A Brief History of French Art. The best French artists "Study of a woman in blue"

Humanism and realism are progressing in the culture of France of the 20th century. During this period, France gave mankind outstanding composers D. Millau, A. Oneguerre, writers L. Aragon, R. Rolland, A. France, sculptors A. Mayol, A. Bourdelle, artists A. Marquet, A. Matisse, and also became the birthplace of many formalist movements in literature and art.

In the direction of the construction of new types of structures and residential complexes, the architecture of France is developing. The growth of industry, the application of scientific and technological achievements predetermine the use of building materials - glass, steel, iron. Architecture acquires a constructive and functional character at this time. Its development is influenced by the use of reinforced concrete, you can learn more about this by visiting the Construction Forum. The residential building on Rue Franklin in Paris, which was built by Auguste Perret (1874 - 1945), was one of the first such structures.

Le Corbusier (1887 - 1965) made real discoveries in architecture, he was one of the first to use reinforced concrete. Le Corbusier put forward the idea of ​​creating a "Sun City". He implemented his proposals in the African city of Nemura and in India, in the capital of the Punjab state, Chandigarsi.

In the post-war years, the nature of architecture followed the need for the reconstruction of old and restoration of destroyed centers. Construction experience in Le Havre (headed by O. Perret) had a great resonance. Making changes to the buildings of Paris was due to the rapid growth of the population. A number of original structures appeared in the 1950s and 1960s, for example, a suspension bridge at the mouth of the Seine, a radio and television house (project by A. Bernard), and a UNESCO house (project by M. Breuer).

Paris was the center of artistic life in France. Artists belonging to various art schools lived and worked here.

One of the art critics in 1905, seeing the bright paintings that were exhibited at the Paris Autumn Salon, called them savage. The artistic direction from A. Derain (1880 - 1954), M. Vlaminac (1876 - 1958), A. Matisse (1869 - 1954), has since received the name Fauvism (fauve (fr.) - wild ). In the works of the Fauvists there is no action, but there is an internal connection of poses, depicted lines and colors.

The painting by A. Matisse "Red Fish" is preserved in Moscow in the Museum. A. S. Pushkin. An aquarium, a round table, flowers, red fish among the greenery behind glass - everything breathes with a light, joyful mood, saturated with calm balance, clarity of lines, and a magnificent play of colors.

The desire to breathe sunny joy into art, youth was characteristic of Matisse. He painted the grace and plasticity of the human body, interiors with windows overlooking flowering gardens, southern landscapes, conveyed the sound of music, clear dance rhythms. The artist had an interesting general perception of life, its colors and forms, rather than specific details. This can be seen in the paintings by A. Matisse "Music", "Big Red Interior", "Dance", "Blue Vase", "Asia", "Spanish Still Life". In the works of Matisse, color prevails among the visual means. The general emotional tone of his paintings creates a decorative interpretation of flowers.

Albert Marquet (1875 - 1947) of the 20th century became a singer of the French landscape. He painted views of Paris (squares, architectural ensembles, quarters, the Seine embankment). Marquet also liked to paint the sea with the silhouettes of sailboats.

The famous artist Fernand Leger (1881 - 1955) saw the future of fine arts in synthesis with architecture, as well as in the development of monumental forms. In the 1920s, the style of the artist was formed. The artist's work was influenced by his acquaintance with the architect Le Corbusier. Leger experiments in the field of art synthesis, he creates decorative panels. The artist turns to those that reveal universal human ideas in the cycle of works “Rest. Glory to David." The heroes of his works are full of optimism, skill, vitality.

It's more than pretty pictures, it's a reflection of reality. In the works of great artists, you can see how the world and the consciousness of people have changed.

Art is also an attempt to create an alternative reality where you can hide from the horrors of your time, or the desire to change the world. The art of the 20th century rightfully occupies a special place in history. The people who lived and worked in those days survived social upheavals, wars, and the unprecedented development of science; and all this found an imprint on their canvases. Artists of the 20th century took part in creating the modern vision of the world.

Some names are still pronounced with a breath, and some are unfairly forgotten. Someone had such a controversial creative path that we still cannot give him an unambiguous assessment. This review focuses on the 20 greatest artists of the 20th century. Camille Pizarro- French painter. An outstanding representative of impressionism. The artist's work was influenced by John Constable, Camille Corot, Jean Francois Millet.
Born July 10, 1830 in Saint Thomas, died November 13, 1903 in Paris.

Hermitage in Pontoise, 1868

Opera passage in Paris, 1898

Sunset at Varengeville, 1899

Edgar Degas - French artist, one of the greatest impressionists. On the work of Degas, the influence of Japanese graphics was traced. Born July 19, 1834 in Paris, died September 27, 1917 in Paris.

Absinthe, 1876

Star, 1877

Woman combing her hair, 1885

Paul Cezanne - French painter, one of the greatest representatives of post-impressionism. In his work, he sought to reveal the harmony and balance of nature. His work had a huge impact on the worldview of artists of the XX century.
Born January 19, 1839 in Aix-en-Provence, France, died October 22, 1906 in Aix-en-Provence.

Gamblers, 1893

Modern Olympia, 1873

Still life with skulls, 1900

Claude Monet- an outstanding French painter. One of the founders of impressionism. In his works, Monet sought to convey the richness and richness of the world around him. His late period is characterized by decorativeism and
The late period of Monet's work is characterized by decorativeism, the increasing dissolution of objective forms in sophisticated combinations of color spots.
Born November 14, 1840 in Paris, died December 5, 1926 in Zhverny.

Welk Cliff at Pourville, 1882

After lunch, 1873-1876

Etretat, sunset, 1883

Arkhip Kuindzhi - famous Russian artist, master of landscape painting. He lost his parents early. From an early age, a love for painting began to manifest itself. The work of Arkhip Kuindzhi had a huge impact on Nicholas Roerich.
Born on January 15, 1841 in Mariupol, died on July 11, 1910 in St. Petersburg.

"Volga", 1890-1895

"North", 1879

"View of the Kremlin from Zamoskvorechye", 1882

Pierre Auguste Renoir - French painter, graphic artist, sculptor, one of the prominent representatives of impressionism. He was also known as a master of secular portraiture. Auguste Rodin became the first impressionist to become popular among wealthy Parisians.
Born February 25, 1841 in Limoges France, died December 2, 1919 in Paris.

Pont des Arts in Paris, 1867

Ball at the Moulin de la Galette, 1876

Jeanne Samary, 1877

Paul Gauguin- French artist, ceramic sculptor, graphic artist. Along with Paul Cezan and Vincent van Gogh, he is one of the most prominent representatives of post-impressionism. The artist lived in poverty because his paintings were not in demand.
Born June 7, 1848 in Paris, died May 8, 1903 on the island of Hiva Oa, French Polynesia.

