20th Century Art Movements Overview

Once we enter the 20th century, there's a kind of explosion of art movements and ideas. Because it would be impossible to cover all of the changes, this video will zero in on select artists who showed creative innovation, specifically in regard to their brushwork. Keep in mind that throughout history, you find artists continuing to produce art in the various styles that came before them. For example, John Singer Sargent. Long before he came on the scene, artists such as Hals and Rembrandt were painting with daring, confident brushstrokes, but Sargent deserves special recognition. Just as Van Gogh was the king of directional brushstrokes, Sargent is the king of bravura brushwork. He's one of the most brilliant artists and had an incredible ability to convey a form such as This woman's shawl with just a few swipes of the brush. While Sargent was creating his expressive masterpieces, other artists were venturing into a new kind of artistic freedom. In fact, if you were to come up with a phrase to define the period of time in art after 1900, it would be artistic freedom. And this freedom included the ability to reinterpret reality. For most of the 20th century and beyond, artists primarily used some combination of the brushwork of those who came before them. But there was also a growing independence streak in the world of art that resulted in new artistic innovations. Some of these innovations came with the introduction of Cubism and one of the most renowned artists in history, Pablo Picasso. Picasso and his colleague George Braque. worked together to develop the artistic style known as Cubism, in which the artist breaks down objects to their most basic forms and then examines how they relate to one another, even splitting up forms in order to allow them to relate in a different way. Cubism is said to have received its name when Matisse was overheard referring to the pictures as consisting of little cubes. There were two phases of Cubism. The first phase dealt primarily with straight brushwork. The second phase, called synthetic cubism, introduces the world to the idea of incorporating pieces of cloth and non-paint materials into the work of art. This was eventually known as collage. These additional materials aren't a result of brushwork, of course, but brush strokes were used to help incorporate the material into the rest of the painting. In addition, Brock introduced the idea of incorporating painted lettering as part of the piece of art. Although these examples show thin layers of paint, it was actually more typical of Picasso to use a very thick flattened impasto technique. Now it's not completely flattened as you can see, but most of the surface is covered with a very thick solid layer of paint. During the time of the two world wars and the financial crisis, there's a kind of hiatus as far as the development of new brushwork. Instead, what you tend to see are new expressions in form and color, as well as choice of subject matter. And this is very likely due to the extreme emotions of the day. Artists were trying to find ways to voice their overwhelming feelings. It wasn't until after World War II that we began to see new breakthroughs in brushwork and the application of paint. In the 1950s, a new style developed that seemed to be more about the paint than about what was being painted. To the artist, it was about communicating emotion and breaking free of constraints, such as traditional painting tools and methods. This new style was called abstract expressionism, and Clifford Still is an American artist credited with laying its foundations. In abstract art, there's typically no single focal point. The work is about the whole image, keeping the viewer moving through the piece. The work at this time is also typically painted on a large scale, and this forced the viewer to take it on in a more personal, intimate way. Still painted broad expanses of color, and applied the paint with extremely active... of strokes, creating jagged edges and lines of color that seemed to cut through the surrounding paint. He applied the paint both very thickly with a trowel as well as thinly with a brush, and sometimes left vast areas of canvas completely bare. Around the same time, in the work of one of Stills'colleagues, Franz Klein, we see immense bold brushstrokes painted primarily in black and white. Now at first glance, his work appears to consist just of black paint, but in reality it's made up of multiple layers of black, and then white, and then black again, and so on, using a variety of white tones. Klein got his inspiration from seeing projected images that were so enlarged as to create abstract versions of an ordinary form. So a picture of a chair projected onto a wall and enlarged a great degree would cause the chair to be broken down into a series of lines. And this proved to be an inspiration. He began to paint planned works using massive brush strokes. and regular house paint in order to communicate his ideas. In the 1950s and 60s, Mark Tobey took the idea of calligraphic writing seen in Eastern art and incorporated it into a series of paintings developing his characteristic white writing style. This style involved painting white cursive letters on top of a dark, abstractly painted canvas. The dynamic almost chaotic appearance that often covered the incomplete span of the canvas, is said to have influenced Jackson Pollock. Now, Toby's work is sometimes referred to as gestural, a term that he shares with Pollock, one of the most important artists of the 20th century, and innovator of the now-known drip method of painting. Like some of the other artists of this time, Pollock's style excludes the use of a brush. unless we include his dried up brushes which he sometimes used to splatter the paint. Pollock came up with a concept of pouring commercial paint directly out of a can onto a large unstretched canvas that had been pinned to the floor or the wall. He would often place a stick in the can to act as a kind of conduit for the paint in order to control the flow. He would also fling or dribble the thinned paint. and ultimately create a complex web of colorful paint in order to communicate his deepest emotions. Pollock felt that paint wasn't just a substance to be manipulated, but instead it was a source of stored energy that needed release. Helen Frankenthaler was a contemporary of Pollock's. She built off of Pollock's concept of pouring paint. Instead of using commercial paint, she would thin down oil paint to an almost translucent consistency and then pour it onto a large, raw, unprimed canvas that she had placed on the floor of her studio. As a result, the pigment would soak into the fabric and essentially stain the material. So where Pollock's enamel paint would rest on top of the primed canvas, Frankenthaler's... would absorb and this became known as a staining technique which she developed while creating her painting Mountains and Seas in 1952. Her only real use of a brush came from gently pushing around the paint along the edges. The bulk of the work was achieved through pouring. Now while the abstract expressionist movement was developing in America, Canadian artist Jean-Paul Rappel was producing his characteristic large format mosaic paintings in Quebec. Rappel created his colorful works by applying impasto paint straight from the tube and then spreading or manipulating the paint with spatulas or a painting knife. The result was an amazing blurry visual effect. He also incorporated Pollock-like techniques such as splattering and dripping to build up his powerful works, and these works were made even more intense through his use of black and white. Taking things a step beyond Rappel's spatula technique, contemporary German artist Gerhard Richter creates masterful large-scale paintings using an oversized squeegee to apply, smear, and lift layers of paint from the canvas. He begins with a base layer, over which about 90% of it is covered with subsequent abstract layers of paint. Richter then finishes off many of his paintings by either removing segments of the top layer, or adding additional paint with a brush or knife. Gerhard Richter has painted in an incredibly wide variety of styles and mediums, but in his watercolor work in particular, paint is applied in multiple transparent, intense layers of washes or puddles of paint, creating a very complex expression of color, almost reminiscent of stained glass. In the 1980s through 2010, we see one of the 20th century's most important Chinese artists, Wu Guansong. Guansong manages to marry naturalistic realism with abstraction and geometric simplicity. He uses confident single-stroke brushwork and splatter to communicate feeling while representing natural forms. For example, look at this fantastic painting of trees. where you can sense the action of the moment. Just enough realism to let us know what the subject is, but enough abstraction to make us feel. In some of his work, he uses the all-over focal point that we see in the work of the abstract expressionists. But Guan Song separates his work by offering viewers the ability to make out forms and to rest in an area of reality. His work increases in abstraction as he ages, and in this painting from 2009, we see his use of painterly, large, broad brush strokes, dry brush edges, and strategically exposed canvas, all worked into a minimalistic composition. You can almost see the influence of Klein in this piece, or the influence of Cubism in this one. And what's interesting about Guan Song's work is that he seems to combine multiple styles of brushwork from the past to create his own unique artistic style. Let's end with a quick review, see if you can identify the artist simply by their brushstrokes.

