more straight on. Cubism doesn\u2019t \u201cdistort\u201d objects; it shows them from multiple angles in order to give us more information about their true shapes than would be visible in traditional naturalistic representation.\r\n<h3 id=\"modernism-and-science\">Modernism and science<\/h3>\r\nAnother way of justifying the apparent distortions of modern art came in the form of appeals to science. Modern science provided a stream of new images that sparked artists\u2019 imaginations, as well as new theories that radically altered people\u2019s understanding of reality.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"1468\"]<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Rontgen-Marey.jpg\"><img src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/Rontgen-Marey.jpg\" alt=\"A split photograph showing an X-ray of a hand with a ring on the middle finger on the left, and a series of sequential motion study images of a walking figure on the right. The right section features three horizontal rows of white, stylized human figures and motion lines against a dark background, illustrating phases of movement and mechanical motion patterns.\" width=\"1468\" height=\"915\" \/><\/a> Left: Wilhelm R\u00f6ntgen, X-ray photograph of the hand of Albert von K\u00f6lliker, from Eine Neue Art von Strahlen (W\u00fcrzburg, 1895, Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:X-ray_by_Wilhelm_R%C3%B6ntgen_of_Albert_von_K%C3%B6lliker%27s_hand_-_18960123-02.jpg\">Wikimedia<\/a>, License: <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/publicdomain\/mark\/1.0\/\">Public Domain<\/a>); Right: \u00c9tienne-Jules Marey, photographs showing human locomotion, c. 1895[\/caption]\r\n\r\nBeginning in the seventeenth century, new technologies based on the use of optical lenses provided evidence of microscopic and macroscopic worlds hitherto unsuspected. The discovery of wavelengths beyond the visible spectrum, including infrared and ultraviolet light as well as x-rays, gamma rays, and radio waves, made it clear that the human senses are very limited instruments for understanding the objective world. The visual culture of modern science provided new ways of representing and understanding reality. Stop-motion photography made rapid actions visible for study, and x-ray photography allowed peeks into the interior of solid forms, resulting in visions of reality beyond traditional naturalism.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"2000\"]<img src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/image340.png\" alt=\"Diagram of electromagnetic spectrum showing frequency increasing from right to left and wavelength increasing from left to right, with labeled regions including gamma rays, X-rays, UV, visible spectrum, IR, microwave, FM and AM radio waves, and long radio waves. A zoomed-in section highlights visible spectrum colors from violet (380 nm) to red (750 nm) with corresponding wavelength values and color-coded gradient.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1070\" \/> Diagram of the electromagnetic spectrum (image: <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:EM_spectrumrevised.png\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Philip Ronan, Gringer<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/3.0\/deed.en\">CC BY-SA 3.0<\/a>)[\/caption]\r\n\r\nOne work that attempted to represent this new super-sensory reality was\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/italian-futurism-an-introduction\/\">Italian Futurist<\/a>\u00a0Umberto Boccioni\u2019s\u00a0<em>States of Mind: The Farewells<\/em>\u00a0(1911). The only clearly legible feature in the painting is the number 6943 stenciled on what we gradually discern is the engine of a dark-gray train engine spewing steam in a station. The train is represented, Cubist-fashion, from multiple perspectives. The nose cone is in profile, while the body of the train recedes in a zig-zag toward the upper right then upper center of the canvas. In front of the train in green are a series of a couples saying goodbye (their two heads and embracing arms are clearest in the lower left) \u2014 or perhaps they are one couple, viewed multiple times in the manner of stop-action photography in order to show motion through time.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"2000\"]<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Boccioni-Farewells.jpg\"><img src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/Boccioni-Farewells.jpg\" alt=\"Abstract painting depicting a dynamic steam locomotive numbered 6943 surrounded by swirling green and red shapes suggesting motion and energy. The composition uses bold, fragmented forms and vibrant colors to convey industrial power and speed.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1469\" \/><\/a> Umberto Boccioni,<em> States of Mind: The Farewells<\/em>, 1911, oil on canvas, 70.5 x 96.2 cm (MoMA, Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:States_of_Mind-_The_Farewells_by_Umberto_Boccioni,_1911.jpeg\">Wikimedia<\/a>, License: <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/publicdomain\/mark\/1.0\/\">Public Domain<\/a>)[\/caption]\r\n\r\nTwo truss structures on the left suggest the radio towers that were constructed across Europe in the first decades of the twentieth century after the Italian Guglielmo Marconi harnessed radio waves for wireless communication. Correspondingly, the remainder of the composition is permeated with wave-forms in bright colors to suggest their high energy. Many forms of electromagnetic energy such as radio waves are invisible to the eye, but nonetheless permeate the world. Altogether, the work makes visible the new understanding of nature achieved by modern physics and presents a glimpse of reality beyond the limitations of the human senses.\r\n<h3 id=\"italian-futurism-an-introduction\">Italian Futurism, an introduction<\/h3>\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_3513\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"240\"]<img class=\"wp-image-3513 size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/07\/Picture1-240x300.jpg\" alt=\"Photograph of an abstract bronze sculpture depicting a dynamic, fragmented human figure in motion, mounted on a wooden pedestal. The sculpture features angular, flowing shapes and exaggerated limbs, emphasizing movement and energy in a Futurist style.\" width=\"240\" height=\"300\" \/> Umberto Boccioni, <em>Unique Forms of Continuity in Space<\/em>, 1913 (cast 1931), bronze, 43 7\/8 x 34 7\/8 x 15 3\/4\u2033 (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.moma.org\/collection\/works\/81179\">Museum of Modern Art, New York<\/a>, Image Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.metmuseum.org\/art\/collection\/search\/485540\">The Metropolitan Museum of Art<\/a>, License: <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/publicdomain\/mark\/1.0\/\">Public Domain<\/a>)[\/caption]\r\n\r\nCan you imagine being so enthusiastic about technology that you name your daughter Propeller? Today we take most technological advances for granted, but at the turn of the last century, innovations like electricity, x-rays, radio waves, automobiles and airplanes were extremely exciting. Italy lagged Britain, France, Germany, and the United States in the pace of its industrial development. Culturally speaking, the country\u2019s artistic reputation was grounded in Ancient, Renaissance and Baroque art and culture. Simply put, Italy represented the past.\r\n\r\nIn the early 1900s, a group of young and rebellious Italian writers and artists emerged determined to celebrate industrialization. They were frustrated by Italy\u2019s declining status and believed that the \u201cMachine Age\u201d would result in an entirely new world order and even a renewed consciousness.\r\n\r\nFilippo Tommaso Marinetti, the ringleader of this group, called the movement Futurism. Its members sought to capture the idea of modernity, the sensations and aesthetics of speed, movement, and industrial development.\r\n<h4 id=\"a-manifesto\">A manifesto<\/h4>\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"297\"]<img src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/image343.jpeg\" alt=\"A cubist-style painting depicting a seated figure with hands clasped, composed of fragmented geometric shapes and overlapping planes in warm tones of red, orange, and yellow contrasted with cooler blues and grays. The artwork emphasizes angular forms and dynamic composition, creating a sense of depth and complexity around the central figure.\" width=\"297\" height=\"450\" \/> Umberto Boccioni, Materia, 1912 (reworked 1913), oil on canvas, 226 x 150 cm (Mattioli Collection loaned to Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/User:Zio27\">Zio27<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Boccioni_materia_1912.jpg\">Wikimedia<\/a>, This work is in the <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/publicdomain\/mark\/1.0\/\">Public Domain<\/a>)[\/caption]\r\n\r\nMarinetti launched Futurism in 1909 with the publication his \u201cFuturist manifesto\u201d on the front page of the French newspaper\u00a0<em>Le Figaro.<\/em>\u00a0The manifesto set a fiery tone. In it Marinetti lashed out against cultural tradition (passatismo, in Italian) and called for the destruction of museums, libraries, and feminism. Futurism quickly grew into an international movement and its participants issued additional manifestos for nearly every type of art: painting, sculpture, architecture, music, photography, cinema\u2014even clothing.\r\n\r\nThe Futurist painters\u2014Umberto Boccioni, Carlo Carr\u00e0, Luigi Russolo, Gino Severini, and Giacomo Balla\u2014signed their first manifesto in 1910 (the last named his daughter Elica\u2014Propeller!). Futurist painting had first looked to the color and the optical experiments of the late 19th century, but in the fall of 1911, Marinetti and the Futurist painters visited the Salon d\u2019Automne in Paris and saw Cubism in person for the first time. Cubism had an immediate impact that can be seen in Boccioni\u2019s<em>\u00a0Materia<\/em>\u00a0of 1912 for example. Nevertheless, the Futurists declared their work to be completely original.\r\n<h4 id=\"dynamism-of-bodies-in-motion\">Dynamism of Bodies in Motion<\/h4>\r\nThe Futurists were particularly excited by the works of late 19th-century scientist and photographer \u00c9tienne-Jules Marey, whose chronophotographic (time-based) studies depicted the mechanics of animal and human movement.\r\n\r\nA precursor to cinema, Marey\u2019s innovative experiments with time-lapse photography were especially influential for Balla. In his painting <a href=\"https:\/\/buffaloakg.org\/artworks\/196416-dinamismo-di-un-cane-al-guinzaglio-dynamism-dog-leash\"><em>Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash<\/em><\/a>, the artist playfully renders the dog\u2019s (and dog walker\u2019s) feet as continuous movements through space over time.\r\n\r\nEntranced by the idea of the \u201cdynamic,\u201d the Futurists sought to represent an object\u2019s sensations, rhythms and movements in their images, poems and manifestos. Such characteristics are beautifully expressed in Boccioni\u2019s most iconic masterpiece,<em>\u00a0Unique Forms of Continuity in Space<\/em>\u00a0(see above).\r\n\r\nThe choice of shiny bronze lends a mechanized quality to Boccioni\u2019s sculpture, so here is the Futurists\u2019 ideal combination of human and machine. The figure\u2019s pose is at once graceful and forceful, and despite their adamant rejection of classical arts, it is also very similar to the\u00a0<em>Nike of Samothrace<\/em>.\r\n<h4 id=\"politics-war\">Politics &amp; War<\/h4>\r\nFuturism was one of the most politicized art movements of the twentieth century. It merged artistic and political agendas in order to propel change in Italy and across Europe. The Futurists would hold what they called serate futuriste, or Futurist evenings, where they would recite poems and display art, while also shouting politically charged rhetoric at the audience in the hope of inciting riot. They believed that agitation and destruction would end the status quo and allow for the regeneration of a stronger, energized Italy.\r\n\r\nThese positions led the Futurists to support the coming war, and like most of the group\u2019s members, leading painter Boccioni enlisted in the army during World War I. He was trampled to death after falling from a horse during training. After the war, the members\u2019 intense nationalism led to an alliance with Benito Mussolini and his National Fascist Party. Although Futurism continued to develop new areas of focus (aeropittura, for example) and attracted new members\u2014the so-called \u201csecond generation\u201d of Futurist artists\u2014the movement\u2019s strong ties to Fascism has complicated the study of this historically significant art.\r\n<h3 id=\"modernism-and-spiritualism\">Modernism and spiritualism<\/h3>\r\nModern artists\u2019 quest for truth to realities beyond human perception was also influenced by the explicitly non-scientific approaches of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/abstract-art-and-theosophy\/\">spiritualism<\/a>. Although spiritual visions and discoveries are often seen as subjective, many modern artists saw them as revealing objective truths. They claimed their depictions of these discoveries were glimpses of a higher reality than that available to the human senses.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"2053\"]<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/af-klint-mondrian.jpg\"><img src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/af-klint-mondrian.jpg\" alt=\"Two abstract paintings are shown side by side: the left features a pyramid with a circular sunburst at the top, displaying a gradient of colors from red to blue against a black background. The right presents a geometric composition with a white background, black grid lines, and primary color blocks in red, blue, and yellow, exemplifying De Stijl style.\" width=\"2053\" height=\"1152\" \/><\/a> Left: Hilma af Klint, <em>Group X, No. 1, Altarpiece (Altarbild)<\/em>, 1915. Oil and metal leaf on canvas, 93 1\/2 x 70 11\/16 inches (237.5 x 179.5 cm) (The Hilma af Klint Foundation, Stockholm. Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Hilma_af_Klint_-_1907_-_Altarpiece_-_No_1_-_Group_X_-_Altarpieces.jpg\">Wikimedia<\/a>, License: <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Hilma_af_Klint_-_1907_-_Altarpiece_-_No_1_-_Group_X_-_Altarpieces.jpg\">Public Domain<\/a>); Right: Piet Mondrian,\u00a0<em>Composition<\/em>, 1929, oil on canvas, 45.1 x 45.3 cm (Guggenheim Museum, Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Piet_Mondriaan,_1930_-_Mondrian_Composition_II_in_Red,_Blue,_and_Yellow.jpg\">Wikimedia<\/a>, License: <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/publicdomain\/mark\/1.0\/\">Public Domain<\/a>)[\/caption]\r\n\r\nThe Swedish artist Hilma af Klint painted a series of works called\u00a0<em>The Paintings for the Temple<\/em>\u00a0between 1905 and 1915 based in part on mystical visions she received from a spiritual guide. Around the same time, the Dutch artist Piet Mondrian undertook a close study of nature to eventually discover what he felt were the basic\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/de-stijl-part-i-total-purity\/\">\u201cbuilding blocks\u201d<\/a>\u00a0of all natural and artistic form: the primary colors red, yellow, and blue; the primary values black and white, and horizontal and vertical lines. Although both of these artists produced some artworks that are entirely non-representational in the sense that they do not look like nature, both argued that their spiritual quest revealed a higher reality than that available to the senses.\r\n\r\nThese artists all remind us that what is popularly considered \u201drealistic\u201d in art is in fact only based on sense perceptions, which are inevitably partial, and which in many cases distort reality. By observing nature more closely, discarding artificial conventions, correcting for perceptual distortions, absorbing new scientific theories, and engaging in spiritual investigations, many modern artists rejected traditional naturalism in order to seek higher truths.\r\n<h2 id=\"proto-cubism-pablo-picasso-les-demoiselles-davignon\">Proto-Cubism: Pablo Picasso,\u00a0<em>Les Demoiselles d\u2019Avignon<\/em><\/h2>\r\nSpanish artist Pablo Picasso dominated 20th-century European art. He developed Cubism with Georges Braque and would embody the image of the modern artist. Picasso loved the magic of illusionism\u2014but here, he shatters it.\r\n\r\nhttps:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=XyLNPumMMTs\r\n<h2 id=\"the-reception-of-african-art-in-the-west\">The reception of African art in the West<\/h2>\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"870\"]<a href=\"http:\/\/smarthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/oxfordpittriversmuseum.jpg\"><img src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/image353.jpeg\" alt=\"Photograph of a multi-level museum interior showcasing numerous glass display cases filled with artifacts and exhibits, with a large suspended sailboat model near the ceiling. The space features metal framework, balconies, and illuminated displays, highlighting historical and scientific collections.\" width=\"870\" height=\"598\" \/><\/a> View of archaeological and ethnographic collections (Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford) (photo:<a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Oxford_-_Pitt_Rivers_Museum_-_0269.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u00a0Jorge Royan<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/3.0\/deed.en\">CC BY-SA 3.0<\/a>)[\/caption]\r\n\r\nWhen early European explorers brought back souvenirs from their trips to the African continent they were regarded as curiosities and they didn\u2019t find a home\u00a0in art museums for centuries. Instead, these objects\u00a0became part of natural history museums\u2014along with fossilized remains, flora and fauna, and purely utilitarian objects. They were considered the man-made material remains of a culture. Clouded by the framework of\u00a0Social\u00a0Darwinism\u00a0in the 19th century and other beliefs that justified racial hierarchies, peoples of African, Pacific, and Native American descent were regarded as less civilized, even less human. Attitudes about their art were also determined by pre-conceived ideas about race and therefore, their creations were not categorized as \u201cArt\u201d in Euro-American sense.\r\n\r\nBy the early 1900s however, these same objects that were\u00a0initially regarded as artifacts of\u00a0material culture, began to be\u00a0exhibited in Western art museums and galleries as \u201cart.\u201d The objects themselves had\u00a0not changed, but there was a shift in the attitudes and assumptions about what constituted a work of\u00a0art.\r\n\r\nTo historicize this issue more, we can divide the history of the display and reception of African art into four periods. In the 18th century, objects like the ones illustrated here would likely be housed in a \u201ccuriosity cabinet\u201d\u2014in a private family parlor where trinkets and novelties acquired over generations, often while traveling, were displayed. The artist, culture, and function of these objects was not usually recorded or regarded as significant. By the 19th century, many of these curiosity cabinet collections were donated first to natural history museums where they were categorized and classified in the name of science along with flora, fauna, and skeletal remains. By the twentieth century, some of these same works were exhibited in fine art galleries and museums. Over time, African art has become widely collected and ever more popular.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"875\"]<img src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/image355.jpeg\" alt=\"Photograph of a seated, curled human figure sculpture made of reddish-brown material with a textured surface. The figure has a contemplative expression, bent knees, and a series of small rounded protrusions along the spine.\" width=\"875\" height=\"700\" \/> <a href=\"http:\/\/smarthistory.org\/lost-history-the-terracotta-sculpture-of-djenne-djenno\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Seated Figure<\/a>, terracotta, 13th century, Mali, Inland Niger Delta region, Djenn\u00e9 peoples, 25\/4 x 29.9 cm (<a href=\"http:\/\/metmuseum.org\/art\/collection\/search\/314362?\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Metropolitan Museum of Art<\/a>, License: <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/publicdomain\/mark\/1.0\/\">Public Domain<\/a>)[\/caption]\r\n\r\nSome of the assumptions about what constitutes art is still very much a part of the Western aesthetic system. For example, \u201chigh art\u201d is still thought of as painting and sculpture. Because many African artworks served a specific function, Westerners have sometimes not regarded these as art. It is worth remembering, however, that the concept of \u201cart\u201d divorced from ritual and political function, is a relatively recent development\u00a0in the West. Prior to the 18th century, most artistic traditions around the world were functional as well as aesthetic, and arguments can be made that all\u00a0art serves social and economic functions. The objects that African artists create\u2014while useful\u2014embody aesthetic preferences and may be admired for their form, composition and invention.\r\n<h3 id=\"th-century-theories\">18th-century theories<\/h3>\r\nIn 18th-century Europe, philosophers and critics constructed a definition of \u201cart\u201d in which the object was unique, complex, irreplaceable, inspired by the natural world, and with the exception of architecture, non-functional. In contrast, non-Western art was viewed as not unique, simply produced, replaceable, abstract, and utilitarian. Therefore, Non-Western art was\u00a0<em>not<\/em>\u00a0considered to be art.\r\n<h3 id=\"th-century-theories-1\">19th-century theories<\/h3>\r\n19th century notions of art were redefined by theories of cultural evolution.\u00a0Social Darwinism\u00a0was used to support the claim that all cultures progress along an evolutionary ladder. Western culture was seen as the most advanced and inherently superior. Societies in Africa were viewed as more primitive, a state of being from which modern Western society evolved. Franz Boas in 1927 in his book\u00a0<em>Primitive Art<\/em>\u00a0shows that cultural evolutionism is seriously flawed. He argued that contemporary societies cannot be arranged on a ladder of \u201cleast evolved\u201d or \u201cmost advanced.\u201d Nor can their art.\r\n<h3 id=\"th-century-cultural-relativism-and-pablo-picasso\">20th-century cultural relativism and Pablo Picasso<\/h3>\r\nAnthropologists and art historians came to support the idea of cultural relativism, meaning that they realized that non-Western cultures should not be judged according to the values of the West, but instead should be understood in their own cultural context. This led anthropologists and art historians to a reevaluation of the nature of \u201cart.\u201d However, it was modern Western artists who brought non-Western objects into the popular imagination as works of art worthy of aesthetic consideration. Looking for a new way to represent modernity, artists such as Andre Derain, Amedeo Modigliani, and Pablo Picasso turned to non-Western art for stylistic inspiration. We see this in Picasso\u2019s\u00a0<em>Les Demoiselles d\u2019Avignon<\/em>\u00a0(above). The women\u2019s faces on the right of the canvas have been painted as masks inspired by African artworks Picasso observed on his trip to the Trocadero Museum in Paris in 1907:\r\n\r\n\u201cAll alone in that awful museum with masks, dolls made by the redskins, dusty manikins.\u00a0<em>Les Demoiselles d\u2019Avignon<\/em>\u00a0must have come to me that very day, but not at all because of the forms; because it was my first exorcism painting \u2014 yes absolutely!\u2026The masks weren\u2019t just like any other pieces of sculpture. Not at all. They were magic things. But why weren\u2019t the Egyptian pieces or the Chaldean? We hadn\u2019t realized it. \u2018Those were primitive, not magic things. The Negro pieces were mediators. They were against everything \u2014 against unknown, threatening spirits. I always looked at fetishes. I understood; I too am against everything. I understood what the Negroes used their sculpture for. Why sculpt like that and not some other way? After all, they weren\u2019t Cubists! Since Cubism didn\u2019t exist.\u201d\r\n\r\nIn the quote above, Picasso recognized that the African and Amerindian artists whose work he saw at the museum in Paris\u00a0were deliberately using abstraction. He doesn\u2019t focus on\u00a0why they chose this style but he adopts it, none-the-less, to pursue his own expressive interests. For contemporary avant-garde artists, African art offered abstraction as a strategy for the\u00a0representation of modernity. The quote also tells us that Picasso, like many Western collectors, didn\u2019t know much about the function, culture, or history of African objects and he seems to have focused on their purely formal properties.\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/smarthistory.org\/pablo-picasso-les-demoiselles-davignon\/\">Picasso<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/smarthistory.org\/piet-mondrian-composition-no-ii-with-red-and-blue\/\">Piet Mondrian<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/smarthistory.org\/constantin-brancusi-the-kiss\/\">Constantin Brancusi<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/smarthistory.org\/braque-the-portuguese\/\">Georges Braque<\/a>\u00a0and other modernists helped Western viewers to see these objects as \u201cart\u201d but the cultural meanings of these works remained\u00a0opaque. However, over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, scholars began to question social\u00a0Darwinism and seek out indigenous interpretations of the\u00a0form and function of objects.\r\n\r\nToday, many contemporary African artists are influenced by tradition-based African art (see for example,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/smarthistory.org\/el-anatsui-old-mans-cloth\/\">El Anatsui<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/magdalene-odundo-untitled-vessel\/\">Magdalene Odundo<\/a>). African arts played a central role in their communities, whether to communicate royalty, sacrality, inner virtues, aesthetic interests, genealogy, or other concerns. As the art historian Robert Farris Thompson has argued for the Yoruba, African art is used to make things happen, it is efficacious and necessary for events like rituals, masquerades, and life cycle transitions to successfully occur.\r\n<h2 id=\"inventing-cubism\">Inventing Cubism<\/h2>\r\nDuring the summer of 1908,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/georges-braque-violin-and-palette\/\">Georges Braque<\/a>\u00a0returned to\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/an-introduction-to-the-painting-of-paul-cezanne\/\">Paul C\u00e9zanne<\/a>\u2018s old haunt for a second summer in a row. Previously he had painted this small port just south of Aix-en-Provence with the brilliant irreverent colors of a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/a-beginners-guide-to-fauvism\/\">Fauve<\/a>. But now, after C\u00e9zanne\u2019s death and after having met\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/pablo-picasso-three-musicians\/\">Pablo Picasso<\/a>, Braque set out on a very different tack, the invention of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/picasso-guitar\/\">Cubism<\/a>.\r\n\r\nCubism is a terrible name. Except for a very brief moment, the style has nothing to do with cubes. Instead, it is an extension of the formal ideas developed by C\u00e9zanne and broader perceptual ideas that became increasingly important in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These were the ideas that inspired Matisse as early as 1904 and Picasso perhaps a year or two later. We certainly saw such issues asserted in\u00a0<em><a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/pablo-picasso-les-demoiselles-davignon\/\">Les Demoiselles d\u2019Avignon<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em>But Picasso\u2019s great 1907 canvas is not yet Cubism. It is more accurate to say that it is the foundation upon which Cubism is constructed. If we want to really see the origin of the style, we need to look beyond Picasso to his new friend Georges Braque.\r\n<h3 id=\"a-new-perspective\">A new perspective<\/h3>\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"1429\"]<img src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/image359.jpeg\" alt=\"Painting depicting a landscape with a mountain in the background and a patchwork of fields and trees in the foreground. The artwork uses muted blues, greens, and browns with visible brushstrokes and a proto-cubist style to convey depth and texture.