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The fauvism is current of painting of the beginning of the 20th century. It began historically with the autumn 1905, at the time of a living room which created a scandal, to be completed less than ten years later, at the beginning of the Années 1910. In fact, since 1908, it is already in its twilight. Its influence marked nevertheless all the art of the 20th century, in particular by the release of the color. The leader of the fauvism was Henri Matisse, but other large artists, like André Derain, Maurice de Vlaminck or Georges Braque formed part of it.

The fauvism is characterized by the audacity and the innovation of its chromatic research. The painters had recourse to broad flat tints of violent, pure colors and sharp, and asserted an art based on the instinct. They separated the color from its reference to the object in order to accentuate the expression and reacted in a provocative way against the visual feelings and softness of the Impressionnisme. Matisse said: When I put a green, that does not want to say grass; when I put a blue, that does not want to say the sky.

Genesis of the fauvism

It is at the time of the 3rd Salon of autumn from October 18th to November 25th, 1905, on the Avenue of the Fields-Élysées which was joined together for the first time in the same room (famous room VII, said the cage to the deer ) the whole of the painters who will constitute the current fauvist. The term itself comes from a criticism written by Louis Vauxcelles in connection with this meeting:

In the center of the room, a chest of child and a small marble bust of Albert Marquet, which models with a delicate science. The frankness of these busts surprises in the middle of the orgy of tons pure: Donatello among the deer .

The fauvism there exists T?

Many historians of art call into question the existence of the movement fauvist, emphasizing the diversity of the styles practiced by the fawn-coloured artists, and the absence of clearly definite common identity. According to Derain, itself: the great merit of this test was to free the table from any imitative and conventional contact . Indeed, the fauvism does not have the elements which characterize a school: neither theory, nor unit style. The use of the pure colors, often quoted like point of rallying of the deer, in fact is not shared by all: the Beach of Fécamp of Marquet, though completely deer in its composition, uses only grayed colors, obscured. The fauvism could thus constitute only one “temporary agreement between young artists independent subjected to the same climate of time”.

Other historians of art dispute this vision, like Lebensztein, for which the fauvism is a European phenomenon, even Western, which develops in a context of immense artistic dynamism (the decade 1904-1914 sees a very fast succession of many transformations). For him, one can recognize with these artists of the common elements:

the simplification and the stressing of the forms,
the relative autonomisation of the color,
the flatness of space,
the appearance of improvisation fast,
texture, brutally visible,
aggressive immediacy.

The fauvism is also characterized by rejections, in particular that of modelled traditional, decorative sophistication and literary set of themes proposed by the artists Symbolists. The compositions in diagonal are rather frequent, as well as the use of a ring black or blue harms around the characters.

Sources of the fauvism

The fawn-coloured movement was born from nothing, far from there. Several common influences can be recognized in works of its artists.

The impressionist and the neo-impressionist constitute the first source. Their particular key, which juxtaposes pure colors instead of mixing them, leaving with the eye of the spectator the care to carry out a work of recombining, is taken again by Matisse, which was pupil of Signac at the summer 1904, and which transmits it to its turn with Derain. Luxury, calm and pleasure (1904) are an example emblematic. Manguin itself is at the same time close to Matisse and Signac or Cross-country race, painters divisionnists if it is, while Camoin directly referred to Manet by the concision of its drawing.

The impressionist crystalline colors are also taken again, in particular by Manguin, whose pallet is dominated by tons yellow and orange luminous. Dufy, as for him, frequently takes again the topic of the Rue Montorgueil of Monet, in its July 14th in Le Havre or pavoized street . The deployment of the flags across the street is pretext with the deployment of the color, which Monet had already noticed, and which Marquet had used the same year ( July 14th in Le Havre ). Nevertheless, the composition, with the lines of the flags which intersect, is very innovative.

Others, like Raoul Dufy, Marquet or Girieud use the technique of Gauguin rather, with large flat tints. Matisse and Derain do not hesitate either to make use of it, and oscillate sometimes between the pointillists influences and of Gauguin. In Japanese at the edge of water Matisse shows this hesitation, by using rather long keys though distant one of the other, and even, at certain moments, flat tints. In the same way, Derain composes sometimes its fabrics with broad ribbons of colors ( the suburb of Collioure , 1905), whereas, in contemporary works ( Bateaux in the port of Collioure , Effets of sun on water ), it uses only juxtaposed small keys.
The style of Gauguin is found in another element: the use of the ring around the characters. This one is particularly visible in the dance of Andre Derain (1906)

It is also important to underline the influence that Louis Valtat (1869 - 1952) had at Matisse and of the future deer, Rouault, Marquet, Camoin, Manguin, Puy and some others which followed in 1896 the teaching of Gustave Moreau to the School of Beautiful arts of Paris. Valtat presented besides, at the sides Kandinsky and Jawlensky, five paintings in room XV of the Salon of autumn of 1905; but as of the Living room of Independent of 1896, it exposed paintings carried out to Arcachon during the winter 1895-1896, like eighty watercolours, of the drawings and the wood engraved which included/understood already characteristics of the fauvism: pure colors, simplified forms, abolished prospects and removed shades.

Cézanne also is a source of important inspiration. In the Gipsy of 1905, painted in Saint-Tropez, Matisse thus includes the geometrization of the body of the characters characteristic of the recluse of Aix. Derain as for him is inspired in the dance by it, to carry out its reflection on the place of the human figure in a landscape, as much as in the bathers of 1907, to stylize its figures. In the same way, the composition of the Port of Collioure , very considered, makes much think of Cézanne. At Vlaminck, it is rather the heritage of Van Gogh which one finds, as shows it Outing in the country realized in 1907. Although hostile at the institutions muséales, he had discovered this artist during an exposure in 1901 in Bernheim-Young person, which had definitively directed its career towards painting. It is besides with this same exposure that Derain presented it to Matisse.

Lastly, a last influence is far from being negligible: that of “arts first”, océanien and African. These exotic arts, very décriés at the 19th century for their “ugliness” and already more or less given to the honor by Gauguin, are collected by the artists who discover them during the World Fair. Many works introduce characters to the faces stylized in the shape of mask, as it is the case for example for the Gipsy of Matisse.

Influence fauvism

In spite of the transitory life of the movement, the Deer had a great influence on whole Europe.

The new Muscovite collectors will adopt this painting. The Russian artists, gathered within association the Golden Fleece, will organize the first exposures of paintings deer in 1908. Their third exposure, in 1910, will mix with the objects of the Russian craft industry with the tables of Nathalie Gontcharova and Michel Larionov. This last will undertake a series of tables devoted to the prostitutes. Auguste Chabaud, Frantisek Kupka will adopt the same topic. The prostitute of Kupka will be titrated “Primitive”.

The fawn-coloured qualifier will indicate the fabrics which will carry the pure color to its extreme limits. “The fauvism”, will say Matisse, “came owing to the fact that we place ourselves completely far from the colors of imitation and that with the pure colors we obtained stronger reactions”. This current will have a deep influence on the German movements Die Brücke and the NKVM whose scission will cause creation Der Blaue Reiter.

Books

Claude Jeancolas (historian of art): fawn-coloured Art , ED. FWW, 200 pages.

Note and references

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