The Rise of Modernism: Art of the Later 19th Century
    
       
  Industrialization, Urbanization, And Expanding Global Consciousness :: The Development of Modernism :: Fin-De-Siècle Culture ::Other Architecture in The Later 19th Century
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  THE DEVELOPMENT OF MODERNISM

Modernity and Modernism:

Societal changes prompted a greater consciousness of and interest in modernity, which resulted in the development of modernism in art in the second half of the nineteenth century. Modernist artists seek to capture the images and sensibilities of their age while also subjecting the premises of art itself to critical examination. The two major modernist art movements of the later nineteenth century are Realism and Impressionism. Toward the end of the century, modernism led to the development of the avant-garde (artists whose work emphatically rejected the past and transgressed the boundaries of conventional artistic practice).

Redefining reality:

Realists focused attention on the experiences and sights of everyday contemporary life. Realism developed in France around the mid-century. Its leading figure was Gustave Courbet.

The lowest of the low:

Courbet's The Stone Breakers shows the drudgery of menial labor directly and accurately.

29-1: GUSTAVE COURBET, The Stone Breakers, 1849. Oil on canvas, 5' 3" x 8' 6". Formerly at Gemäldegalerie, Dresden (destroyed in 1945). 
  1. The Stone Breakers
  2. The Stone Breakers
  3. The Stone Breakers
  4. The Stone Breakers
  5. The Stone Breakers
Peasant life and death:

Gustave Courbet's monumental Burial at Ornans depicts a funeral in a provincial landscape attended by ordinary, unposed people who cluster around the excavated gravesite.
    
       
  29-2: GUSTAVE COURBET, Burial at Ornans, 1849. Oil on canvas, approx. 10' x 22'. Louvre, Paris.
  1. Burial at Ornans
  2. Burial at Ornans
  3. Burial at Ornans
  4. Burial at Ornans
  5. Burial at Ornans
Emphasizing the painted surface:

Through their crude use of pigment, neglect of the conventions of illusionism, and manipulation of the composition, Realist painters called attention to painting as a pictorial construction.

A painter of country life:

In The Gleaners, Jean-François Millet depicted impoverished peasant women gleaning wheat left in the field after the harvest.
  
       
  29-3: JEAN-FRANÇOIS MILLET, The Gleaners, 1857. Oil on canvas, approx. 2' 9" x 3' 8". Louvre, Paris.
  1. The Gleaners
  2. The Gleaners
  3. The Gleaners
  4. The Gleaners
  5. The Gleaners
Championing the working class:

Realist artist HONORÉ DAUMIER (1808-1879),  was a defender of t urban working classes, and in his art, he boldly confronted authority with social criticism and political protest.

29-4: HONORÉ DAUMIER, Rue Transnonain, 1834. Lithograph, approx. 1' x 1' 5 1/2". Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia (bequest of Fiske and Marie Kimball). 
  1. Rue Transnonain
  2. Rue Transnonain
  3. Rue Transnonain
  4. Rue Transnonain
  5. Rue Transnonain
Elevating photography:

The rapidity with which lithographs could be produced, coupled with Daumier's quick wit allowed him to provide amusing commentary on contemporary events in a timely manner.  The following print was prompted by an 1862 court decision that acknowledged that photography was indeed an art.

29-5: HONORÉ DAUMIER, Nadar Raising Photography to the Height of Art, 1862. Lithograph, 10 3/4" x 8 3/4". Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
  1. Nadar
  2. Nadar
  3. Integration of Daumier Lithograph

The plight of the urban poor:

In his lithograph, Rue Transnonain, Honoré Daumier depicts in a factual manner an atrocity that took place in a workers' housing block on a street in Paris. Daumier's unfinished The Third-Class Carriage shows the working-class poor seated on wooden benches inside a cramped and grimy railway carriage.

  
       
 

29-6: HONORÉ DAUMIER, The Third-Class Carriage, ca. 1862. Oil on canvas, 2' 1 3/4" x 2' 11 1/2". Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (H. O. Havemeyer Collection, bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929).