Breton landscape, 1894

Breton village in the snow, 1888

Are you jealous? 1892

Saints Day, 1894

Wassily Kandinsky - Russian and German artist, poet, art theorist. Considered one of the leaders of the avant-garde of the 1st half of the 20th century. One of the founders of abstract art.
Born November 22, 1866 in Moscow, died December 13, 1944 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France.

Couple on horseback, 1918

Motley life, 1907

Moscow 1, 1916

In grey, 1919

Henri Matisse - one of the greatest French painters and sculptors. One of the founders of the Fauvist movement. In his work, he strove to convey emotions through color. In his work, he was influenced by the Islamic culture of the western Maghreb. Born December 31, 1869 in the city of Le Cateau, died November 3, 1954 in the town of Cimiez.

Square in Saint-Tropez, 1904

Outline of Notre Dame at night, 1902

Woman with a hat, 1905

Dance, 1909

Italian, 1919

Portrait of Delectorskaya, 1934

Nicholas Roerich- Russian artist, writer, scientist, mystic. During his life he painted over 7,000 paintings. One of the outstanding cultural figures of the 20th century, the founder of the "Peace through Culture" movement.
Born October 27, 1874 in St. Petersburg, died December 13, 1947 in Kullu, Himachal Pradesh, India.

Overseas guests, 1901

Great Spirit of the Himalayas, 1923

Message from Shambhala, 1933

Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin - Russian artist, graphic artist, theorist, writer, teacher. He was one of the ideologists of the reorganization of art education in the USSR.
Born November 5, 1878 in the city of Khvalynsk, Saratov province, died February 15, 1939 in Leningrad.

"1918 in Petrograd", 1920

"Playing Boys", 1911

Bathing a red horse, 1912

Portrait of Anna Akhmatova

Kazimir Malevich- Russian artist, founder of Suprematism - a trend in abstract art, teacher, art theorist and philosopher
Born February 23, 1879 in Kyiv, died May 15, 1935 in Moscow.

Rest (Society in top hats), 1908

"Peasant women with buckets", 1912-1913

Black Suprematist Square, 1915

Suprematist painting, 1916

On the boulevard, 1903

Pablo Picasso- Spanish painter, sculptor, sculptor, ceramist designer. One of the founders of cubism. The work of Pablo Picasso had a significant impact on the development of painting in the 20th century. According to a poll of readers of Time magazine
Born October 25, 1881 in Malaga, Spain, died April 8, 1973 in Mougins, France.

Girl on a ball, 1905

Portrait of Ambroise Vallor, 1910

Three Graces

Portrait of Olga

Dance, 1919

Woman with a flower, 1930

Amadeo Modigliani- Italian painter and sculptor. One of the brightest representatives of expressionism. During his lifetime, he had only one exhibition in December 1917 in Paris. Born July 12, 1884 in Livorno, Italy, died January 24, 1920 from tuberculosis. Received world recognition posthumously World recognition received posthumously.

Cellist, 1909

Spouses, 1917

Joan Hebuterne, 1918

Mediterranean landscape, 1918

Diego Rivera- Mexican painter, muralist, politician. He was the husband of Frida Kahlo. Leon Trotsky found shelter in their house for a short time.
Born December 8, 1886 in Guanajuato, died December 21, 1957 in Mexico City.

Notre Dame de Paris in the rain, 1909

Woman at the well, 1913

Union of Peasants and Workers, 1924

Detroit industry, 1932

Marc Chagall- Russian and French painter, graphic artist, illustrator, theater artist. One of the greatest representatives of the avant-garde.
Born on June 24, 1887 in the city of Liozno, Mogilev province, died on March 28, 1985 in Saint-Paul-de-Provence.

Anyuta (Portrait of a sister), 1910

Bride with fan, 1911

Me and the village, 1911

Adam and Eve, 1912

Mark Rothko(present Mark Rotkovich) is an American artist, one of the founders of abstract expressionism and the founder of color field painting.
The first works of the artist were created in a realistic spirit, however, then by the mid-40s, Mark Rothko turned to surrealism. By 1947, the most important turning point in the work of Mark Rothko happens, he creates his own style - abstract expressionism, in which he departs from objective elements.
Born on September 25, 1903 in the city of Dvinsk (now Daugavpils), died on February 25, 1970 in New York.

Untitled

Number 7 or 11

orange and yellow

Salvador Dali- painter, graphic artist, sculptor, writer, designer, director. Perhaps the most famous representative of surrealism and one of the greatest artists of the 20th century.
Designed by Chupa-Chups.
Born May 11, 1904 in Figueres, Spain, died January 23, 1989 in Spain.

Temptation of Saint Anthony, 1946

The Last Supper, 1955

Woman with a Head of Roses, 1935

My wife Gala, naked, looking at her body, 1945

Frida Kahlo - Mexican artist and graphic artist, one of the brightest representatives of surrealism.
Frida Kahlo started painting after a car accident that left her bedridden for a year.
She was married to the famous Mexican communist artist Diego Rivera. Leon Trotsky found refuge in their house for a short time.
Born July 6, 1907 in Coyoacan, Mexico, died July 13, 1954 in Coyoacan.

The Embrace of Universal Love, Earth, Me, Diego and Coatl, 1949

Moses (Creation Core), 1945

Two Fridas, 1939

Andy Warhole(real. Andrey Varhola) - American artist, designer, director, producer, publisher, writer, collector. The founder of pop art, he is one of the most controversial personalities in the history of culture. Several films have been made based on the life of the artist.
Born August 6, 1928 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, died in 1963 in New York.

Impressionism.

Edouard Manet (fr. Édouard Manet, January 23, 1832, Paris - April 30, 1883, Paris) - French artist, one of the founders of impressionism.

Passion for old painting led to Manet's numerous travels. He repeatedly visited Dutch museums, where he admired the paintings of Frans Hals. In 1853, he made a traditional journey for French artists to Italy, where he visited Venice and Florence. It was then that the influence on the young artist of the paintings of the masters of the Early and High Renaissance began to be indicated. One of the artists who had the greatest influence on Manet is Velázquez. Perhaps it was his later works, especially the famous bodegons, that had a huge impact on the formation of the Impressionist movement. The way back to France was long - Manet traveled a lot in Central Europe, visiting museums in Dresden, Prague, Vienna and Munich.

In 1863 and 1864, Manet exhibited both in the Salon des Les Misérables and in the official salon, where his new paintings, especially Luncheon on the Grass, aroused strong indignation from the critics. The peak of rejection falls on 1865, when Manet exhibited his (now famous) Olympia in the salon - a painting found by his contemporaries to be extremely obscene and vulgar, and provoked a grandiose scandal at that time.

