_Arts

Surrealism Surrealism originated in the late 1910s and early '20s as a literary movement that experimented with a new mode of expression called automatic writing, or automatism, which sought to release the unbridled imagination of the subconscious. Officially consecrated in Paris in 1924 with the publication of the Manifesto of Surrealism by the poet and critic André Breton (1896–1966), Surrealism became an international intellectual and political movement. Breton, a trained psychiatrist, along with French poets Louis Aragon (1897–1982), Paul Éluard (1895–1952), and Philippe Soupault (1897–1990), were influenced by the psychological theories and dream studies of Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) and the political ideas of Karl Marx (1818–1883). Using Freudian methods of free association, their poetry and prose drew upon the private world of the mind, traditionally restricted by reason and societal limitations, to produce surprising, unexpected imagery. The cerebral and irrational tenets ...

A Favourite Custom (Alma-Tadema, 1909) Artist: Lawrence Alma-Tadema Title: A Favourite Custom Year: 1909 Technique: Oil on panel Dimensions: 660 x 451 mm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Alma-Tadema_A_Favourite_Custom_1909_Tate_Britain.jpg possible from http://www.tate.org.uk Tate Britain This image (or other media file) is in the public domain because its copyright has expired. This applies to the United States, Australia, the European Union and those countries with a copyright term of life of the author plus 70 years.

Futurism Futurism was an artistic and social movement that originated in Italy in the early 20th century. It was largely an Italian phenomenon, though there were parallel movements in Russia, England and elsewhere. The Futurists practised in every medium of art, including painting, sculpture, ceramics, graphic design, industrial design, interior design, theatre, film, fashion, textiles, literature, music, architecture and even gastronomy. The founder of Futurism and its most influential personality was the Italian writer Filippo Tommaso Marinetti. Marinetti launched the movement in his Futurist Manifesto, which he published for the first time on 5 February 1909 in La gazzetta dell'Emilia, an article then reproduced in the French daily newspaper Le Figaro on 20 February 1909. He was soon joined by the painters Umberto Boccioni, Carlo Carrà, Giacomo Balla, Gino Severini and the composer Luigi Russolo. Marinetti expressed a passionate loathing of everything old, especially polit...

Ashcan School The Ashcan School (New York City, 1908-1913), also called the Ash Can School, is defined as a realist artistic movement that came into prominence in the United States during the early twentieth century, best known for works portraying scenes of daily life in New York's poorer neighborhoods. The movement is most associated with a group known as The Eight, whose members included five painters associated with the Ashcan school: William Glackens (1870-1938), Robert Henri (1865-1929), George Luks (1867-1933), Everett Shinn (1876-1953) and John French Sloan (1871-1951), along with Arthur B. Davies (1862-1928), Ernest Lawson (1873-1939) and Maurice Prendergast (1859-1924). All five members of the Ashcan School studied with Thomas Pollock Anshutz at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Origin with The Eight The Eight was a group of artists, many of whom had experience as newspaper illustrators in Philadelphia, who exhibited as a group only once, at the Macbeth Gal...

Athenais (1908) Artist: John William Godward Title: Athenais Year: 1908 Technique: Oil on canvas Dimensions: 39 3/4 x 24 inches (101 x 61 cm)

Expressionism (1905-1945) Expressionism is an artistic style in which the artist attempts to depict not objective reality but rather the subjective emotions and responses that objects and events arouse in him. He accomplishes his aim through distortion, exaggeration, primitivism, and fantasy and through the vivid, jarring, violent, or dynamic application of formal elements. In a broader sense Expressionism is one of the main currents of art in the later 19th and the 20th centuries, and its qualities of highly subjective, personal, spontaneous self-expression are typical of a wide range of modern artists and art movements. Expressionism is a term used to denote the use of distortion and exaggeration for emotional effect, which first surfaced in the art literature of the early twentieth century. When applied in a stylistic sense, with reference in particular to the use of intense colour, agitated brushstrokes, and disjointed space. Rather than a single style, it was a climate that affe...