  1. Third-Class Carriage
  2. Third-Class Carriage
  3. Third-Class Carriage
  4. Third-Class Carriage
  5. Third-Class Carriage
Promiscuity in a Parisian Park?:

Édouard Manet's broadly painted Le Déjeuner sur l'Herbe bluntly shows two clothed men and an unidealized nude woman in a Parisian park.
  
       
 
 
       
       
  29-7: ÉDOUARD MANET, Le Déjeuner sur l'Herbe (Luncheon on the Grass), 1863. Oil on canvas, approx. 7' x 8' 10". Réunion des Musées Nationaux.
  1. Déjeuner sur l'Herbe
  2. Déjeuner sur l'Herbe
  3. Déjeuner sur l'Herbe
  4. Déjeuner sur l'Herbe
  5. Le Déjeuner sur l'Herbe
Scandalous audacity:

Manet's broadly painted Olympia shows a shameless nude woman reclining on a bed.		  
       
  29-8: ÉDOUARD MANET, Olympia, 1863. Oil on canvas, 4' 3" x 6' 3". Musée d'Orsay, Paris.
  1. Olympia
  2. Olympia
  3. Olympia
  4. Olympia
  5. Olympia
Academic art's conventions:

In his Nymphs and Satyr, Adolphe-William Bouguereau depicted ideally beautiful nymphs and a satyr in a naturalistic but traditional academic manner.

29-9: ADOLPHE-WILLIAM BOUGUEREAU, Nymphs and Satyr, 1873. Oil on canvas, approx. 8' 6" high. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts.
  1. Nymphs and Satyr
  2. Nymphs and Satyr
  3. Nymphs and Satyr
  4. Nymphs and Satyr
  5. Nymphs and Satyr
A Realist painter of animals:

Rosa Bonheur's dramatically lit and loose painted The Horse Fair shows sturdy farm Percherons and their grooms on parade at the annual Parisian horse sale.		  
       
  29-10: MARIE-ROSALIE (ROSA) BONHEUR, The Horse Fair, 1853–1855. Oil on canvas, 8' 1/4" x 16' 7 1/2". Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (gift of Cornelius Vanderbilt, 1887).
  1. The Horse Fair
  2. The Horse Fair
  3. The Horse Fair
  4. The Horse Fair
  5. The Horse Fair
Realism Outside France

Realism's interest in depicting the realities of modern life also appealed to artists in such countries as Germany, Russia, England, and the United States.

An American realist:

Winslow Homer's The Veteran in a New Field is a simple and direct commentary on the effects and aftermath of the American Civil War. The painting also comments symbolically about death, both the deaths of the soldiers and of Abraham Lincoln. It also contributed to the continuing mythmaking about national conditions.
  
       
  29-11: WINSLOW HOMER, The Veteran in a New Field, 1865. Oil on canvas, 2' 1/8" x 3' 2 1/8". Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (bequest of Miss Adelaide Milton de Groot, 1967).
  1. The Veteran
  2. The Veteran
  3. Similar work
Not for the squeamish:

In the United States, Thomas Eakins was a Realist portrait and genre painter. The unsparing, brutal Realism of Thomas Eakins's The Gross Clinic shows the surgeon Dr. Samuel Gross in the operating amphitheatre of the Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia.

29-12: THOMAS EAKINS, The Gross Clinic, 1875. Oil on canvas, 8' x 6' 6". Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia.
  1. The Gross Clinic
  2. The Gross Clinic
  3. The Gross Clinic
  4. The Gross Clinic
  5. The Gross Clinic
The illusion of motion:

The Realist photographer Eadweard Muybridge uses sequential photography to produce Galloping Horse.

29-13: EADWEARD MUYBRIDGE, Horse Galloping, 1878. Collotype print. George Eastman House, Rochester, New York.
  1. Galloping Horse
  2. Similar Galloping Horse
  3. Similar Galloping Horse
  4. Galloping Horse
  5. Galloping Horse
American realist portraiture:
John Singer Sargent's informal family portrait The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit shows four girls in a hall and small drawing room in their Paris home. The casual positioning of the figures and seemingly random choice of the setting communicate a sense of spontaneity.