During the siege of Paris in 1870, Manet, as a staunch Republican, remained in the capital. After the French-Prussian war and the Paris Commune, the artist converges even closer with the young impressionists. This is evidenced, for example, by numerous paintings painted in the open air, side by side with Claude Monet in Argenteuil in 1874. However, Manet did not want to participate in exhibitions of Impressionist groups. He preferred to achieve recognition by the jury of the official Salons at any cost. Another hype around his name arose in 1874. "Railway" again caused sharp antipathy of the jury. And only in 1879 did the Salon appreciate the artist’s perseverance: Manet’s canvases “In the Greenhouse” and “In the Boat” were received very warmly.

Absinthe Drinker, 1858-1859, New Carlsberg Glyptothek

"Music at the Tuileries", 1862, National Gallery, London

"Olympia", 1863, Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Spanish musician (Guitarrero). 1860 Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Execution of Emperor Maximilian of Mexico. 1867, Kunsthalle, Mannheim.

Edgar-Germain-Hilaire de Gas, or Edgar Degas (fr. Edgar Degas) (July 19, 1834, Paris - September 27, 1917) - French painter, one of the most prominent and original representatives of the impressionist movement.

At the age of 20 (1854), Degas entered the studio of the famous artist Lamothe, who in turn was a student of the great Ingres, as an apprentice. In a familiar family, Degas happened to see Ingres, and he retained his appearance for a long time, and for the rest of his life he retained his love for the Ingres melodious line and clear form. Degas also loved other great draftsmen - Nicolas Poussin, Hans Holbein - and copied their work in the Louvre with such diligence and skill that it was difficult to distinguish a copy from the original.

Degas' works, with their strictly calibrated and at the same time dynamic, often asymmetric composition, accurate flexible drawing, unexpected angles, active interaction of figure and space, combine the seeming impartiality and randomness of the motive and architectonics of the picture with careful thoughtfulness and calculation. "There was no art less direct than mine" - this is how the artist himself evaluates his own work. Each of his works is the result of long-term observations and hard, painstaking work to transform them into an artistic image. In the work of the master there is nothing impromptu. The completeness and thoughtfulness of his compositions sometimes makes us recall the paintings of Poussin. But as a result, images appear on the canvas that it would not be an exaggeration to call the personification of the instantaneous and random. In French art of the late 19th century, the work of Degas in this respect is the diametrical opposite of the work of Cezanne. In Cezanne, the picture carries all the immutability of the world order and looks like a completely completed microcosm. In Degas, it contains only a part of the powerful stream of life cut off by the frame. The images of Degas are full of dynamism, they embody the accelerated rhythms of the era contemporary to the artist. It was the passion for conveying movement - this, according to Degas, determined his favorite subjects: images of galloping horses, ballerinas at rehearsal, laundresses and ironers at work, women dressing or combing their hair.

Edgar Degas. Racehorses in front of the stands. 1869-1872 Louvre, Paris.

Blue dancers. Museum. Pushkin, Moscow.

Cotton trading office in New Orleans. 1873

The washing up. 1886 Hill Stand Museum, Farmington, Connecticut, USA.

Absinthe, 1876, Musee d'Orsay, Paris

Before the start, 1862-1880, Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Ballet Performance - View of the stage from the box, 1885, Museum of Art, Philadelphia

Ballet school.

Miss Lala at the Fernando Circus.

Laundresses with linen.

At the fashionista.

Ironers

Pierre Auguste Renoir (fr. Pierre-Auguste Renoir; February 25, 1841, Limoges - December 2, 1919, Cagnes-sur-Mer) - French painter, graphic artist and sculptor, one of the main representatives of impressionism. Renoir is known primarily as a master of a secular portrait, not devoid of sentimentality; he was the first of the Impressionists to succeed with wealthy Parisians. In the mid 1880s. actually broke with impressionism, returning to the linearity of classicism, to engrism. The father of the famous director.

"Spring Bouquet" (1866). Museum of Harvard University

"Ball at le Moulin de la Galette" (1876). Musee d'Orsay

"Big bathers" (1887). Museum of Art, Philadelphia.

"Girls at the piano" (1892). Musée d'Orsay.

"Gabriel in a red blouse" (1910). Collection of M. Wertem, New York.

Oscar Claude Monet (fr. Oscar-Claude Monet, 1840-1926) - French painter, one of the founders of impressionism.

When the boy was five years old, the family moved to Normandy, to Le Havre. On the sea coast of Normandy, Monet met Eugene Boudin, a famous landscape painter and one of the forerunners of Impressionism. Boudin showed the young artist some techniques for painting from nature

On the Banks of the Seine (Bennecourt, 1868), an early example of plein air impressionism, in which the skillful and imaginative use of oils was presented as a finished work of art.

Disillusioned with the traditional art taught in art schools, Monet entered the Charles Gleyre University in Paris in 1862, where he met Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Frédéric Bazille and Alfred Sisley. They shared with each other new approaches to art, the art of depicting the effects of light in a plein-air style with color breaks and quick brushstrokes, what later became known as impressionism. The painting of Camille Monet or The Woman in the Green Dress (La femme a la robe verte), painted in 1866, brought him recognition and was one of many works depicting his future wife, Camille Doncieux; a year later, she posed for the paintings "Women in the Garden" and "On the Banks of the Seine" (Bennecourt, 1868).

Following the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War (July 19, 1870), Monet took refuge in England in September 1870, where he studied the works of John Constable and Joseph Mallord William Turner, whose landscape paintings would become the inspiration for Monet's innovations in the study of color.

"Impression. Rising Sun, 1872, Marmottan Monet Museum, Paris

Boulevard des Capucines, 1873

"Harbor"

Lily Pond, 1899, National Gallery, London

"Regatta at Arzhatey", 1872, Musée d'Orsay, Paris

"The Frog", 1869, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA

"Women in the Garden", 1866-1867, Musée d'Orsay, Paris, France

Beach at Pourwil, 1882, National Museum of Poland, Poznań, Poland

"Water Lilies", 1915

Jacob Abraham Camille Pissarro (French Jacob Abraham Camille Pissarro, July 10, 1830, St. Thomas Island - November 12, 1903, Paris) - French painter, one of the first and most consistent representatives of impressionism.

Pizarro began as a student of Camille Corot. In this choice of teacher, the artist's innate love for landscape painting has already affected. But at the beginning of his career, Camille Pizarro paid no less attention to drawing. Already in his early works, the artist paid special attention to the depiction of illuminated objects in the air. Light and air have since become the leading theme in the work of Pizarro.

Gradually, Pizarro began to free himself from the influence of Corot, his own style matured. Since 1866, the artist's palette has become lighter, the space permeated with sunlight and light air has become the dominant of his plot, and the neutral tones characteristic of Corot have disappeared.

The works that made Pizarro famous are a combination of traditional landscape scenes and an unusual technique in drawing light and illuminated objects. The paintings of the mature Pizarro are painted with dense strokes and are filled with that physical sensation of light that he sought to express.

Pissarro had a strong influence on the Impressionists, independently developing many of the principles that formed the basis of their style of painting. He was friends with such artists as Degas, Cezanne and Gauguin. Pizarro is the only participant in all eight Impressionist exhibitions.