Just as Van Gogh was the king of directional brushstrokes, Sargent is the king of bravura brushwork. He's one of the most brilliant artists and had an incredible ability to convey a form such as This woman's shawl with just a few swipes of the brush. While Sargent was creating his expressive masterpieces, other artists were venturing into a new kind of artistic freedom. In fact, if you were to come up with a phrase to define the period of time in art after 1900, it would be artistic freedom.

And this freedom included the ability to reinterpret reality. For most of the 20th century and beyond, artists primarily used some combination of the brushwork of those who came before them. But there was also a growing independence streak in the world of art that resulted in new artistic innovations.

Some of these innovations came with the introduction of Cubism and one of the most renowned artists in history, Pablo Picasso. Picasso and his colleague George Braque. worked together to develop the artistic style known as Cubism, in which the artist breaks down objects to their most basic forms and then examines how they relate to one another, even splitting up forms in order to allow them to relate in a different way. Cubism is said to have received its name when Matisse was overheard referring to the pictures as consisting of little cubes. There were two phases of Cubism.

The first phase dealt primarily with straight brushwork. The second phase, called synthetic cubism, introduces the world to the idea of incorporating pieces of cloth and non-paint materials into the work of art. This was eventually known as collage.

These additional materials aren't a result of brushwork, of course, but brush strokes were used to help incorporate the material into the rest of the painting. In addition, Brock introduced the idea of incorporating painted lettering as part of the piece of art. Although these examples show thin layers of paint, it was actually more typical of Picasso to use a very thick flattened impasto technique.

Now it's not completely flattened as you can see, but most of the surface is covered with a very thick solid layer of paint. During the time of the two world wars and the financial crisis, there's a kind of hiatus as far as the development of new brushwork. Instead, what you tend to see are new expressions in form and color, as well as choice of subject matter. And this is very likely due to the extreme emotions of the day.

Artists were trying to find ways to voice their overwhelming feelings. It wasn't until after World War II that we began to see new breakthroughs in brushwork and the application of paint. In the 1950s, a new style developed that seemed to be more about the paint than about what was being painted.

To the artist, it was about communicating emotion and breaking free of constraints, such as traditional painting tools and methods. This new style was called abstract expressionism, and Clifford Still is an American artist credited with laying its foundations. In abstract art, there's typically no single focal point.