\" width=\"1429\" height=\"1135\" \/> Paul C\u00e9zanne, <em>Mont Sainte-Victoire<\/em>, 1902\u201304, oil on canvas, 73 x 91.9 cm (<a href=\"https:\/\/philamuseum.org\/collection\/object\/102997\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Philadelphia Museum of Art<\/a>, Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Paul_C%C3%A9zanne,_Mont_Sainte-Victoire.jpg\">Wikimedia<\/a>, License: <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/publicdomain\/mark\/1.0\/\">Public Domain<\/a>)[\/caption]\r\n\r\nThe young French Fauvist, Georges Braque that had been struck by both the posthumous C\u00e9zanne retrospective exhibition held in Paris in 1907 and his first sight of Picasso\u2019s radical new canvas,\u00a0<em>Les Demoiselles d\u2019Avignon.<\/em>\u00a0Like so many people that saw it, Braque is reported to have hated it\u2014Matisse, for example, predicted that Picasso would be found hanged behind the work, so great was his mistake. Nevertheless, Braque stated that it haunted him through the winter of 1908. Like every good Parisian, Braque fled Paris in the summer and decided to return to the part of Provence in which C\u00e9zanne had lived and worked. Braque spent the summer of 1908 shedding the colors of Fauvism and exploring the structural issues that had consumed C\u00e9zanne and now Picasso. He wrote:\r\n\r\n\u201cIt [C\u00e9zanne\u2019s impact] was more than an influence, it was an invitation. C\u00e9zanne was the first to have broken away from erudite, mechanized perspective\u2026\u201d[footnote]As quoted in William Rubin,\u00a0<em>Picasso and Braque: Pioneering Cubism<\/em>\u00a0(New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1989), p. 353.[\/footnote]\r\n\r\nLike C\u00e9zanne, Braque sought to undermine the illusion of depth by forcing the viewer to recognize the canvas not as a window but as it truly is, a vertical curtain that hangs before us. In canvases such as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wikiart.org\/en\/georges-braque\/houses-at-estaque-1908\"><em>Houses at L\u2019Estaque<\/em><\/a>, Braque simplifies the form of the houses (here are the so called cubes), but he nullifies the obvious recessionary overlapping with the trees that force forward even the most distant building.\r\n<h3 id=\"brothers-of-invention\">Brothers of invention<\/h3>\r\nWhen Braque returned to Paris in late August, he found Picasso an eager audience. Almost immediately, Picasso began to exploit Braque\u2019s investigations. But far from being the end of their working relationship, this exchange becomes the first in a series of collaborations that lasts six years and creates an intimate creative bound between these two artists that is unique in the history of art.\r\n\r\nBetween the years 1908 and the beginning of the First World War in 1914,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/georges-braque-pablo-picasso-two-cubist-musicians\/\">Braque and Picasso<\/a>\u00a0work together so closely that even experts can have difficulty telling the work of one artist from the other. For months on end they would visit each other\u2019s studio on an almost daily basis sharing ideas and challenging each other as they went. Still, a pattern did emerge and it tended to be to Picasso\u2019s benefit. When a radical new idea was introduced, more than likely, it was Braque that recognized its value. But it was inevitably Picasso who realized its potential and was able to fully exploit it.\r\n<h3 id=\"tough-art\">Tough art<\/h3>\r\nBy 1910, Cubism had matured into a complex system that is seemingly so esoteric that it appears to have rejected all esthetic concerns. The average museum visitor, when confronted by a 1910 or 1911 canvas by Braque or Picasso, the period known as\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/Braque-portuguese.jpg\">Analytic Cubism<\/a>, often looks somewhat put upon even while they may acknowledge the importance of such work. I suspect that the difficulty, is, well\u2026, the difficulty of the work. Cubism is an analysis of vision and of its representation and it is challenging. As a society we seem to believe that all art ought to be easily understandable or at least beautiful. That\u2019s the part I find confusing.\r\n<h2 id=\"pablo-picasso-and-the-new-language-of-cubism\">Pablo Picasso and the new language of Cubism<\/h2>\r\nPicasso was a technically skilled draftsman\u2014so why did he choose to take his forms apart?\r\n\r\nhttps:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=GRTsMJNcHFw\r\n<h2 id=\"georges-braque-violin-and-palette\">Georges Braque, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.guggenheim.org\/artwork\/673\"><em>Violin and Palette<\/em><\/a><\/h2>\r\nGeorge Braque is best known for his collaboration with Pablo Picasso and their development of Cubism, especially its collage aspect.\r\n\r\nAlthough much of the painting is not naturalistic, we can identify the still-life objects in Georges Braque\u2019s\u00a0<em>Violin and Palette<\/em>\u00a0fairly easily. The form of the violin at the bottom of the painting is fractured; the body of the instrument has been broken up into geometric shapes, and on the right side they grow like crystals into the surrounding space.\r\n\r\nWhile the lower portion of the instrument is painted naturalistically and visibly recedes, the upper left side does not, and part of it is missing altogether. The bridge that supports the strings has been tilted and flattened into a light gray pentagon between the S-shaped sound holes. The strings are broken into two differently angled sections, the neck is shortened, and the scroll at the top is displaced and twisted in relation to the body.\r\n<h3 id=\"tradition-and-innovation\">Tradition and innovation<\/h3>\r\nThis painting is an early example of Analytic Cubism, the name given to the first phase of Picasso\u2019s and Braque\u2019s joint endeavor to create a new approach to the pictorial representation of objects in space. Despite its often baffling innovations, one of the defining features of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/picasso-guitar\/\">Cubism<\/a>\u00a0is its engagement with the European painting tradition.\r\n\r\nThis engagement with tradition is particularly evident in Picasso\u2019s and Braque\u2019s use of traditional subjects: landscapes, figure studies, portraits, and still life paintings of dishes, fruit, glassware, and musical instruments. Landscapes largely disappeared after the earliest stages. Picasso made more figure studies and portraits during the Analytic Cubist phase, while Braque favored still life subjects.\r\n\r\nThe relative familiarity of these subjects helps to set Cubism\u2019s radical formal innovations in high relief. Why are objects and even apparently space itself fractured and faceted? Many different explanations have been put forward by art critics and historians, but they all revolve around Braque and Picasso\u2019s engagement in a radical new analysis of three-dimensional form and its relation to both literal and pictorial space.\r\n<h3 id=\"new-strategies-of-representation\">New strategies of representation<\/h3>\r\nSome of the distortions in\u00a0<em>Violin and Palette<\/em>, most notably the relationship of the violin\u2019s scroll to its body, may be explained as the result of combining\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/cubism-and-multiple-perspectives\/\">several different angles of view<\/a>\u00a0into a single depiction. This explanation was frequently advanced by contemporaneous critics, and it does explain many of the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/salon-cubism\/\">Salon Cubists\u2019 paintings<\/a>. However, it fails to account for all of the distortions in Braque\u2019s\u00a0<em>Violin and Palette<\/em>, such as the way parts of the violin are abstracted into geometric forms, and the elimination of entire parts of the instrument.\r\n\r\nIt also does not address the way in which the surrounding space is represented as if it too were fractured geometric abstractions of solid forms. These are all important characteristics of Braque\u2019s Cubist exploration of new strategies of pictorial representation.\r\n\r\nThe upper half of\u00a0<em>Violin and Palette<\/em>\u00a0displays additional approaches to representation. We see several pages of sheet music, perhaps propped up on a music stand behind the violin depicted below. Paper is flat, but Braque has used shading to indicate creases and the bowing of the page.This gives the paper tangible form while also connecting it to the abstract geometric pattern that dominates the painting. Notice that Braque paints the musical staff lines projecting to the left beyond the page on which they are printed. This is an echo of the way he painted cubic sections of the violin growing into space below.\r\n<h3 id=\"a-trompe-loeil-illusion\">A\u00a0trompe l\u2019oeil\u00a0illusion<\/h3>\r\nAbove and behind the sheet music, Braque painted a green curtain and a palette hanging from a nail. Both of these objects refer to traditional naturalistic representation. The\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/artsandculture.google.com\/asset\/still-life-with-imaginary-view-laurens-craen\/SQHCWnnp_sqFfQ?ms=%7B%22x%22%3A0.5%2C%22y%22%3A0.5%2C%22B%22%3A9.390372189061788%2C%22z%22%3A9.390372189061788%2C%22size%22%3A%7B%22width%22%3A1.8639973102529963%2C%22height%22%3A1.2375000000000003%7D%7D\">curtain<\/a>\u00a0is a conventional framing device used in European painting to suggest spatial depth. In Braque\u2019s painting the curtain frames the palette. Although the curtain, nail, and palette are painted in a sketchy manner that is not very realistic, cast shadows make a direct visual reference to the kind of\u00a0trompe l\u2019oeil\u00a0illusionism employed in William Harnett\u2019s\u00a0<em>Violin and Music<\/em>.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"1948\"]<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/William_Michael_Harnett_Still_life_Violin_and_Music-scaled.jpg\"><img src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/William_Michael_Harnett_Still_life_Violin_and_Music-scaled-1.jpg\" alt=\"A still life painting depicting a violin, bow, flute, horseshoe, and sheet music arranged on a wooden panel with metal hinges and nails. The composition highlights textures and shadows, emphasizing musical and rustic elements with muted earth tones and detailed craftsmanship.\" width=\"1948\" height=\"2560\" \/><\/a> William Harnett, Still Life \u2014 Violin and Music, 1888, oil on canvas, 40 x 30 inches (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.metmuseum.org\/art\/collection\/search\/10997\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Metropolitan Museum of Art<\/a>, License: <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/publicdomain\/mark\/1.0\/\">Public Domain<\/a>)[\/caption]\r\n\r\nBecause the palette is itself flat, and Braque painted shadows behind its curved edges, his illusion is somewhat successful and contrasts with the distorted representation of the violin below. The placement of the nail in the top center of the painting adds another layer to the paintings\u2019 illusion. It looks like it could be literally nailing the canvas to the wall. As a whole,\u00a0<em>Violin and Palette<\/em>\u00a0presents naturalistic representation in juxtaposition to Cubist representational techniques to indicate that these new techniques are alternative, and equally viable, modes of depiction.\r\n<h3 id=\"a-developmental-process\">A developmental process<\/h3>\r\nPicasso\u2019s and Braque\u2019s Cubism is generally understood to have been a developmental process rather than a style that followed a predetermined theoretical approach. The two artists worked in a close and competitive relationship between 1908 and 1914, meeting regularly to see each other\u2019s latest works, and pushing each other to increasingly daring pictorial innovations. Braque\u2019s\u00a0<em>Violin and Palette<\/em>\u00a0was painted during the early stages of their Cubist explorations. Over the course of the next few years, both artists\u2019 approach to representation became increasingly abstract.\r\n\r\nIn <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tate.org.uk\/art\/artworks\/braque-mandora-t00833#3\">Braque\u2019s\u00a0<em>Mandora<\/em><\/a>, the surface of the painting is divided into a shifting lattice of diamond shapes in which we can dimly perceive the suggestion of several objects. The mandora (a type of lute) is the only object we can see with certainty, but it is a much less substantial presence than the violin in\u00a0<em>Violin and Palette<\/em>. Dark geometric shapes create a shadow framing the lighter central facets, suggesting the outline of the mandora and other objects arranged on a table. Vertical rectangles in the upper portion of the canvas may indicate more objects resting on the table top, but there is not enough information to be certain. The still life objects have become a shifting\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/chiaroscuro-explained\/\">chiaroscuro<\/a>\u00a0pattern of abstract shapes that sparkle across the canvas with little regard for legibility or representational accuracy.\r\n<h3 id=\"a-new-kind-of-pictorial-space\">A new kind of pictorial space<\/h3>\r\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.metmuseum.org\/art\/collection\/search\/486839\"><em>Candlestick and Playing Cards on a Table<\/em>\u00a0<\/a>is even more difficult to decipher. The title tells us what to look for, and hints of the objects\u2019 forms emerge from the shifting grid of rectangles presented in an oval format. In the center of the composition we can find the circular base of a candlestick. It is placed above the corner of a table, which juts out towards the viewer. The most legible objects are the two playing cards on the right. Below them Braque painted a schematic open drawer, another reference to traditional trompe l\u2019oeil painting effects like the curtain and nail in <em>Violin and Palette<\/em>.\r\n\r\nThe jutting corner of the table and the open drawer in Braque\u2019s painting are counterpoints to the depiction of an indeterminate space. Black lines that demarcate the edges of objects also create abstract floating planes that hover throughout the painting. This adds another level of complexity to the composition and its suggestion of multiple interlocking layers of planes that fill and define a new kind of shallow pictorial space.\r\n<h3 id=\"a-limited-palette\">A limited palette<\/h3>\r\nOne of the characteristics of Braque\u2019s and Picasso\u2019s Analytic Cubist paintings is their increasingly limited color range. In his\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/georges-braque-le-viaduc-a-lestaque-the-viaduct-at-lestaque\/\">earliest Cubist landscapes<\/a>, Braque used the ochres, greens, and blues favored by\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/cezanne-turning-road-at-montgeroult\/\">C\u00e9zanne<\/a>.\u00a0<em>Violin and Palette<\/em>\u00a0is restricted to browns, grays, and a little green, while the later still life paintings are limited to browns and grays.\r\n\r\nFrom 1909 to 1912 both Picasso and Braque painted almost exclusively in a range of neutral tones before re-introducing color, largely through the use of collage elements.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/salon-cubism\/\">Other Cubist painters<\/a>\u00a0often used bright colors, making the use of a limited palette one of the distinctive characteristics of Braque\u2019s and Picasso\u2019s Analytic Cubist paintings. This elimination of color is generally linked to their intense focus on the structural analysis of representing objects in space.\r\n<h2 id=\"sythentic-cubism-pablo-picasso-still-life-with-chair-caning\">Sythentic Cubism: Pablo Picasso,\u00a0<em>Still Life with Chair Caning<\/em><\/h2>\r\nhttps:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=1E91KmfiUGY\r\n<h3 id=\"the-evolution-of-cubism\">The Evolution of Cubism<\/h3>\r\nBeginning in 1908, and continuing through the first few months of 1912, Braque and Picasso co-invent the first phase of Cubism. Since it is dominated by the analysis of form, this first stage is usually referred to as Analytic Cubism. But then during the summer of 1912, Braque leaves Paris to take a holiday in Provence. During his time there, he wanders into a hardware store, and there he finds a roll of oil cloth. Oil cloth is an early version of contact paper, the vinyl adhesive used to line the shelves or drawers in a cupboard. Then, as now, these materials come in a variety of pre-printed patterns.\r\n\r\nBraque purchased some oil cloth printed with a fake wood grain. That particular pattern drew his attention because he was at work on a Cubist drawing of a guitar, and he was about to render the grain of the wood in pencil. Instead, he cut the oil cloth and pasted a piece of the factory-printed grain pattern right into his drawing. With this collage, Braque changed the direction of art for the next ninety years.\r\n<h3 id=\"collage\">Collage<\/h3>\r\nAs you might expect, Picasso was not far behind Braque. Picasso immediately begins to create collage with oil cloth as well\u2014and adds other elements to the mix (but remember, it was really Braque who introduced collage\u2014he never gets enough credit). So what is the big deal? Oil cloth, collage, wood grain patterns\u2014what does this have to do with art and Cubism? One of the keys to understanding the importance of Cubism, of Picasso and Braque, is to consider their actions and how unusual they were for the time. When Braque, and then Picasso placed industrially-produced objects (\u201clow\u201d commercial culture) into the realm of fine art (\u201chigh\u201d culture) they acted as artistic iconoclasts (\u201cicon\u201d=image\/\u201dclast\u201d=destroyer).\r\n\r\nMoreover, they questioned the elitism of the art world, which had always dictated the separation of common, everyday experience from the rarefied, contemplative realm of artistic creation. Of equal importance, their work highlighted\u2014and separated\u2014the role of technical skill from art-making. Braque and Picasso introduced a \u201cfake\u201d element on purpose, not to mislead or fool their audience, but rather to force a discussion of art and craft, of high and low, of unique and mass-produced objects. They ask: \u201cCan this object still be art if I don\u2019t actually render its forms myself, if the quality of the art is no longer directly tied to my technical skills or level of craftsmanship?\u201d\r\n<h3 id=\"still-life-with-chair-caning\">Still-Life with Chair Caning<\/h3>\r\nVirtually all avant-garde art of the second half of the twentieth century is indebted to this brave renunciation. But that doesn\u2019t make this kind of Cubism, often called Synthetic Cubism (piecing together, or synthesis of form), any easier to interpret. At first glance, Picasso\u2019s\u00a0<em>Still-Life with Chair Caning<\/em>\u00a0of 1912 might seem a mish-mash of forms instead of clear picture. But we can understand the image\u2014and other like it\u2014by breaking down Cubist pictorial language into parts. Let\u2019s start at the upper right: almost at the edge of the canvas (at two o\u2019clock) there is the handle of a knife. Follow it to the left to find the blade. The knife cuts a piece of citrus fruit. You can make out the rind and the segments of the slice at the bottom right corner of the blade.\r\n\r\nBelow the fruit, which is probably a lemon, is the white, scalloped edge of a napkin. To the left of these things and standing vertically in the top center of the canvas (twelve o\u2019clock) is a wine glass. It\u2019s hard to see at first, so look carefully. Just at the top edge of the chair caning is the glass\u2019s base, above it is the stem (thicker than you might expect), and then the bowl of the glass. It is difficult to find the forms you would expect because Picasso depicts the glass from more than one angle. At eleven o\u2019clock is the famous \u201cJOU,\u201d which means \u201cgame\u201d in French, but also the first three letters of the French word for newspaper (or more literally, \u201cdaily\u201d; journal=daily). In fact, you can make out the bulk of the folded paper quite clearly. Don\u2019t be confused by the pipe that lays across the newspaper. Do you see its stem and bowl?\r\n<h3 id=\"looking-down-and-looking-through\">Looking Down and Looking Through<\/h3>\r\nBut there are still big questions: why the chair caning, what is the gray diagonal at the bottom of the glass, and why the rope frame? (Think of a ship\u2019s port hole. The port hole reference is an important clue.) Also, why don\u2019t the letters sit better on the newspaper? Finally, why is the canvas oval? It has already been determined that this still life is composed of a sliced lemon, a glass, newspaper, and a pipe. Perhaps this is a breakfast setting, with a citron press\u00e9 (French lemonade). In any case, these items are arranged upon a glass tabletop. You can see the reflection of the glass. In fact, the glass allows us to see below the table\u2019s surface, which is how we see the chair caning\u2014which represents the seat tucked in below the table.\r\n\r\nOkay, so far so good. But why is the table elliptical in shape? This appears to be a caf\u00e9 table, which are round or square but never oval. Yet, when we look at a circular table, we never see it from directly above. Instead, we see it at an angle, and it appears elliptical in shape as we approach the table to sit down. But what about the rope, which was not mass-produced, nor made by Picasso, but rather something made especially for this painting? We can view it as the bumper of a table, as it was used in some caf\u00e9s, or as the frame of a ship\u2019s port hole, which we can look \u201cthrough,\u201d to see the objects represented. The rope\u2019s simultaneous horizontal and vertical orientation creates a way for the viewer (us) to read the image in two ways\u2014looking down and looking through\/across. Put simply, Picasso wants us to remember that the painting is something different from that which it represents. Or as Gertrude Stein said, \u201cA rose is a rose is a rose.\u201d\r\n<h2 id=\"who-created-the-first-abstract-artwork\">Who created the first abstract artwork?<\/h2>\r\nAbstract art \u2014 also called \u201cnon-representational\u201d or \u201cnon-objective\u201d \u2014 has long been considered a central achievement of modernism. Several early-twentieth century artists claimed to be the first to make a completely abstract artwork, and although it turns out to be surprisingly difficult to fully settle the question, we will consider some of the main contenders below.\r\n<h3 id=\"defining-the-terms\">Defining the terms<\/h3>\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"2085\"]<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/Muhammad-ibn-Aibak-ibn-Abdallah.jpg\"><img src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/Muhammad-ibn-Aibak-ibn-Abdallah-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"A photograph of an illuminated manuscript page featuring intricate geometric patterns and Arabic calligraphy. The design includes gold, blue, and red colors with a central star-shaped motif, bordered by detailed floral and vine patterns, showcasing traditional Islamic art elements.\" width=\"2085\" height=\"2560\" \/><\/a> Muhammad ibn Aibak ibn-Abdallah, Folio from a non-illustrated manuscript, 1306-7, ink, opaque watercolor, and gold on paper, 43.2 x 35.2 cm (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, License: <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/publicdomain\/mark\/1.0\/\">Public Domain<\/a>)[\/caption]\r\n\r\nThis 14th-century manuscript painting pre-dates the modern contenders for the first abstract work by over six hundred years. It is one example from a long Islamic tradition of non-representational art. Works like this are generally ignored in discussions about who made the first abstract painting, which reveals that the debate is, in fact, quite limited in its focus. We really mean, \u201cWho in Western culture created the first abstract work?\u201d Like Columbus \u201cdiscovering\u201d America, it turns out that there were actually a lot of people already there.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"1523\"]<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/Tropon.jpg\"><img src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/Tropon-1.jpg\" alt=\"Poster artwork featuring stylized, repeated abstract shapes in yellow, orange, black, and purple with text &quot;Tropon is Eiweiss Nahrung.&quot; Design uses bold lines and geometric patterns to create a visually striking composition.\" width=\"1523\" height=\"2000\" \/><\/a> Henri van de Velde, <em>Tropon Poster<\/em>, from the periodical Pan, vol. IV no. 1 (April-May-June 1898), lithograph, 31.1 x 19.9 cm (MoMA, Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Poster,_Tropon_est_l%27aliment_le_plus_concentr%C3%A9_(Tropon,_the_most_concentrated_food_supplement),_1898_(CH_18707967).jpg\">Wikimedia<\/a>, License: <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/publicdomain\/mark\/1.0\/\">Public Domain<\/a>)[\/caption]\r\n\r\nVan de Velde\u2019s poster advertising the protein extract Tropon displays an abstract design of stylized, vaguely organic shapes. Why is this also not generally considered a viable contender for the first abstract work? We find that we need to limit the question again: the first abstract work must have been made as \u201cfine art.\u201d Decorative art and commercial design don\u2019t count. This distinction can seem very arbitrary, since many modern artists worked as commercial designers at times, and modern design is also often collected by art museums.\r\n\r\nWhat we are really looking for, then, is not truly \u201cthe first\u201d abstract artwork. Instead, we are seeking the first abstract artwork that was\u00a0<em>intentionally created in the context of the post-Renaissance Western art world<\/em>, when fine art was expected to be representational.\r\n<h3 id=\"a-de-stijl-contender\">A De Stijl contender<\/h3>\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"1080\"]<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/Tableau_no_3_compositie_in_ovaal_Piet_Mondrian_1913.jpg\"><img src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/Tableau_no_3_compositie_in_ovaal_Piet_Mondrian_1913.jpg\" alt=\"Abstract painting features an oval shape filled with fragmented geometric forms and lines in muted tones of white, beige, and gray against an olive-brown background. The composition suggests a textured, layered surface with intersecting shapes and subtle shading, evoking a sense of depth and complexity.\" width=\"1080\" height=\"1292\" \/><\/a> Piet Mondrian, <em>Tableau No. 3<\/em> or <em>Composition in Oval<\/em>, 1913 (Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Tableau_no_3_compositie_in_ovaal,_Piet_Mondrian,_1913.jpg\">Wikimedia<\/a>, License: <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/publicdomain\/mark\/1.0\/\">Public Domain<\/a>).[\/caption]\r\n\r\nPiet Mondrian wrote extensive justifications of abstract art, demonstrating a clear awareness of how radical he felt the move to abstraction was for fine art. Over the course of the 1910s he produced several series of works through a process that he explicitly called \u201cabstraction,\u201d etymologically defined as \u201cpulling away\u201d elements of natural appearances from observed objects until eventually they bore\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/de-stijl-part-ii-near-abstraction-and-pure-abstraction\/\">no resemblance to those objects<\/a>.\r\n\r\nThe work above is part of his series of abstracted trees: perhaps the two parallel vertical lines in the lower center are a trunk, and the oval frame defines the crown of the tree. However, if we approached the work in a museum without that information, it would be easy to see it as abstract in the sense of entirely non-representational. The gradual nature of Mondrian\u2019s evolution makes it very difficult to state when he first created a fully abstract work.\r\n\r\nThe titling of works can further complicate the issue: this work was titled \u201cTableau\u201d or \u201cComposition\u201d by Mondrian, asking us to see it as just a composition of lines, shapes, and colors. An equally abstract-seeming work from the same year is called \u201cThe Tree A,\u201d which asks us to see a tree where otherwise we might not. Should determining whether a work is abstract depend on its title or other extrinsic information?