Boulevard Montmartre. Afternoon, sunny. 1897

Self portrait, 1873

Neo-impressionism.

Paul Signac (fr. Paul Signac, November 11, 1863, Paris - August 15, 1935, Paris) - French post-impressionist painter, representative of the direction of pointillism.

In 1882 in Paris and Brittany he began to paint under the influence of the Impressionists, mainly Monet. In 1884, he participated in the creation of the "Society of Independent Artists", where he met Georges Seurat, with whom in 1889 he developed the painting technique of pointillism, although already at the last exhibition of the Impressionists his paintings reflected the aesthetics of divisionism.

Already during his lifetime, the artist was a recognized classic. In 1911 he was awarded the Order of the Legion of Honor.

Les Andelys (1886)

Femme lisant (1887), Musee d'Orsay, Paris. oil, wood

Château de Comblat (1887), Liège Museum, Belgium

La bouée rouge (1895) Musee d'Orsay

L'orage, (1895) Musée de l "Annonciade,

Le phare d'Antibes, (1909)

Post-impressionism.

Paul Cezanne (fr. Paul Cézanne) is a French artist, a prominent representative of post-impressionism.

Paul Cezanne was born in France on January 19, 1839 in Aix-en-Provence to a wealthy bourgeois family. At Bourbon College, where he studied, Paul became friends with the future famous writer Emile Zola. Paul studied law at the University of Aix, but did not complete the course, deciding to devote himself entirely to painting.

After a short study at the School of Fine Arts of Aix-en-Provence, Cezanne went to Paris, where he met Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Claude Monet and Alfred Sisley. Together with them, he participated in the first Impressionist exhibition in 1874 at Nadar's photographic studio in Paris.

Cezanne's works bear the imprint of the artist's inner life. They are filled with internal energy of attraction and repulsion. Contradictions were originally characteristic of both the mental world of the artist and his artistic aspirations. The southern temperament was combined in Cezanne's everyday life with seclusion and asceticism, piety - with attempts to free oneself from religious traditions that constrain the temperament. Confident in his genius, Cezanne was nevertheless forever obsessed with the fear that he would not find the exact means of expressing what he saw and wanted to express in the picture by means of painting. He always talked about the inability to "realize" his own vision, all the time he doubted that he could do it, and each new picture became both a refutation and confirmation of this.

Girl at the piano (Overture to Tannhauser). OK. 1868. Hermitage, St. Petersburg

Bouquet of flowers in a blue vase. 1873-1875. Hermitage, St. Petersburg

Bridge over the Marne at Créteil (Banks of the Marne). 1888-1894. Pushkin Museum im. A. S. Pushkin, Moscow

Smoker. 1890-1892. Hermitage, St. Petersburg

Mount St. Victoria. 1897-1898. Hermitage, St. Petersburg

Vincent Willem van Gogh (Dutch. Vincent Willem van Gogh, March 30, 1853, Grotto-Zundert, near Breda, the Netherlands - July 29, 1890, Auvers-sur-Oise, France) is a world-famous Dutch post-impressionist artist.

In the 1880s, Van Gogh turned to art, attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels (1880-1881) and Antwerp (1885-1886), used the advice of the painter A. Mauve in The Hague, and enthusiastically painted miners, peasants, and artisans. In a series of paintings and studies of the mid-1880s. (“Peasant Woman”, 1885, Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo; “Potato Eaters”, 1885, Vincent Van Gogh State Museum, Amsterdam), painted in dark pictorial colors, marked by a painfully acute perception of human suffering and feelings of depression, the artist recreated the oppressive atmosphere of psychological tension.

In 1886-1888, Van Gogh lived in Paris, visited the prestigious private art studio of the famous throughout Europe teacher P. Cormon, studied impressionist painting, Japanese engraving, and synthetic works of Paul Gauguin. During this period, Van Gogh's palette became light, the earthy hue of paint disappeared, pure blue, golden yellow, red tones appeared, his characteristic dynamic, as if flowing brushstroke (“Bridge over the Seine”, 1887, Vincent Van Gogh State Museum, Amsterdam ; "Papa Tanguy", 1887, Musée Rodin, Paris).

In 1888, Van Gogh moved to Arles, where the originality of his creative manner was finally determined. A fiery artistic temperament, a tormenting impulse towards harmony, beauty and happiness, and, at the same time, a fear of forces hostile to man, are embodied in landscapes shining with sunny colors of the south (“Harvest. La Crot Valley”, 1888, Vincent Van Gogh State Museum, Amsterdam ), then in ominous, nightmare-like images (“Night Cafe”, 1888, Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo); the dynamics of color and stroke fills with spiritual life and movement not only nature and the people inhabiting it (“Red Vineyards in Arles”, 1888, Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow), but also inanimate objects (“Van Gogh’s Bedroom in Arles, 1888, Vincent van Gogh State Museum, Amsterdam). In the last week of his life, Van Gogh paints his last and famous painting: Cereal Field with Crows. She was evidence of the tragic death of the artist.

Eugene Henri Paul Gauguin (June 7, 1848 - May 8, 1903) was a French painter, ceramic sculptor and graphic artist.

Along with Cezanne and Van Gogh, he was the largest representative of post-impressionism.

In the early 1870s, he began painting as an amateur. The early period of creativity (under the influence of Pissarro) is associated with impressionism. From 1880 he participated in exhibitions of the Impressionists. Since 1883 he has been a professional artist.

Experiencing since childhood, spent in Peru (in the mother’s homeland), a craving for exotic places and considering civilization a “disease”, Gauguin, eager to “merge with nature”, in 1891 leaves for Tahiti, where he lived in Papeete and where in 1892 he writes as many as 80 paintings. After a short (1893-1895) return to France, due to illness and lack of funds, he leaves forever for Oceania - first to Tahiti, and since 1901 to the island of Hiva-Oa (Marquesas Islands), where he marries a young Tahitian woman and works in full force: writes landscapes, stories, works as a journalist. On this island he dies. Despite illness, poverty and depression, which led him to attempt suicide, Gauguin wrote his best works there. Observation of the real life and way of life of the peoples of Oceania are intertwined in them with local myths.

Sewing Woman (1880)

Yellow Christ (1889)

Woman with a Flower (1891)

The spirit of the dead does not sleep (1892)

Are you jealous? (1892)

The Fun of the Evil Spirit (1894)

Where did we come from? Who are we? Where are we going? (1897-1898)

Never Again (1897)

Francois Auguste Rene Rodin (French François-Auguste-René Rodin) (November 12, 1840 - November 17, 1917) - the famous French sculptor, one of the founders of impressionism in sculpture.

Auguste Rodin was born in Paris. He studied at the Paris School of Drawing and Mathematics, having entered there against the wishes of his father, and with Antoine Bari at the Museum of Natural History.