The work is about the whole image, keeping the viewer moving through the piece. The work at this time is also typically painted on a large scale, and this forced the viewer to take it on in a more personal, intimate way. Still painted broad expanses of color, and applied the paint with extremely active...

of strokes, creating jagged edges and lines of color that seemed to cut through the surrounding paint. He applied the paint both very thickly with a trowel as well as thinly with a brush, and sometimes left vast areas of canvas completely bare. Around the same time, in the work of one of Stills'colleagues, Franz Klein, we see immense bold brushstrokes painted primarily in black and white.

Now at first glance, his work appears to consist just of black paint, but in reality it's made up of multiple layers of black, and then white, and then black again, and so on, using a variety of white tones. Klein got his inspiration from seeing projected images that were so enlarged as to create abstract versions of an ordinary form. So a picture of a chair projected onto a wall and enlarged a great degree would cause the chair to be broken down into a series of lines. And this proved to be an inspiration.

He began to paint planned works using massive brush strokes. and regular house paint in order to communicate his ideas. In the 1950s and 60s, Mark Tobey took the idea of calligraphic writing seen in Eastern art and incorporated it into a series of paintings developing his characteristic white writing style. This style involved painting white cursive letters on top of a dark, abstractly painted canvas. The dynamic almost chaotic appearance that often covered the incomplete span of the canvas, is said to have influenced Jackson Pollock.

Now, Toby's work is sometimes referred to as gestural, a term that he shares with Pollock, one of the most important artists of the 20th century, and innovator of the now-known drip method of painting. Like some of the other artists of this time, Pollock's style excludes the use of a brush. unless we include his dried up brushes which he sometimes used to splatter the paint.

Pollock came up with a concept of pouring commercial paint directly out of a can onto a large unstretched canvas that had been pinned to the floor or the wall. He would often place a stick in the can to act as a kind of conduit for the paint in order to control the flow. He would also fling or dribble the thinned paint. and ultimately create a complex web of colorful paint in order to communicate his deepest emotions. Pollock felt that paint wasn't just a substance to be manipulated, but instead it was a source of stored energy that needed release.

Helen Frankenthaler was a contemporary of Pollock's. She built off of Pollock's concept of pouring paint. Instead of using commercial paint, she would thin down oil paint to an almost translucent consistency and then pour it onto a large, raw, unprimed canvas that she had placed on the floor of her studio. As a result, the pigment would soak into the fabric and essentially stain the material. So where Pollock's enamel paint would rest on top of the primed canvas, Frankenthaler's...

would absorb and this became known as a staining technique which she developed while creating her painting Mountains and Seas in 1952. Her only real use of a brush came from gently pushing around the paint along the edges. The bulk of the work was achieved through pouring. Now while the abstract expressionist movement was developing in America, Canadian artist Jean-Paul Rappel was producing his characteristic large format mosaic paintings in Quebec.

Rappel created his colorful works by applying impasto paint straight from the tube and then spreading or manipulating the paint with spatulas or a painting knife. The result was an amazing blurry visual effect. He also incorporated Pollock-like techniques such as splattering and dripping to build up his powerful works, and these works were made even more intense through his use of black and white. Taking things a step beyond Rappel's spatula technique, contemporary German artist Gerhard Richter creates masterful large-scale paintings using an oversized squeegee to apply, smear, and lift layers of paint from the canvas.

He begins with a base layer, over which about 90% of it is covered with subsequent abstract layers of paint. Richter then finishes off many of his paintings by either removing segments of the top layer, or adding additional paint with a brush or knife. Gerhard Richter has painted in an incredibly wide variety of styles and mediums, but in his watercolor work in particular, paint is applied in multiple transparent, intense layers of washes or puddles of paint, creating a very complex expression of color, almost reminiscent of stained glass.

In the 1980s through 2010, we see one of the 20th century's most important Chinese artists, Wu Guansong. Guansong manages to marry naturalistic realism with abstraction and geometric simplicity. He uses confident single-stroke brushwork and splatter to communicate feeling while representing natural forms.

For example, look at this fantastic painting of trees. where you can sense the action of the moment. Just enough realism to let us know what the subject is, but enough abstraction to make us feel. In some of his work, he uses the all-over focal point that we see in the work of the abstract expressionists.

But Guan Song separates his work by offering viewers the ability to make out forms and to rest in an area of reality. His work increases in abstraction as he ages, and in this painting from 2009, we see his use of painterly, large, broad brush strokes, dry brush edges, and strategically exposed canvas, all worked into a minimalistic composition. You can almost see the influence of Klein in this piece, or the influence of Cubism in this one.

And what's interesting about Guan Song's work is that he seems to combine multiple styles of brushwork from the past to create his own unique artistic style. Let's end with a quick review, see if you can identify the artist simply by their brushstrokes.

Transcript for:20th Century Art Movements Overview

Transcript for:
20th Century Art Movements Overview