\r\n<h3 id=\"kandinskys-spiritual-vision\">Kandinsky\u2019s spiritual vision<\/h3>\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"960\"]<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/Kandinsky-untitled.jpg\"><img src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/Kandinsky-untitled.jpg\" alt=\"Abstract watercolor painting featuring a chaotic arrangement of colorful shapes and lines in red, blue, green, and yellow tones. The composition includes dynamic brushstrokes and overlapping forms, creating a sense of movement and spontaneity.\" width=\"960\" height=\"746\" \/><\/a> Vasily Kandinsky, <em>Untitled (Study for Composition VII, first abstraction<\/em>), 1913, watercolor (Centre Pompidou, Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Kandinsky,_1913,_Sans_titre_(Etude_pour_Composition_VII,_Premi%C3%A8re_abstraction).jpg\">Wikimedia<\/a>, License: <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/publicdomain\/mark\/1.0\/\">Public Domain<\/a>).[\/caption]\r\n\r\nVasily Kandinsky backdated this work to 1910 (in the signature at the lower right), probably in order to claim that he was the first abstract artist \u2014 most art historians believe it dates to 1913. His 1909 text\u00a0<em>On the Spiritual in Art<\/em>\u00a0justifies abstraction in art as more spiritual than representation. However he, like Mondrian, approached abstraction very gradually. Even this painting is ambiguously abstract. It is part of a group of works based on imagery of the apocalypse, and, like Mondrian, Kandinsky \u201cabstracted\u201d that imagery to\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/kandinsky-improvisation-28-second-version\/\">reduce material references<\/a>.\r\n\r\nIn many paintings the imagery is very difficult to recognize, but it is still there. Kandinsky famously described seeing one of his own paintings as \u201conly form and colors . . . . whose content was incomprehensible,\u201d but this was only because the work was on its side. Viewing it from the proper angle he saw the painting\u2019s apocalyptic imagery.[footnote]Vasily Kandinsky, \u201cReminiscences\u201d (1913), as translated in Robert L. Herbert, ed.,\u00a0<em>Modern Artists on Art<\/em>\u00a0(Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, 2000), p. 29.[\/footnote]\r\n\r\nBoth Mondrian and Kandinsky eventually went on to create unequivocally non-representational artwork, but where is the line between representation and abstraction when the abstracted forms are derived from representational images that only a few people, if any, can recognize? Is abstraction in the eye of the beholder?\r\n<h3 id=\"appreciating-color-and-music\">Appreciating color and music<\/h3>\r\nIn the early twentieth century many people (including Kandinsky) justified abstract painting by comparing it to music. When we listen to instrumental music we do not generally compare it to real world sounds; we just enjoy being moved by the melody, harmony, rhythm, etc., in themselves. Why should visual art be different? Why not just appreciate how we are moved by colors, shapes, and textures?\r\n\r\nA group of artists called the Orphists, including\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/robert-delaunay-simultaneous-contrasts-sun-and-moon\/\">Robert<\/a> and Sonia Delaunay and <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/File:Franti%C5%A1ek_Kupka,_1912,_Amorpha,_fugue_en_deux_couleurs_(Fugue_in_Two_Colors),_210_x_200_cm,_Narodni_Galerie,_Prague.jpg\">Franti\u0161ek Kupka<\/a>, took this route. The title of Kupka\u2019s\u00a0<em>Fugue in Two Colors<\/em>\u00a0declares the painting to be the visual equivalent of a type of musical composition in which a short melody is repeated and developed in multi-part counterpoint. The looping, swelling, intertwining curves of red and blue in Kupka\u2019s painting are understandable as visualizations of the flowing aural interweaving of the musical voices in a fugue. Again, however, there was a naturalistic source for the painting: a drawing of a girl dancing with a ball in her hand that Kupka progressively abstracted.\r\n<h3 id=\"malevichs-suprematism\">Malevich\u2019s Suprematism<\/h3>\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"2000\"]<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/Last_Futurist_Exhibition.jpg\"><img src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/Last_Futurist_Exhibition.jpg\" alt=\"Black and white photograph of an art gallery corner displaying multiple abstract geometric paintings mounted on walls. Paintings feature bold shapes like squares, rectangles, and crosses in solid black on white backgrounds, with handwritten notes and a single chair adding context to the exhibition.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1452\" \/><\/a> Kasimir Malevich, The Last Futurist Exhibition 0.10, photograph, 1915 (Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:0.10_Exhibition.jpg\">Wikimedia<\/a>, License: <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/publicdomain\/mark\/1.0\/\">Public Domain<\/a>)[\/caption]\r\n\r\n<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/suprematism-part-i-kasimir-malevich\/\">Kasimir Malevich<\/a>\u00a0is unusual in making the leap to pure abstraction very rapidly, rather than through a long process of abstracting natural objects. Malevich\u2019s works in The Last Futurist Exhibition are geometric abstractions, although some of them have titles that suggest real-world references, such as\u00a0<em>Airplane Flying<\/em>. Malevich claimed that he first painted a pure abstract work,\u00a0<em>Black Square<\/em>, in 1913. However, there is no evidence to support this other than some loosely-related theater designs, and as we have noted, abstraction in design occurred earlier than that. This photograph of the exhibition dates to 1915, and Malevich wrote a theoretical justification of non-representational Suprematist painting the same year, making 1915 a solid\u00a0<em>terminus ante quem<\/em>\u00a0for the first abstract painting.\r\n<h3 id=\"a-new-contender\">A new contender<\/h3>\r\nAnother artist who has recently been brought forward as a candidate for painting the first abstract artwork is Hilma af Klint. Between 1906 and 1915 Klint made a series of works called <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.guggenheim.org\/teaching-materials\/hilma-af-klint-paintings-for-the-future\/paintings-for-the-temple\">Paintings for the Temple<\/a><\/em>\u00a0that were generated from visions she had as a spiritual medium (in fact, all of the artists considered here apart from van de Velde were motivated to create abstract art for\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/abstract-art-and-theosophy\/\">spiritual reasons<\/a>). Some of Klint\u2019s works have recognizable natural imagery, but many others are pure geometric or biomorphic abstractions.\r\n\r\nIn terms of chronology Klint is a serious contender to be the first abstract painter, and it may be gratifying to think that it is a woman who has that distinction, despite the jockeying of her male contemporaries. Unfortunately, however, Klint\u2019s abstract works were created completely outside the context of the modern art world. In fact, she stipulated that they not be exhibited until twenty years after her death, and as a consequence they were unknown outside of her circle of friends, and had no influence on the debates concerning the viability of abstraction in art until the question was already settled.\r\n<h3 id=\"an-unanswerable-question\">An unanswerable question?<\/h3>\r\nIn the end, it may not be possible to answer the question of who created the first abstract artwork, but even this brief survey of the main contenders raises an arguably more interesting question. Although there were common themes and some direct contacts between the artists considered here, they were largely independent, working in different countries (Sweden, Russia, Germany, France, and The Netherlands), ending up with very different-looking works, and developing substantially different rationales for practicing abstraction. For whatever reason, in the years around 1910\u201315 all across Europe, the time was right for abstract art to (re-)enter the Western art world.\r\n<h2 id=\"de-stijl-piet-mondrian-composition-with-red-blue-and-yellow\">De Stijl: Piet Mondrian,\u00a0<em>Composition with Red, Blue, and Yellow<\/em><\/h2>\r\nA Dutch painter, Piet Mondrian\u2019s Neo-Plasticism used the most fundamental aspects of line and color in an attempt to create a universal expression.\r\n\r\n\u201cPure abstract art becomes completely emancipated, free of naturalistic appearances.\u201d\u2014Piet Mondrian, 1929\u00a0[footnote]Piet Mondrian, \u201cPure Abstract Art, 1929\u201d in\u00a0<em>The New Art\u2014The New Life: The Collected Writings of Piet Mondrian<\/em>, edited and translated by Harry Holtzman and Martin S. James (Boston: G.K. Hall&amp; Co.), p. 224.[\/footnote]\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"1010\"]<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/1010px-Piet_Mondriaan_1930_-_Mondrian_Composition_II_in_Red_Blue_and_Yellow.jpeg\"><img src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/1010px-Piet_Mondriaan_1930_-_Mondrian_Composition_II_in_Red_Blue_and_Yellow.jpeg\" alt=\"Abstract geometric painting featuring a grid of thick black lines dividing red, blue, yellow, and white rectangular blocks. The composition emphasizes balance and contrast through primary colors and bold linear structure.\" width=\"1010\" height=\"1024\" \/><\/a> Piet Mondrian, <em>Composition with Red, Blue, and Yellow<\/em>, 1930, oil on canvas, 46 x 46 cm (<a href=\"https:\/\/collection.kunsthaus.ch\/en\/collection\/item\/2455\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Kunsthaus Z\u00fcrich<\/a>, Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Piet_Mondriaan,_1930_-_Mondrian_Composition_II_in_Red,_Blue,_and_Yellow.jpg\">Wikimedia<\/a>, License: <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/publicdomain\/mark\/1.0\/\">Public Domain<\/a>)[\/caption]\r\n\r\nWalking up to Piet\u00a0Mondrian\u2019s painting,\u00a0<em>Composition with Red,\u00a0Blue, and Yellow<\/em>\u00a0can be a baffling experience. The canvas is small and uses only the simplest of colors: red, blue, yellow, white and black. The composition is similarly reduced to the simplest of rectilinear forms, squares and rectangles defined by vertical and horizontal lines. One would hardly suspect that we are seeing the artist\u2019s determination to depict the underlying structure of reality.\r\n<h3 id=\"neo-plasticism\">Neo-Plasticism<\/h3>\r\nMondrian called his style Neo-Plasticism or \u201cThe New\u00a0Plastic Painting,\u201d the title of his famous 1917 essay promoting abstraction for\u00a0the expression\u00a0of\u00a0modern life. Don\u2019t be confused by Mondrian\u2019s use of the term \u201cplastic.\u201d He uses it to refer to the plastic arts\u2014media such as\u00a0sculpture, that\u00a0molds three-dimensional form, or, in Mondrian\u2019s case, painting on canvas. For centuries, European painters had attempted to render three-dimensional forms in believable spaces\u2014creating convincing illusions of reality (<a href=\"http:\/\/smarthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/dp353257.jpg\">click here<\/a>\u00a0for an example\u2014Vermeer\u2019s\u00a0<em>Young Woman with a Water Pitcher<\/em>). In contrast,\u00a0Mondrian and other modernists wanted to move painting beyond naturalistic depiction to focus\u00a0instead on the material properties of paint and its unique ability to express ideas abstractly using\u00a0formal elements such as line and color.\r\n\r\nMondrian believed his abstraction could serve as a\u00a0universal pictorial language representing the dynamic, evolutionary forces that govern nature and\u00a0human experience. In fact, he believed that abstraction provides a truer picture of reality than\u00a0illusionistic depictions of objects in the visible world. Perhaps this is why Mondrian characterized his style as \u201cabstract real\u201d\u00a0painting.\r\n<h3 id=\"abstraction-and-human-progress\">Abstraction and human progress<\/h3>\r\nMondrian\u2019s earliest paintings were quite traditional in both subject and style. He\u00a0studied at the art academies in the\u00a0Hague and in Amsterdam in his home country of the Netherlands. Then, as with\u00a0many artists during\u00a0the early twentieth century, he began to emulate a variety of contemporary styles, including\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/smarthistory.org\/a-beginners-guide-to-impressionism\/\">Impressionism<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/smarthistory.org\/georges-seurat-a-sunday-on-la-grande-jatte-1884\/\">Neo-Impressionism<\/a>, and\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/smarthistory.org\/khnopff-i-lock-my-door-upon-myself\/\">Symbolism<\/a>\u00a0in an effort to find his own artistic voice. The impact of these modern\u00a0movements can be seen in the development of Mondrian\u2019s painting which, over time, shows the\u00a0dissolution of recognizable objects into increasingly pared-down structures (see the three depictions of trees below). His emphasis on line, color, and geometric shape sought to highlight formal characteristics.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"2560\"]<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/3trees.jpg\"><img src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/3trees-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"A trio of abstract paintings depicting a tree with sprawling branches against textured, layered backgrounds. Each panel transitions from monochromatic black and white on the left to darker shades in the center and muted earth tones on the right, highlighting different artistic interpretations of the same subject.\" width=\"2560\" height=\"608\" \/><\/a> Three trees by Piet Mondrian: <em>Study for the Gray Tree<\/em> (left), 1911, charcoal on paper, 58.4 x 86.5 cm;<em> The Grey Tree<\/em> (center), 1911, oil on canvas, 79.7 x 109.1 cm; <em>Flowering Apple Tree<\/em> (right), 1912, oil on canvas, 78.5 x 107.5 cm (all in the collection of the Gemeentemuseum, Den Haag, Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Gray_Tree_1911.jpg\">Wikimedia<\/a>, License: <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/publicdomain\/mark\/1.0\/\">Public Domain<\/a>)[\/caption]\r\n\r\nMondrian was inspired by\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/smarthistory.org\/inventing-cubism\/\">Cubism<\/a>,\u00a0a movement led by\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/pablo-picasso-kahnweiler\/\">Pablo Picasso<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/braque-the-portuguese\/\">Georges Braque<\/a>\u00a0that explored\u00a0the use of multiple perspectives. Mondrian began experimenting with abstracted forms around the time he\u00a0moved to\u00a0Paris in 1912.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"1170\"]<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Mondrian_-_Ocean_5_1914.jpeg\"><img src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/Mondrian_-_Ocean_5_1914.jpeg\" alt=\"Abstract painting featuring a network of black and white rectangular and linear shapes arranged within an oval frame on a mustard yellow background. The composition emphasizes geometric patterns and spatial relationships, creating a sense of depth and structure through varied line thickness and shading.\" width=\"1170\" height=\"855\" \/><\/a> Piet Mondrian,<em> Ocean 5<\/em>, 1914, charcoal and gouache on paper\/Homosote panel, 87.6 x 120.3 cm (Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Ocean_5,_1915,_Mondrian.jpg\">Wikimedia<\/a>, License: <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/publicdomain\/mark\/1.0\/\">Public Domain<\/a>)[\/caption]\r\n\r\nHis famous \u201cPier and Ocean\u201d series (see above), which reduces the landscape\u00a0to arrangements of vertical and horizontal lines, exemplifies this\u00a0period in Mondrian\u2019s career. He wanted to push beyond\u00a0Cubism\u2019s strategy of\u00a0fragmenting forms (caf\u00e9 tables were a favorite subject), and\u00a0move toward\u00a0pure abstraction. However, this change in Mondrian\u2019s\u00a0process did not take place\u00a0overnight and he continued to work in a studied, methodical\u00a0way. In fact, his\u00a0production of paintings within\u00a0a series of canvases was part of Mondrian\u2019s method, and how he worked\u00a0through thematic and compositional issues. Because Mondrian continued to rely on the series throughout his career, we can see the progression of his pictorial language even in his later, purely abstract work.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"2525\"]<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/mondrian1930med.jpg\"><img src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/mondrian1930med-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"Abstract geometric painting featuring a grid of thick black lines dividing red, blue, yellow, and white rectangular blocks. The composition emphasizes balance and contrast through primary colors and bold linear structure.\" width=\"2525\" height=\"2560\" \/><\/a> Piet Mondrian, <em>Composition with Red, Blue, and Yellow<\/em>, 1930, oil on canvas, 46 x 46 cm (<a href=\"https:\/\/collection.kunsthaus.ch\/en\/collection\/item\/2455\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Kunsthaus Z\u00fcrich<\/a>, Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Piet_Mondriaan,_1930_-_Mondrian_Composition_II_in_Red,_Blue,_and_Yellow.jpg\">Wikimedia<\/a>, License: <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/publicdomain\/mark\/1.0\/\">Public Domain<\/a>)[\/caption]\r\n\r\nHis use of the term\u00a0\u201ccomposition\u201d (the organization of forms on the canvas) signals his experimentation with abstract arrangements.<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>Mondrian had returned home to the Netherlands just prior to the outbreak of the First World War and would remain there until the war ended.\u00a0While in the Netherlands he further\u00a0developed his style, ruling out compositions\u00a0that were either too static or too dynamic, concluding that asymmetrical arrangements of geometric\u00a0(rather than organic) shapes in primary (rather than secondary) colors best represent universal\u00a0forces. Moreover, he combined his development of an abstract style with his interest in\u00a0philosophy, spirituality, and\u00a0his belief that\u00a0the evolution of abstraction was a sign of humanity\u2019s progress.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"2170\"]<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/mondrian1930red.jpg\"><img src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/mondrian1930red.jpg\" alt=\"Detail of a red square from an abstract geometric painting featuring a grid of thick black lines dividing red, blue, yellow, and white rectangular blocks. \" width=\"2170\" height=\"2089\" \/><\/a> Piet Mondrian, Red (detail), <em>Composition with Red, Blue, and Yellow<\/em>, 1930, oil on canvas, 46 x 46 cm (<a href=\"https:\/\/collection.kunsthaus.ch\/en\/collection\/item\/2455\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Kunsthaus Z\u00fcrich<\/a>, Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Piet_Mondriaan,_1930_-_Mondrian_Composition_II_in_Red,_Blue,_and_Yellow.jpg\">Wikimedia<\/a>, License: <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/publicdomain\/mark\/1.0\/\">Public Domain<\/a>)[\/caption]\r\n<h3 id=\"philosophy-theosophy\">Philosophy &amp; Theosophy<\/h3>\r\nSome art historians have viewed Mondrian\u2019s painting as an expression of his interest in\u00a0dialectical relationships, ideas advanced by the early nineteenth-century German philosopher Hegel that art and\u00a0civilization progress by successive moments of tension and reconciliation between oppositional forces. For Mondrian then, composing with opposites such as black and white pigments or vertical and\u00a0horizontal lines suggest an evolutionary development.\r\n\r\nMondrian\u2019s painting may also reflect his association with the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/abstract-art-and-theosophy\/\">Theosophical Society<\/a>, an\u00a0esoteric group that had a strong presence in\u00a0Europe. Theosophists were interested in opposites as an expression of hidden unity. During WWI, Mondrian stayed in Laren, a village with a thriving art\u00a0community near Amsterdam. He lived near M.H.J.\u00a0Schoenmaeker, a prominent Theosophist who used terms such as \u201cNew Plastic\u201d to promote his\u00a0ideas on spiritual evolution and the unification of the real and the ideal, the physical and\u00a0immaterial. In Theosophy<strong>,<\/strong>\u00a0lines, shapes, and colors symbolized the\u00a0unity of spiritual and natural forces.\r\n<h3 id=\"de-stijl\">De Stijl<\/h3>\r\nDe Stijl is one of the most recognizable styles in all of modern art. Consisting only of horizontal and vertical lines and the colors red, yellow, blue, black, and white, De Stijl was applied not only to easel painting but also to architecture and a broad range of designed objects from furniture to clothing. This is not inappropriate. Despite its close association with Piet Mondrian, the artist thought of it not as his personal style, but as De Stijl \u2013\u00a0<em>The<\/em>\u00a0Style; it was objective and universal, applicable to all people and all things.\r\n\r\nWhile in Holland, Mondrian founded the movement called\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/de-stijl-part-i-total-purity\/\"><em>De Stijl<\/em>\u00a0(The Style)<\/a>\u00a0with the artist\u00a0Theo van Doesburg. The two shared many ideas about art as an expression of\u00a0relationships, particularly the relationships between art and life. Because these artists believed\u00a0that the evolution of art coincided with the modern progression of humankind, they thought that\u00a0New Plasticism could, and should, encompass all of human experience. Van Doesburg founded the journal\u00a0<em>De Stijl\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0to promote these ideas and demonstrate that their geometric abstraction,\u00a0based on their theory of\u00a0spiritual and pictorial progress, could form a total environment, and impact\u00a0modern life. Although Mondrian and van Doesburg\u00a0eventually parted ways, their movement to combine modern art and living was so influential\u00a0that\u00a0the abstract, geometric principles and use of primary colors they applied in painting, sculpture,\u00a0design, and architecture still resonate today.\r\n<h3 id=\"dynamic-contrasts\">Dynamic contrasts<\/h3>\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"2560\"]<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/mondrian1930bottom.jpg\"><img src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/mondrian1930bottom-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"Blue and white detail from an abstract geometric painting featuring a grid of thick black lines dividing red, blue, yellow, and white rectangular blocks. \" width=\"2560\" height=\"705\" \/><\/a> Piet Mondrian (detail), <em>Composition with Red, Blue, and Yellow<\/em>, 1930, oil on canvas, 46 x 46 cm (<a href=\"https:\/\/collection.kunsthaus.ch\/en\/collection\/item\/2455\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Kunsthaus Z\u00fcrich<\/a>, Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Piet_Mondriaan,_1930_-_Mondrian_Composition_II_in_Red,_Blue,_and_Yellow.jpg\">Wikimedia<\/a>, License: <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/publicdomain\/mark\/1.0\/\">Public Domain<\/a>)[\/caption]\r\n\r\nMondrian\u2019s\u00a0<em>Composition with Red, Blue, and Yellow\u00a0<\/em>demonstrates his commitment\u00a0to relational opposites, asymmetry, and pure planes of color.\u00a0Mondrian\u00a0composed this painting as a\u00a0harmony of contrasts that signify both balance and the tension of dynamic forces.\u00a0Mondrian viewed his black lines not as\u00a0outlines but as planes of pigment in their own right; an idea seen in the horizontal black plane on\u00a0the lower\u00a0right of the painting that stops just short of the canvas edge (see image above). Mondrian eradicates the entire notion of illusionistic depth predicated on a figure in front of\u00a0a background. He\u00a0achieves a harmonious tension by his asymmetrical\u00a0placement of primary colors that balance the blocks of white paint. Notice how the large red\u00a0square at the upper right, which might otherwise dominate the composition, is balanced by the\u00a0small blue square at the bottom left. What\u2019s more, when you see this painting in a person\u00a0you\u00a0can discern just how much variation is possible using this color scheme\u2014and that Mondrian\u00a0used varying\u00a0shades of blacks and whites, some of which are subtly lighter or darker. Seen\u00a0up close, this variety of values and textures create\u00a0a surprising harmony of contrasts.\u00a0Even the\u00a0visible\u00a0traces\u00a0of the artist\u2019s brushwork\u00a0counter what might otherwise be a rigid geometric composition and balance the artist\u2019s desire for a\u00a0universal truth with the intimately personal experience of the artist.\r\n<h2 id=\"conclusion-11\">Conclusion<\/h2>\r\nEarly 20<sup>th<\/sup> century avant-garde artists produced a range of styles. Leading up to World War I, artists experimented with the expressive power of color and the destruction of the picture plane. The Fauves and the German Expressionists pushed color to allow for both its arbitrary application and psychological or spiritual expression. Cubism and Abstract art further challenged the 500-year-old Western art traditions of naturalism and pictorial space that had been dominant since the early Renaissance. Instead, artists like Picasso and Mondrian emphasized the flatness of the canvas. The artists of the early 20<sup>th<\/sup> century expanded avenues for artistic creation. They also continued the avant-garde tradition of breaking boundaries and introducing new ways of communicating about the complex modern world. With World War I, the styles of Dada and Surrealism would simultaneously expand the discourse on defining fine art and attempt to process the destruction caused by the First World War.\r\n<h3 id=\"citation-and-licensing-11\">Citation and Licensing<\/h3>\r\nThe following sections were written by Chelsea Wright and licensed <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-sa\/4.0\/\">CC BY-NC-SA 4.0<\/a>:\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li>Chapter Overview and Introduction<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Focus artwork and term list compiled by Chelsea Wright<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Conclusion<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\nThe following articles from <em>Smarthistory<\/em> licensed <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-sa\/4.0\/\">CC BY-NC-SA 4.0<\/a> were remixed and adapted for the chapter:\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li>Dr. Virginia B. Spivey, \"<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/a-beginners-guide-to-fauvism\/\">Fauvism, an introduction<\/a>,\" in\u00a0<em>Smarthistory<\/em>, August 9, 2015.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker, \"<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/matisse-bonheur-de-vivre\/\">Henri Matisse,\u00a0<em>Bonheur de Vivre (Joy of Life)<\/em><\/a>,\" in\u00a0<em>Smarthistory<\/em>, August 9, 2015.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Shawn Roggenkamp, \"<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/expressionism-intro\/\">Expressionism, an introduction<\/a>,\" in\u00a0<em>Smarthistory<\/em>, October 2, 2016.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Smarthistory, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/artist\/ernst-ludwig-kirchner\/\">Ernst Ludwig Kirchner<\/a>,\u201d in <em>Smarthistory<\/em>.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Dr. Juliana Kreinik, Dr. Steven Zucker and Dr. Beth Harris, \"<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/kirchner-street-dresden\/\">Ernst Ludwig Kirchner,\u00a0<em>Street, Dresden<\/em><\/a>,\" in\u00a0<em>Smarthistory<\/em>, November 13, 2015.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Smarthistory, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/artist\/vasily-kandinsky\/\">Vasily Kandisnky<\/a>,\u201d in <em>Smarthistory<\/em>.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker, \"<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/kandinsky-improvisation-28-second-version\/\">Vasily Kandinsky,\u00a0<em>Improvisation 28<\/em>\u00a0(second version)<\/a>,\" in\u00a0<em>Smarthistory<\/em>, August 9, 2015.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Dr. Charles Cramer and Dr. Kim Grant, \"<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/modern-art-reality\/\">Modern art and reality<\/a>,\" in\u00a0<em>Smarthistory<\/em>, June 16, 2020.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Emily Casden, \"<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/italian-futurism-an-introduction\/\">Italian Futurism, an introduction<\/a>,\" in\u00a0<em>Smarthistory<\/em>, August 9, 2015.