In 1864, Rodin's first work, The Man with the Broken Nose, was rejected at the Paris Salon because it challenged the academic canons of beauty. Rodin was also not admitted to the School of Fine Arts, and from 1864 to 1870 he worked in the workshop of A. Carrier-Belleuse at the Sevres Manufactory, earning money by creating decorative sculpture.

sculpture "Thinker"

"Citizens of Calais". Rodin Museum in Philadelphia

Statue of Honore de Balzac. Rodin Museum in Philadelphia

"Gates of Hell" Rodin Museum in Philadelphia

Man with a broken nose. Rodin Museum in Philadelphia

Theophile-Alexandre Steinlen (fr. Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen; November 10, 1859, Lausanne - December 14, 1923, Paris) was a French and Swiss artist, graphic artist and illustrator who worked both in a realistic style and in a modernist style.

T.-A. Steinlen became famous for his Parisian posters around 1900, his Montmartre nightlife scenes and, of course, his cat paintings and graphics that made him a name. Other facets of the artist's talent are less known: his painting, sculpture and graphics dedicated to the events of the First World War, especially the events in Serbia and Belgium. Steinlen was self-taught, and yet heir to a rich artistic tradition. In his works, the influence of the work of Delacroix, Daumier, Dore and Manet is felt. The distribution and popularity that Steinlen's work had in Paris during the Belle Epoque made the artist a central figure in European art at the beginning of the 20th century; they became a source of inspiration for numerous avant-garde masters, including Picasso

Aristide Bruant: À la Villette

Anatole France

Suzanne Valadon

Georges Courtelaine: Une canaille

Save Serbia!

Drink boiled milk!

Cover of Eugenie Buffet's book "My Life, My Love, My Adventures" by Steinlen

Illustration by Steinlen for Le Gil Blas newspaper

painting art end ХІХ - twentieth century

Impressionism

(fr. impressionnisme , from impression - impression)

- direction in painting appeared in the last third of the 19th century. in France and then spread throughout the world.

Representatives of which sought to develop methods and techniques that allowed them to most naturally and vividly capture the real world in its mobility and variability, to convey their fleeting impressions.

Representatives: Edouard Manet, Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas, Alfred Sisley, Camille Pissarro, Frédéric Bazille and Berthe Morisot.

Claude Monet « Impression, soleil levant ", 1872-73

Symbolism

- appeared at the end of the 19th century as a protest against naturalism and realism.

Gustave moreau « Hesiode et la Muse », 1891

Features of symbolism

• - rejection of reality;
• - departure from real life, the image of the mystical, the unknown;
• - the problem of personality in the conditions of bourgeois civilization;
• - thirst for inner peace and peace of mind;
• - exotic, decorative, symbolic;
• - nostalgia for the past;
• - immersion in an unreal, fantasy world.
• Representatives: Gustave Moreau, Henri Fantel-Latour, Odilon Redon, Puvis de Chavannes, Eugene Carrière, Edgar Maxence, Elisabeth Sonrel.

Pierre-Cecile Puvis de Chavannes "Shepherd's Song" , 1891

Elizabeth Sonrel « Jeune femme aux hortensians ", 1900

Pointillism

• (fr. Pointillisme , literally "point", point - dot) - a stylistic trend in neo-impressionism painting that arose in France around 1885, which is based on the manner of writing with separate strokes of a regular, dotted or rectangular shape. It is characterized by the rejection of the physical mixing of colors for the sake of an optical effect ("mixing" on the viewer's retina).

Representatives: Paul Signac, Henri Cross, Lucien Pissarro.

Georges Seurat Un dimanche après-midi à l "Île de la Grande Jatte.

Albert Dubois-Pillet « La Merne a laube Sun » , 1899-90

Maximilien Luce Le quai Saint-Michel and Notre-Dameen 1901

Fauvism

style les Fauves (French for "wild animals"), a loose group of the early twentieth century, the artists' canvases were distinguished by seemingly wild brushwork and raspy colors, while their subject matter had a high degree of simplification and abstraction.

Henri Matisse Madame Matisse 1907

Andre Derain "Barges on the Seine", 1903

Futurism

Literary and artistic trend in the art of the 1910s. Calling itself the art of the future, futurism destroyed cultural stereotypes and offered instead an apology for technology and urbanism as the main signs of the present and the future.

Gino Severini « Souvenir de voyage »

Vladimir Evgrafovich Tatlin "Portrait of an Artist", 1914

Pavel Nikolaevich Filonov "Drummers", 1935

Expressionism

(from French expression - expressiveness) - a trend of Western European art, mainly distributed in Germany and formed on the eve of the First World War. The ideological basis was the individualistic protest against the ugly world, the increasing alienation of the human being of the collapse, the disintegration of those principles on which European culture seemed to stand so firmly.

Artistic techniques: rejection of illusory space, striving for a flat interpretation of objects, deformation of objects, love for sharp colorful dissonances, a special coloring that embodies apocalyptic drama.

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner "Two Women in the Street" 1914

In expressionism, there are two periods: before the First World War and after.

• First or early period. The first period includes the work of German artists Paul Klee, Alfred Kubin and Oskar Kokoschka, associations "Bridge", "Blue Rider".
• Second period: expressionism of the period of the first world war and in the post-war years.

OTTO DIX . PORTRAIT OF SILVIA VON HARDEN , 1926

PAUL KLEE . SHIPS WARNING, .1917

Cubism

• the most influential artistic movement of the 20th century.

Cubism initiated the avant-garde and revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and infused related movements into music, literature, and architecture.

The founders were Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso. Later Jean Metzinger, Albert Gleizes, Robert Delaunay, Henri Le Fauconnier, Fernand Léger and Juan Gris joined.

Pablo Picasso "Avignon girls", 1907. The first work of cubism

Georges Braque The Park at Carrières-Saint-Denis, 1909

Cubism. Sculpture

Raymond

Duchamp Villon Le chat , 1913

Cubism Orphism or Orphic

(a term coined by the French poet Guillaume Apoliner in 1912) an offshoot of Cubism that focused on pure abstraction and vibrant colors, influenced by Fauvism.

Frantisek Kupka " MADAME KUPKA BETWEEN VERTICALS ", 1911

Robert Delaunay Femme portugaise 1915

cubofuturism

– a local trend in Russian art (painting and poetry), which arose under the influence of cubism. The main works were written in the period 1911-15.

The works presented are semi-subject compositions made up of cylindrical, cone, flask, shell-shaped hollow three-dimensional color forms, often with a metallic sheen.

A. V. Lentulov "St. Basil's Cathedral", 1913

Kazimir Malevich "Cow and violin", 1913“Logic has always put up a barrier to new subconscious movements, and in order to get rid of prejudices, a course of alogism was put forward,” the author wrote about this picture.

Suprematism

- (from lat. supremus - highest, highest) - the direction of avant-garde art, the creator, main representative and theorist of which was Kazimir Malevich.

