The Scream, Edvard Munch

Expressionism

Ambroise Vollard, Pablo Picasso

The red wedge, El Lissitzky
Constructivism

Cubism

Caf Terrace at night, Vincent van Gogh

Impressionism

Post

Expressionism was a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting,

originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to
present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for
emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas. Expressionist artists sought to
express meaning or emotional experience rather than physical reality.

Expressionism was developed as an avant-garde style before the First World War.
It remained popular during the Weimar Republic, particularly in Berlin. The style

extended to a wide range of the arts, including expressionist architecture,

painting, literature, theatre, dance, film and music.

The term is sometimes suggestive of angst. In a general sense, painters such as

Matthias Grnewald and El Greco are sometimes termed expressionist, though in
practice the term is applied mainly to 20th-century works. The Expressionist
emphasis on individual perspective has been characterized as a reaction to
positivism and other artistic styles such as Naturalism and Impressionism.

Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement that revolutionized

European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music,
literature and architecture. Cubism has been considered the most influential art
movement of the 20th century. The term is broadly used in association with a
wide variety of art produced in Paris (Montmartre, Montparnasse and Puteaux)
during the 1910s and extending through the 1920s.

The movement was pioneered by Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso, joined by
Jean Metzinger, Albert Gleizes, Robert Delaunay, Henri Le Fauconnier, Fernand
Lger and Juan Gris. A primary influence that led to Cubism was the
representation of three-dimensional form in the late works of Paul Czanne. A
retrospective of Czanne's paintings had been held at the Salon d'Automne of
1904, current works were displayed at the 1905 and 1906 Salon d'Automne,
followed by two commemorative retrospectives after his death in 1907.

In Cubist artwork, objects are analyzed, broken up and reassembled in an

abstracted forminstead of depicting objects from one viewpoint, the artist
depicts the subject from a multitude of viewpoints to represent the subject in a
greater context.

The impact of Cubism was far-reaching and wide-ranging. Cubism spread rapidly
across the globe and in doing so evolved to greater or lesser extent. In essence,
Cubism was the starting point of an evolutionary processes that produced
diversity; it was the antecedent of diverse art movements.

In France, offshoots of Cubism developed, including Orphism, Abstract art and

later Purism. In other countries Futurism, Suprematism, Dada, Constructivism and
De Stijl developed in response to Cubism. Early Futurist paintings hold in common
with Cubism the fusing of the past and the present, the representation of
different views of the subject pictured at the same time, also called multiple
perspective, or simultaneity, while Constructivism was influenced by Picasso's
technique of constructing sculpture from separate elements. Other common
threads between all of these disparate movements include the faceting or

simplification of geometric forms, and the association of mechanization and

modern life.

Constructivism was an artistic and architectural philosophy that originated in

Russia beginning in 1919, a rejection of the idea of autonomous art. The
movement was in favour of art as a practice for social purposes. Constructivism
had a great effect on modern art movements of the 20th century, influencing
major trends such as the Bauhaus and De Stijl movements. Its influence was
pervasive, with major impacts upon architecture, graphic and industrial design,
theatre, film, dance, fashion and to some extent music.

Post-Impressionism (also spelled Postimpressionism) is the term coined by the

British artist and art critic Roger Fry in 1910 to describe the development of
French art since Manet. Fry used the term when he organized the 1910 exhibition
Manet and the Post-Impressionists. Post-Impressionists extended Impressionism
while rejecting its limitations: they continued using vivid colours, often thick
application of paint, and real-life subject matter, but they were more inclined to
emphasize geometric forms, to distort form for expressive effect, and to use
unnatural or arbitrary colour.