29-14: JOHN SINGER SARGENT, The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit, 1882. Oil on canvas, 7' 3 3/8" x 3 5/8". Courtesy of Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (gift of Mary Louisa Boit, Florence D. Boit, Jane Hubbard Boit and Julia Overing Boit, in memory of their father, Edward Darley Boit, 19.124).
  1. The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit
  2. The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit
  3. The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit
  4. The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit
  5. The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit
The dignity of ordinary life:

In The Thankful Poor, the American Realist painter artist Henry Ossawa Tanner portrays with dignity the life of the ordinary people.		    
       
 
 
       
       
  29-15: HENRY OSSAWA TANNER, The Thankful Poor, 1894. Oil on canvas, 3' 8 1/4" x 2' 11 1/2". Collection of William H. and Camille Cosby.
  1. The Thankful Poor
  2. The Thankful Poor
  3. The Thankful Poor
  4. The Thankful Poor
  5. The Thankful Poor
Rustic German life:

Despite the meticulous application of paint and sharpness of focus, the following picture is a moving expression of realist artist WILLIAM LEIBL'S compassionate view of his subjects, a reading of character without sentimentality.

29-16: WILLIAM LEIBL, Three Women in a Village Church, 1878-1881. Oil on canvas, approx. 2' 5" x 2' 1". Kunsthalle, Hamburg.
  1. Another Leibl Painting
  2. Another Leibl Painting
The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

Praising the Pre-Industrial past:

 In England, John Everett Millais was a founder of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, a group of artists who used Realist techniques to represent fictional, historical, and fanciful subjects.

A Shakespearean Heroine Drowned:

The subject of Millais's Ophelia (from Shakespeare's Hamlet) is the drowning of Ophelia, in which he attempted to make the pathos of the scene visible through faithful attention to every detail.

29-17: JOHN EVERETT MILLAIS, Ophelia, 1852. Oil on canvas, 2' 6" x 3' 8". Tate Gallery, London.
  1. Ophelia
  2. Ophelia
  3. Ophelia
  4. Ophelia
  5. Ophelia
A dual portrait:

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI (1928-1882), well known painter and poet, was another of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.  Like other members of the group, Rossetti focused on literary and biblical themes in his art.

29-18: DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI, Beata Beatrix, ca. 1863. Oil on canvas, 2' 10" x 2' 2". Tate Gallery, London.
  1. Beata Beatrix
  2. Beata Beatrix
  3. Beata Beatrix
  4. Beata Beatrix

A "pictorial" photographic method:

Gertrude Käsebier's Blessed Art Thou among Women is a photograph with a symbolic theme.

29-19: GERTRUDE KÄSEBIER, Blessed Art thou Among Women, 1899. Platinum print on Japanese tissue, 9 3/8" x 5 1/2". Museum of Modern Art, New York (gift of Mrs. Hermine M. Turner).

  1. Blessed Art thou
  2. Blessed Art thou
  3. Blessed Art thou
  4. Blessed Art thou
Impression: Capturing the Fragile and Fugitive Images of Modern Life  

Impressionism and the sketch:

Sunrise was the source of the term Impressionism, which describes paintings that incorporated the abbreviated, quick, and spontaneous qualities of sketches in order to catch the sense or character of a specific moment.

29-20: CLAUDE MONET, Impression: Sunrise, 1872. Oil on canvas, 1' 7 1/2" x 2' 1 1/2". Musée Marmottan, Paris.
  1. Impression Sunrise
  2. Impression Sunrise
  3. Impression Sunrise
  4. Impression Sunrise
  5. Impression Sunrise
Capturing a fleeting moment:

Impressionism conveys the elusiveness and impermanence of images and conditions found in the rapid and chaotic changes that were transforming France during the latter half of the nineteenth century.

The railroads and Parisian life:

Monet's Saint-Lazare Train Station reflects the impact on Impressionism of contemporary industrialization and urbanization.		    
       
 
 
       
       
  29-21: CLAUDE MONET, Saint-Lazare Train Station, 1877. Oil on canvas, 2' 5 3/4" x 3' 5". Musée d'Orsay, Paris.
  1. Saint-Lazare Train Station
  2. Saint-Lazare Train Station
  3. Saint-Lazare Train Station
  4. Saint-Lazare Train Station
  5. Saint-Lazare Train Station
Haussmanization of Paris:

Facets of life in the city Paris are seen in Gustave Caillebotte's informal Paris: A Rainy Day which is set at the junction of spacious boulevards. The figures of well-dressed Parisians seem to be randomly placed within a frame that crops the image arbitrarily.