In Malevich's understanding, Suprematism is the highest stage in the development of art on the path of liberation from everything non-artistic, on the path to the ultimate identification of the non-objective as the essence of any art. In this sense, Malevich also considered primitive ornamental art to be Suprematist (or “supreme-like”).

Kazimir Malevich

"Peasant women in the church", 1913

"Suprematism", 1915

Purism

(lat. purus - clean) - a trend in French painting in the 1910s and 20s.

The purists strove for a rationalistically ordered transfer of stable and concise objective forms, as if "cleared" of details, to the image of "primary" elements. The works of purists are characterized by flatness, smooth rhythm of light silhouettes and contours of objects of the same type.

Amedee Ozanfant " LE PICHET BLANC ", 1926

Amedee Ozanfant " MATERNITY ", 1941

Amedee Ozanfant " VOILER ", 1963

neoplasticism

• kind of abstract art.

Created in the late 20s. Dutch painter Piet Mondrian and other artists of the "Style" association.

The main feature of neoplasticism was the use of expressive means. Only horizontal and vertical lines are allowed to build the form. Crossing at right angles is the first principle. Later, a second one was added to it, which, removing the stroke and emphasizing the plane, limits the colors to red, blue and yellow, i.e. three primary colors to which you can add only white and black.

Piet Mondrian

"Composition with bars", 1919

"Composition with red and blue", 1938

One of the most ardent admirers of his talent was the great Yves Saint Laurent, it was him for the creation of the autumn-winter collection of 1965-1966. This collection included famous Mondrian dresses- simple dresses

without a collar and sleeves made of knitted fabric, which had decor in the form of large colored cells - "quotes" from the paintings of the famous artist who in the 1960s. came back into fashion.

Dadaism is the artistic direction of the European avant-garde at the beginning of the 20th century.

Georg Gross later recalled that his Dada art was intended as a protest "against this world of mutual destruction".

According to Hans Richter, Dada was not art: it was "anti-art".

Francis Picabia Dance at the source (1912)

1921 - Jean Crotty held the first Dada exhibition at the Salon des Indépedants in Paris. Jean Crotty « A ttentive aux voix interieures" 1920

Surrealism

A cultural movement that began in the early 1920s and is best known for its visual artwork and writings. The goal was to "resolve the previously conflicting conditions of dream and reality".

André-Aime-Rene Masson Pedestal Table in the Studio , 1922

Man Ray La Fortune , 1938

Rene Magritte La Voix des Airs, 1931

In 1947, the International Surrealist Exhibition was held at the Galerie Maeght, Paris - the main post-war exhibition of surrealist artists One of the works: Jacques Herold Personnages surrealistes-1947

abstract expressionism

The current that arose in the USA in the 1940s. and represented mainly by the work of artists of the so-called New York School.

Following surrealism, abstract expressionism continued to "liberate" art from any control of the mind and logical laws, setting as its goal a spontaneous expression of the artist's inner world.

In a fast-paced rhythm, artists often resorted to dripping. This expressive method of painting was considered no less important than the work itself, so the process of creating a painting often took place in public.

Jackson Pollock "Autumn landscape", 1950

Willem de Kooning: STILL LIFE, 1945

Mark Rothko "White Center", 1955

Tachisme

(French Tachisme, from Tache - spot) - French style of abstract painting of the 1940s-60s. It is a painting with spots that do not recreate images of reality, but express the unconscious activity of the artist.

Jean Dubuffet "Arab palm trees" 1948 . Louvre

Nicolas de Stael "Improvisation", 1948

Lyrical abstraction - art movement born in Paris after World War II.

Pierre Souiages

« LITHOGRAPHIE », 1957

Camille Bryen « Heperile ", 1951. Musée National d "Art Moderne, Center Georges Pompidou, Paris, France Some art critics have looked at the new abstraction as an attempt to try and restore the image of an artistic Paris.

The 20th century is the era of the assertion of the values ​​of avant-garde.

Jean Dubuffet actively supports "outsider art"(literally raw art): which is divided into several areas:

• the art of the mentally ill;
• folk art - any product of practical craftsmanship and decorative skill, as a rule, embodies traditional forms and social values;
• intuitive art/phantom art - depictions of a spiritual nature or a religious nature.
• extreme art - refers to artists at the fringes of the art world;
• naïve art: the term usually referred to untrained artists who aspire to "normal" artistic status, i.e. they have a much more conscious interaction with the mainstream art world than do outsider artists.

Pierre Vuitton (1880 - 1962), french artist. After being shell-shocked in the First World War, Vuitton abandoned his previous life. After several stays in sanatoriums and psychiatric hospitals, he moved to Paris in 1920, making the acquaintance of several artists in the Parisian bohemian scene, including Dubuffet, Cocteau, Picasso, de Chirico, Picabia.

Op art or optical art

(a term coined in 1964 by Time magazine) is a style of fine art that uses optical illusions. Op art works are abstract with many of the better known pieces.

When the viewer looks at them, the impression is made of movement, latent images, flashing and vibrations, patterns, or alternatively, swelling or deformation.

Victor Vasarly- founder of op art

Neo-expressionism- the style of the latest modernist or early postmodernist painting and sculpture, which appeared in the late 1970s. The Neo-Expressionists were sometimes called Neue wilden("New Wild"). It is characterized by intense subjectivity and rough handling of materials.

Neo-expressionism developed as a reaction against conceptual art and minimal art.

Robert Combas » Saint-Sebastien » , 1991

Herve Di ROSA « Concerto Media », 1984.

Pop Art -(English short for popular art) - a trend in the fine arts of Western Europe and the USA in the late 50s-60s. In fact, this direction has replaced the traditional visual arts with the demonstration of certain objects of mass culture or the material world.

Richard Hamilton “What makes our homes today so different, so inviting?” (1956) one of the earliest works of pop art

hyperrealism

(eng. Hyperrealism - super-realism; other names - super-realism, photo-realism, cold realism, radical realism) is an art direction in painting and sculpture that arose in the USA in the 1960s and spread in the 1970s.

A style in painting and sculpture based on the photographic realization of an object.

Don Eddy

Richard Estes

Chuck Close "Linda", 1976

Ralph Goings "Ralph's Dinner", 1982

The French art school at the turn of the 17th and 18th century can be called the leading European school, it was in France at that time that art styles such as rococo, romanticism, classicism, realism, impressionism and post-impressionism were born.

Rococo (French rococo, from rocaille - a decorative shell-shaped motif) - a style in European art of the 1st half of the 18th century. Rococo is characterized by hedonism, withdrawal into the world of idyllic theatrical play, passion for pastoral and sensual-erotic subjects. The nature of the Rococo decor acquired emphatically elegant, sophisticated and sophisticated forms.

Francois Boucher, Antoine Watteau, Jean Honore Fragonard worked in the Rococo style.

Classicism - a style in European art of the 17th - early 19th century, a characteristic feature of which was the appeal to the forms of ancient art, as an ideal aesthetic and ethical standard.

