Study Guide #1

Giacomo Balla, Iridescent Interpenetration No. 13, c. 1914, oil on canvas, 39½" x 47½"

feature intersecting triangles and other geometric patterns in kaleidoscopic color primary colors$ attempts to separate the experience of light from the perception of objects as such, in an approach he had experimented with in Welcome to Düsseldorf. The works suggest an extension of the pictured surface beyond the borders of the frame

Pablo Picasso, Guitar, Sheet Music, and Glass, 1912, wallpaper, construction paper, and newspaper collage, 18⅞" x 14⅜"

generally thought to have been made as a response to Georges Braque's Fruit Dish and Glass. Both works bring a new tool into the already-complex collection of Cubist techniques of representation — the use of collage. familiar from earlier Analytic Cubist paintings, which frequently depict café tables with drinks, newspapers, and musical instruments. abstracted geometric forms of Analytic Cubism are limited to the charcoal drawing of the glass on paper pasted on the right intricate pattern of formal relations is created between the varied shapes and colors of the pasted paper, which also generate a complex set of possible readings. The guitar is signified by multiple cut-paper elements. the newspaper text in the lower left is relevant. The headline "La Bataille s'est engagé" (the battle has begun) is from an article about the Balkan War, but it is often interpreted as a competitive challenge to Braque, referring to the use of papier collé. In that reading, this work is a direct response to, and attempt to one-up, Braque's Fruit Dish and Glass. truncated masthead of the newspaper "LE JOU" (short for le journal, French for "the newspaper") is also meaningful. It appears in many Cubist works and not only signifies the newspaper's presence in the still life, but also a pun on the French words for "to play" (jouer) and "toy" (le jouet). This is a verbal echo of the many formal rhymes and visual puns that appear in Synthetic Cubist works. These allow for multiple readings of individual elements and the relationships between them. guitar is given conflicting profiles, curved on the left,straight-edged on the right. These formal antinomies are repeated in the smalldrawing of the glass, again with the curved profile appearing at the left and thestraight-edged at the right The collage includes visual elements from Parisian cafe life: • a wine glass drawn with charcoal, fragmented and reformed to give the viewer several points of view: the top rim, the side profile, the bottom foot, the stem from the side, and so on • a guitar formed by assembling a piece of brown paper painted to look like wood grain, a blue paper, and a white circle to suggest the hole and strings • a black curved shape suggesting a dish or round table top • a scrap of sheet music • a piece of the newspaper Le Journal with the beginning of a headline that translates"The battle is on . . ." • a background of tan patterned wallpaper The collage contains both visual and verbal puns. Visually: the wine glass with a stem that looks like a cartoon face; the paper painted to look like wood. Verbally: JOU, a word fragment that, in French, conjures up the root of the verb JOUER, to play; and the headline with its possible reference to the battle in art in France at this time

Juan Gris, Bottle of Banyuls, 1914, collage, gouache and pencil on canvas, 21⅝" x 18⅛"

juxtaposing partly overlapping, contradictory formal elements: an opaque, straight-edged shape lies beneath and slightly to the left of a transparent, curvilinear enhanced this difference by giving the straight-edged, speckled bottle a flipped-up, round top, in contrast to its striped alternate, which displays a flat top ambiguity in the way pictorial forms and materials are understood to signify; at times they seem to operate according to arbitrary formal oppositions (which deny the possibility of a substantive relation between signifier and referent), while at other times they seem to be motivated by the inherent properties of material substances

Fernand Léger, The Smokers, 1911-1912, oil on canvas, 51" x 38

maturation of Fernand Léger's idiosyncratic Cubist style French painter, sculptor and film maker, Over time paintings by Leger became much more abstract, but his work was interrupted by World War 1, when he fought for the French army. The 1920's saw the start of Fernand Leger's mechanical period. However, during the 1930's his style changed again to more abstract forms. inspired by Paul Cézanne in their quest for a means by which to accurately describe three-dimensional objects on a two-dimensional canvas. By breaking the represented figures or items into series of splintered planes and rendering them against—or within—a similarly faceted background, they created an entirely integrated space in which field and object interpenetrate one another. Of the three painters, Léger developed a vocabulary of more precisely delineated forms—his fragmented units are larger, arcs predominate, and color prevails.