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Smarthistory, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/artist\/pablo-picasso-2\/\">Pablo Picasso<\/a>,\u201d in <em>Smarthistory<\/em>.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker, \"<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/pablo-picasso-les-demoiselles-davignon\/\">Pablo Picasso,\u00a0<em>Les Demoiselles d\u2019Avignon<\/em><\/a>,\" in\u00a0<em>Smarthistory<\/em>, August 9, 2015.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Dr. Peri Klemm, \"<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/the-reception-of-african-art-in-the-west\/\">The reception of African art in the West<\/a>,\" in\u00a0<em>Smarthistory<\/em>, December 20, 2016.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker, \"<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/inventing-cubism\/\">Inventing Cubism<\/a>,\" in\u00a0<em>Smarthistory<\/em>, August 9, 2015.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker, \"<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/picasso-guitar\/\">Pablo Picasso and the new language of Cubism<\/a>,\" in\u00a0<em>Smarthistory<\/em>, May 12, 2018.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Smarthistory, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/artist\/georges-braque\/\">George Braque<\/a>,\u201d in <em>Smarthistory<\/em>.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Dr. Charles Cramer and Dr. Kim Grant, \"<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/georges-braque-violin-and-palette\/\">Georges Braque,\u00a0<em>Violin and Palette<\/em><\/a>,\" in\u00a0<em>Smarthistory<\/em>, March 23, 2020.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker, \"<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/picasso-still-life-with-chair-caning\/\">Pablo Picasso,\u00a0<em>Still Life with Chair Caning<\/em><\/a>,\" in\u00a0<em>Smarthistory<\/em>, August 9, 2015.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Dr. Charles Cramer and Dr. Kim Grant, \"<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/who-created-the-first-abstract-artwork\/\">Who created the first abstract artwork?<\/a>,\" in\u00a0<em>Smarthistory<\/em>, September 28, 2019.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Dr. Charles Cramer and Dr. Kim Grant, \"<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/de-stijl-part-i-total-purity\/\">De Stijl, Part I: Total Purity<\/a>,\" in\u00a0<em>Smarthistory<\/em>, September 28, 2019.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Smarthistory, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/artist\/piet-mondrian\/\">Piet Mondrian<\/a>,\u201d in <em>Smarthistory<\/em>.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Dr. Stephanie Chadwick, \"<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/mondrian-composition-ii-in-red-blue-and-yellow\/\">Piet Mondrian,\u00a0<em>Composition with Red, Blue, and Yellow<\/em><\/a>,\" in\u00a0<em>Smarthistory<\/em>, April 27, 2016.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>","rendered":"<h2 id=\"chapter-overview-and-introduction-11\">Chapter Overview and Introduction<\/h2>\n<p>The period of Modern art occurred between 1900-1945. There are many different styles that fall under the term Modern art: Fauvism, German Expressionism, Cubism, Futurism, Abstract art, etc.\u00a0Each style has distinct characteristics; yet they share common features related to their larger historical context of the early 20<sup>th<\/sup> century. Modern art was built upon the foundations of Post-Impressionism. The color experimentations of Gauguin and van Gogh transformed into the arbitrary use of color by Matisse in Fauvism. The deconstruction of pictorial space begun by C\u00e9zanne was pushed further by Braque and Picasso in Cubism. While Post-Impressionism served as the foundation, Modern art was dramatically shaped by the cultural context of the early 20<sup>th<\/sup> century. The 20<sup>th<\/sup> century introduced new ways of thinking about science, spirituality, and how to represent the truth. In addition, in the early 20<sup>th<\/sup> century, World War I profoundly affected the way artists thought about the modern world in which they lived.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"focus-artworks-11\">Focus Artworks<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Henri Matisse,\u00a0<em>Bonheur de Vivre (Joy of Life)<\/em>, 1906, oil on canvas<\/li>\n<li>Ernst Ludwig Kirchner,\u00a0<em>Street, Dresden,<\/em>\u00a01908, oil on canvas<\/li>\n<li>Vasily Kandinsky,\u00a0<em>Improvisation 28<\/em>\u00a0(second version), 1912, oil on canvas<\/li>\n<li>Pablo Picasso,\u00a0<em>Les Demoiselles d&#8217;Avignon,\u00a0<\/em>1907, oil on canvas<\/li>\n<li>Pablo Picasso,\u00a0<em>The Guitarist<\/em>, 1910, oil on canvas,<\/li>\n<li>Georges Braque,\u00a0<em>Violin and Palette<\/em>, 1909, oil on canvas<\/li>\n<li>Pablo Picasso,\u00a0<em>Still Life with Chair Caning<\/em>, 1912, oil and oilcloth on canvas framed with rope<\/li>\n<li>Piet Mondrian,\u00a0<em>Composition with Red, Blue, and Yellow<\/em>, 1930, oil on canvas<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3 id=\"term-list-11\">Term List<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Modern Art<\/li>\n<li>Avant-garde<\/li>\n<li>Fauvism<\/li>\n<li>Fauve<\/li>\n<li>Salon d\u2019Automne<\/li>\n<li>Primitivism<\/li>\n<li>Expressionism<\/li>\n<li>Die Br\u00fccke<\/li>\n<li>Der Blaue Reiter<\/li>\n<li>Synesthesia<\/li>\n<li>Naturalism<\/li>\n<li>Linear perspective<\/li>\n<li>Foreshortening<\/li>\n<li>Multiple perspectives<\/li>\n<li>X-ray<\/li>\n<li>Spiritualism<\/li>\n<li>Cubism<\/li>\n<li>Curiosity cabinet<\/li>\n<li>Social Darwinism<\/li>\n<li>Cultural relativism<\/li>\n<li>Analytic Cubism<\/li>\n<li>Synthetic Cubism<\/li>\n<li>Collage<\/li>\n<li>Abstract<\/li>\n<li>Non-representational<\/li>\n<li>Non-objective<\/li>\n<li>De Stijl<\/li>\n<li>Neo-Plasticism<\/li>\n<li>Theosophy<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2 id=\"fauvism-an-introduction\">Fauvism, an introduction<\/h2>\n<figure style=\"width: 1296px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/Matisse_Green-Stripe_sm.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/Matisse_Green-Stripe_sm.jpeg\" alt=\"A portrait painting showcasing a woman with dark hair rendered in blue and black and a red garment with a patterned neckline. The background features bold blocks of green, orange, and pink colors, emphasizing the subject's face and attire with expressive brushstrokes.\" width=\"1296\" height=\"1632\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Henri Matisse, <em>The Green Line<\/em>, 1905, oil on canvas, 40.5 x 32.5 cm (<a href=\"https:\/\/artsandculture.google.com\/asset\/portrait-of-madame-matisse-the-green-line-henri-matisse\/pQER-gMjYy2etA?hl=en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Statens Museum for Kunst<\/a>, Copenhagen, Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Matisse_-_Green_Line.jpeg\">Wikimedia<\/a>, License: <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/publicdomain\/mark\/1.0\/\">Public Domain<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h3 id=\"distinctive-brushwork\">Distinctive brushwork<\/h3>\n<p>Fauvism developed in France to become one of the first new artistic styles of the 20th century. In contrast to the dark, vaguely disturbing nature of much fin-de-si\u00e8cle, or turn-of-the-century,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/nabis-symbolism\/\">Symbolist art<\/a>, the Fauves produced bright cheery landscapes and figure paintings, characterized by pure vivid color and bold distinctive brushwork.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"wild-beasts\">\u201cWild beasts\u201d<\/h3>\n<figure style=\"width: 805px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/Matisse_Woman-with-Hat.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/Matisse_Woman-with-Hat.jpg\" alt=\"A colorful abstract painting depicting a figure wearing a large, elaborate hat and holding a fan, created with bold brushstrokes and vibrant hues of blue, green, purple, and orange. The composition emphasizes texture and movement, with a mix of organic shapes and contrasting colors that create a dynamic visual effect.\" width=\"805\" height=\"1102\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Henri Matisse,<em> Woman with a Hat<\/em>, 1905, oil on canvas, 79.4 x 59.7 cm (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sfmoma.org\/artwork\/91.161\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">San Francisco Museum of Modern Art<\/a>, Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Matisse-Woman-with-a-Hat.jpg\">Wikimedia<\/a>, License: <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/publicdomain\/mark\/1.0\/\">Public Domain<\/a> in the United States)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>When shown at the 1905\u00a0Salon d\u2019Automne\u00a0in Paris, the contrast to traditional art was so striking it led critic Louis Vauxcelles to describe the artists as \u201cLes Fauves\u201d or \u201cwild beasts,\u201d and thus the name was born.<\/p>\n<p>One of several\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/expressionism-intro\/\">Expressionist<\/a>\u00a0movements to emerge in the early 20th century, Fauvism was short lived, and by 1910, artists in the group had diverged toward more individual interests. Nevertheless, Fauvism remains significant for it demonstrated modern art\u2019s ability to evoke intensely emotional reactions through radical visual form.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"the-expressive-potential-of-color\">The expressive potential of color<\/h3>\n<p>The best known Fauve artists include\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/henri-matisse-open-window-collioure\/\">Henri Matisse<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/andre-derain-the-dance\/\">Andr\u00e9 Derain<\/a>, and Maurice Vlaminck who pioneered its distinctive style. Their early works reveal the influence of Post-Impressionist artists, especially\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/introduction-to-neo-impressionism-part-i\/\">Neo-Impressionists<\/a>\u00a0like Paul Signac, whose interest in<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/neo-impressionist-color-theory\/\">\u00a0color\u2019s optical effects<\/a>\u00a0had led to a divisionist method of juxtaposing pure hues on canvas. The Fauves, however, lacked such scientific intent. They emphasized the expressive potential of color, employing it arbitrarily, not based on an object\u2019s natural appearance.<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 2246px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/Matisse_Calme.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/Matisse_Calme.jpg\" alt=\"A pointillist painting depicting a group of people relaxing by the water with a sailboat in the background during sunset. The scene features vibrant colors with dotted brushstrokes, highlighting figures in various poses, a tree on the right, and a colorful sky blending pink, yellow, and blue hues.\" width=\"2246\" height=\"1845\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Henri Matisse, <em>Luxe, Calme et Volupt\u00e9<\/em>, 1904, oil on canvas, 98.5 x 118.5 cm (Muse\u00e9 d\u2019Orsay, Paris; photo: <a href=\"https:\/\/flic.kr\/p\/2jRUFyG\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Steven Zucker<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-sa\/2.0\/deed.en\">CC BY-NC-SA 2.0<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>In\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/henri-matisse-luxe-calme-et-volupte\/\"><em>Luxe, calm et volupt\u00e9<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(1904), for example, Matisse employed a Pointillist style by applying paint in small dabs and dashes. Instead of the subtle blending of\u00a0complementary colors\u00a0typical of the Neo-Impressionist painter\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/georges-seurat-a-sunday-on-la-grande-jatte-1884\/\">Georges Seurat<\/a>, for example, the combination of fiery oranges, yellows, greens and purple is almost overpowering in its vibrant impact.<\/p>\n<p>Similarly, while paintings such as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.metmuseum.org\/art\/collection\/search\/490034\">Vlaminck\u2019s\u00a0<em>The River Seine at Chatou<\/em>\u00a0(1906)<\/a> appear to mimic the spontaneous, active brushwork of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/a-beginners-guide-to-impressionism\/\">Impressionism<\/a>, the Fauves adopted a painterly approach to enhance their work\u2019s emotional power, not to capture fleeting effects of color, light or atmosphere on their subjects. Their preference for landscapes, carefree figures and lighthearted subject matter reflects their desire to create an art that would appeal primarily to the viewers\u2019 senses.<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 2224px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/Matisse_Bonheur-sm.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/Matisse_Bonheur-sm.jpg\" alt=\"Outdoor landscape scene featuring several groupings of nude human figures, some dancing, some relaxing on the ground. The work uses bold colors of orange, yellow, green, and blue applied non-naturalistically to the canvas surface.\" width=\"2224\" height=\"1612\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Henri Matisse, <em>Bonheur de Vivre (Joy of Life)<\/em>, 1905\u201306, oil on canvas, 176.5 x 240.7 cm (<a href=\"https:\/\/collection.barnesfoundation.org\/objects\/7199\/Le-Bonheur-de-vivre-also-called-The-Joy-of-Life\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Barnes Foundation<\/a>, Philadelphia, Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Bonheur_Matisse.jpg\">Wikimedia<\/a>, License: <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/publicdomain\/mark\/1.0\/\">Public Domain<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Paintings such as Matisse\u2019s\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/matisse-bonheur-de-vivre\/\"><em>Bonheur de Vivre<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(1905\u201306) epitomize this goal. Bright colors and undulating lines pull our eye gently through the idyllic scene, encouraging us to imagine feeling the warmth of the sun, the cool of the grass, the soft touch of a caress, and the passion of a kiss.<\/p>\n<p>Like many modern artists, the Fauves also found inspiration in objects from Africa and other non-western\u00a0cultures. Seen through a colonialist lens, the formal distinctions of African art reflected current notions of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/primitivism-and-modern-art\/\">Primitivism<\/a>\u2014the belief that, lacking the corrupting influence of European civilization, non-western peoples were more in tune with the primal elements of nature.<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 2000px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/Matisse_Souvenir_de_Biskra.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/Matisse_Souvenir_de_Biskra.jpg\" alt=\"Painting of a reclining female nude facing the front of the picture plane with one arm above her head. The piece is strongly outlined in blue contour lines and set in a lush outdoor scene painted in tones of green and blue.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1315\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Henri Matisse, <em>The Blue Nude (Souvenir de Biskra)<\/em>, 1907, oil on canvas, 92.1 x 140.3 cm (<a href=\"https:\/\/collection.artbma.org\/objects\/37470\/blue-nude\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Baltimore Museum of Art<\/a>, Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Matisse_Souvenir_de_Biskra.jpg\">Wikimedia<\/a>, License: <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/publicdomain\/mark\/1.0\/\">Public Domain<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><em>Blue Nude (Souvenir of Biskra)<\/em>\u00a0of 1907 shows how Matisse combined his traditional subject of the female nude with the influence of primitive sources. The woman\u2019s face appears mask-like in the use of strong outlines and harsh contrasts of light and dark, and the hard lines of her body recall the angled planar surfaces common to African sculpture. This distorted effect, further heightened by her contorted pose, clearly distinguishes the figure from the idealized odalisques of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/painting-colonial-culture-ingress-la-grande-odalisque\/\">Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres<\/a>\u00a0and painters of the past.<\/p>\n<p>The Fauves\u2019 interest in Primitivism reinforced their reputation as \u201cwild beasts\u201d who sought new possibilities for art through their exploration of direct expression, impactful visual forms and instinctual appeal.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"fauvism-henri-matisse-bonheur-de-vivre-joy-of-life\">Fauvism: Henri Matisse,\u00a0<em>Bonheur de Vivre (Joy of Life)<\/em><\/h2>\n<figure style=\"width: 2224px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/Matisse_Bonheur-sm.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/Matisse_Bonheur-sm.jpg\" alt=\"Outdoor landscape scene featuring several groupings of nude human figures, some dancing, some relaxing on the ground. The work uses bold colors of orange, yellow, green, and blue applied non-naturalistically to the canvas surface.\" width=\"2224\" height=\"1612\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Henri Matisse, <em>Bonheur de Vivre (Joy of Life)<\/em>, 1906, oil on canvas, 175 x 241 cm (<a href=\"https:\/\/collection.barnesfoundation.org\/objects\/7199\/Le-Bonheur-de-vivre-also-called-The-Joy-of-Life\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Barnes Foundation<\/a>, Philadelphia, Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Bonheur_Matisse.jpg\">Wikimedia<\/a>, License: <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/publicdomain\/mark\/1.0\/\">Public Domain<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h3 id=\"the-joy-of-life\">The Joy of Life<\/h3>\n<p>In 1906,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/henri-matisse-open-window-collioure\/\">Henri Matisse<\/a>\u00a0finished what is often considered his greatest\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/a-beginners-guide-to-fauvism\/\">Fauve<\/a>\u00a0painting, the\u00a0<em>Bonheur de Vivre<\/em>, or the \u201c<em>Joy of Life.<\/em>\u201d It is a large-scale painting depicting an\u00a0Arcadian\u00a0landscape filled with brilliantly colored forest, meadow, sea, and sky and populated by nude figures both at rest and in motion. As with the earlier Fauve canvases, color is responsive only to emotional expression and the formal needs of the canvas, not the realities of nature. The references are many, but in form and date,\u00a0<em>Bonheur de Vivre<\/em>\u00a0is closest to\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/paul-cezanne-the-large-bathers\/\">Paul C\u00e9zanne<\/a>\u2019s last great image of bathers.<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 1225px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/image324.jpeg\" alt=\"Scene of female nude bathers in the foreground rendered in choppy brushstrokes set in front of a river, trees, and a city-scape in the background. Muted tones of tan, gold, blue, and green are used.\" width=\"1225\" height=\"1024\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Paul C\u00e9zanne, <em>The Large Bathers<\/em>, 1900\u201306, oil on canvas, 210.5 x 250.8 cm (<a href=\"https:\/\/philamuseum.org\/collection\/object\/104464\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Philadelphia Museum of Art<\/a>, Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/File:Paul_C%C3%A9zanne,_French_-_The_Large_Bathers_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg\">Wikimedia<\/a>, License: <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/publicdomain\/mark\/1.0\/\">Public Domain<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h3 id=\"matisse-and-his-sources\">Matisse and his sources<\/h3>\n<p>Like C\u00e9zanne, Matisse constructs the landscape so that it functions as a stage. In both works trees are planted at the sides and in the far distance, and their upper boughs are spread apart like curtains, highlighting the figures lounging beneath. And like C\u00e9zanne, Matisse unifies the figures and the landscape. C\u00e9zanne does this by stiffening and tilting his trunk-like figures. In Matisse\u2019s work, the serpentine arabesques that define the contours of the women are heavily emphasized, and then reiterated in the curvilinear lines of the trees.<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 1431px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/image325.jpeg\" alt=\"Ingres, La Grande Odalisque, painting featuring a reclining female nude viewed from the backside. The elongated figure wears fabric wrapped around her head and holds a peacock feather duster while looking out at the viewer.\" width=\"1431\" height=\"797\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, <em>La Grande Odalisque<\/em>, 1814, oil on canvas, 91 x 162 cm (Louvre, Paris; <a href=\"https:\/\/flic.kr\/p\/2kGBiVF\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Steven Zucker<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-sa\/2.0\/deed.en\">CC BY-NC-SA 2.0<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Matisse creates wildly sensual figures in\u00a0<em>Bonheur de Vivre<\/em>, which show how he was clearly informed by\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/ingres-napoleon-on-his-imperial-throne\/\">Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres<\/a>\u2019s odalisques and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/staging-egyptian-harem-western-eyes\/\">harem fantasies<\/a>. Additionally, Matisse references\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/titian-diana-and-actaeon\/\">Titian<\/a>. For like Titian\u2019s<em>\u00a0Bacchanal of the Andrians<\/em>, the scene depicted in<em>\u00a0Bonheur de Vivre<\/em>\u00a0is an expression of pure pleasure. Here is a place full of life and love and free from want or fear. Instead of a contemporary scene in a park, on the banks of the Seine, or other recognizable places in nature, Matisse has returned to mythic paradise.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"radicalism-or-how-to-color-outside-the-lines\">Radicalism, or how to color outside the lines<\/h3>\n<p>But do not be misled by his interest in myth\u2014Matisse is not joining in with\u00a0William-Adolphe Bouguereau\u00a0or any other\u00a0Salon\u00a0artist. This is the epitome of Fauvism, a radical new approach that incorporate purely expressive, bright, clear colors and wildly sensual forms. Matisse\u2019s paintings are perhaps the first canvas to clearly understand C\u00e9zanne\u2019s great formal challenge, and to actually further the elder master\u2019s ideas. In fact, despite its languid poses,\u00a0<em>Bonheur de Vivre<\/em>\u00a0was regarded as the most radical painting of its day. Because of this, Matisse became known, briefly, as the most daring painter in Paris.<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 2224px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/d_.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/d_.jpg\" alt=\"Figures in the foreground (detail), Henri Matisse, Bonheur de Vivre (Joy of Life), Outdoor landscape scene featuring several groupings of nude human figure with, some relaxing on the ground. The work uses bold colors of orange, yellow, green, and blue applied non-naturalistically to the canvas surface\" width=\"2224\" height=\"649\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Figures in the foreground (detail), Henri Matisse, <em>Bonheur de Vivre (Joy of Life)<\/em>, 1905\u201306, oil on canvas, 176.5 x 240.7 cm (<a href=\"https:\/\/collection.barnesfoundation.org\/objects\/7199\/Le-Bonheur-de-vivre-also-called-The-Joy-of-Life\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Barnes Foundation<\/a>, Philadelphia, Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Bonheur_Matisse.jpg\">Wikimedia<\/a>, License: <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/publicdomain\/mark\/1.0\/\">Public Domain<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>So what was daring about this canvas? Here is one key issue: unlike the paintings by C\u00e9zanne, Ingres, or Titian, Matisse\u2019s work does not depict forms that recede in the background and diminish in scale. If you study the figures in the foreground and the middle ground of<em>\u00a0Bonheur de Vivre<\/em>, you will notice that their scale is badly skewed. The shift of scale between the player of the double flute (bottom center) and the smooching couple (bottom right) is plausible, if we take the musician to be a child, but what of the giants just behind them? Compared to the figures standing in the wings, who are obviously mature women (middle ground left), these center women are of enormous proportion. They are simply too big to make sense of within the traditional conventions of\u00a0Western\u00a0painting.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"perspective-patronage-and-picasso\">Perspective, patronage and Picasso<\/h3>\n<p>So why has Matisse done this? How could these shifts of scale make sense? Have we seen anything like this before? Well, in a sense we have. C\u00e9zanne\u2019s painting ruptured forms in order to accurately explore vision as experienced through time and space\u2014in other words, forms look different depending on where we are in relation to them.<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 1122px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/image327.jpeg\" alt=\"Figures in the foreground (detail), Henri Matisse, Bonheur de Vivre (Joy of Life), Outdoor landscape scene featuring several groupings of nude human figure with, some relaxing on the ground and others dancing in a circle. The work uses bold colors of orange, yellow, green, and blue applied non-naturalistically to the canvas surface\" width=\"1122\" height=\"546\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Figures from shifting perspectives (detail), Henri Matisse, <em>Bonheur de Vivre (Joy of Life)<\/em>, 1905\u201306, oil on canvas, 176.5 x 240.7 cm (<a href=\"https:\/\/collection.barnesfoundation.org\/objects\/7199\/Le-Bonheur-de-vivre-also-called-The-Joy-of-Life\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Barnes Foundation<\/a>, Philadelphia, Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Bonheur_Matisse.jpg\">Wikimedia<\/a>, License: <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/publicdomain\/mark\/1.0\/\">Public Domain<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>In fact, this exploration of vision through space is the key to understanding Matisse\u2019s work. By incorporating shifting perspectives, he brought this idea to a grand scale. Put simply, Matisse\u2019s shifting scale is actually the result of our changing position vis-\u00e0-vis the figures. As a result of his experimentation with perspective, the viewer relates differently to the painting and is required to \u201center\u201d the scene. It is only from the varied perspectives within this landscape that the abrupt ruptures of scale make sense.<\/p>\n<p>The painting was purchased by a wealthy expatriate American writer-poet named\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/picasso-portrait-of-gertrude-stein\/\">Gertrude Stein<\/a>\u00a0and her brother, Leo Stein, who shared a home filled with modern art at 27 Rue de Fleurus, in Paris. This was also the location for Gertrude Stein\u2019s weekly salon. Here, Matisse,\u00a0Guillaume Apollinaire, the young and largely unknown\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/picassos-early-work\/\">Pablo Picasso<\/a>\u00a0and other members of the avant-garde came together to exchange ideas.<\/p>\n<p>Stein was able to attract such a crowd not only because of her literary skills but because she often provided financial support to these nearly destitute artists. In fact, the Steins bought Matisse\u2019s\u00a0<em>Bonheur de Vivre soon<\/em>\u00a0after its completion and hung it in their dining room for all to see. One person who saw it there was Picasso. By all accounts the painting\u2019s fame was too much for the terribly competitive young Spaniard. He determined to out do Matisse, and he did with his 1907 canvas,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/pablo-picasso-les-demoiselles-davignon\/\"><em>Les Demoiselles d\u2019Avignon<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Picasso turned Matisse\u2019s sensuality into violent pornography. Matisse in turn responds to the challenge of what was then called \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/primitivism-and-modern-art\/\">primitivism<\/a>\u201d with his own brand of aggression in his\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/Matisse_Souvenir_de_Biskra.jpg\"><em>Blue Nude<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"expressionism-an-introduction\">Expressionism, an introduction<\/h2>\n<figure style=\"width: 700px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/kirchnerrecliningnudeinfrontof-mirror.