Jean Baptiste Greuze, Nicolas Poussin, Jean Baptiste Chardin, Jean Dominique Ingres, Jacques-Louis David worked in the style of classicism.

Romanticism - the style of European art in the 18-19th centuries, the characteristic features of which were the assertion of the inherent value of the spiritual and creative life of the individual, the image of strong and often rebellious passions and characters.

Francisco de Goya, Eugene Delacroix, Theodore Gericault, William Blake worked in the style of romanticism.

Edouard Manet. Breakfast in the workshop. 1868

Realism - a style of art, the task of which is the most accurate and objective fixation of reality. Stylistically realism is many-sided and multi-variant. Various aspects of realism in painting are the baroque illusionism of Caravaggio and Velazquez, the impressionism of Manet and Degas, and the Nyunen works of Van Gogh.

The birth of realism in painting is most often associated with the work of the French artist Gustave Courbet, who opened his personal exhibition "Pavilion of Realism" in Paris in 1855, although even before him the artists of the Barbizon school Theodore Rousseau, Jean-Francois Millet, Jules Breton worked in a realistic manner . In the 1870s realism was divided into two main areas - naturalism and impressionism.

Realistic painting has become widespread throughout the world. In the style of realism of an acute social orientation in Russia of the 19th century, the Wanderers worked.

Impressionism (from French impression - impression) - a style in art of the last third of the 19th - early 20th centuries, a characteristic feature of which was the desire to most naturally capture the real world in its mobility and variability, to convey their fleeting impressions. Impressionism did not raise philosophical issues, but focused on the fluidity of the moment, mood and lighting. Life itself becomes the subjects of the Impressionists, as a series of small holidays, parties, pleasant picnics in nature in a friendly environment. The Impressionists were among the first to paint en plein air, without finalizing their work in the studio.

Edgar Degas, Edouard Manet, Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, Auguste Renoir, Georges Seurat, Alfred Sisley and others worked in the style of impressionism.

post-impressionism - a style of art that arose at the end of the 19th century. The post-impressionists sought to freely and generally convey the materiality of the world, resorting to decorative stylization.

Post-impressionism gave rise to such areas of art as expressionism, symbolism and modernity.

Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, Paul Cezanne, Toulouse-Lautrec worked in the style of post-impressionism.

Let us consider in more detail impressionism and post-impressionism on the example of the work of individual masters of France of the 19th century.

Edgar Degas. Self-portrait. 1854-1855

Edgar Degas (years of life 1834-1917) - French painter, graphic artist and sculptor.

Starting with strict historical paintings and portraits, in the 1870s Degas became close to the representatives of impressionism and turned to the image of modern urban life - streets, cafes, theater performances.

In Degas's paintings, dynamic, often asymmetrical composition, accurate flexible drawing, unexpected angles, active interaction between figure and space are carefully thought out and verified.

E. Degas. Bathroom. 1885

In many works, Edgar Degas shows the specificity of the behavior and appearance of people, generated by the peculiarities of their life, reveals the mechanism of a professional gesture, posture, movement of a person, his plastic beauty. The art of Degas is inherent in the combination of the beautiful and the prosaic; the artist, as a sober and subtle observer, at the same time captures the tedious everyday work hiding behind the elegant entertainment.

The favorite pastel technique allowed Edgar Degas to most fully show his talent as a draftsman. Saturated tones and “shimmering” touches of pastels helped the artist to create that special colorful atmosphere, that iridescent airiness that so distinguishes all his works.

In his mature years, Degas often turns to the theme of ballet. Fragile and weightless figures of ballerinas appear before the viewer either in the twilight of dance classes, or in the light of spotlights on the stage, or in short moments of rest. The seeming randomness of the composition and the impartial position of the author give the impression of a peeped someone else's life, the artist shows us the world of grace and beauty, without falling into excessive sentimentality.

Edgar Degas can be called a subtle colorist, his pastels are surprisingly harmonious, sometimes delicate and light, sometimes built on sharp color contrasts. Degas's manner was remarkable for its amazing freedom, he applied pastels with bold, broken strokes, sometimes leaving the tone of paper appearing through the pastel or adding strokes in oil or watercolor. Color in Degas's paintings arises from an iridescent radiance, from a flowing stream of iridescent lines that give rise to form.

Late works by Degas are distinguished by the intensity and richness of color, which are complemented by the effects of artificial lighting, enlarged, almost flat forms, and the constraint of space, which gives them a tense and dramatic character. In that

period Degas wrote one of his best works - "Blue Dancers". The artist works here in large patches of color, giving paramount importance to the decorative organization of the surface of the painting. In terms of the beauty of color harmony and compositional solution, the painting "Blue Dancers" can be considered the best embodiment of the theme of ballet by Degas, who achieved the ultimate richness of texture and color combinations in this painting.

P. O. Renoir. Self-portrait. 1875

Pierre Auguste Renoir (years of life 1841-1919) - French painter, graphic artist and sculptor, one of the main representatives of impressionism. Renoir is known primarily as a master of a secular portrait, not devoid of sentimentality. In the mid 1880s. actually broke with impressionism, returning to the linearity of classicism in the Ingres period of creativity. A wonderful colorist, Renoir often achieves the impression of monochrome painting with the help of the finest combinations of valères, similar in color tones.

P. O. Renoir. Paddling pool. 1869

Like most Impressionists, Renoir chooses fleeting episodes of life as plots for his paintings, preferring festive city scenes - balls, dances, walks ("New Bridge", "Frog", "Moulin da la Galette" and others). On these canvases we will not see either black or dark brown. Only a range of clear and bright colors that merge together when viewed from a certain distance. The figures of people in these paintings are painted in the same impressionist technique as the landscape around them, with which they often merge.

P. O. Renoir. Portrait of actress Jeanne Samary. 1877

A special place in the work of Renoir is occupied by poetic and charming female images: internally different, but outwardly slightly similar to each other, they seem to be marked by a common seal of the era. Renoir painted three different portraits of the actress Jeanne Samary. On one of them, the actress is depicted in an exquisite green-blue dress on a pink background. In this portrait, Renoir managed to emphasize the best features of his model: beauty, a lively mind, an open look, a radiant smile. The artist’s style of work is very free, sometimes to the point of negligence, but this creates an atmosphere of extraordinary freshness, spiritual clarity and serenity. In the image of the nude, Renoir achieves a rare sophistication of carnations (painting the color of human skin), built on a combination of warm flesh tones with moving light greenish and gray -blue reflections, giving smoothness and dullness to the surface of the canvas. In the painting "Nude in the Sunlight" Renoir uses mainly primary and secondary colors, completely excluding black. Color spots obtained with the help of small color strokes give a characteristic merging effect when the viewer moves away from the picture.

It should be noted that the use of green, yellow, ocher, pink and red tones to depict the skin shocked the public of that time, unprepared for the perception of the fact that the shadows should be colored, filled with light.