29-22: GUSTAVE CAILLEBOTTE, Paris: A Rainy Day, 1877. Oil on canvas, approx. 6' 9" x 9' 9". The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Worcester Fund.
  1. Paris: A Rainy Day
  2. Paris: A Rainy Day
  3. Paris: A Rainy Day
  4. Paris: A Rainy Day
  5. Paris: A Rainy Day
A panorama of bustling crowds:

Camille Pissarro's panoramic Place du Théâtre Français shows a spacious boulevard painted with blurred dark accents against a light ground to create a sense of a crowded Paris square viewed from high above street level.		  
       
  29-23: CAMILLE PISSARRO, La Place du Théâtre Français, 1898. Oil on canvas, 2' 4 1/2" x 3' 1/2". Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles (the Mr. and Mrs. George Gard De Sylva Collection).
  1. Place du Théâtre Français
  2. Place du Théâtre Français
  3. Place du Théâtre Français
  4. Place du Théâtre Français
  5. La Place du Théâtre Français
29-24: HIPPOLYTE JOUVIN, The Pont Neuf, Paris, ca. 1860–1865. Albumen stereograph. George Eastmen House, Rochester, New York.
  1. The Pont Neuf
  2. The Pont Neuf
Leisure and recreation:

The Impressionists also depicted scenes of leisure activities such as dining, dancing, the café-concerts, the opera, the ballet, and other forms of recreation.

A lively Parisian dance hall:

Le Moulin de la Galette by Pierre-Auguste Renoir shows a popular Parisian dance hall in which he focuses on incidental, momentary, and passing aspects of the scene.
  
       
  29-25: PIERRE-AUGUSTE RENOIR, Le Moulin de la Galette, 1876. Oil on canvas, approx. 4' 3" x 5' 8". Louvre, Paris.
  1. Le Moulin de la Galette
  2. Le Moulin de la Galette
  3. Le Moulin de la Galette
  4. Le Moulin de la Galette
  5. Le Moulin de la Galette
A reflection of café life:

Édouard Manet's A Bar at the Folies-Bergère shows a barmaid in the popular Parisian café-concert. Manet calls attention to the pictorial structure of the painting through various visual contradictions.

29-26: ÉDOUARD MANET, A Bar at the Folies-Bergère, 1882. Oil on canvas, approx. 3' 1" x 4' 3". The Courtauld Gallery, London.
  1. Bar at the Folies-Bergère
  2. Bar at the Folies-Bergère
  3. Bar at the Folies-Bergère
  4. Bar at the Folies-Bergère
  5. A Bar at the Folies-Bergère
Of music and dance: the ballet:

Edgar Degas's Ballet Rehearsal (Adagio) shows the artist's fascination with photography, Japanese prints, and patterns of motion. He uses arbitrarily cutoff figures, patterns of light splotches, and blurriness of the images to create the effect of a single moment.

29-27: EDGAR DEGAS, Ballet Rehearsal, 1874. Oil on canvas, 1' 11" x 2' 9". Glasgow Museum, Glasgow (The Burrell Collection).
  1. Similar Ballet Rehearsal
  2. Ballet Rehearsal
  3. Similar Ballet Rehearsal
  4. Similar Ballet Rehearsal
Relaxed leisure by the seaside:

Berthe Morisot's Villa at the Seaside shows a woman sitting with a child in the shaded veranda of a summer hotel at a seashore resort. The swift, sketchy brushstrokes and the soft focus convey a feeling of airiness.

29-28: BERTHE MORISOT, Villa at the Seaside, 1874. Oil on canvas, approx. 1' 8" x 2'. Norton Simon Art Foundation, Los Angeles.
  1. Villa at the Seaside
  2. Villa at the Seaside
  3. Villa at the Seaside
  4. Villa at the Seaside
  5. Villa at the Seaside
Studies of light and color:

Monet painted some forty views of Rouen Cathedral, each at a different time of the day or under a different climatic condition. In each painting he captured an instantaneous representation of atmosphere and climate at that moment and also created in the series a record of the movement of light over the surfaces of the cathedral over a period of time.		  
       