Georges Braque, Fruit Dish and Glass, Sept. 1912, charcoal and pasted paper on paper, 24⅝" x 17½

most famous and possibly the first Cubist papier collé, a collage made of pasted papers mechanically printed, fake wood grain paper into a series of charcoal drawings. These fragments from the real world add significant meaning to the fictive world of the picture: they can be interpreted as the front drawer of the table (onto which Braque drew a circular knob), the floor, or the wall of the bar. This collage marked a turning point in Cubism. inspired to create this piece after visiting an Avignon shop where he purchased a roll of faux bois paper, simulating oak paneling and consisting of two kinds of printed motifs on a dark beige background, while traveling with Picasso illed with grapes and pears are flattened and distorted versions of actual objects. Braque used textures, shapes, and composition to construct a painting that is half recognizable and half symbolic. based on the interaction of wallpaper glued to the support and charcoal lines, which evoke both objects and words. The subject matter is a glass bowl, pears, and grapes, between what looks like a dish and a wine glass, or perhaps a candlestick The work has a variety of textures that add confusion to spatial relations of the objects in the composition texture brings the background forward, making it more difficult to interpret the perspective. painting is a visual puzzle which challenges the viewer to understand what is shown from clues and fragments. eminds us that Braque was so much more than a Cubist painter who worked with the traditional medium of oil on canvas. He was very much concerned with exploring different media and modes of expression. Rather than being a purely realistic depiction of its subject matter, Fruit Dish and Glass is something more abstract and playful. Braque seems to be asking us to concentrate on texture and material as much as on the forms he depicts.

Mikhail Larionov, Rayonist Composition: Domination of Red, 1911, oil on canvas, 20¾" x 28½

rayonism any reference to the external world has vanished in intersecting dynamic light rays and colored planes. The space becomes tangible, a palpable shape. Indeed, an energetic but indefinable form, full of depth, layers, and movement seems to inhabit the canvas. Space and energy are the subject of the painting. And yet a clear message is conveyed. The title's use of the word "domination" indicates the conflict between the colors, their fight for primacy. By this stage, Rayonism had quickly evolved from merely describing light rays to what Larionov called, a "painting of space revealed ...by the ceaseless and intense drama of the rays that constitute the unity of all things." In this larger evocation, he felt that colors produced different reactions, and that, by manipulating their density, he could create a construction of sensations and effects. Thus, the color lines and planes are meant to provoke intuitive feelings and as the red dominates this space, it becomes the means of communicating with the viewer

Robert Delaunay, The Eiffel Tower, 1911, oil on canvas, 79½" x 54½"

represents this famed Parisian landmark, which was a symbol of modern technology in the early 20th century. The dark steel structure has been transformed into rich tones of yellow, orange, and lavender; the surrounding gardens are abstracted patterns of green and yellow. Influenced by fauvism, an art movement that championed the use of vivid colors, Delaunay affirmed that "everything is color in nature." The artist used an aerial viewpoint, probably informed by his own background as an early aviator. Robert Delaunay, an artist who lived in Paris between 1900 and 1940, is best known for his paintings the Eiffel Tower Series. He painted the first series between 1909 and 1912 and a second series between 1920 and 1930.[i] This painting from 1924 is from the second series where Delaunay paints in a style known as Orphic Cubism, where color is used to envision form through planes and lines of contrasting colors. As Delaunay wrote in his journal, the Eiffel Tower was the "barometer of [his] art," a symbol of Paris and its success as a modern haven.[ii] Delaunay saw the Eiffel Tower as the pride of France as the country stepped boldly into the modern age.[iii] Like other artists that relayed their urban experiences by painting cityscapes, Delaunay used the structure as a template upon which he conveyed his imagined visions and perceptions of Paris. Unlike the German Expressionists' typically chaotic and dark paintings of urban scenes, Delaunay's post-war Eiffel Tower series celebrates the enthusiastic feeling for progress that the modern metropolis would allow. By 1924 Paris was a center of innovation and recreating the Eiffel Tower as he imagined it allowed Delaunay to communicate his own optimism for modern life.

