Post-Impressionism - art, nature, artists, movement, merely, impressionism and expression

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POST-IMPRESSIONISM.) Fauvism.—The first definite revolt against Impressionism was made in 1906 when a number of artists, who were tired of the pre vailing influence, revolted against discipline of any sort. They were called, once again in derision, Les Fauves. There was no special technique which distinguished the movement. They re volted from what they considered the limitations of Neo-Impres sionism. The movement was merely a restatement of the universal demand for "Free Speech." The leaders of the movement were • Matisse, Braque, Van Dongen, Vlaminck, Dufy and Friesz. They reacted not merely against Impressionism but against academic and all other rules of art.

Instead of the conception of art as nature seen through a tern perament, they wished to substitute a temperament which no longer served nature. It was a revolt against naturalism in art, which they regarded as no better than an inventory of natural effects. They pretended to choose from Delacroix's dictionnaire de la nature only what would help them to the production of works of constructive art which would add to the conquests of the Old Masters, aesthetic revelations unknown to those Masters.

In

their enthusiasm they studied the works of the Greeks and the Egyptians, of the Byzantine period and even negro art. The passion of modern collectors for negro art dates from that period. Good and bad resulted, for art, being an expression of the artist's personal impression of nature, may or may not be fed by a variety of things. And the attempts to feel things with the emotions of a past age are inevitably still-born.

Naturalism.

Concurrently and opposed, though possibly un consciously, to Fauvism, there developed the school of Naturalism. One branch, merely sensual and concerned entirely with material things, was described by Adolphe Basler as the "School of the Greasy Dishcloth." The painters were more or less academic. All of them had studied to some extent at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Such artists as Bouche, Gromaire, Conrad Kickert, Gritchenko, etc., were members. One group, known as "L'Ecole du Pre-Saint Gervais" was led by Loutreuil, who died quite young in 1925, after a miserable existence. His companions were the painters Billette,

Chotin, Caillard, etc. In dismal and dirty tones they expressed the misery of life.

Cubism.—The most important movement, and one which had considerable vogue for a time, was one which, strictly speaking, had little to do with art. Its conception was either intellectual or pseudo-scientific. It supported the portentous name of Cubism with which it was endowed, it is believed, by Matisse. If it was conceived as a jeu d'esprit, its inventors had hard work to live up to its cubic reputation, for it was taken quite seriously by certain dealers of the Rue de la Boetie and by certain collectors who believe what dealers tell them. Seldom has a joke reacted more painfully on its perpetrators. It was supposed to be an attempt to reduce nature to its geometric elements. What became of art as a means of expression or how the personalities of the practi tioners survived these geometric dreams is not clear Picasso himself, who is credited with being its inventor, told the writer that it was a sort of "impressionism of form." He showed him, on one occasion, several paintings which were incompre hensible until Picasso arrived at one which he seemed to recognise as a view from the artist's window in Montmartre. However, the writer was mistaken. It was a symphony in form derived from different objects on various pages of an illustrated catalogue of furniture! One of the claims made for Cubism was that it made no attempt to imitate or organize nature—in this it was quite successful— another was that it produced works which were complete and beautiful in themselves just as a diamond is intrinsically beautiful and needs no setting or other aid to reveal its quality. The beauty of the object is said to exist in the eye of the beholder and some eyes are peculiar! It was an attempt at "objective" art with an ignorance of the contradiction in terms which such a thing involves. Art being an expression of the artist's personal feelings about, or his reaction to, nature, the use of the term "objective" art is merely an expres sion of ignorance.