In the 1880s, the so-called "Ingres period" began in Renoir's work. The most famous work of this period is The Great Bathers. For the first time, Renoir began to use sketches and sketches to build a composition, the lines of the drawing became clear and defined, the colors lost their former brightness and saturation, the painting as a whole began to look more restrained and colder.

In the early 1890s, new changes took place in Renoir art. In a painterly manner, an iridescence of color appears, which is why this period is sometimes called "pearl", then this period gives way to "red", so named because of the preference for shades of reddish and pink flowers.

Eugene Henri Paul Gauguin (years of life 1848-1903) - French painter, sculptor and graphic artist. Along with Cezanne and Van Gogh, he was the largest representative of post-impressionism. He began to paint in adulthood, the early period of creativity is associated with impressionism. The best works of Gauguin were written on the islands of Tahiti and Hiva-Oa in Oceania, where Gauguin left the "perverse civilization". The characteristic features of Gauguin's style include the creation of static and color-contrasting compositions on large planar canvases, deeply emotional and at the same time decorative.

In The Yellow Christ, Gauguin depicted a crucifix against the backdrop of a typical French rural landscape, the suffering Jesus is surrounded by three Breton peasant women. Peace in the air, calm submissive poses of women, a landscape saturated with sunny yellow color with trees in red autumn foliage, a peasant busy in the distance with his affairs, cannot but conflict with what is happening on the cross. The environment contrasts sharply with Jesus, whose face displays that stage of suffering that borders on apathy, indifference to everything around him. The contradiction of the boundless torments accepted by Christ and the "invisibility" of this sacrifice by people - this is the main theme of this work by Gauguin.

P. Gauguin. Are you jealous? 1892

Painting "Are you jealous?" refers to the Polynesian period of the artist's work. The painting is based on a scene from life, peeped by the artist:

on the shore, two sisters - they have just bathed, and now their bodies are spread out on the sand in casual voluptuous poses - are talking about love, one memory causes contention: “How? Are you jealous!".

In painting the juicy full-blooded beauty of tropical nature, natural people unspoiled by civilization, Gauguin depicted a utopian dream of an earthly paradise, of human life in harmony with nature. Gauguin's Polynesian canvases resemble panels in terms of decorative color, flatness and monumentality of the composition, generalization of the stylized pattern.

P. Gauguin. Where did we come from? Who are we? Where are we going? 1897-1898

The picture "Where did we come from? Who are we? Where are we going?" Gauguin considered the sublime culmination of his reflections. According to the artist's intention, the picture should be read from right to left: three main groups of figures illustrate the questions posed in the title. The group of women with a child on the right side of the picture represent the beginning of life; the middle group symbolizes the daily existence of maturity; in the extreme left group, Gauguin depicted human old age, approaching death; the blue idol in the background symbolizes the other world. This painting is the pinnacle of Gauguin's innovative post-impressionist style; his style combined a clear use of colors, decorative color and compositional solutions, flatness and monumentality of the image with emotional expressiveness.

Gauguin's work anticipated many features of the Art Nouveau style that was taking shape during this period and influenced the formation of the masters of the Nabis group and other painters of the early 20th century.

W. Van Gogh. Self-portrait. 1889

Vincent Van Gogh (years of life 1853-1890) - French and Dutch post-impressionist painter, began painting, like Paul Gauguin, already in adulthood, in the 1880s. Until that time, Van Gogh successfully worked as a dealer, then as a teacher in a boarding school, later studied at the Protestant Missionary School and worked for six months as a missionary in a poor mining quarter in Belgium. In the early 1880s, Van Gogh turned to art, attending the Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels (1880-1881) and Antwerp (1885-1886). In the early period of his work, Van Gogh painted sketches and paintings in a dark pictorial range, choosing scenes from the life of miners, peasants, and artisans as plots. The works of this period by Van Gogh (“The Potato Eaters”, “The Old Church Tower in Nynen”, “The Shoes”) mark a painfully acute perception of human suffering and feelings of depression, an oppressive atmosphere of psychological tension. In his letters to his brother Theo, the artist wrote the following about one of the paintings of this period, The Potato Eaters: “In it, I tried to emphasize that these people, eating their potatoes by the light of a lamp, dug the earth with the same hands that they stretched to the dish; thus, the canvas speaks of hard work and that the characters honestly earned their food. ”In 1886-1888. Van Gogh lived in Paris, visited the prestigious private art studio of the famous throughout Europe teacher P. Cormon, studied impressionist painting, Japanese engraving, and synthetic works of Paul Gauguin. During this period, Van Gogh's palette became light, the earthy shade of paint disappeared, pure blue, golden yellow, red tones appeared, his characteristic dynamic, as if flowing brushstroke (“Agostina Segatori in the Tambourine Cafe”, “Bridge over the Seine”, "Papa Tanguy", "View of Paris from Theo's apartment on Rue Lepic").

In 1888, Van Gogh moved to Arles, where the originality of his creative manner was finally determined. A fiery artistic temperament, a painful impulse towards harmony, beauty and happiness, and, at the same time, a fear of forces hostile to man, are embodied either in landscapes shining with sunny colors of the south (“Yellow House”, “Harvest. La Crot Valley”), or in sinister , reminiscent of a nightmare images ("Night Cafe Terrace"); dynamics of color and stroke

W. Van Gogh. Night cafe terrace. 1888

fills with spiritualized life and movement not only nature and the people who inhabit it ("Red Vineyards in Arles"), but also inanimate objects ("Van Gogh's Bedroom in Arles").

Van Gogh's intense work in recent years was accompanied by bouts of mental illness, which led him to the hospital for the mentally ill in Arles, then in Saint-Remy (1889-1890) and in Auvers-sur-Oise (1890), where he committed suicide. The work of the last two years of the artist’s life is marked by ecstatic obsession, extremely heightened expression of color combinations, abrupt mood swings – from frenzied despair and gloomy visionary (“Road with cypresses and stars”) to a quivering feeling of enlightenment and peace (“Landscape in Auvers after the rain”) .

W. Van Gogh. Irises. 1889

During the period of treatment at the Saint-Remy clinic, Van Gogh painted a series of paintings "Irises". In his painting of flowers, there is no high tension and the influence of Japanese ukiyo-e prints can be traced. This similarity is manifested in the selection of the contours of objects, unusual angles, the presence of detailed areas and areas filled with a solid color that does not correspond to reality.

W. Van Gogh. Wheat field with crows. 1890

"Wheatfield with Crows" is a painting by Van Gogh, painted by the artist in July 1890 and is one of his most famous works. The painting was supposedly finished on July 10, 1890, 19 days before his death in Auvers-sur-Oise. There is a version that Van Gogh committed suicide in the process of painting this picture (going out into the open air with drawing materials, he shot himself from a pistol purchased to scare away bird flocks in the heart area, then independently reached the hospital, where he died from loss blood).