Pablo Picasso, Daniel Henry Kahnweiler, fall 1910, oil on canvas, 39½" x 28⅝"

subject of this portrait is Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler (1884-1979), a German-born art dealer, writer, and publisher. Kahnweiler opened an art gallery in Paris in 1907 and in 1908 began representing Pablo Picasso, whom he introduced to Georges Braque. Kahnweiler was a great champion of the artists' revolutionary experiment with Cubism and purchased the majority of their paintings between 1908 and 1915. He also wrote an important book, The Rise of Cubism, in 1920, which offered a theoretical framework for the movement. Picasso broke down and recombined the forms he saw. He described Kahnweiler with a network of shimmering, semitransparent surfaces that merge with the atmosphere around him. Forms are fractured into various planes and faceted shapes and presented from several points of view. added attributes to direct the eye and focus the mind: a wave of hair, the knot of a tie, a watch chain. Out of the flickering passages of brown, gray, black, and white emerges a rather traditional portrait pose of a seated man, his hands clasped in his lap. analytical cubism style portrait sat 30 times for the painting some of the representational objects aid the viewer in uilding a visual impression of his head, but it drifts in and out of focus when this painting was first viewed, it caused "a great deal of controversy" from art critics who considered it an outrage and an insult against serious, traditional art.

Juan Gris, Bottles and Knife, 1911-1912, oil on canvas, 21½" x 18

takes the elements on a breakfast table and fragments them using overall diagonal lines which start from the top left and progress down to the bottom right. The forms are still identifiable, though, with a plate and knife in the foreground, with two bottles and a glass placed just behind. environment around these objects is actually left out entirely, just using a greeny beige tone to fill in the rest of the canvas. Each object features a gradient of grey in its bottom right corner, which helps to indicate form as no real outlines are used. muted colour, similar to many of his paintings from 1911- 1913, working with a mainly tertiary pallet The limited choice of colour helps us focus on tone and shape. The centre area of the art work only produced in tone to create separation of areas with the outer edges. The background area has had more colour added and Juan Gris uses a strong warm tone on the top of one ellipse which contrasts with the grey areas of the art work and draws the eye in to the centre of the painting. The use of grey tones within the centre area gives us a feeling of this section being behind glass or seen as a broken reflection within a mirror. The painting is divided up by dramatic diagonal parallel lines, which create a feeling of a shattered or refracted image. This strong movement within the painting is exaggerated by the diagonal brushstrokes Gris uses to emphasis the angles within the image. Gris plays around with our idea of reality and makes us have to work harder to make sense of the image. The table in the background tilts up to meet the objects, which overlap and intersect each other and make us feel we are seeing something in motion, not one moment in time but many all caught together in the one space.

Kasimir Malevich,, 1915 Suprematist Painting: Eight Red Rectangles, oil on canvas, 25⅝" x 19⅛

