Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Métropolitain entrance
GAVIN HELLIER / ROBERT HARDING ©
Twentieth-Century Art
Twentieth-century French painting is characterised by a bewildering diversity of styles, in-
cluding fauvism, named after the slur of a critic who compared the exhibitors at the 1905
Salon d'Automne (Autumn Salon) in Paris with
fauves
(wild animals) because of their wild
brushstrokes and radical use of intensely bright colours. Among these 'beastly' painters was
Henri Matisse (1869-1954).
Cubism was launched in 1907 with
Les Demoiselles d'Avignon
by Spanish prodigy Pablo
Picasso (1881-1973). Cubism, as developed by Picasso, Georges Braque (1882-1963) and
Juan Gris (1887-1927), deconstructed the subject into a system of intersecting planes and
presented various aspects simultaneously.
In the 1920s and '30s the École de Paris (School of Paris) was formed by a group of ex-
pressionists, mostly foreign born.
No piece of French art better captures the rebellious, iconoclastic spirit of Dadism - a
Swiss-born literary and artistic movement of revolt - than
Mona Lisa,
by Marcel Duchamp
(1887-1968), complete with moustache and goatee. In 1922 German Dadaist Max Ernst
(1891-1976) moved to Paris and worked on surrealism, a Dada offshoot that flourished
between the wars. Drawing on the theories of Sigmund Freud, it attempted to reunite the
conscious and unconscious realms, to permeate everyday life with fantasies and dreams.
The most influential of this style in Paris was Spanish-born artist Salvador Dalí (1904-89),
who arrived in the French capital in 1929 and painted some of his most seminal works while
residing here. To see his work, visit the Dalí Espace Montmartre.
One of the most influential pre-WWII sculptors to emerge in Paris was Romanian-born
Constantin Brancusi (1876-1957); view his work at the Atelier Brancusi. Two other Paris-
busy sculptors each have a museum devoted to their work: Ossip Zadkine (1890-1967) and
Antoine Bourdelle (1861-1929).
WWII ended Paris' role as the world's artistic capital. Many artists left during the occupa-
tion, and though some returned after the war, the city never regained its old magnetism.
