Fauvism: Origin, Influences, Characteristics

Fauvism: Origin, influences, characteristics

Origin of Fauvism

Fauvism is a movement of French origin that was based mainly on painting and lasted only four years, from 1904-1908. The name originates from how the French critic Louis Vauxcelles described the picturesque technique that was based on aggressive chromatic ranges such as ¨fauves¨ which means beasts. This movement left the “The Autumn Hall” in 1905, where the first exhibition was exhibited, but this movement never had a manifesto that clearly defines it as such. It was more the mixture of techniques that painters established similarly in their paintings that formed it as a type of movement. Painters like Henri Matisse, André Derain and Maurice de Valminick used spontaneity and freshness in their paintings that rejects the rules and methods that were established as rational. This movement was characterized by facing impressionism and the importance of light. Defending individuality and the idea that painting can be a means of expression by itself.

Who is Fauvistas?

Fauvistas focused on that through colors you could express not only light but feelings. This thought greatly influenced their portraits, since they did not seek naturalistic representation, but to highlight the color as an element. In order to achieve this technique, painters reject the palette of tones used by impressionists and replace it with more violent colors to generate a great expressive emphasis. It is very characteristic of this movement to use direct brushstrokes that generate a thick appearance that does not mix the colors inside the flat, linear or thick figures that enclose the contour of the composition.

The forms begin to simplify and resort to the natural, original and spontaneous. It is remarkable to see how light is faded gradually through the picture and generates an illusion of depth to the issues it deals with. Fauvista’s paintings are characterized by the topics that revolve around their reality. They make portraits to known people, rural or urban landscapes commonly frequented and dead nature. Within these issues it is evident to see how the established perspective is completely eliminated unlike the rest of the avant -garde that maintained a defined perspective. In relation to the other avant -garde, that movement grew up to the manifestos of impressionism or naturalism. There are three main factors that unite fauvistas as a movement, they cover:

• the complicity;
• Caricaturescos portraits;
• the interest in renewing art;

Among these painters there was a great friendship that united them to form this movement where they worked inspired by the idea of renewing the footprint that left impressionism in Europe. Caricaturescos portraits show the personalities of the individuals who painted the fabules where they capture the interior of the artist. I was looking to highlight the character’s psychology in a certain way. A well -known example is Manguin’s self-portrait, which uses strong color tones and less marked strokes in the figures after painting. Finally, the deep desire to renew art with a more personified perspective by focusing colors to invest in which the light focused on the painting. The color, according to Gustav Moreau, was "Puro Imagination".

The fundamental ideas of Fauvism and its characteristics

The fundamental ideas of Fauvism were first based on the way of reforming painting dares color. Before the color took into account as part of the composition, but for Fauvism the Colore had the personality that the impressionists lacked. Since they saw that the color captured the colors of random nature through the luminosity. The second idea was based on light acrobats, Matisse had the ability to hypnotize who saw his paintings when using a certain color palette. This artist was based on painting outside and achieving acrobatics from light, where he could study the nature of light and managed to enhance and radicalize his colors. The last idea is that this movement does not contain manifesto. Behind Fauvism there is nothing written, they are only the ideals of a group of artists who were fascinated by the nature and flexibility of color. But more than anything, this set of artists reflected on how to modify the painting without having rules that limit them and interrupt their way of illustrating the reality in which they lived.

The importance of Fauvism

It is important to reflect on how color during this movement is imposed on drawing and begins to trace and break the trends of the previous century. He stopped developing paintings that are very attached to reality to play with plans and diverse perspectives. This movement was a rebellion, which although it lasted short. This movement erased the norms established by society and placed their own that led their artists to paint provocative paintings that show reality as a dream full of colors.