 
 
       
       
  29-29: CLAUDE MONET, Rouen Cathedral: The Portal (in Sun), 1894. Oil on canvas, 3' 3 1/4" x 2' 1 7/8". Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Theodore M. Davis Collection, bequest of Theodore M. Davis, 1915).
  1. Rouen Cathedral
  2. Rouen Cathedral
  3. Rouen Cathedral
  4. Rouen Cathedral
Line Drawings with pastel:

In his pastel drawing of The Tub, Edgar Degas shows a young woman crouching in a washing tub. A conflict is apparent between some forms that appear flat and aligned with the picture's two-dimensional surface, while other forms appear to have three-dimensional volume.

29-30: EDGAR DEGAS, The Tub, 1886. Pastel, 1' 11 1/2" x 2' 8 3/8". Musée d'Orsay, Paris.
  1. The Tub
  2. The Tub
  3. The Tub
  4. The Tub
  5. The Tub
 A mother's tenderness:

Mary Cassatt's The Bath contrasts the visual solidity of the mother and child with the flattened patterning of the wallpaper and rug.

29-31: MARY CASSATT, The Bath, ca. 1892. Oil on canvas, 3' 3" x 2' 2". The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago (Robert A. Walker Fund).
  1. The Bath
  2. The Bath
  3. The Bath
  4. The Bath
Exploring Paris nightlife:

The oblique and asymmetrical composition, the spatial diagonals, and the strong line patterns with added dissonant colors in At the Moulin Rouge reveals the influence on Henri de Toulouse Lautrec of Japanese prints and photography. But each element is also emphasized or exaggerated to produce a distorted and simplified image that is expressive of Toulouse-Lautrec's perception the scene.

29-32: HENRI DE TOULOUSE-LAUTREC, At the Moulin Rouge, 1892–1895. Oil on canvas, approx. 4' x 4' 7". The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago (Helen Birch Bartlett Memorial Collection).
  1. At the Moulin Rouge
  2. At the Moulin Rouge
  3. At the Moulin Rouge
  4. At the Moulin Rouge
  5. At the Moulin Rouge
Orchestrating art:

James Abbot McNeill Whistler's Nocturne in Black and Gold (The Falling Rocket) is a harmonious arrangement of shapes and colors through which the artist wished to convey the atmospheric effects rather than the details of the actual scene.

29-33: JAMES ABBOTT MCNEILL WHISTLER, Nocturne in Black and Gold (The Falling Rocket), ca. 1875. Oil on panel, 1' 11 5/8" x 1' 6 1/2". Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit (gift of Dexter M. Ferry Jr.).
  1. The Falling Rocket
  2. The Falling Rocket
  3. The Falling Rocket
  4. The Falling Rocket
Post-Impression:  Experimenting with form and color

By the 1880s, Impressionism came to be seen as too limited and artists began to examine the properties and the expressive qualities of line, pattern, form, and color. Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin explored the expressive capabilities of formal elements; Georges Seurat and Paul Cézanne were more analytical in orientation.

“The power to create":

In The Night Café, Vincent van Gogh explored the capabilities of colors and distorted forms to express his emotions as he confronted nature.

29-34: VINCENT VAN GOGH, The Night Café, 1888. Oil on canvas, approx. 2' 4 1/2" x 3'. Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven (bequest of Stephen Carlton Clark, B.A., 1903).
  1. Night Café
  2. Night Café
  3. Night Café
  4. Night Café
  5. The Night Café
Glimmers of hope?:

Vincent van Gogh's "expressionist" method is seen in the choice of color and turbulent brushstrokes of The Starry Night, in which he represents the night sky filled with whirling and exploding stars and galaxies of stars.