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/kirchnerrecliningnudeinfrontof-mirror.jpg\" alt=\"Ernst Ludwig Kirchner,\u00a0Reclining Nude in Front of Mirror, painted in bright harsh tones of green, orange, red, and blue. The figure lies on her stomach while her reflection shows from a different perspective.\" width=\"700\" height=\"613\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, <em>Reclining Nude in Front of Mirror<\/em>, 1909-1910, oil on canvas, 83.3 x 95.5 cm (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bruecke-museum.de\/en\/sammlung\/werke\/61616\/liegender-akt-vor-spiegel\">Br\u00fccke-Museum, Berlin<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/4.0\/legalcode.de\">License: CC-BY-SA 4.0<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Imagine a painting where the magentas\u00a0scream, the greens\u00a0glare, and\u00a0coarse\u00a0brushstrokes become\u00a0more ominous the longer you look at them. Paintings like this, where the artist uses color, line, and visible techniques to evoke powerful responses from the viewer date from the early twentieth century but continue expressive traditions\u00a0that can be\u00a0found throughout art\u2019s history (see, for example,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/smarthistory.org\/goya-saturn-devouring-one-of-his-sons\/\">work<\/a>\u00a0by Francisco Goya). When capitalized as \u201cExpressionism,\u201d however, the term refers more specifically to an artistic tendency that became popular throughout Europe in the early twentieth century. Like many categories in art history, Expressionism was not a name coined by artists themselves. It first emerged around 1910 as a way to classify art that shared common stylistic traits and seemed to emphasize emotional impact over descriptive accuracy. For this reason, artists like\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/smarthistory.org\/munch-the-scream\/\">Edvard Munch<\/a>\u00a0straddle the line between\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/smarthistory.org\/gauguin-spirit-of-the-dead-watching\/\">Post-Impressionist developments<\/a>\u00a0in late 19th century painting and early 20th century Expressionism. Likewise, the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/smarthistory.org\/a-beginners-guide-to-fauvism\/\">Fauves<\/a>\u00a0in France exhibited similar characteristics in their work and are often linked to Expressionism.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"expressionism-in-germany\">Expressionism in Germany<\/h3>\n<p>Though many artists of the early twentieth century can accurately be called Expressionists, two groups that developed in Germany, Die Br\u00fccke (The Bridge) and Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider), are among the best known and help to define the style. Influenced in part by the spiritual interests of\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/smarthistory.org\/a-beginners-guide-to-romanticism\/\">Romanticism<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/smarthistory.org\/khnopff-i-lock-my-door-upon-myself\/\">Symbolism<\/a>, these artists moved further from the idealized\u00a0figures and smooth surface\u00a0of 19th century academic painting that can be seen in paintings by\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/smarthistory.org\/alma-tadema-listening-to-homer\/\">Lawrence Alma-Tadema<\/a>, for example. Instead of depicting the visible exterior of their subjects, they sought to express profound emotional experience through their art. German Expressionists, like other European artists of the time, found inspiration in so-called \u201cprimitive\u201d sources that included African art, as well as European medieval and folk art and others untrained in Western artistic traditions. For the Expressionists, these sources offered alternatives to established conventions of European art and suggested a more authentic creative\u00a0impulse.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"die-br\u00fccke\">Die Br\u00fccke<\/h3>\n<p>In 1905, four young artists working in Dresden and Berlin, joined together, calling themselves Die Br\u00fccke (The Bridge). Led by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, the group wanted to create a radical art that could speak to modern audiences, which they characterized as young, vital, and urban. Drawn from the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche, the nineteenth-century German\u00a0philosopher, the name \u201cDie Br\u00fccke\u201d describes their desire to serve as a bridge from the present to the future. While each artist had his own personal style, Die Br\u00fccke art is characterized by bright, often arbitrary colors and a \u201cprimitive\u201d aesthetic, inspired by both African and European medieval art. Their work often addressed modern urban themes of alienation and anxiety, and sexually charged themes\u00a0in their depictions\u00a0of the female nude.<\/p>\n<p>Their\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.tate.org.uk\/context-comment\/articles\/everything-illuminated\">first exhibition<\/a>\u00a0was held in the showroom of a lamp factory in Dresden in 1906 for which they published a program of woodcut prints reflecting their interest in earlier traditions of German art. In the introductory broadsheet (above left), Kirchner made clear the group\u2019s revolutionary intentions. He proclaimed,<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWith faith in progress and in a new generation of creators and spectators we call together all youth. As youth, we carry the future and want to create for ourselves freedom of life and of movement against the long established older forces.\u201d<sup>1<\/sup><\/p>\n<p>This optimism was not long-lived. Internal squabbling caused the group to dissolve in 1913 just prior to\u00a0the start of the First World War.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"der-blaue-reiter\">Der Blaue Reiter<\/h3>\n<figure style=\"width: 688px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/smarthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/bra.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/image331.jpeg\" alt=\"A vintage poster-style illustration featuring a stylized blue and black figure on horseback with bold, blocky text reading &quot;Der Blaue Reiter&quot; on a beige background. The composition uses strong contrasts and abstract shapes to emphasize the artistic movement associated with German Expressionism.\" width=\"688\" height=\"895\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Vasily Kandinsky, Cover of <em>Der Blaue Reiter Almanac<\/em>, Piper Verlag, Munich, 1912 (Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:BlaueReiter.jpg\">Wikimedia<\/a>, License: <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/publicdomain\/mark\/1.0\/\">Public Domain<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Based in the German city of Munich, the group known as Der Blaue Reiter lasted only from their first exhibition at the Galerie Thannhausen in 1911 to\u00a0the outbreak of World War I in 1914. Created as an alternative to Kandinsky\u2019s previous group, the more conservative\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.oxfordreference.com\/view\/10.1093\/oi\/authority.20110803100229747\">Neuen K\u00fcnstlervereinigung M\u00fcnchen<\/a>\u00a0(New Artists Association of Munich or NKVM), Die Blaue Reiter took its name from the motif of a horse and rider, often used by founding member Vasily Kandinsky.<\/p>\n<p>This motif\u00a0appeared on the cover of the\u00a0<em>Blue Rider Almanac<\/em>\u00a0(left), published in May 1912, and reflects Kandinsky\u2019s interest in medieval traditions and the folk art of his Russian homeland. In contrast to Die Br\u00fccke, whose subjects were physical and direct, Kandinsky and other Die Blaue Reiter artists explored the spiritual in their art, which often included symbolism and allusions to ethereal concerns. They thought these ideas could be communicated directly through formal elements of color and line, that, like music, could evoke an emotional response in the viewer. Conceived by Kandinsky and Franz Marc, the almanac included essays by themselves and other German and Russian artists, musical compositions by Expressionist composers, such as Arnold Sch\u00f6nberg, and Kandinsky\u2019s experimental theater piece, \u201cDer gelbe Klang\u201d (The Yellow Sound). This range of content shows Der Blaue Reiter\u2019s efforts to provide a philosophical approach not just for the visual arts, but for\u00a0culture more broadly. These ideas would become more fully developed at the Bauhaus where Kandinsky taught after the war (Marc died during the\u00a0Battle of Verdun in 1916).<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"austrian-expressionism\">Austrian Expressionism<\/h3>\n<p>While the Die Br\u00fccke and Der Blaue Reiter groups had\u00a0relatively defined memberships, Expressionist artists also worked independently. In Vienna, Oskar Kokoschka and Egon Schiele stand out for paintings that show intense, often violent feeling and for their efforts to represent deeper psychological meaning.<\/p>\n<p>In the aftermath of the First World War, many artists in Germany felt that the forceful emotional style of Expressionism that had been so progressive before the war but had become less\u00a0appropriate.\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/smarthistory.org\/christian-schad-self-portrait\/\">Neue Sachlichkeit<\/a>\u00a0(New Objectivity) arose as a direct response to pre-war stylistic excess.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"die-br\u00fccke-expressionism-ernst-ludwig-kirchner-street-dresden\">Die Br\u00fccke Expressionism: Ernst Ludwig Kirchner,\u00a0<em>Street, Dresden<\/em><\/h2>\n<p>Best known as a painter and printmaker, Kirchner was a founder of Die Br\u00fccke whose work focused on the expression of urban anxiety and confusion.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" id=\"oembed-1\" title=\"Kirchner, Street, Dresden\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/zfZu--psur8?feature=oembed&#38;rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h2 id=\"der-blaue-reiter-expressionism-and-abstract-art-vasily-kandinsky-improvisation-28\">Der Blaue Reiter Expressionism and Abstract Art: Vasily Kandinsky,\u00a0<em>Improvisation 28<\/em><\/h2>\n<p>A Russian-born artist active in Germany, Kandinsky was a member of The Blue Rider and a Bauhaus instructor whose color theory was highly influential. What would this painting sound like? Yes, you read that right\u2014this canvas blurs the lines between senses.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" id=\"oembed-2\" title=\"Kandinsky, Improvisation 28 (second version), 1912\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Sa3FyvaKYVw?feature=oembed&#38;rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h2 id=\"modern-art-and-reality\">Modern art and reality<\/h2>\n<p>If asked, most people would probably say that modern art is not true to reality. Indeed, modern art is practically defined by its bizarre distortions of reality; this is one reason why Norman Rockwell, whose work is more recent than Umberto Boccioni\u2019s, is not considered a modern artist. But looking like reality \u2014 what art historians call \u201cnaturalism\u201d \u2014 is only one way of being true to reality. As we shall see, the attempt to create art that was more true to reality than traditional naturalism was the motivation for some of the most radical modern art, even including <a href=\"https:\/\/www.moma.org\/collection\/works\/78648\">Boccioni\u2019s\u00a0<em>States of Mind: The Farewells<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"impressionism-and-optical-realism\">Impressionism and optical realism<\/h3>\n<p>When the Impressionist style first appeared on the art scene of the 1870s, many hostile viewers dismissed it as art by \u201clunatics\u201d whose color perception was questionable and who did not have the technical skills to properly finish their paintings. Some critics claimed, however, that Impressionist paintings were more accurate than traditional naturalistic representations.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/impressionism-optical-realism-monet\/\">Their argument<\/a>\u00a0was that the Impressionists represented their perception of objects rather than the objects themselves, and that the colors we perceive are often not identical to an object\u2019s actual or \u201clocal\u201d color.<\/p>\n<p>In the 1890s, Monet created dozens of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/monet-rouen-cathedral-series\/\">paintings of Rouen Cathedral<\/a> at different times of day and in different weather. At dawn, the cathedral was tinged with blue light; in the late-afternoon, it was radiant with oranges and yellows; while on cloudy days it was a duller grayish tan. By recording how the appearances of objects are affected by different lighting conditions, the Impressionists argued that their paintings were more accurate representations of the way we see the world. What appears at first sight to be a radically unrealistic style is in fact more true to the way things actually look.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"discarding-artificial-conventions\">Discarding artificial conventions<\/h3>\n<p>The Impressionists recognized that much traditional art was accepted as true to reality only because it was familiar, not because it was accurate. For example, methods of composition taught in Academies tended to emphasize a central focus, equal balance on both sides, and a clear depiction of spatial recession, as in David\u2019s\u00a0<em>Oath of the Horatii<\/em>. Such compositions are, in fact, very artificially staged. When we move through the world, we are more likely to encounter scenes like the one represented in Degas\u2019s\u00a0<em>The Race Track<\/em>: awkwardly unbalanced, abruptly cropped, and spatially ambiguous. Critics who supported the Impressionists argued that artists like Degas were correcting artificial conventions and making art more true to reality.<\/p>\n<p>Although the Impressionist style was new, this form of argument was not. In the sixteenth century artists and critics tried to draw a distinction between a true naturalism and a false naturalism (often derogatorily called \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/a-beginners-guide-to-mannerism\/\">Mannerism<\/a>\u201c). False naturalism involved copying the work of other artists, and thus understanding nature only at second hand. The solution, some felt, was to discard the conventions of art and return to a more careful study of the original source, nature itself, just as the Impressionists did.<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 1516px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/David-Degas.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/David-Degas.jpg\" alt=\"Two paintings are shown, one above the other. The top painting depicts a dramatic historical scene with Roman soldiers and a man in a red cloak holding swords, while the bottom painting shows a lively horse race with jockeys on horseback and spectators near a yellow carriage.\" width=\"1516\" height=\"2445\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Top: Jacques-Louis David, <em>Oath of the Horatii<\/em>, 1784, oil on canvas, 3.3 x 4.25 m (Mus\u00e9e du Louvre, Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:David-Oath_of_the_Horatii-1784.jpg\">Wikimedia<\/a>, License: <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/publicdomain\/mark\/1.0\/\">Public Domain<\/a>); Bottom: Edgar Degas,\u00a0<em>The Race Track: Amateur Jockeys near a Carriage<\/em>, between 1876 and 1887, oil on canvas, 66\u00a0\u00d7\u00a081 cm (Mus\u00e9e d\u2019Orsay, Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Edgar_Degas_-_Le_Champ_de_courses._Jockeys_amateurs_pr%C3%A8s_d%27une_voiture.jpg\">Wikimedia<\/a>, License: <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/publicdomain\/mark\/1.0\/\">Public Domain<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h3 id=\"is-naturalism-true-to-nature\">Is naturalism true to nature?<\/h3>\n<p>Impressionist artists sought greater truth to nature through more careful observation, but there is a sense in which our eyes inevitably distort the objects they perceive. Three ways they do so are embodied in the artistic techniques of linear perspective, diminution, and foreshortening.<\/p>\n<p>In\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/linear-perspective-explained\/\">linear perspective<\/a>, what are actually parallel lines in real life (such as railroad tracks or the edges of floor tiles) converge in the representation. This effect, seen above in the Saenredam painting of a church interior, is integral to what is popularly considered a realistic style, but it is obviously not true to reality. Each of the tiles on the floor is in fact square. Similarly, with diminution, objects appear to get smaller the farther away they are, but this is just an optical trick; each of those windows is in reality the same size.<\/p>\n<p>Foreshortening occurs when we view an object from an angle at which it recedes away from us, so that the object appears to be contracted, shorter than its actual length. In the Academic figure study above on the right, the two thighs appear to be of different lengths and shapes simply because one is viewed parallel to the picture plane while the other is receding sharply away from it. In actual reality, of course, both thighs are very similar (mirror images) in length and shape.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"correcting-for-perceptual-distortion\">Correcting for perceptual distortion<\/h3>\n<p>The style we colloquially call \u201crealistic\u201d is not literally true to reality, then. It is only a record of our perception of reality, from one angle, at one distance, at one moment in time, and in one kind of light, and all of these factors can distort the object. Some Modern art movements sought a representational system that would be more accurate to the true shapes of objects, rather than representing them deformed by perception.<\/p>\n<p>Cubist paintings seem at first sight to be even more bizarrely distorted and unrealistic than Impressionist paintings. In the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/salon-cubism\/\">Salon Cubist<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.philamuseum.org\/objects\/51056\">Jean Metzinger\u2019s\u00a0<em>Le Go\u00fbter<\/em><\/a>, objects appear to be twisted and broken up, but this is done in order to correct the distortions of perspective and foreshortening. Metzinger shows things from\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/cubism-and-multiple-perspectives\/\">multiple perspectives<\/a>\u00a0so we can better understand their true shapes. The left side of the tea cup on the table is seen from the side at eye level, but from that angle you wouldn\u2019t be able to tell that the cup has a round opening, so the right side is seen from above to complete our understanding of the round lip and concave shape of the cup. Similarly, one of the woman\u2019s eyes is viewed in profile, while the other is seen facing us, and her left shoulder is seen from above, while the right is more straight on. Cubism doesn\u2019t \u201cdistort\u201d objects; it shows them from multiple angles in order to give us more information about their true shapes than would be visible in traditional naturalistic representation.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"modernism-and-science\">Modernism and science<\/h3>\n<p>Another way of justifying the apparent distortions of modern art came in the form of appeals to science. Modern science provided a stream of new images that sparked artists\u2019 imaginations, as well as new theories that radically altered people\u2019s understanding of reality.<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 1468px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Rontgen-Marey.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/Rontgen-Marey.jpg\" alt=\"A split photograph showing an X-ray of a hand with a ring on the middle finger on the left, and a series of sequential motion study images of a walking figure on the right. The right section features three horizontal rows of white, stylized human figures and motion lines against a dark background, illustrating phases of movement and mechanical motion patterns.\" width=\"1468\" height=\"915\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Left: Wilhelm R\u00f6ntgen, X-ray photograph of the hand of Albert von K\u00f6lliker, from Eine Neue Art von Strahlen (W\u00fcrzburg, 1895, Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:X-ray_by_Wilhelm_R%C3%B6ntgen_of_Albert_von_K%C3%B6lliker%27s_hand_-_18960123-02.jpg\">Wikimedia<\/a>, License: <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/publicdomain\/mark\/1.0\/\">Public Domain<\/a>); Right: \u00c9tienne-Jules Marey, photographs showing human locomotion, c. 1895<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Beginning in the seventeenth century, new technologies based on the use of optical lenses provided evidence of microscopic and macroscopic worlds hitherto unsuspected. The discovery of wavelengths beyond the visible spectrum, including infrared and ultraviolet light as well as x-rays, gamma rays, and radio waves, made it clear that the human senses are very limited instruments for understanding the objective world. The visual culture of modern science provided new ways of representing and understanding reality. Stop-motion photography made rapid actions visible for study, and x-ray photography allowed peeks into the interior of solid forms, resulting in visions of reality beyond traditional naturalism.<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 2000px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/image340.png\" alt=\"Diagram of electromagnetic spectrum showing frequency increasing from right to left and wavelength increasing from left to right, with labeled regions including gamma rays, X-rays, UV, visible spectrum, IR, microwave, FM and AM radio waves, and long radio waves. A zoomed-in section highlights visible spectrum colors from violet (380 nm) to red (750 nm) with corresponding wavelength values and color-coded gradient.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1070\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Diagram of the electromagnetic spectrum (image: <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:EM_spectrumrevised.png\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Philip Ronan, Gringer<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/3.0\/deed.en\">CC BY-SA 3.0<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>One work that attempted to represent this new super-sensory reality was\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/italian-futurism-an-introduction\/\">Italian Futurist<\/a>\u00a0Umberto Boccioni\u2019s\u00a0<em>States of Mind: The Farewells<\/em>\u00a0(1911). The only clearly legible feature in the painting is the number 6943 stenciled on what we gradually discern is the engine of a dark-gray train engine spewing steam in a station. The train is represented, Cubist-fashion, from multiple perspectives. The nose cone is in profile, while the body of the train recedes in a zig-zag toward the upper right then upper center of the canvas. In front of the train in green are a series of a couples saying goodbye (their two heads and embracing arms are clearest in the lower left) \u2014 or perhaps they are one couple, viewed multiple times in the manner of stop-action photography in order to show motion through time.<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 2000px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Boccioni-Farewells.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/Boccioni-Farewells.jpg\" alt=\"Abstract painting depicting a dynamic steam locomotive numbered 6943 surrounded by swirling green and red shapes suggesting motion and energy. The composition uses bold, fragmented forms and vibrant colors to convey industrial power and speed.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1469\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Umberto Boccioni,<em> States of Mind: The Farewells<\/em>, 1911, oil on canvas, 70.5 x 96.2 cm (MoMA, Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:States_of_Mind-_The_Farewells_by_Umberto_Boccioni,_1911.jpeg\">Wikimedia<\/a>, License: <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/publicdomain\/mark\/1.0\/\">Public Domain<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Two truss structures on the left suggest the radio towers that were constructed across Europe in the first decades of the twentieth century after the Italian Guglielmo Marconi harnessed radio waves for wireless communication. Correspondingly, the remainder of the composition is permeated with wave-forms in bright colors to suggest their high energy. Many forms of electromagnetic energy such as radio waves are invisible to the eye, but nonetheless permeate the world. Altogether, the work makes visible the new understanding of nature achieved by modern physics and presents a glimpse of reality beyond the limitations of the human senses.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"italian-futurism-an-introduction\">Italian Futurism, an introduction<\/h3>\n<figure id=\"attachment_3513\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3513\" style=\"width: 240px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-3513 size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/07\/Picture1-240x300.jpg\" alt=\"Photograph of an abstract bronze sculpture depicting a dynamic, fragmented human figure in motion, mounted on a wooden pedestal. The sculpture features angular, flowing shapes and exaggerated limbs, emphasizing movement and energy in a Futurist style.\" width=\"240\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/07\/Picture1-240x300.jpg 240w, https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/07\/Picture1-819x1024.jpg 819w, https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/07\/Picture1-768x960.jpg 768w, https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/07\/Picture1-65x81.jpg 65w, https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/07\/Picture1-225x281.jpg 225w, https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/07\/Picture1-350x438.jpg 350w, https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/07\/Picture1.jpg 975w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 240px) 100vw, 240px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-3513\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Umberto Boccioni, <em>Unique Forms of Continuity in Space<\/em>, 1913 (cast 1931), bronze, 43 7\/8 x 34 7\/8 x 15 3\/4\u2033 (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.moma.org\/collection\/works\/81179\">Museum of Modern Art, New York<\/a>, Image Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.metmuseum.org\/art\/collection\/search\/485540\">The Metropolitan Museum of Art<\/a>, License: <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/publicdomain\/mark\/1.0\/\">Public Domain<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Can you imagine being so enthusiastic about technology that you name your daughter Propeller? Today we take most technological advances for granted, but at the turn of the last century, innovations like electricity, x-rays, radio waves, automobiles and airplanes were extremely exciting. Italy lagged Britain, France, Germany, and the United States in the pace of its industrial development. Culturally speaking, the country\u2019s artistic reputation was grounded in Ancient, Renaissance and Baroque art and culture. Simply put, Italy represented the past.<\/p>\n<p>In the early 1900s, a group of young and rebellious Italian writers and artists emerged determined to celebrate industrialization. They were frustrated by Italy\u2019s declining status and believed that the \u201cMachine Age\u201d would result in an entirely new world order and even a renewed consciousness.<\/p>\n<p>Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, the ringleader of this group, called the movement Futurism. Its members sought to capture the idea of modernity, the sensations and aesthetics of speed, movement, and industrial development.