there are eight red rectangles of various sizes and placed at different angles. This groundbreaking artist desired to reduce art down to the smallest elements during this period in his career. To the untrained eye, many of Malevich's abstract works are just simple collections of lines and shapes - surely there is no talent displayed here. In reality, this Russian painter was creating the newest art movements in the 20th century, in collaboration with a number of other notable names. Such a style had not been seen before, and behind these shapes was a manifesto for art and society in general. A visual display is often just the presentation of a deeper idea and that was the case for many members of the Russian Avant-Garde. his is one of the few representations which put all shapes in the same colour - the artist would certainly have been representing a specific idea by choosing to do this. In other cases he would use black, blue, red and blue to provide a greater contrast between the abstract items. He took this Suprematist movement into an even more simplistic form with paintings such as Black Cross, where a single shape would exist entirely on it's own. 1915 marked the arrival of this particular artwork and it was around this time that the artist chose to follow this style in most of his work. He felt that a new style of art was needed to match the changing political environment of his own country, which at that stage was known as the Russian Empire. When considering the country's path over the coming years, the artist was clearly aware of what would later occur, with regards the revolution. The three levels of Suprematism were described by Malevich as black, colored and white. Eight Red Rectangles is an example of the second, more dynamic phase, in which primary colors began to be used. The composition is somewhat ambiguous, since while on the one hand the rectangles can be read as floating in space, as if they were suspended on the wall, they can also be read as objects seen from above. Malevich appears to have read them in the latter way, since at one time he was fascinated by aerial photography. Indeed he later criticized this more dynamic phase of his Suprematist movement as 'aerial Suprematism,' since its compositions tended to echo pictures of the earth taken from the skies, and in this sense departed from his ambitions for a totally abstract, non-objective art. The uneven spacing and slight tilt of the juxtaposed shapes in Eight Red Rectangles, as well as the subtly different tones of red, infuse the composition with energy, allowing Malevich to experiment with his concept of "infinite" space.

Wassily Kandinsky, Swinging, 1925, oil on board, 27¾" x 19¾"

title 'Swinging' captures this work's sense of movement. Kandinsky believed painting should aim to be as abstract as music. He worked to create art that was free from all references to the material world. For him, colour in particular was essential for liberating art from representing the visible world. title 'Swinging' captures this work's sense of movement. Kandinsky believed painting should aim to be as abstract as music. He worked to create art that was free from all references to the material world. For him, colour in particular was essential for liberating art from representing the visible world. some tones that vary in lightness and darkness, everything feels much crisper than some of his earlier pieces where abstract shapes would merge closely with each other and, indeed, also with the more vibrant background circle to the top feel somewhat like a scene of cosmology but it is hard to link much of the rest to anything that you might encounter in reality artist was attempting to throw away any connection to real life, and produce art that held a similarlity with music, where no reality can be found. He even worked for a number of years to find ways of bringing music and art together and was one of a number to do this, along with Klee for example contrasting colors fascinated by the meaning of color and the ways that it could convey messages - illustrates massive contrasts between both very light colors and much darker, even black. composition of this piece seems to be almost non-existent at first glance judging solely on the chaos of it all - there are actually many horizontals and verticals that do give it balance and structure. The geometry of the piece is precise and abundant. There are multiple geometric shapes and many of them overlap. All the overlap adds to the idea of chaos and free art. The curves are the most that the piece relates to the title of swinging. The curved quarter-circles add a sense of movement and dynamism similar to the physical action of a swinging object or person.

Umberto Boccioni, States of Mind: Those Who Go, 1911, oil on canvas, 27⅞" x 37¾"

Conveying states of mindPsychologicalShow physical manifestations of everyday life Highly abstracted Angular and planarGeneric figures Long blue slashes suggest speed and motion visual ideas being used differently than cubismCerulean blue dominates Angular and planar Generic figures Long blue slashes suggest speed and motion visual ideas being used differently than cubism Cerulean blue dominates Fascinated with the speed and noise of machinery and cities, the Futurists were intentionally rejecting traditional imagery and creating works that were utterly modern and radical. It was all about speed and the perception of movement.

Wassily Kandinsky, Composition VIII, 1923, oil on canvas, 55⅛" x 79⅛"

Has changed in his art a lo t10 years after prior work, a lot has happened, clearly major changesLinear, hard edged, geometrically definedgeometric layoutsExaggerated distorted colorsplanetimagery is very atomic nuclear and comiscpost war tendency (contour and linear, geometric and hard edgedCircles within a circle near writings on atomic theory, interesting in elementsaimed to formulate an abstract language which would cause strong emotions in the audience to a large extent the same way as it does the music. "Form itself, even if completely abstract ... has its own inner sound,"one of the first paintings which were bought by Solomon R. Guggenheim. Has changed in his art a lot10 years after prior work, a lot has happened, clearly major changesLinear, hard edged, geometricAllergy defied geometric layoutsExaggerated distorted colorsGlowing sis and planetsImagery is very atomic nuclear nad cosmicPost war tendenc (contour and linear, geometric and hard edgedCircles within a circleNear writings on atomic theory, interesting in elements the principle in the creation of a Composition was the "expression of feelings" or "inner necessity" through purely pictorial means Kandinsky believed that this "inner sound" of the picture was crucial to its success and the key to its understanding.