29-35: VINCENT VAN GOGH, Starry Night, 1889. Oil on canvas, approx. 2' 5" x 3' 1/4". Museum of Modern Art, New York (acquired through the Lillie P. Bliss Bequest).
  1. Starry Night
  2. Starry Night
  3. Starry Night
  4. Starry Night
  5. Starry Night
Patterns of shape and color:

In The Vision after the Sermon, or Jacob Wrestling with the Angel, Paul Gauguin wanted to show the ancient, unspoiled Celtic folkways and Catholic piety of peasant men and women in Brittany. The elements in the picture are composed to focus viewers' attention on the idea and intensify its message. The scene has been abstracted into a pattern in which perspective is twisted and the colors are unnatural and unmodulated.

29-36: PAUL GAUGUIN, The Vision after the Sermon or Jacob Wrestling with the Angel, 1888. Oil on canvas, 2' 4 3/4" x 3' 1/2". National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh.
  1. Vision after the Sermon
  2. Vision after the Sermon
  3. Vision after the Sermon
A summary of life and art:

In the South Pacific, Gauguin painted Whence Do We Come? What Are We? Where Are We Going? with flat shapes of unmodulated yet expressive color.

29-37: PAUL GAUGUIN, Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?, 1897. Oil on canvas, 4' 6 13/ 16" x 12' 3". Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Tompkins Collection).
  1. Where Do We Come From?...
  2. Where Do We Come From?...
  3. Where Do We Come From?...
  4. Where Do We Come From?...
  5. Where Do We Come From?…
The science of color:

George Seurat's system of pointillism or divisionism, which involved separating color into its component parts, is seen in his Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. Pure colors were added to the canvas in tiny dots (points) or daubs of pigment, which were blended into comprehensible colors by the viewer's eyes when viewed from a distance.

29-38: GEORGES SEURAT, detail of A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, 1884–1886.
  1. Detail Sunday on the Island of La Grande Jatte
  2. Detail Sunday on the Island of La Grande Jatte
  3. Sunday on the Island of La Grande Jatte
  4. Sunday on the Island of La Grande Jatte
  
       
 
 
       
       
  29-39: GEORGES SEURAT, A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, 1884–1886. Oil on canvas, approx. 6' 9" ´ 10'. The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago (Helen Birch Bartlett Memorial Collection, 1926).
  1. Sunday on the Island of La Grande Jatte
  2. Sunday on the Island of La Grande Jatte
  3. Sunday on the Island of La Grande Jatte
Making Impressionism "durable":

Paul Cézanne's more analytical style is seen in Mont Sainte-Victoire, in which he attempted to order the lines, planes, and colors that comprised nature. He explored and carefully analysed the properties of line, plane, and color and their interrelationships.
  
       
  29-40: PAUL CÉZANNE, Mont Sainte-Victoire, 1902–1904. Oil on canvas, 2' 3 1/2" x 2' 11 1/4". Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia (The George W. Elkins Collection).
  1. Mont Siante-Victoire
  2. Similar Work
  3. Similar Work
  4. Similar Work
Revealing the underlying structure:

In Still Life with Basket of Apples, Cézanne focused on the form of the objects, reducing the bottles and fruit to cylinders and spheres. By juxtaposing color patches, he captured the solidity of each object. Objects, however, do not appear optically realistic and, moreover, seem to be depicted from different vantage points, producing disjunctures and discontinuities in the picture.

29-41: PAUL CÉZANNE, The Basket of Apples, ca. 1895. Oil on canvas, 2' 3/8" x 2' 7". The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago (Helen Birch Bartlett Memorial Collection, 1926).
  1. The Basket of Apples
  2. The Basket of Apples
  3. The Basket of Apples
  4. The Basket of Apples
  5. The Basket of Apples
The Rise of the Avant-Garde

Rejecting artistic conventions:

The challenges to artistic conventions introduced successively by Realism, Impressionism, and Post-Impressionism gave rise to the avant-garde. The term referred to artists who were ahead of their time and who transgressed the limits of established art forms. Avant-garde artists rejected the classical, academic, or traditional, adopted a critical stance toward their respective media, and produced art that was extremely transgressiveness or subversiveness. The avant-garde explored the premises and formal qualities of painting, sculpture, or other media. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the avant-garde included the Fauves, Cubists, and Dada artists.

Symbolism:  Freedom of Imagination, Expression, and Form

By the end of the nineteenth century, a number of artists rejected the visual world and worked from their imagination. Nature was freely interpreted and became completely subjectivized. Color, line, and shape were no longer required to conform to visual reality, and were used instead as symbols of personal emotions in response to the world. Some artists used signs and symbols to express a reality in accord with their spirit and intuition.

