Incorporating Fauvism in Graphic Design: Part 1

Incorporating Fauvism in Graphic Design: Part 1

Fauvism was one of the artistic advances that thrived in France in the early twentieth century. The Fauve painters were the first to halt their Impressionist techniques and instead opted for the more vivacious and colour-focused Fauvist movement. Such artists included Henri Matisse, Andre Derain, Maurice de Vlaminck, and Georges Rouault. The conservative and academic art critic Louis Vauxelles who reviewed their work, labeled them with the term Fauves that was stuck with the small group of friends for another five years which means Wild Beasts after they collectively decided to exhibit their compositions in the year 1905 in the much renowned Autumn Salon found in the heart of Paris. These daring artists were directly inspired by the likes of Van Gogh, Gaugin, Suerat and Cezanne due to their revolutionary choice of subject matter, the forms and colours they used.

Henri Matisse and Andre Derain introduced unnatural colours and vivid brushstrokes into their painting, relating their scene or subject by using areas of flat colour without any hint of blending or applying any shades and tints. Derain and de Vlaminck specifically applied lurid paint with thick and intense brushstrokes which was a defining characteristic of Van Gogh's art. Henri Matisse was ultimately acknowledged as the frontrunner of Les Fauves and like the rest of the group, he highlighted the use of powerful hue as a means of defining space and light and was also used as the direct approach for artists to express their emotions. This can be proved to be so in the painting of Henri Matisse's wife where he includes bright random colours in the portrait. It is called The Green Stripe due to the green part extending from the forehead to the upper lip.

The fact that Matisse and the other Fauvists painted many nudes, particularly women, put them in the position of brutal accusations, where art critics reproached them for being weak in the face of bodily and materialistic pleasure and of being hedonists. Moreover some of the painting's subject matter is quite extroversive and sensual. Paintings such as that of The Bonheur de Vivre depicts men and women

in the nude in the acts of embracing, reclining and dancing in the outdoor environment.

Matisse however, given his reserved manner and ordinary practices was not a hedonist at all. On the contrary, he expressed conservative bourgeois standards in most of his landscapes including The Canal du Midi, which he completed in 1898.

Bibliography:

·        Stephen Little, …isms Understanding Art, 2011, Herbert Press, London

·         Jesse Bryant Wilder, Art History for Dummies, 2007, Wiley Publishing, Indianapolis

·        A beginner's guide to Fauvism | Fauvism and Matisse | Khan Academy. 2015. A beginner's guide to Fauvism | Fauvism and Matisse | Khan Academy. [ONLINE] Available at:https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-1010/early-abstraction/fauvism-matisse/a/a-beginners-guide-to-fauvism. [Accessed 19 January 2015].