<\/p>\n<h4 id=\"a-manifesto\">A manifesto<\/h4>\n<figure style=\"width: 297px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/image343.jpeg\" alt=\"A cubist-style painting depicting a seated figure with hands clasped, composed of fragmented geometric shapes and overlapping planes in warm tones of red, orange, and yellow contrasted with cooler blues and grays. The artwork emphasizes angular forms and dynamic composition, creating a sense of depth and complexity around the central figure.\" width=\"297\" height=\"450\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Umberto Boccioni, Materia, 1912 (reworked 1913), oil on canvas, 226 x 150 cm (Mattioli Collection loaned to Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/User:Zio27\">Zio27<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Boccioni_materia_1912.jpg\">Wikimedia<\/a>, This work is in the <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/publicdomain\/mark\/1.0\/\">Public Domain<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Marinetti launched Futurism in 1909 with the publication his \u201cFuturist manifesto\u201d on the front page of the French newspaper\u00a0<em>Le Figaro.<\/em>\u00a0The manifesto set a fiery tone. In it Marinetti lashed out against cultural tradition (passatismo, in Italian) and called for the destruction of museums, libraries, and feminism. Futurism quickly grew into an international movement and its participants issued additional manifestos for nearly every type of art: painting, sculpture, architecture, music, photography, cinema\u2014even clothing.<\/p>\n<p>The Futurist painters\u2014Umberto Boccioni, Carlo Carr\u00e0, Luigi Russolo, Gino Severini, and Giacomo Balla\u2014signed their first manifesto in 1910 (the last named his daughter Elica\u2014Propeller!). Futurist painting had first looked to the color and the optical experiments of the late 19th century, but in the fall of 1911, Marinetti and the Futurist painters visited the Salon d\u2019Automne in Paris and saw Cubism in person for the first time. Cubism had an immediate impact that can be seen in Boccioni\u2019s<em>\u00a0Materia<\/em>\u00a0of 1912 for example. Nevertheless, the Futurists declared their work to be completely original.<\/p>\n<h4 id=\"dynamism-of-bodies-in-motion\">Dynamism of Bodies in Motion<\/h4>\n<p>The Futurists were particularly excited by the works of late 19th-century scientist and photographer \u00c9tienne-Jules Marey, whose chronophotographic (time-based) studies depicted the mechanics of animal and human movement.<\/p>\n<p>A precursor to cinema, Marey\u2019s innovative experiments with time-lapse photography were especially influential for Balla. In his painting <a href=\"https:\/\/buffaloakg.org\/artworks\/196416-dinamismo-di-un-cane-al-guinzaglio-dynamism-dog-leash\"><em>Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash<\/em><\/a>, the artist playfully renders the dog\u2019s (and dog walker\u2019s) feet as continuous movements through space over time.<\/p>\n<p>Entranced by the idea of the \u201cdynamic,\u201d the Futurists sought to represent an object\u2019s sensations, rhythms and movements in their images, poems and manifestos. Such characteristics are beautifully expressed in Boccioni\u2019s most iconic masterpiece,<em>\u00a0Unique Forms of Continuity in Space<\/em>\u00a0(see above).<\/p>\n<p>The choice of shiny bronze lends a mechanized quality to Boccioni\u2019s sculpture, so here is the Futurists\u2019 ideal combination of human and machine. The figure\u2019s pose is at once graceful and forceful, and despite their adamant rejection of classical arts, it is also very similar to the\u00a0<em>Nike of Samothrace<\/em>.<\/p>\n<h4 id=\"politics-war\">Politics &amp; War<\/h4>\n<p>Futurism was one of the most politicized art movements of the twentieth century. It merged artistic and political agendas in order to propel change in Italy and across Europe. The Futurists would hold what they called serate futuriste, or Futurist evenings, where they would recite poems and display art, while also shouting politically charged rhetoric at the audience in the hope of inciting riot. They believed that agitation and destruction would end the status quo and allow for the regeneration of a stronger, energized Italy.<\/p>\n<p>These positions led the Futurists to support the coming war, and like most of the group\u2019s members, leading painter Boccioni enlisted in the army during World War I. He was trampled to death after falling from a horse during training. After the war, the members\u2019 intense nationalism led to an alliance with Benito Mussolini and his National Fascist Party. Although Futurism continued to develop new areas of focus (aeropittura, for example) and attracted new members\u2014the so-called \u201csecond generation\u201d of Futurist artists\u2014the movement\u2019s strong ties to Fascism has complicated the study of this historically significant art.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"modernism-and-spiritualism\">Modernism and spiritualism<\/h3>\n<p>Modern artists\u2019 quest for truth to realities beyond human perception was also influenced by the explicitly non-scientific approaches of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/abstract-art-and-theosophy\/\">spiritualism<\/a>. Although spiritual visions and discoveries are often seen as subjective, many modern artists saw them as revealing objective truths. They claimed their depictions of these discoveries were glimpses of a higher reality than that available to the human senses.<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 2053px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/af-klint-mondrian.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/af-klint-mondrian.jpg\" alt=\"Two abstract paintings are shown side by side: the left features a pyramid with a circular sunburst at the top, displaying a gradient of colors from red to blue against a black background. The right presents a geometric composition with a white background, black grid lines, and primary color blocks in red, blue, and yellow, exemplifying De Stijl style.\" width=\"2053\" height=\"1152\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Left: Hilma af Klint, <em>Group X, No. 1, Altarpiece (Altarbild)<\/em>, 1915. Oil and metal leaf on canvas, 93 1\/2 x 70 11\/16 inches (237.5 x 179.5 cm) (The Hilma af Klint Foundation, Stockholm. Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Hilma_af_Klint_-_1907_-_Altarpiece_-_No_1_-_Group_X_-_Altarpieces.jpg\">Wikimedia<\/a>, License: <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Hilma_af_Klint_-_1907_-_Altarpiece_-_No_1_-_Group_X_-_Altarpieces.jpg\">Public Domain<\/a>); Right: Piet Mondrian,\u00a0<em>Composition<\/em>, 1929, oil on canvas, 45.1 x 45.3 cm (Guggenheim Museum, Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Piet_Mondriaan,_1930_-_Mondrian_Composition_II_in_Red,_Blue,_and_Yellow.jpg\">Wikimedia<\/a>, License: <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/publicdomain\/mark\/1.0\/\">Public Domain<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The Swedish artist Hilma af Klint painted a series of works called\u00a0<em>The Paintings for the Temple<\/em>\u00a0between 1905 and 1915 based in part on mystical visions she received from a spiritual guide. Around the same time, the Dutch artist Piet Mondrian undertook a close study of nature to eventually discover what he felt were the basic\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/de-stijl-part-i-total-purity\/\">\u201cbuilding blocks\u201d<\/a>\u00a0of all natural and artistic form: the primary colors red, yellow, and blue; the primary values black and white, and horizontal and vertical lines. Although both of these artists produced some artworks that are entirely non-representational in the sense that they do not look like nature, both argued that their spiritual quest revealed a higher reality than that available to the senses.<\/p>\n<p>These artists all remind us that what is popularly considered \u201drealistic\u201d in art is in fact only based on sense perceptions, which are inevitably partial, and which in many cases distort reality. By observing nature more closely, discarding artificial conventions, correcting for perceptual distortions, absorbing new scientific theories, and engaging in spiritual investigations, many modern artists rejected traditional naturalism in order to seek higher truths.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"proto-cubism-pablo-picasso-les-demoiselles-davignon\">Proto-Cubism: Pablo Picasso,\u00a0<em>Les Demoiselles d\u2019Avignon<\/em><\/h2>\n<p>Spanish artist Pablo Picasso dominated 20th-century European art. He developed Cubism with Georges Braque and would embody the image of the modern artist. Picasso loved the magic of illusionism\u2014but here, he shatters it.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" id=\"oembed-3\" title=\"Picasso, Les Demoiselles d&#39;Avignon\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/XyLNPumMMTs?feature=oembed&#38;rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h2 id=\"the-reception-of-african-art-in-the-west\">The reception of African art in the West<\/h2>\n<figure style=\"width: 870px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/smarthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/oxfordpittriversmuseum.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/image353.jpeg\" alt=\"Photograph of a multi-level museum interior showcasing numerous glass display cases filled with artifacts and exhibits, with a large suspended sailboat model near the ceiling. The space features metal framework, balconies, and illuminated displays, highlighting historical and scientific collections.\" width=\"870\" height=\"598\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">View of archaeological and ethnographic collections (Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford) (photo:<a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Oxford_-_Pitt_Rivers_Museum_-_0269.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u00a0Jorge Royan<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/3.0\/deed.en\">CC BY-SA 3.0<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>When early European explorers brought back souvenirs from their trips to the African continent they were regarded as curiosities and they didn\u2019t find a home\u00a0in art museums for centuries. Instead, these objects\u00a0became part of natural history museums\u2014along with fossilized remains, flora and fauna, and purely utilitarian objects. They were considered the man-made material remains of a culture. Clouded by the framework of\u00a0Social\u00a0Darwinism\u00a0in the 19th century and other beliefs that justified racial hierarchies, peoples of African, Pacific, and Native American descent were regarded as less civilized, even less human. Attitudes about their art were also determined by pre-conceived ideas about race and therefore, their creations were not categorized as \u201cArt\u201d in Euro-American sense.<\/p>\n<p>By the early 1900s however, these same objects that were\u00a0initially regarded as artifacts of\u00a0material culture, began to be\u00a0exhibited in Western art museums and galleries as \u201cart.\u201d The objects themselves had\u00a0not changed, but there was a shift in the attitudes and assumptions about what constituted a work of\u00a0art.<\/p>\n<p>To historicize this issue more, we can divide the history of the display and reception of African art into four periods. In the 18th century, objects like the ones illustrated here would likely be housed in a \u201ccuriosity cabinet\u201d\u2014in a private family parlor where trinkets and novelties acquired over generations, often while traveling, were displayed. The artist, culture, and function of these objects was not usually recorded or regarded as significant. By the 19th century, many of these curiosity cabinet collections were donated first to natural history museums where they were categorized and classified in the name of science along with flora, fauna, and skeletal remains. By the twentieth century, some of these same works were exhibited in fine art galleries and museums. Over time, African art has become widely collected and ever more popular.<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 875px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/image355.jpeg\" alt=\"Photograph of a seated, curled human figure sculpture made of reddish-brown material with a textured surface. The figure has a contemplative expression, bent knees, and a series of small rounded protrusions along the spine.\" width=\"875\" height=\"700\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><a href=\"http:\/\/smarthistory.org\/lost-history-the-terracotta-sculpture-of-djenne-djenno\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Seated Figure<\/a>, terracotta, 13th century, Mali, Inland Niger Delta region, Djenn\u00e9 peoples, 25\/4 x 29.9 cm (<a href=\"http:\/\/metmuseum.org\/art\/collection\/search\/314362?\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Metropolitan Museum of Art<\/a>, License: <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/publicdomain\/mark\/1.0\/\">Public Domain<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Some of the assumptions about what constitutes art is still very much a part of the Western aesthetic system. For example, \u201chigh art\u201d is still thought of as painting and sculpture. Because many African artworks served a specific function, Westerners have sometimes not regarded these as art. It is worth remembering, however, that the concept of \u201cart\u201d divorced from ritual and political function, is a relatively recent development\u00a0in the West. Prior to the 18th century, most artistic traditions around the world were functional as well as aesthetic, and arguments can be made that all\u00a0art serves social and economic functions. The objects that African artists create\u2014while useful\u2014embody aesthetic preferences and may be admired for their form, composition and invention.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"th-century-theories\">18th-century theories<\/h3>\n<p>In 18th-century Europe, philosophers and critics constructed a definition of \u201cart\u201d in which the object was unique, complex, irreplaceable, inspired by the natural world, and with the exception of architecture, non-functional. In contrast, non-Western art was viewed as not unique, simply produced, replaceable, abstract, and utilitarian. Therefore, Non-Western art was\u00a0<em>not<\/em>\u00a0considered to be art.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"th-century-theories-1\">19th-century theories<\/h3>\n<p>19th century notions of art were redefined by theories of cultural evolution.\u00a0Social Darwinism\u00a0was used to support the claim that all cultures progress along an evolutionary ladder. Western culture was seen as the most advanced and inherently superior. Societies in Africa were viewed as more primitive, a state of being from which modern Western society evolved. Franz Boas in 1927 in his book\u00a0<em>Primitive Art<\/em>\u00a0shows that cultural evolutionism is seriously flawed. He argued that contemporary societies cannot be arranged on a ladder of \u201cleast evolved\u201d or \u201cmost advanced.\u201d Nor can their art.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"th-century-cultural-relativism-and-pablo-picasso\">20th-century cultural relativism and Pablo Picasso<\/h3>\n<p>Anthropologists and art historians came to support the idea of cultural relativism, meaning that they realized that non-Western cultures should not be judged according to the values of the West, but instead should be understood in their own cultural context. This led anthropologists and art historians to a reevaluation of the nature of \u201cart.\u201d However, it was modern Western artists who brought non-Western objects into the popular imagination as works of art worthy of aesthetic consideration. Looking for a new way to represent modernity, artists such as Andre Derain, Amedeo Modigliani, and Pablo Picasso turned to non-Western art for stylistic inspiration. We see this in Picasso\u2019s\u00a0<em>Les Demoiselles d\u2019Avignon<\/em>\u00a0(above). The women\u2019s faces on the right of the canvas have been painted as masks inspired by African artworks Picasso observed on his trip to the Trocadero Museum in Paris in 1907:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAll alone in that awful museum with masks, dolls made by the redskins, dusty manikins.\u00a0<em>Les Demoiselles d\u2019Avignon<\/em>\u00a0must have come to me that very day, but not at all because of the forms; because it was my first exorcism painting \u2014 yes absolutely!\u2026The masks weren\u2019t just like any other pieces of sculpture. Not at all. They were magic things. But why weren\u2019t the Egyptian pieces or the Chaldean? We hadn\u2019t realized it. \u2018Those were primitive, not magic things. The Negro pieces were mediators. They were against everything \u2014 against unknown, threatening spirits. I always looked at fetishes. I understood; I too am against everything. I understood what the Negroes used their sculpture for. Why sculpt like that and not some other way? After all, they weren\u2019t Cubists! Since Cubism didn\u2019t exist.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In the quote above, Picasso recognized that the African and Amerindian artists whose work he saw at the museum in Paris\u00a0were deliberately using abstraction. He doesn\u2019t focus on\u00a0why they chose this style but he adopts it, none-the-less, to pursue his own expressive interests. For contemporary avant-garde artists, African art offered abstraction as a strategy for the\u00a0representation of modernity. The quote also tells us that Picasso, like many Western collectors, didn\u2019t know much about the function, culture, or history of African objects and he seems to have focused on their purely formal properties.\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/smarthistory.org\/pablo-picasso-les-demoiselles-davignon\/\">Picasso<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/smarthistory.org\/piet-mondrian-composition-no-ii-with-red-and-blue\/\">Piet Mondrian<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/smarthistory.org\/constantin-brancusi-the-kiss\/\">Constantin Brancusi<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/smarthistory.org\/braque-the-portuguese\/\">Georges Braque<\/a>\u00a0and other modernists helped Western viewers to see these objects as \u201cart\u201d but the cultural meanings of these works remained\u00a0opaque. However, over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, scholars began to question social\u00a0Darwinism and seek out indigenous interpretations of the\u00a0form and function of objects.<\/p>\n<p>Today, many contemporary African artists are influenced by tradition-based African art (see for example,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/smarthistory.org\/el-anatsui-old-mans-cloth\/\">El Anatsui<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/magdalene-odundo-untitled-vessel\/\">Magdalene Odundo<\/a>). African arts played a central role in their communities, whether to communicate royalty, sacrality, inner virtues, aesthetic interests, genealogy, or other concerns. As the art historian Robert Farris Thompson has argued for the Yoruba, African art is used to make things happen, it is efficacious and necessary for events like rituals, masquerades, and life cycle transitions to successfully occur.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"inventing-cubism\">Inventing Cubism<\/h2>\n<p>During the summer of 1908,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/georges-braque-violin-and-palette\/\">Georges Braque<\/a>\u00a0returned to\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/an-introduction-to-the-painting-of-paul-cezanne\/\">Paul C\u00e9zanne<\/a>\u2018s old haunt for a second summer in a row. Previously he had painted this small port just south of Aix-en-Provence with the brilliant irreverent colors of a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/a-beginners-guide-to-fauvism\/\">Fauve<\/a>. But now, after C\u00e9zanne\u2019s death and after having met\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/pablo-picasso-three-musicians\/\">Pablo Picasso<\/a>, Braque set out on a very different tack, the invention of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/picasso-guitar\/\">Cubism<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Cubism is a terrible name. Except for a very brief moment, the style has nothing to do with cubes. Instead, it is an extension of the formal ideas developed by C\u00e9zanne and broader perceptual ideas that became increasingly important in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These were the ideas that inspired Matisse as early as 1904 and Picasso perhaps a year or two later. We certainly saw such issues asserted in\u00a0<em><a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/pablo-picasso-les-demoiselles-davignon\/\">Les Demoiselles d\u2019Avignon<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em>But Picasso\u2019s great 1907 canvas is not yet Cubism. It is more accurate to say that it is the foundation upon which Cubism is constructed. If we want to really see the origin of the style, we need to look beyond Picasso to his new friend Georges Braque.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"a-new-perspective\">A new perspective<\/h3>\n<figure style=\"width: 1429px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/image359.jpeg\" alt=\"Painting depicting a landscape with a mountain in the background and a patchwork of fields and trees in the foreground. The artwork uses muted blues, greens, and browns with visible brushstrokes and a proto-cubist style to convey depth and texture.\" width=\"1429\" height=\"1135\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Paul C\u00e9zanne, <em>Mont Sainte-Victoire<\/em>, 1902\u201304, oil on canvas, 73 x 91.9 cm (<a href=\"https:\/\/philamuseum.org\/collection\/object\/102997\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Philadelphia Museum of Art<\/a>, Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Paul_C%C3%A9zanne,_Mont_Sainte-Victoire.jpg\">Wikimedia<\/a>, License: <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/publicdomain\/mark\/1.0\/\">Public Domain<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The young French Fauvist, Georges Braque that had been struck by both the posthumous C\u00e9zanne retrospective exhibition held in Paris in 1907 and his first sight of Picasso\u2019s radical new canvas,\u00a0<em>Les Demoiselles d\u2019Avignon.<\/em>\u00a0Like so many people that saw it, Braque is reported to have hated it\u2014Matisse, for example, predicted that Picasso would be found hanged behind the work, so great was his mistake. Nevertheless, Braque stated that it haunted him through the winter of 1908. Like every good Parisian, Braque fled Paris in the summer and decided to return to the part of Provence in which C\u00e9zanne had lived and worked. Braque spent the summer of 1908 shedding the colors of Fauvism and exploring the structural issues that had consumed C\u00e9zanne and now Picasso. He wrote:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt [C\u00e9zanne\u2019s impact] was more than an influence, it was an invitation. C\u00e9zanne was the first to have broken away from erudite, mechanized perspective\u2026\u201d<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"As quoted in William Rubin,\u00a0Picasso and Braque: Pioneering Cubism\u00a0(New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1989), p. 353.\" id=\"return-footnote-3273-1\" href=\"#footnote-3273-1\" aria-label=\"Footnote 1\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[1]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Like C\u00e9zanne, Braque sought to undermine the illusion of depth by forcing the viewer to recognize the canvas not as a window but as it truly is, a vertical curtain that hangs before us. In canvases such as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wikiart.org\/en\/georges-braque\/houses-at-estaque-1908\"><em>Houses at L\u2019Estaque<\/em><\/a>, Braque simplifies the form of the houses (here are the so called cubes), but he nullifies the obvious recessionary overlapping with the trees that force forward even the most distant building.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"brothers-of-invention\">Brothers of invention<\/h3>\n<p>When Braque returned to Paris in late August, he found Picasso an eager audience. Almost immediately, Picasso began to exploit Braque\u2019s investigations. But far from being the end of their working relationship, this exchange becomes the first in a series of collaborations that lasts six years and creates an intimate creative bound between these two artists that is unique in the history of art.<\/p>\n<p>Between the years 1908 and the beginning of the First World War in 1914,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/georges-braque-pablo-picasso-two-cubist-musicians\/\">Braque and Picasso<\/a>\u00a0work together so closely that even experts can have difficulty telling the work of one artist from the other. For months on end they would visit each other\u2019s studio on an almost daily basis sharing ideas and challenging each other as they went. Still, a pattern did emerge and it tended to be to Picasso\u2019s benefit. When a radical new idea was introduced, more than likely, it was Braque that recognized its value. But it was inevitably Picasso who realized its potential and was able to fully exploit it.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"tough-art\">Tough art<\/h3>\n<p>By 1910, Cubism had matured into a complex system that is seemingly so esoteric that it appears to have rejected all esthetic concerns. The average museum visitor, when confronted by a 1910 or 1911 canvas by Braque or Picasso, the period known as\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/Braque-portuguese.jpg\">Analytic Cubism<\/a>, often looks somewhat put upon even while they may acknowledge the importance of such work. I suspect that the difficulty, is, well\u2026, the difficulty of the work. Cubism is an analysis of vision and of its representation and it is challenging. As a society we seem to believe that all art ought to be easily understandable or at least beautiful. That\u2019s the part I find confusing.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"pablo-picasso-and-the-new-language-of-cubism\">Pablo Picasso and the new language of Cubism<\/h2>\n<p>Picasso was a technically skilled draftsman\u2014so why did he choose to take his forms apart?<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" id=\"oembed-4\" title=\"Pablo Picasso and the new language of Cubism\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/GRTsMJNcHFw?feature=oembed&#38;rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h2 id=\"georges-braque-violin-and-palette\">Georges Braque, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.guggenheim.org\/artwork\/673\"><em>Violin and Palette<\/em><\/a><\/h2>\n<p>George Braque is best known for his collaboration with Pablo Picasso and their development of Cubism, especially its collage aspect.<\/p>\n<p>Although much of the painting is not naturalistic, we can identify the still-life objects in Georges Braque\u2019s\u00a0<em>Violin and Palette<\/em>\u00a0fairly easily. The form of the violin at the bottom of the painting is fractured; the body of the instrument has been broken up into geometric shapes, and on the right side they grow like crystals into the surrounding space.<\/p>\n<p>While the lower portion of the instrument is painted naturalistically and visibly recedes, the upper left side does not, and part of it is missing altogether. The bridge that supports the strings has been tilted and flattened into a light gray pentagon between the S-shaped sound holes. The strings are broken into two differently angled sections, the neck is shortened, and the scroll at the top is displaced and twisted in relation to the body.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"tradition-and-innovation\">Tradition and innovation<\/h3>\n<p>This painting is an early example of Analytic Cubism, the name given to the first phase of Picasso\u2019s and Braque\u2019s joint endeavor to create a new approach to the pictorial representation of objects in space. Despite its often baffling innovations, one of the defining features of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/picasso-guitar\/\">Cubism<\/a>\u00a0is its engagement with the European painting tradition.<\/p>\n<p>This engagement with tradition is particularly evident in Picasso\u2019s and Braque\u2019s use of traditional subjects: landscapes, figure studies, portraits, and still life paintings of dishes, fruit, glassware, and musical instruments. Landscapes largely disappeared after the earliest stages. Picasso made more figure studies and portraits during the Analytic Cubist phase, while Braque favored still life subjects.