Beyond the tangible world:

Symbolist artists transformed facts into symbols that represented the inner experience of that fact. Symbolists sought the inner significance and reality that lay beneath superficial appearance. Objects of the commonsense world were converted into symbols of a deeper reality.

A philosophy of aestheticism:

Fantasy and imagination were central to the Symbolists, who wished to cultivate an exquisite aesthetic sensitivity. They promoted "art for art's sake" and produced esoteric, exotic, mysterious, visionary, dreamlike, and fantastic images.

The "Prophet" of symbolism:

Puvis de Chavannes's ornamental and reflective The Sacred Grove shows statuesque figures in timeless poses moving in a tranquil, sacred landscape with a classical shrine. All movements and gestures appear to have a ritual significance.

29-42: PIERRE PUVIS DE CHAVANNES, The Sacred Grove, 1884. Oil on canvas, 2' 11 1/2" x 6' 10". The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago (Potter Palmer Collection).
  1. The Sacred Grove
  2. The Sacred Grove
  3. The Sacred Grove
  4. The Sacred Grove
The death-inducing vision:

Gustave Moreau's Jupiter and Semele is sumptuously painted in rich, exotic colors. The royal hall of Olympus is shown as shimmering in iridescent color.

29-43: GUSTAVE MOREAU, Jupiter and Semele, ca. 1875. Oil on canvas, approx. 7' x 3' 4". Musée Gustave Moreau, Paris.
  1. Jupiter and Semele
  2. Jupiter and Semele
  3. Jupiter and Semele
  4. Jupiter and Semele
  5. Jupiter and Semele
Haunted by "imaginary things":

The visionary painter Odilon Redon painted The Cyclops as a visible projection of his imagination.

29-44: ODILON REDON, The Cyclops, 1898. Oil on canvas, 2' 1" x 1' 8". Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, The Netherlands.
  1. The Cyclops
  2. The Cyclops
  3. The Cyclops
  4. The Cyclops
  5. The Cyclops
A world of personal fantasy:

In The Sleeping Gypsy, Henri Rousseau produced an image of dream and fantasy in a naive style.

29-45: HENRI ROUSSEAU, The Sleeping Gypsy, 1897. Oil on canvas, 4' 3" x 6' 7". Museum of Modern Art, New York (gift of Mrs. Simon Guggenheim).
  1. Sleeping Gypsy
  2. Sleeping Gypsy
  3. Sleeping Gypsy
  4. Sleeping Gypsy
  5. Sleeping Gypsy
The "modern psychic life":

Edvard Munch believed that humans were powerless before the natural forces of death and love and the emotions of jealousy, loneliness, fear, desire, and despair. His goal was to describe the conditions of "modern psychic life," for which he developed a style that distorted color, line, and figural forms for expressive ends.

Anguish and despair:

Edvard Munch's The Cry departs significantly from visual reality and evokes instead a visceral, emotional response from viewers through his dramatic presentation of the scene.

29-46: EDVARD MUNCH, The Cry, 1893. Oil, pastel, and casein on cardboard, 2' 11 3/4" x 2' 5". National Gallery, Oslo.
  1. The Cry
  2. The Cry
  3. The Cry
  4. The Cry

Sculpture in the Later 19th Century

Because of its tangible, solid nature, sculpture was ill suited to conveying the transitory and served predominantly as an expression of supposedly timeless ideals.

A sculptural vision of hell:

The powerful, twisted, intertwined, and densely concentrated forms of Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux's sculpture Ugolino and His Children conveys the self-devouring torment, frustration, and despair of Count Ugolino, who has been shut up in a tower with his four sons to starve to death.

  
       
 
 
       
       
  29-47: JEAN-BAPTISTE CARPEAUX, Ugolino and His Children, 1865–1867. Marble, 6' 5" high. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Josephine Bay Paul and C. Michael Paul Foundation, Inc. and the Charles Ulrich and Josephine Bay Foundation, Inc., gifts, 1967).
  1. Ugolino and His Children
  2. Ugolino and His Children
  3. Ugolino and His Children
A majestic portrait:

Augustus Saint-Gaudens's memorial monument of Mrs. Henry Adams shows a woman of majestic bearing sitting in mourning with her face partly shadowed by a drapery that enfolds her body.

