Unesco travelling print exhibition: From impressionism till today

in reconstructing form, he sekes a closer approach t o nature and ts image. Cubism, which constitutes t he corresponding reaction against Fauvism shortly sometimes bizarre style, which is more in harmony with t he Nordic or Ger.- before t h e 1914 war, believes t h a t i t can further plastic research only b y manic temperament. severing t h e last links binding painting t o visible reality. I t starts b y ana- lysing masses, on t h e authority of Cezanne. I t gives the artist t h e right t o early development of a n a r t so contrary t o t he instinctive moderation and appropriate i n wha t he sees merely such elements as will further t h e harmony naturally happy temperament of t h e French. The great founder of this he seeks in his picture. I t authorizes him also t o give up traditional per. movement i n European painting was the Norwegian, Edva r d Munch, whose spective once a nd for all, a nd t o envisage simultaneously aspects which in intellectual life was strained t o the limit of endurance. He helped the German reality t h e eye could only discover b y moving round the object which serves school t o liberate t he obscure forces which were tormenting it. Their first as inspiration. Nature, dissected, analysed, t aken to pieces—presents hence. eruption was in t h e work of t h e group called Die Brücke, which i n 1905 re- forth t h e mere debris of its appearance t o t he co-ordinating mind o f t h e vealed first Kirchner and Schmidt-Rottluff, and then Nolde. The trend once started was t o go on increasing: it inspired t he tragic caricatural a r t of artist, who reassembles i t according t o his own laws. He acts as freely as Grosz, a nd the Austrian Kokoschka carried it t o its highest pitch of feverish the musician combining his sounds solely with a view to harmonies of which he is t he exclusive inventor. I n t h e work of t h e Spanish Cubists, Picasso brilliance. and J u a n Gris, this music of line and colour is intense, violent, dramatic some- times t o t h e point of paroxysm. The French—Braque, La Fresnaye, Léger— experience i t as something saner and fuller, laden still with emotional experi- ence. But, after the shock of t he 1914 war which, b y overwhelming all minds with horror, precipitated t h e evolution of a r t towards emotional depth, Nothing is more revealing t h a n t h e contrast between Picasso a nd Braque. Surrealism sought refuge from t h e collapse of all accepted values in the on- Picasso, t h e ' P r o t eu s " of modern art, is forever in search of novelty, incarnat ginal purity o f t he unconscious. I t had forerunners, such as t h e Slav Chagall ing successively or simultaneously t h e most discordant temptations o f hii and t h e Italian Chirico, who already preferred t h e disjointed and paradoxical age, and putting a t their disposal his brilliant talent, never failing in inven- phenomena of the world o f dreams t o those of reality. I n their wake, the tiveness or originality. Bu t this frantic pursuit of novelty itself reflects t h e secret anguish, which, after periods of harmony, drives him t o dislocate nature Surrealists carried t o its logical conclusion this idea of recourse t o irrational to the very limit of t h e strain i t can endure. Braque, on t he contrary, uses impulses. Some, like Klee or t h e Spaniard Mirô, drew, from inspiration seized t he same means t o create a world of coloured forms diffusing a n ethereal in its earliest stages, unstudied combinations of line and colour. Others, peacefulness, which has suggested a co like Max Ernst, Yves Tanguy, Andre' Masson or Salvador Dali, now l i v i n c o m p a r i s o n between this Cubist, a p . ri America, gave t o their painting, in the shape o f recognizable forms and parently disdainful of reality, and t h e great realist master Chardin. He does objects, t he absurd a nd inexplicable structure of dreams. in fact give expression in t h e face of nature t o t he same kind o f sensitive Then, towards 1930, following t he trend indicated by Derain—and poetry, so characteristically French. later b y Dunoyer de Segonzac, a contemporary o f t h e Cubists—time new gener- French a r t shows, therefore, some unwillingness t o separate t h e abstract ation endeavoured t o reconcile wha t seemed t o i t t he most valid results of completely from t h e support which i t finds i n reality. Bu t other countries, modern research with tradition and its respect for nature. The necessity less careful of moderation, more extreme i n theory, have carried Cubism as of finding a middle p a t h seemed destined t o attenuate t h e desire for experi- far as pure abstraction, where t he elements of t h e picture are arranged without ment. any relation t o nature. The modern Italian school was already introducing, However, the young artists of t he day had come under t he widespread with Futurism, t h e idea o f time, with its dynamic effect, b u t i t was i n Germany influence of surrealism too strongly t o be insensible t o t h e obscure anguish t h a t abstract a r t was carried t o its logical conclusion, particularly i n t h e work of t he subconscious, which was vaguely aware of t h e troubles and dangers of Kandinsky, who was later t o settle i n France. He h a d belonged formerly, of t h e day. Several, like Griiber, Andre' Marchand or Ta! Coat, hinted in in 1911, t o t h e " Blaue Re i t e r " group, i n which Franz Marc and Macke, influenced their oppressive compositions, with their despairing and tragic figures, at b y t he Cubists a n d bo t h killed during t he 1914-1918 war, made their name, as the t h r e a t which hung over those years of preparation for another war. well as t he Swiss, Pa u l Klee, who was one o f t h e most inspired inventors o f The electric current with which all minds were charged, condenses, explodes; abstract images i n colour t h a t our age has known. war breaks out, t hen defeat, flight, servitude. Cubism was weighed down b y t h e chains of excessive intellectualism: While numbers of Surrealists who h a d managed t o cross t o the United 4tates were developing their movement there, artists in France responded to instinctively i t was counteracted b y t h e vogue enjoyed b y t h e charming and t he occupation b y rallying all their audacity. As early as 1941 a n exhibition frivolous painting of Marie Laurencin, so much admired b y Apollinaire, the was opened of Young painters of t he French tradition '. The very name t he douanier, Rousseau, i n whose steps followed t he peintres du dirnanche, poet, high priest of t h e Cubists, as well as b y t he naïve and pure work of was a challenge not only, t o t he invaders with their proscription of an art They considered "degenerate", b u t also to t he compromise which the pre- Vivin, Bombois, Bauchant and Séraphine. This same longing for a refreshing war period had sought t o make between modernism and tradition. The simplicity of sensation, which is also embodied i n t h e pathetic a nd shrinking Liberation gave new impetus t o these tendencies, and painting made an urban landscapes of t h e gentle Utrihlo, foretold a return t o spontaneous, instinctive life, free o f all intellectual trammels. Then i t was t h a t Expres- impassioned appeal t o all t h a t was most uncompromising and revolutionary in Fauvism and Cubism. sionism, profiting from this h i n t o f a r e t u r n t o t h e spontaneity of sensations, Most o f the young painters, bringing back into vogue precursors like the came into being with t h e generation of Goerg, Gromaire, La Patellière, MiX, Cubist Villon, advocated non-figurative art, and under cover of the major and made itself a place i n t he history of French painting, whose genius is rather t h a t of logic a nd of clarity. Only Rouault, and later Waroquier, t o a innovations of Matisse and Picasso, devoted themselves t o a frantic enjoy- certain extent, were able t o link their a r t t o this tormented, violent, tense and ment 0 continue t o spare reality, still identifiable despite their transpositions ; others,