<\/p>\n<p>The relative familiarity of these subjects helps to set Cubism\u2019s radical formal innovations in high relief. Why are objects and even apparently space itself fractured and faceted? Many different explanations have been put forward by art critics and historians, but they all revolve around Braque and Picasso\u2019s engagement in a radical new analysis of three-dimensional form and its relation to both literal and pictorial space.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"new-strategies-of-representation\">New strategies of representation<\/h3>\n<p>Some of the distortions in\u00a0<em>Violin and Palette<\/em>, most notably the relationship of the violin\u2019s scroll to its body, may be explained as the result of combining\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/cubism-and-multiple-perspectives\/\">several different angles of view<\/a>\u00a0into a single depiction. This explanation was frequently advanced by contemporaneous critics, and it does explain many of the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/salon-cubism\/\">Salon Cubists\u2019 paintings<\/a>. However, it fails to account for all of the distortions in Braque\u2019s\u00a0<em>Violin and Palette<\/em>, such as the way parts of the violin are abstracted into geometric forms, and the elimination of entire parts of the instrument.<\/p>\n<p>It also does not address the way in which the surrounding space is represented as if it too were fractured geometric abstractions of solid forms. These are all important characteristics of Braque\u2019s Cubist exploration of new strategies of pictorial representation.<\/p>\n<p>The upper half of\u00a0<em>Violin and Palette<\/em>\u00a0displays additional approaches to representation. We see several pages of sheet music, perhaps propped up on a music stand behind the violin depicted below. Paper is flat, but Braque has used shading to indicate creases and the bowing of the page.This gives the paper tangible form while also connecting it to the abstract geometric pattern that dominates the painting. Notice that Braque paints the musical staff lines projecting to the left beyond the page on which they are printed. This is an echo of the way he painted cubic sections of the violin growing into space below.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"a-trompe-loeil-illusion\">A\u00a0trompe l\u2019oeil\u00a0illusion<\/h3>\n<p>Above and behind the sheet music, Braque painted a green curtain and a palette hanging from a nail. Both of these objects refer to traditional naturalistic representation. The\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/artsandculture.google.com\/asset\/still-life-with-imaginary-view-laurens-craen\/SQHCWnnp_sqFfQ?ms=%7B%22x%22%3A0.5%2C%22y%22%3A0.5%2C%22B%22%3A9.390372189061788%2C%22z%22%3A9.390372189061788%2C%22size%22%3A%7B%22width%22%3A1.8639973102529963%2C%22height%22%3A1.2375000000000003%7D%7D\">curtain<\/a>\u00a0is a conventional framing device used in European painting to suggest spatial depth. In Braque\u2019s painting the curtain frames the palette. Although the curtain, nail, and palette are painted in a sketchy manner that is not very realistic, cast shadows make a direct visual reference to the kind of\u00a0trompe l\u2019oeil\u00a0illusionism employed in William Harnett\u2019s\u00a0<em>Violin and Music<\/em>.<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 1948px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/William_Michael_Harnett_Still_life_Violin_and_Music-scaled.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/William_Michael_Harnett_Still_life_Violin_and_Music-scaled-1.jpg\" alt=\"A still life painting depicting a violin, bow, flute, horseshoe, and sheet music arranged on a wooden panel with metal hinges and nails. The composition highlights textures and shadows, emphasizing musical and rustic elements with muted earth tones and detailed craftsmanship.\" width=\"1948\" height=\"2560\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">William Harnett, Still Life \u2014 Violin and Music, 1888, oil on canvas, 40 x 30 inches (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.metmuseum.org\/art\/collection\/search\/10997\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Metropolitan Museum of Art<\/a>, License: <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/publicdomain\/mark\/1.0\/\">Public Domain<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Because the palette is itself flat, and Braque painted shadows behind its curved edges, his illusion is somewhat successful and contrasts with the distorted representation of the violin below. The placement of the nail in the top center of the painting adds another layer to the paintings\u2019 illusion. It looks like it could be literally nailing the canvas to the wall. As a whole,\u00a0<em>Violin and Palette<\/em>\u00a0presents naturalistic representation in juxtaposition to Cubist representational techniques to indicate that these new techniques are alternative, and equally viable, modes of depiction.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"a-developmental-process\">A developmental process<\/h3>\n<p>Picasso\u2019s and Braque\u2019s Cubism is generally understood to have been a developmental process rather than a style that followed a predetermined theoretical approach. The two artists worked in a close and competitive relationship between 1908 and 1914, meeting regularly to see each other\u2019s latest works, and pushing each other to increasingly daring pictorial innovations. Braque\u2019s\u00a0<em>Violin and Palette<\/em>\u00a0was painted during the early stages of their Cubist explorations. Over the course of the next few years, both artists\u2019 approach to representation became increasingly abstract.<\/p>\n<p>In <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tate.org.uk\/art\/artworks\/braque-mandora-t00833#3\">Braque\u2019s\u00a0<em>Mandora<\/em><\/a>, the surface of the painting is divided into a shifting lattice of diamond shapes in which we can dimly perceive the suggestion of several objects. The mandora (a type of lute) is the only object we can see with certainty, but it is a much less substantial presence than the violin in\u00a0<em>Violin and Palette<\/em>. Dark geometric shapes create a shadow framing the lighter central facets, suggesting the outline of the mandora and other objects arranged on a table. Vertical rectangles in the upper portion of the canvas may indicate more objects resting on the table top, but there is not enough information to be certain. The still life objects have become a shifting\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/chiaroscuro-explained\/\">chiaroscuro<\/a>\u00a0pattern of abstract shapes that sparkle across the canvas with little regard for legibility or representational accuracy.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"a-new-kind-of-pictorial-space\">A new kind of pictorial space<\/h3>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.metmuseum.org\/art\/collection\/search\/486839\"><em>Candlestick and Playing Cards on a Table<\/em>\u00a0<\/a>is even more difficult to decipher. The title tells us what to look for, and hints of the objects\u2019 forms emerge from the shifting grid of rectangles presented in an oval format. In the center of the composition we can find the circular base of a candlestick. It is placed above the corner of a table, which juts out towards the viewer. The most legible objects are the two playing cards on the right. Below them Braque painted a schematic open drawer, another reference to traditional trompe l\u2019oeil painting effects like the curtain and nail in <em>Violin and Palette<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>The jutting corner of the table and the open drawer in Braque\u2019s painting are counterpoints to the depiction of an indeterminate space. Black lines that demarcate the edges of objects also create abstract floating planes that hover throughout the painting. This adds another level of complexity to the composition and its suggestion of multiple interlocking layers of planes that fill and define a new kind of shallow pictorial space.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"a-limited-palette\">A limited palette<\/h3>\n<p>One of the characteristics of Braque\u2019s and Picasso\u2019s Analytic Cubist paintings is their increasingly limited color range. In his\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/georges-braque-le-viaduc-a-lestaque-the-viaduct-at-lestaque\/\">earliest Cubist landscapes<\/a>, Braque used the ochres, greens, and blues favored by\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/cezanne-turning-road-at-montgeroult\/\">C\u00e9zanne<\/a>.\u00a0<em>Violin and Palette<\/em>\u00a0is restricted to browns, grays, and a little green, while the later still life paintings are limited to browns and grays.<\/p>\n<p>From 1909 to 1912 both Picasso and Braque painted almost exclusively in a range of neutral tones before re-introducing color, largely through the use of collage elements.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/salon-cubism\/\">Other Cubist painters<\/a>\u00a0often used bright colors, making the use of a limited palette one of the distinctive characteristics of Braque\u2019s and Picasso\u2019s Analytic Cubist paintings. This elimination of color is generally linked to their intense focus on the structural analysis of representing objects in space.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"sythentic-cubism-pablo-picasso-still-life-with-chair-caning\">Sythentic Cubism: Pablo Picasso,\u00a0<em>Still Life with Chair Caning<\/em><\/h2>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" id=\"oembed-5\" title=\"Picasso, Still Life with Chair Caning\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/1E91KmfiUGY?feature=oembed&#38;rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h3 id=\"the-evolution-of-cubism\">The Evolution of Cubism<\/h3>\n<p>Beginning in 1908, and continuing through the first few months of 1912, Braque and Picasso co-invent the first phase of Cubism. Since it is dominated by the analysis of form, this first stage is usually referred to as Analytic Cubism. But then during the summer of 1912, Braque leaves Paris to take a holiday in Provence. During his time there, he wanders into a hardware store, and there he finds a roll of oil cloth. Oil cloth is an early version of contact paper, the vinyl adhesive used to line the shelves or drawers in a cupboard. Then, as now, these materials come in a variety of pre-printed patterns.<\/p>\n<p>Braque purchased some oil cloth printed with a fake wood grain. That particular pattern drew his attention because he was at work on a Cubist drawing of a guitar, and he was about to render the grain of the wood in pencil. Instead, he cut the oil cloth and pasted a piece of the factory-printed grain pattern right into his drawing. With this collage, Braque changed the direction of art for the next ninety years.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"collage\">Collage<\/h3>\n<p>As you might expect, Picasso was not far behind Braque. Picasso immediately begins to create collage with oil cloth as well\u2014and adds other elements to the mix (but remember, it was really Braque who introduced collage\u2014he never gets enough credit). So what is the big deal? Oil cloth, collage, wood grain patterns\u2014what does this have to do with art and Cubism? One of the keys to understanding the importance of Cubism, of Picasso and Braque, is to consider their actions and how unusual they were for the time. When Braque, and then Picasso placed industrially-produced objects (\u201clow\u201d commercial culture) into the realm of fine art (\u201chigh\u201d culture) they acted as artistic iconoclasts (\u201cicon\u201d=image\/\u201dclast\u201d=destroyer).<\/p>\n<p>Moreover, they questioned the elitism of the art world, which had always dictated the separation of common, everyday experience from the rarefied, contemplative realm of artistic creation. Of equal importance, their work highlighted\u2014and separated\u2014the role of technical skill from art-making. Braque and Picasso introduced a \u201cfake\u201d element on purpose, not to mislead or fool their audience, but rather to force a discussion of art and craft, of high and low, of unique and mass-produced objects. They ask: \u201cCan this object still be art if I don\u2019t actually render its forms myself, if the quality of the art is no longer directly tied to my technical skills or level of craftsmanship?\u201d<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"still-life-with-chair-caning\">Still-Life with Chair Caning<\/h3>\n<p>Virtually all avant-garde art of the second half of the twentieth century is indebted to this brave renunciation. But that doesn\u2019t make this kind of Cubism, often called Synthetic Cubism (piecing together, or synthesis of form), any easier to interpret. At first glance, Picasso\u2019s\u00a0<em>Still-Life with Chair Caning<\/em>\u00a0of 1912 might seem a mish-mash of forms instead of clear picture. But we can understand the image\u2014and other like it\u2014by breaking down Cubist pictorial language into parts. Let\u2019s start at the upper right: almost at the edge of the canvas (at two o\u2019clock) there is the handle of a knife. Follow it to the left to find the blade. The knife cuts a piece of citrus fruit. You can make out the rind and the segments of the slice at the bottom right corner of the blade.<\/p>\n<p>Below the fruit, which is probably a lemon, is the white, scalloped edge of a napkin. To the left of these things and standing vertically in the top center of the canvas (twelve o\u2019clock) is a wine glass. It\u2019s hard to see at first, so look carefully. Just at the top edge of the chair caning is the glass\u2019s base, above it is the stem (thicker than you might expect), and then the bowl of the glass. It is difficult to find the forms you would expect because Picasso depicts the glass from more than one angle. At eleven o\u2019clock is the famous \u201cJOU,\u201d which means \u201cgame\u201d in French, but also the first three letters of the French word for newspaper (or more literally, \u201cdaily\u201d; journal=daily). In fact, you can make out the bulk of the folded paper quite clearly. Don\u2019t be confused by the pipe that lays across the newspaper. Do you see its stem and bowl?<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"looking-down-and-looking-through\">Looking Down and Looking Through<\/h3>\n<p>But there are still big questions: why the chair caning, what is the gray diagonal at the bottom of the glass, and why the rope frame? (Think of a ship\u2019s port hole. The port hole reference is an important clue.) Also, why don\u2019t the letters sit better on the newspaper? Finally, why is the canvas oval? It has already been determined that this still life is composed of a sliced lemon, a glass, newspaper, and a pipe. Perhaps this is a breakfast setting, with a citron press\u00e9 (French lemonade). In any case, these items are arranged upon a glass tabletop. You can see the reflection of the glass. In fact, the glass allows us to see below the table\u2019s surface, which is how we see the chair caning\u2014which represents the seat tucked in below the table.<\/p>\n<p>Okay, so far so good. But why is the table elliptical in shape? This appears to be a caf\u00e9 table, which are round or square but never oval. Yet, when we look at a circular table, we never see it from directly above. Instead, we see it at an angle, and it appears elliptical in shape as we approach the table to sit down. But what about the rope, which was not mass-produced, nor made by Picasso, but rather something made especially for this painting? We can view it as the bumper of a table, as it was used in some caf\u00e9s, or as the frame of a ship\u2019s port hole, which we can look \u201cthrough,\u201d to see the objects represented. The rope\u2019s simultaneous horizontal and vertical orientation creates a way for the viewer (us) to read the image in two ways\u2014looking down and looking through\/across. Put simply, Picasso wants us to remember that the painting is something different from that which it represents. Or as Gertrude Stein said, \u201cA rose is a rose is a rose.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"who-created-the-first-abstract-artwork\">Who created the first abstract artwork?<\/h2>\n<p>Abstract art \u2014 also called \u201cnon-representational\u201d or \u201cnon-objective\u201d \u2014 has long been considered a central achievement of modernism. Several early-twentieth century artists claimed to be the first to make a completely abstract artwork, and although it turns out to be surprisingly difficult to fully settle the question, we will consider some of the main contenders below.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"defining-the-terms\">Defining the terms<\/h3>\n<figure style=\"width: 2085px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/Muhammad-ibn-Aibak-ibn-Abdallah.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/Muhammad-ibn-Aibak-ibn-Abdallah-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"A photograph of an illuminated manuscript page featuring intricate geometric patterns and Arabic calligraphy. The design includes gold, blue, and red colors with a central star-shaped motif, bordered by detailed floral and vine patterns, showcasing traditional Islamic art elements.\" width=\"2085\" height=\"2560\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Muhammad ibn Aibak ibn-Abdallah, Folio from a non-illustrated manuscript, 1306-7, ink, opaque watercolor, and gold on paper, 43.2 x 35.2 cm (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, License: <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/publicdomain\/mark\/1.0\/\">Public Domain<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>This 14th-century manuscript painting pre-dates the modern contenders for the first abstract work by over six hundred years. It is one example from a long Islamic tradition of non-representational art. Works like this are generally ignored in discussions about who made the first abstract painting, which reveals that the debate is, in fact, quite limited in its focus. We really mean, \u201cWho in Western culture created the first abstract work?\u201d Like Columbus \u201cdiscovering\u201d America, it turns out that there were actually a lot of people already there.<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 1523px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/Tropon.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/Tropon-1.jpg\" alt=\"Poster artwork featuring stylized, repeated abstract shapes in yellow, orange, black, and purple with text &quot;Tropon is Eiweiss Nahrung.&quot; Design uses bold lines and geometric patterns to create a visually striking composition.\" width=\"1523\" height=\"2000\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Henri van de Velde, <em>Tropon Poster<\/em>, from the periodical Pan, vol. IV no. 1 (April-May-June 1898), lithograph, 31.1 x 19.9 cm (MoMA, Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Poster,_Tropon_est_l%27aliment_le_plus_concentr%C3%A9_(Tropon,_the_most_concentrated_food_supplement),_1898_(CH_18707967).jpg\">Wikimedia<\/a>, License: <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/publicdomain\/mark\/1.0\/\">Public Domain<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Van de Velde\u2019s poster advertising the protein extract Tropon displays an abstract design of stylized, vaguely organic shapes. Why is this also not generally considered a viable contender for the first abstract work? We find that we need to limit the question again: the first abstract work must have been made as \u201cfine art.\u201d Decorative art and commercial design don\u2019t count. This distinction can seem very arbitrary, since many modern artists worked as commercial designers at times, and modern design is also often collected by art museums.<\/p>\n<p>What we are really looking for, then, is not truly \u201cthe first\u201d abstract artwork. Instead, we are seeking the first abstract artwork that was\u00a0<em>intentionally created in the context of the post-Renaissance Western art world<\/em>, when fine art was expected to be representational.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"a-de-stijl-contender\">A De Stijl contender<\/h3>\n<figure style=\"width: 1080px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/Tableau_no_3_compositie_in_ovaal_Piet_Mondrian_1913.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/Tableau_no_3_compositie_in_ovaal_Piet_Mondrian_1913.jpg\" alt=\"Abstract painting features an oval shape filled with fragmented geometric forms and lines in muted tones of white, beige, and gray against an olive-brown background. The composition suggests a textured, layered surface with intersecting shapes and subtle shading, evoking a sense of depth and complexity.\" width=\"1080\" height=\"1292\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Piet Mondrian, <em>Tableau No. 3<\/em> or <em>Composition in Oval<\/em>, 1913 (Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Tableau_no_3_compositie_in_ovaal,_Piet_Mondrian,_1913.jpg\">Wikimedia<\/a>, License: <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/publicdomain\/mark\/1.0\/\">Public Domain<\/a>).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Piet Mondrian wrote extensive justifications of abstract art, demonstrating a clear awareness of how radical he felt the move to abstraction was for fine art. Over the course of the 1910s he produced several series of works through a process that he explicitly called \u201cabstraction,\u201d etymologically defined as \u201cpulling away\u201d elements of natural appearances from observed objects until eventually they bore\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/de-stijl-part-ii-near-abstraction-and-pure-abstraction\/\">no resemblance to those objects<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The work above is part of his series of abstracted trees: perhaps the two parallel vertical lines in the lower center are a trunk, and the oval frame defines the crown of the tree. However, if we approached the work in a museum without that information, it would be easy to see it as abstract in the sense of entirely non-representational. The gradual nature of Mondrian\u2019s evolution makes it very difficult to state when he first created a fully abstract work.<\/p>\n<p>The titling of works can further complicate the issue: this work was titled \u201cTableau\u201d or \u201cComposition\u201d by Mondrian, asking us to see it as just a composition of lines, shapes, and colors. An equally abstract-seeming work from the same year is called \u201cThe Tree A,\u201d which asks us to see a tree where otherwise we might not. Should determining whether a work is abstract depend on its title or other extrinsic information?<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"kandinskys-spiritual-vision\">Kandinsky\u2019s spiritual vision<\/h3>\n<figure style=\"width: 960px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/Kandinsky-untitled.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/Kandinsky-untitled.jpg\" alt=\"Abstract watercolor painting featuring a chaotic arrangement of colorful shapes and lines in red, blue, green, and yellow tones. The composition includes dynamic brushstrokes and overlapping forms, creating a sense of movement and spontaneity.\" width=\"960\" height=\"746\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Vasily Kandinsky, <em>Untitled (Study for Composition VII, first abstraction<\/em>), 1913, watercolor (Centre Pompidou, Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Kandinsky,_1913,_Sans_titre_(Etude_pour_Composition_VII,_Premi%C3%A8re_abstraction).jpg\">Wikimedia<\/a>, License: <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/publicdomain\/mark\/1.0\/\">Public Domain<\/a>).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Vasily Kandinsky backdated this work to 1910 (in the signature at the lower right), probably in order to claim that he was the first abstract artist \u2014 most art historians believe it dates to 1913. His 1909 text\u00a0<em>On the Spiritual in Art<\/em>\u00a0justifies abstraction in art as more spiritual than representation. However he, like Mondrian, approached abstraction very gradually. Even this painting is ambiguously abstract. It is part of a group of works based on imagery of the apocalypse, and, like Mondrian, Kandinsky \u201cabstracted\u201d that imagery to\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/kandinsky-improvisation-28-second-version\/\">reduce material references<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>In many paintings the imagery is very difficult to recognize, but it is still there. Kandinsky famously described seeing one of his own paintings as \u201conly form and colors . . . . whose content was incomprehensible,\u201d but this was only because the work was on its side. Viewing it from the proper angle he saw the painting\u2019s apocalyptic imagery.<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Vasily Kandinsky, \u201cReminiscences\u201d (1913), as translated in Robert L. Herbert, ed.,\u00a0Modern Artists on Art\u00a0(Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, 2000), p. 29.\" id=\"return-footnote-3273-2\" href=\"#footnote-3273-2\" aria-label=\"Footnote 2\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[2]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Both Mondrian and Kandinsky eventually went on to create unequivocally non-representational artwork, but where is the line between representation and abstraction when the abstracted forms are derived from representational images that only a few people, if any, can recognize? Is abstraction in the eye of the beholder?<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"appreciating-color-and-music\">Appreciating color and music<\/h3>\n<p>In the early twentieth century many people (including Kandinsky) justified abstract painting by comparing it to music. When we listen to instrumental music we do not generally compare it to real world sounds; we just enjoy being moved by the melody, harmony, rhythm, etc., in themselves. Why should visual art be different? Why not just appreciate how we are moved by colors, shapes, and textures?<\/p>\n<p>A group of artists called the Orphists, including\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/robert-delaunay-simultaneous-contrasts-sun-and-moon\/\">Robert<\/a> and Sonia Delaunay and <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/File:Franti%C5%A1ek_Kupka,_1912,_Amorpha,_fugue_en_deux_couleurs_(Fugue_in_Two_Colors),_210_x_200_cm,_Narodni_Galerie,_Prague.jpg\">Franti\u0161ek Kupka<\/a>, took this route. The title of Kupka\u2019s\u00a0<em>Fugue in Two Colors<\/em>\u00a0declares the painting to be the visual equivalent of a type of musical composition in which a short melody is repeated and developed in multi-part counterpoint. The looping, swelling, intertwining curves of red and blue in Kupka\u2019s painting are understandable as visualizations of the flowing aural interweaving of the musical voices in a fugue. Again, however, there was a naturalistic source for the painting: a drawing of a girl dancing with a ball in her hand that Kupka progressively abstracted.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"malevichs-suprematism\">Malevich\u2019s Suprematism<\/h3>\n<figure style=\"width: 2000px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/Last_Futurist_Exhibition.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/Last_Futurist_Exhibition.jpg\" alt=\"Black and white photograph of an art gallery corner displaying multiple abstract geometric paintings mounted on walls. Paintings feature bold shapes like squares, rectangles, and crosses in solid black on white backgrounds, with handwritten notes and a single chair adding context to the exhibition.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1452\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kasimir Malevich, The Last Futurist Exhibition 0.10, photograph, 1915 (Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:0.10_Exhibition.jpg\">Wikimedia<\/a>, License: <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/publicdomain\/mark\/1.0\/\">Public Domain<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/suprematism-part-i-kasimir-malevich\/\">Kasimir Malevich<\/a>\u00a0is unusual in making the leap to pure abstraction very rapidly, rather than through a long process of abstracting natural objects. Malevich\u2019s works in The Last Futurist Exhibition are geometric abstractions, although some of them have titles that suggest real-world references, such as\u00a0<em>Airplane Flying<\/em>. Malevich claimed that he first painted a pure abstract work,\u00a0<em>Black Square<\/em>, in 1913. However, there is no evidence to support this other than some loosely-related theater designs, and as we have noted, abstraction in design occurred earlier than that. This photograph of the exhibition dates to 1915, and Malevich wrote a theoretical justification of non-representational Suprematist painting the same year, making 1915 a solid\u00a0<em>terminus ante quem<\/em>\u00a0for the first abstract painting.