29-48: AUGUSTUS SAINT-GAUDENS, Adams Memorial, Rock Creek Cemetery, Washington, 1891. Bronze, 5' 10" high.
  1. Adams Memorial
  2. Adams Memorial
  3. Adams Memorial
Of surface and substance:

In his cast bronze Walking Man, Auguste Rodin captured the sense of a body in motion.
  
       
  29-49: AUGUSTE RODIN, Walking Man, 1905, cast 1962. Bronze, 6' 11 3/4" high. Réuion des Musées Nationaux.
  1. Walking Man
  2. Walking Man
  3. Walking Man
  4. Walking Man
  5. Walking Man
A study of despair and defiance:

In the life-size group Burghers of Calais, commissioned to commemorate a heroic episode in the Hundred Years' War, Rodin shows each of the figures in a state of despair, resignation, or quiet defiance. He achieved these psychic effects through the placement of the figures, the roughly textured surfaces, and the eye-level view.		  
       
  29-50: AUGUSTE RODIN, Burghers of Calais, 1884–1889, cast ca. 1953–1959. Bronze, 6' 10 1/2" high, 7' 11" long, 6' 6" deep. Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington (gift of Joseph H. Hirshhorn, 1966).
  1. Burghers of Calais
  2. Burghers of Calais
  3. Burghers of Calais
  4. Burghers of Calais
  5. Burghers of Calais
The Arts and Crafts Movement

The Arts and Crafts movement in England advocated the production of functional, well-made, high-quality objects produced for a wide public in a style based on natural forms.

Patterns from floor to ceiling:

In his decoration of the Green Dining Room, William Morris created a unified, beautiful, and functional environment.

29-51: WILLIAM MORRIS, Green Dining Room, 1867. Victoria & Albert Museum, London.
  1. Morris Room
  2. Morris Room
Lunching in style:

Charles Rennie Mackintosh's design for the Ladies Luncheon Room in Glasgow shows a decor consistent with William Morris's vision of a functional, exquisitely designed art.

29-52: CHARLES RENNIE MACKINTOSH, reconstruction (1992–1995) of Ladies' Luncheon Room, Ingram Street Tea Room, Glasgow, Scotland, 1900–1912. Glasgow Museum, Glasgow.
  1. Tea Room
  2. Tea Room
  3. Tea Room
  4. Tea Room
  5. Tea Room
Art Nouveau

Metallic plant life:

The international style of Art Nouveau is seen in the staircase in the Hotel van Eetvelde in Brussels designed by Victor Horta. Every detail functions as part of a living whole.

29-53: VICTOR HORTA, staircase in the Van Eetvelde House, Brussels, 1895.
  1. Van Eetvelde House
  2. Van Eetvelde House
  3. Van Eetvelde House
The peacock's sweeping curves:

For Salomé, an illustration for a book by Oscar Wilde, Aubrey Beardsley drew The Peacock Skirt. The decorative composition uses lines and patterns of black and white to create sweeping curvilinear shapes that lie flat on the surface.

29-54: AUBREY BEARDSLEY, The Peacock Skirt, 1894. Pen-and-ink illustration for Oscar Wilde's Salomé.
  1. The Peacock Skirt
  2. The Peacock Skirt
  3. The Peacock Skirt
  4. The Peacock Skirt
  5. The Peacock Skirt
Sculpting a building:

In his design for the apartment house Casa Milá in Barcelona, Antonio Gaudi conceived the building as a free-form mass with swelling curves with an undulating tiled roof.		  
       
  29-55: ANTONIO GAUDI, Casa Milá, Barcelona, 1907.
  1. Casa Milá
  2. Casa Milá
  3. Casa Milá
  4. Casa Milá
  5. Casa Milá
  
       
 
 
       
       
  Industrialization, Urbanization, And Expanding Global Consciousness :: The Development of Modernism :: Fin-De-Siècle Culture ::Other Architecture in The Later 19th Century