William-Adolphe Bouguereau William-Adolphe Bouguereau (November 30, 1825 – August 19, 1905) was a French academic painter. William Bouguereau (pronounced vill-yam boo-guh-roe) was a traditionalist whose realistic genre paintings and mythological themes were modern interpretations of Classical subjects with a heavy emphasis on the female human body. Although he created an idealized world, his almost photo-realistic style was popular with rich art patrons. He was very famous in his time but today his subject matter and technique receive relatively little attention compared to the popularity of the Impressionists. Life and career William-Adolphe Bouguereau was born in La Rochelle, France on November 30, 1825, into a family of wine and olive oil merchants. He seemed destined to join the family business but for the intervention of his uncle Eugène, a Roman Catholic priest, who taught him classical and Biblical subjects, and arranged for Bouguereau to go to high school. Bouguereau sh...

Baigneuses Description: Baigneuses, oil on canvas, 62x46 cm Date: ? Author: Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824-1904) http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gerome_baigneuses.jpg This image (or other media file) is in the public domain because its copyright has expired. This applies to the United States, Australia, the European Union and those countries with a copyright term of life of the author plus 70 years.

The Awakening of Psyche (1904) Description: The Awakening of Psyche Français: Le Réveil de Psyché Date: Salon de 1904 Author: Guillaume Seignac Guillaume Seignac | Chi Mei Museum | Paintings of nude standing females | Psyche | Female long hair in art | Awakening

Sweet Nothings (1904) Description: Dolce far Niente or Sweet Nothings Date: 1904 Author: John William Godward Oil paintings of women | Peacock feathers | Pools in art | Water lilies in art | Recumbent women in art | Red clothing, female | Pre-Raphaelite paintings | 1904 paintings | John William Godward | Wolf fur-skins in art | Bear fur-skins in art

Take the Fair Face of Woman Artist: Sophie Gengembre Anderson (1823–1903) Title: Take the Fair Face of Woman, and Gently Suspending, With Butterflies, Flowers, and Jewels Attending, Thus Your Fairy is Made of Most Beautiful Things Technique: Oil on canvas http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:SophieAndersonTakethefairfaceofWoman.jpg This image (or other media file) is in the public domain because its copyright has expired.

Artist Henrietta Rae (1859–1928) Description English: The Sirens Français : Les Sirènes Date 1903 Source/Photographer The Royal Academy

Cave of the Storm Nymphs (1903) Artist Edward John Poynter (1836–1919) Title Cave of the Storm Nymphs Date 1903 Technique Oil on canvas Dimensions (145.9 x 110.4 cm) 1903 paintings | Caves in art | Edward Poynter | Group paintings of nude females | Paintings of nude females in nature | Nereids | Nude female, bare feet apparent | Private art collections

Summer Flowers (1903) Description: Summer Flowers Date: 1903 Author: John William Godward

Echo and Narcissus Description: Echo and Narcissus. Oil on canvas, 109.2 x 189.2cm. Date: 1903 Author: John William Waterhouse (1849–1917)

Albert Bierstadt Albert Bierstadt (January 7, 1830 - February 18, 1902) was a German-American painter best known for his large, detailed landscapes of the American West. In obtaining the subject matter for these works, Bierstadt joined several journeys of the Westward Expansion. Though not the first artist to record these sites, Bierstadt was the foremost painter of these scenes for the remainder of the 19th century. Bierstadt was part of the Hudson River School, not an institution but rather an informal group of like-minded painters. The Hudson River School style involved carefully detailed paintings with romantic, almost glowing lighting, sometimes called luminism. Albert Bierstadt was born in Solingen, Germany. His family moved to New Bedford, Massachusetts, in 1833. He studied painting with the members of the Düsseldorf School in Düsseldorf, Germany from 1853 to 1857. He taught drawing and painting briefly before devoting himself to painting. Bierstadt began making paintings in N...

Venus at the Bath (1901) Artist John William Godward (1861–1922) Title Venus at the Bath Year 1901 Technique Oil on canvas Dimensions 67 3/4 × 24 inches (172.1 × 61 cm) http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Godward-Venus_at_the_Bath-1901.jpg Oil paintings of women | Venus (dea) | Paintings of nude standing females | Bathing women in art | Pre-Raphaelite paintings | 1901 paintings | John William Godward