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"a-new-contender\">A new contender<\/h3>\n<p>Another artist who has recently been brought forward as a candidate for painting the first abstract artwork is Hilma af Klint. Between 1906 and 1915 Klint made a series of works called <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.guggenheim.org\/teaching-materials\/hilma-af-klint-paintings-for-the-future\/paintings-for-the-temple\">Paintings for the Temple<\/a><\/em>\u00a0that were generated from visions she had as a spiritual medium (in fact, all of the artists considered here apart from van de Velde were motivated to create abstract art for\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/abstract-art-and-theosophy\/\">spiritual reasons<\/a>). Some of Klint\u2019s works have recognizable natural imagery, but many others are pure geometric or biomorphic abstractions.<\/p>\n<p>In terms of chronology Klint is a serious contender to be the first abstract painter, and it may be gratifying to think that it is a woman who has that distinction, despite the jockeying of her male contemporaries. Unfortunately, however, Klint\u2019s abstract works were created completely outside the context of the modern art world. In fact, she stipulated that they not be exhibited until twenty years after her death, and as a consequence they were unknown outside of her circle of friends, and had no influence on the debates concerning the viability of abstraction in art until the question was already settled.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"an-unanswerable-question\">An unanswerable question?<\/h3>\n<p>In the end, it may not be possible to answer the question of who created the first abstract artwork, but even this brief survey of the main contenders raises an arguably more interesting question. Although there were common themes and some direct contacts between the artists considered here, they were largely independent, working in different countries (Sweden, Russia, Germany, France, and The Netherlands), ending up with very different-looking works, and developing substantially different rationales for practicing abstraction. For whatever reason, in the years around 1910\u201315 all across Europe, the time was right for abstract art to (re-)enter the Western art world.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"de-stijl-piet-mondrian-composition-with-red-blue-and-yellow\">De Stijl: Piet Mondrian,\u00a0<em>Composition with Red, Blue, and Yellow<\/em><\/h2>\n<p>A Dutch painter, Piet Mondrian\u2019s Neo-Plasticism used the most fundamental aspects of line and color in an attempt to create a universal expression.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPure abstract art becomes completely emancipated, free of naturalistic appearances.\u201d\u2014Piet Mondrian, 1929\u00a0<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Piet Mondrian, \u201cPure Abstract Art, 1929\u201d in\u00a0The New Art\u2014The New Life: The Collected Writings of Piet Mondrian, edited and translated by Harry Holtzman and Martin S. James (Boston: G.K. Hall&amp; Co.), p. 224.\" id=\"return-footnote-3273-3\" href=\"#footnote-3273-3\" aria-label=\"Footnote 3\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[3]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 1010px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/1010px-Piet_Mondriaan_1930_-_Mondrian_Composition_II_in_Red_Blue_and_Yellow.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/1010px-Piet_Mondriaan_1930_-_Mondrian_Composition_II_in_Red_Blue_and_Yellow.jpeg\" alt=\"Abstract geometric painting featuring a grid of thick black lines dividing red, blue, yellow, and white rectangular blocks. The composition emphasizes balance and contrast through primary colors and bold linear structure.\" width=\"1010\" height=\"1024\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Piet Mondrian, <em>Composition with Red, Blue, and Yellow<\/em>, 1930, oil on canvas, 46 x 46 cm (<a href=\"https:\/\/collection.kunsthaus.ch\/en\/collection\/item\/2455\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Kunsthaus Z\u00fcrich<\/a>, Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Piet_Mondriaan,_1930_-_Mondrian_Composition_II_in_Red,_Blue,_and_Yellow.jpg\">Wikimedia<\/a>, License: <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/publicdomain\/mark\/1.0\/\">Public Domain<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Walking up to Piet\u00a0Mondrian\u2019s painting,\u00a0<em>Composition with Red,\u00a0Blue, and Yellow<\/em>\u00a0can be a baffling experience. The canvas is small and uses only the simplest of colors: red, blue, yellow, white and black. The composition is similarly reduced to the simplest of rectilinear forms, squares and rectangles defined by vertical and horizontal lines. One would hardly suspect that we are seeing the artist\u2019s determination to depict the underlying structure of reality.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"neo-plasticism\">Neo-Plasticism<\/h3>\n<p>Mondrian called his style Neo-Plasticism or \u201cThe New\u00a0Plastic Painting,\u201d the title of his famous 1917 essay promoting abstraction for\u00a0the expression\u00a0of\u00a0modern life. Don\u2019t be confused by Mondrian\u2019s use of the term \u201cplastic.\u201d He uses it to refer to the plastic arts\u2014media such as\u00a0sculpture, that\u00a0molds three-dimensional form, or, in Mondrian\u2019s case, painting on canvas. For centuries, European painters had attempted to render three-dimensional forms in believable spaces\u2014creating convincing illusions of reality (<a href=\"http:\/\/smarthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/dp353257.jpg\">click here<\/a>\u00a0for an example\u2014Vermeer\u2019s\u00a0<em>Young Woman with a Water Pitcher<\/em>). In contrast,\u00a0Mondrian and other modernists wanted to move painting beyond naturalistic depiction to focus\u00a0instead on the material properties of paint and its unique ability to express ideas abstractly using\u00a0formal elements such as line and color.<\/p>\n<p>Mondrian believed his abstraction could serve as a\u00a0universal pictorial language representing the dynamic, evolutionary forces that govern nature and\u00a0human experience. In fact, he believed that abstraction provides a truer picture of reality than\u00a0illusionistic depictions of objects in the visible world. Perhaps this is why Mondrian characterized his style as \u201cabstract real\u201d\u00a0painting.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"abstraction-and-human-progress\">Abstraction and human progress<\/h3>\n<p>Mondrian\u2019s earliest paintings were quite traditional in both subject and style. He\u00a0studied at the art academies in the\u00a0Hague and in Amsterdam in his home country of the Netherlands. Then, as with\u00a0many artists during\u00a0the early twentieth century, he began to emulate a variety of contemporary styles, including\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/smarthistory.org\/a-beginners-guide-to-impressionism\/\">Impressionism<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/smarthistory.org\/georges-seurat-a-sunday-on-la-grande-jatte-1884\/\">Neo-Impressionism<\/a>, and\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/smarthistory.org\/khnopff-i-lock-my-door-upon-myself\/\">Symbolism<\/a>\u00a0in an effort to find his own artistic voice. The impact of these modern\u00a0movements can be seen in the development of Mondrian\u2019s painting which, over time, shows the\u00a0dissolution of recognizable objects into increasingly pared-down structures (see the three depictions of trees below). His emphasis on line, color, and geometric shape sought to highlight formal characteristics.<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 2560px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/3trees.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/3trees-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"A trio of abstract paintings depicting a tree with sprawling branches against textured, layered backgrounds. Each panel transitions from monochromatic black and white on the left to darker shades in the center and muted earth tones on the right, highlighting different artistic interpretations of the same subject.\" width=\"2560\" height=\"608\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Three trees by Piet Mondrian: <em>Study for the Gray Tree<\/em> (left), 1911, charcoal on paper, 58.4 x 86.5 cm;<em> The Grey Tree<\/em> (center), 1911, oil on canvas, 79.7 x 109.1 cm; <em>Flowering Apple Tree<\/em> (right), 1912, oil on canvas, 78.5 x 107.5 cm (all in the collection of the Gemeentemuseum, Den Haag, Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Gray_Tree_1911.jpg\">Wikimedia<\/a>, License: <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/publicdomain\/mark\/1.0\/\">Public Domain<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Mondrian was inspired by\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/smarthistory.org\/inventing-cubism\/\">Cubism<\/a>,\u00a0a movement led by\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/pablo-picasso-kahnweiler\/\">Pablo Picasso<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/braque-the-portuguese\/\">Georges Braque<\/a>\u00a0that explored\u00a0the use of multiple perspectives. Mondrian began experimenting with abstracted forms around the time he\u00a0moved to\u00a0Paris in 1912.<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 1170px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Mondrian_-_Ocean_5_1914.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/Mondrian_-_Ocean_5_1914.jpeg\" alt=\"Abstract painting featuring a network of black and white rectangular and linear shapes arranged within an oval frame on a mustard yellow background. The composition emphasizes geometric patterns and spatial relationships, creating a sense of depth and structure through varied line thickness and shading.\" width=\"1170\" height=\"855\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Piet Mondrian,<em> Ocean 5<\/em>, 1914, charcoal and gouache on paper\/Homosote panel, 87.6 x 120.3 cm (Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Ocean_5,_1915,_Mondrian.jpg\">Wikimedia<\/a>, License: <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/publicdomain\/mark\/1.0\/\">Public Domain<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>His famous \u201cPier and Ocean\u201d series (see above), which reduces the landscape\u00a0to arrangements of vertical and horizontal lines, exemplifies this\u00a0period in Mondrian\u2019s career. He wanted to push beyond\u00a0Cubism\u2019s strategy of\u00a0fragmenting forms (caf\u00e9 tables were a favorite subject), and\u00a0move toward\u00a0pure abstraction. However, this change in Mondrian\u2019s\u00a0process did not take place\u00a0overnight and he continued to work in a studied, methodical\u00a0way. In fact, his\u00a0production of paintings within\u00a0a series of canvases was part of Mondrian\u2019s method, and how he worked\u00a0through thematic and compositional issues. Because Mondrian continued to rely on the series throughout his career, we can see the progression of his pictorial language even in his later, purely abstract work.<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 2525px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/mondrian1930med.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/mondrian1930med-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"Abstract geometric painting featuring a grid of thick black lines dividing red, blue, yellow, and white rectangular blocks. The composition emphasizes balance and contrast through primary colors and bold linear structure.\" width=\"2525\" height=\"2560\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Piet Mondrian, <em>Composition with Red, Blue, and Yellow<\/em>, 1930, oil on canvas, 46 x 46 cm (<a href=\"https:\/\/collection.kunsthaus.ch\/en\/collection\/item\/2455\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Kunsthaus Z\u00fcrich<\/a>, Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Piet_Mondriaan,_1930_-_Mondrian_Composition_II_in_Red,_Blue,_and_Yellow.jpg\">Wikimedia<\/a>, License: <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/publicdomain\/mark\/1.0\/\">Public Domain<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>His use of the term\u00a0\u201ccomposition\u201d (the organization of forms on the canvas) signals his experimentation with abstract arrangements.<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>Mondrian had returned home to the Netherlands just prior to the outbreak of the First World War and would remain there until the war ended.\u00a0While in the Netherlands he further\u00a0developed his style, ruling out compositions\u00a0that were either too static or too dynamic, concluding that asymmetrical arrangements of geometric\u00a0(rather than organic) shapes in primary (rather than secondary) colors best represent universal\u00a0forces. Moreover, he combined his development of an abstract style with his interest in\u00a0philosophy, spirituality, and\u00a0his belief that\u00a0the evolution of abstraction was a sign of humanity\u2019s progress.<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 2170px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/mondrian1930red.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/mondrian1930red.jpg\" alt=\"Detail of a red square from an abstract geometric painting featuring a grid of thick black lines dividing red, blue, yellow, and white rectangular blocks.\" width=\"2170\" height=\"2089\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Piet Mondrian, Red (detail), <em>Composition with Red, Blue, and Yellow<\/em>, 1930, oil on canvas, 46 x 46 cm (<a href=\"https:\/\/collection.kunsthaus.ch\/en\/collection\/item\/2455\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Kunsthaus Z\u00fcrich<\/a>, Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Piet_Mondriaan,_1930_-_Mondrian_Composition_II_in_Red,_Blue,_and_Yellow.jpg\">Wikimedia<\/a>, License: <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/publicdomain\/mark\/1.0\/\">Public Domain<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h3 id=\"philosophy-theosophy\">Philosophy &amp; Theosophy<\/h3>\n<p>Some art historians have viewed Mondrian\u2019s painting as an expression of his interest in\u00a0dialectical relationships, ideas advanced by the early nineteenth-century German philosopher Hegel that art and\u00a0civilization progress by successive moments of tension and reconciliation between oppositional forces. For Mondrian then, composing with opposites such as black and white pigments or vertical and\u00a0horizontal lines suggest an evolutionary development.<\/p>\n<p>Mondrian\u2019s painting may also reflect his association with the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/abstract-art-and-theosophy\/\">Theosophical Society<\/a>, an\u00a0esoteric group that had a strong presence in\u00a0Europe. Theosophists were interested in opposites as an expression of hidden unity. During WWI, Mondrian stayed in Laren, a village with a thriving art\u00a0community near Amsterdam. He lived near M.H.J.\u00a0Schoenmaeker, a prominent Theosophist who used terms such as \u201cNew Plastic\u201d to promote his\u00a0ideas on spiritual evolution and the unification of the real and the ideal, the physical and\u00a0immaterial. In Theosophy<strong>,<\/strong>\u00a0lines, shapes, and colors symbolized the\u00a0unity of spiritual and natural forces.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"de-stijl\">De Stijl<\/h3>\n<p>De Stijl is one of the most recognizable styles in all of modern art. Consisting only of horizontal and vertical lines and the colors red, yellow, blue, black, and white, De Stijl was applied not only to easel painting but also to architecture and a broad range of designed objects from furniture to clothing. This is not inappropriate. Despite its close association with Piet Mondrian, the artist thought of it not as his personal style, but as De Stijl \u2013\u00a0<em>The<\/em>\u00a0Style; it was objective and universal, applicable to all people and all things.<\/p>\n<p>While in Holland, Mondrian founded the movement called\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/de-stijl-part-i-total-purity\/\"><em>De Stijl<\/em>\u00a0(The Style)<\/a>\u00a0with the artist\u00a0Theo van Doesburg. The two shared many ideas about art as an expression of\u00a0relationships, particularly the relationships between art and life. Because these artists believed\u00a0that the evolution of art coincided with the modern progression of humankind, they thought that\u00a0New Plasticism could, and should, encompass all of human experience. Van Doesburg founded the journal\u00a0<em>De Stijl\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0to promote these ideas and demonstrate that their geometric abstraction,\u00a0based on their theory of\u00a0spiritual and pictorial progress, could form a total environment, and impact\u00a0modern life. Although Mondrian and van Doesburg\u00a0eventually parted ways, their movement to combine modern art and living was so influential\u00a0that\u00a0the abstract, geometric principles and use of primary colors they applied in painting, sculpture,\u00a0design, and architecture still resonate today.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"dynamic-contrasts\">Dynamic contrasts<\/h3>\n<figure style=\"width: 2560px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/mondrian1930bottom.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/mondrian1930bottom-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"Blue and white detail from an abstract geometric painting featuring a grid of thick black lines dividing red, blue, yellow, and white rectangular blocks.\" width=\"2560\" height=\"705\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Piet Mondrian (detail), <em>Composition with Red, Blue, and Yellow<\/em>, 1930, oil on canvas, 46 x 46 cm (<a href=\"https:\/\/collection.kunsthaus.ch\/en\/collection\/item\/2455\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Kunsthaus Z\u00fcrich<\/a>, Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Piet_Mondriaan,_1930_-_Mondrian_Composition_II_in_Red,_Blue,_and_Yellow.jpg\">Wikimedia<\/a>, License: <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/publicdomain\/mark\/1.0\/\">Public Domain<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Mondrian\u2019s\u00a0<em>Composition with Red, Blue, and Yellow\u00a0<\/em>demonstrates his commitment\u00a0to relational opposites, asymmetry, and pure planes of color.\u00a0Mondrian\u00a0composed this painting as a\u00a0harmony of contrasts that signify both balance and the tension of dynamic forces.\u00a0Mondrian viewed his black lines not as\u00a0outlines but as planes of pigment in their own right; an idea seen in the horizontal black plane on\u00a0the lower\u00a0right of the painting that stops just short of the canvas edge (see image above). Mondrian eradicates the entire notion of illusionistic depth predicated on a figure in front of\u00a0a background. He\u00a0achieves a harmonious tension by his asymmetrical\u00a0placement of primary colors that balance the blocks of white paint. Notice how the large red\u00a0square at the upper right, which might otherwise dominate the composition, is balanced by the\u00a0small blue square at the bottom left. What\u2019s more, when you see this painting in a person\u00a0you\u00a0can discern just how much variation is possible using this color scheme\u2014and that Mondrian\u00a0used varying\u00a0shades of blacks and whites, some of which are subtly lighter or darker. Seen\u00a0up close, this variety of values and textures create\u00a0a surprising harmony of contrasts.\u00a0Even the\u00a0visible\u00a0traces\u00a0of the artist\u2019s brushwork\u00a0counter what might otherwise be a rigid geometric composition and balance the artist\u2019s desire for a\u00a0universal truth with the intimately personal experience of the artist.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"conclusion-11\">Conclusion<\/h2>\n<p>Early 20<sup>th<\/sup> century avant-garde artists produced a range of styles. Leading up to World War I, artists experimented with the expressive power of color and the destruction of the picture plane. The Fauves and the German Expressionists pushed color to allow for both its arbitrary application and psychological or spiritual expression. Cubism and Abstract art further challenged the 500-year-old Western art traditions of naturalism and pictorial space that had been dominant since the early Renaissance. Instead, artists like Picasso and Mondrian emphasized the flatness of the canvas. The artists of the early 20<sup>th<\/sup> century expanded avenues for artistic creation. They also continued the avant-garde tradition of breaking boundaries and introducing new ways of communicating about the complex modern world. With World War I, the styles of Dada and Surrealism would simultaneously expand the discourse on defining fine art and attempt to process the destruction caused by the First World War.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"citation-and-licensing-11\">Citation and Licensing<\/h3>\n<p>The following sections were written by Chelsea Wright and licensed <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-sa\/4.0\/\">CC BY-NC-SA 4.0<\/a>:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Chapter Overview and Introduction<\/li>\n<li>Focus artwork and term list compiled by Chelsea Wright<\/li>\n<li>Conclusion<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The following articles from <em>Smarthistory<\/em> licensed <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-sa\/4.0\/\">CC BY-NC-SA 4.0<\/a> were remixed and adapted for the chapter:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Dr. Virginia B. Spivey, &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/a-beginners-guide-to-fauvism\/\">Fauvism, an introduction<\/a>,&#8221; in\u00a0<em>Smarthistory<\/em>, August 9, 2015.<\/li>\n<li>Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker, &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/matisse-bonheur-de-vivre\/\">Henri Matisse,\u00a0<em>Bonheur de Vivre (Joy of Life)<\/em><\/a>,&#8221; in\u00a0<em>Smarthistory<\/em>, August 9, 2015.<\/li>\n<li>Shawn Roggenkamp, &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/expressionism-intro\/\">Expressionism, an introduction<\/a>,&#8221; in\u00a0<em>Smarthistory<\/em>, October 2, 2016.<\/li>\n<li>Smarthistory, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/artist\/ernst-ludwig-kirchner\/\">Ernst Ludwig Kirchner<\/a>,\u201d in <em>Smarthistory<\/em>.<\/li>\n<li>Dr. Juliana Kreinik, Dr. Steven Zucker and Dr. Beth Harris, &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/kirchner-street-dresden\/\">Ernst Ludwig Kirchner,\u00a0<em>Street, Dresden<\/em><\/a>,&#8221; in\u00a0<em>Smarthistory<\/em>, November 13, 2015.<\/li>\n<li>Smarthistory, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/artist\/vasily-kandinsky\/\">Vasily Kandisnky<\/a>,\u201d in <em>Smarthistory<\/em>.<\/li>\n<li>Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker, &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/kandinsky-improvisation-28-second-version\/\">Vasily Kandinsky,\u00a0<em>Improvisation 28<\/em>\u00a0(second version)<\/a>,&#8221; in\u00a0<em>Smarthistory<\/em>, August 9, 2015.<\/li>\n<li>Dr. Charles Cramer and Dr. Kim Grant, &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/modern-art-reality\/\">Modern art and reality<\/a>,&#8221; in\u00a0<em>Smarthistory<\/em>, June 16, 2020.<\/li>\n<li>Emily Casden, &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/italian-futurism-an-introduction\/\">Italian Futurism, an introduction<\/a>,&#8221; in\u00a0<em>Smarthistory<\/em>, August 9, 2015.<\/li>\n<li>Smarthistory, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/artist\/pablo-picasso-2\/\">Pablo Picasso<\/a>,\u201d in <em>Smarthistory<\/em>.<\/li>\n<li>Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker, &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/pablo-picasso-les-demoiselles-davignon\/\">Pablo Picasso,\u00a0<em>Les Demoiselles d\u2019Avignon<\/em><\/a>,&#8221; in\u00a0<em>Smarthistory<\/em>, August 9, 2015.<\/li>\n<li>Dr. Peri Klemm, &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/the-reception-of-african-art-in-the-west\/\">The reception of African art in the West<\/a>,&#8221; in\u00a0<em>Smarthistory<\/em>, December 20, 2016.<\/li>\n<li>Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker, &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/inventing-cubism\/\">Inventing Cubism<\/a>,&#8221; in\u00a0<em>Smarthistory<\/em>, August 9, 2015.<\/li>\n<li>Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker, &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/picasso-guitar\/\">Pablo Picasso and the new language of Cubism<\/a>,&#8221; in\u00a0<em>Smarthistory<\/em>, May 12, 2018.<\/li>\n<li>Smarthistory, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/artist\/georges-braque\/\">George Braque<\/a>,\u201d in <em>Smarthistory<\/em>.<\/li>\n<li>Dr. Charles Cramer and Dr. Kim Grant, &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/georges-braque-violin-and-palette\/\">Georges Braque,\u00a0<em>Violin and Palette<\/em><\/a>,&#8221; in\u00a0<em>Smarthistory<\/em>, March 23, 2020.<\/li>\n<li>Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker, &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/picasso-still-life-with-chair-caning\/\">Pablo Picasso,\u00a0<em>Still Life with Chair Caning<\/em><\/a>,&#8221; in\u00a0<em>Smarthistory<\/em>, August 9, 2015.<\/li>\n<li>Dr. Charles Cramer and Dr. Kim Grant, &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/who-created-the-first-abstract-artwork\/\">Who created the first abstract artwork?<\/a>,&#8221; in\u00a0<em>Smarthistory<\/em>, September 28, 2019.<\/li>\n<li>Dr. Charles Cramer and Dr. Kim Grant, &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/de-stijl-part-i-total-purity\/\">De Stijl, Part I: Total Purity<\/a>,&#8221; in\u00a0<em>Smarthistory<\/em>, September 28, 2019.<\/li>\n<li>Smarthistory, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/artist\/piet-mondrian\/\">Piet Mondrian<\/a>,\u201d in <em>Smarthistory<\/em>.<\/li>\n<li>Dr. Stephanie Chadwick, &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/mondrian-composition-ii-in-red-blue-and-yellow\/\">Piet Mondrian,\u00a0<em>Composition with Red, Blue, and Yellow<\/em><\/a>,&#8221; in\u00a0<em>Smarthistory<\/em>, April 27, 2016.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr class=\"before-footnotes clear\" \/><div class=\"footnotes\"><ol><li id=\"footnote-3273-1\">As quoted in William Rubin,\u00a0<em>Picasso and Braque: Pioneering Cubism<\/em>\u00a0(New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1989), p. 353. <a href=\"#return-footnote-3273-1\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 1\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-3273-2\">Vasily Kandinsky, \u201cReminiscences\u201d (1913), as translated in Robert L. Herbert, ed.,\u00a0<em>Modern Artists on Art<\/em>\u00a0(Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, 2000), p. 29. <a href=\"#return-footnote-3273-2\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 2\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-3273-3\">Piet Mondrian, \u201cPure Abstract Art, 1929\u201d in\u00a0<em>The New Art\u2014The New Life: The Collected Writings of Piet Mondrian<\/em>, edited and translated by Harry Holtzman and Martin S. James (Boston: G.K. Hall&amp; Co.), p. 224. <a href=\"#return-footnote-3273-3\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 3\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><\/ol><\/div>","protected":false},"author":2,"menu_order":13,"template":"","meta":{"pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":[],"pb_section_license":""},"chapter-type":[],"contributor":[],"license":[],"class_list":["post-3273","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry"],"part":3,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/3273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/3273\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3530,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/3273\/revisions\/3530"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/3"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/3273\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=3273"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=3273"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=3273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}