Kasimir Malevich, Suprematist Painting: Airplane Flying, 1915, oil on canvas, 22⅞" x 19"

In December 1915, at the Last Futurist Exhibition of Paintings 0.10 (zero-ten) in Petrograd (now St. Petersburg), Malevich unveiled a radically new mode of abstract painting that abandoned all reference to the outside world in favor of colored geometric shapes floating against white backgrounds. Because his new style claimed supremacy over the forms of nature, he called it "Suprematism." Kasimir Malevich's Airplane Flying: Suprematist Composition does not depict an airplane. Instead, it was intended to convey the sensation of mechanical flight using thirteen rectangles in black, yellow, red, and blue placed in dynamic relationships on a white ground. Movement is created by the diagonal orientation of the rectangles in relation to the edges of the canvas. Groups of individual colors suggest distinct objects shown at varying distances as they increase or diminish in scale. Ascension is implied by the point of the yellow rectangle centered at the top of the composition, while the bright yellow and red rectangles float above the heavier dark blue and black rectangles. In a leaflet distributed at the exhibition, Malevich wrote, "I transformed myself in the zero of form, I destroyed the ring of the horizon and escaped from the circle of things, from the horizon-ring that confines the artist and forms of nature." All of the works on this wall were included in this landmark show. Since Suprematism rejected the deliberate illusions of representational painting, Malevich saw it as a form of realism—"new painterly realism" was his term—and understood its subject to be the basic components of painting's language, such as color, line, and brushwork. The basic units of this visual vocabulary were planes, stretched, rotated, and overlapping. For Malevich, the white backgrounds against which they were set mapped the boundless space of the ideal.

Frantisek Kupka, Amorpha: Fugue in Two Colors, 1912, oil on canvas, 7' x 7'2⅝"

Kupka was born in the Czech Republic and settled in Paris in 1896. In 1910 he became one of the first artists to work in a completely abstract mode, developing colorful, visionary paintings and watercolors such as these. They are a product of his mystical belief that rhythmic forms in pure colors can reflect the forces of the cosmos. In 1911 Kupka strove to eliminate objective subject matter from his paintings. His development toward abstraction is evident in his work of 1909 to 1911 in his interpretations of motion and of the light and color of Gothic stained-glass windows. Amorpha: Fugue in Two Colours is the result of Kupka's long-term transition from specific to non-object painting. At the beginning, the artist tried to capture the motion of a ball with which his stepdaughter Andrée played, yet he ended up depicting the abstract ideas of motion with two colours - red and blue. The name fugue may refer to Bach's music as well as to the original meaning of the word (flight) once again referring to motion. The historical significance of Amorpha: Fugue in Two Colours lies in the fact that it is the first abstract painting (along with Amorpha: Warm Chromatics) to have been presented to the public in the Autumn Salon (Salon d'Automne) in Paris in 1912.

Robert Delaunay, Circular Forms, Sun, No. 1, 1912-1913, oil on canvas, 39⅜" x 31¾"

Robert Delaunay chose the view into the ambulatory of the Parisian Gothic church Saint-Séverin as the subject of his first series of paintings, in which he charted the modulations of light streaming through the stained-glass windows and the resulting perceptual distortion of the architecture. The subdued palette and the patches of color that fracture the smooth surface of the floor point to the influence of Paul Cézanne as well as to the stylistic elements of Georges Braque's early Cubist landscapes. Delaunay said that the Saint-Séverin theme in his work marked "a period of transition from Cézanne to Cubism." The artist's attraction to windows and window views, linked to the Symbolists' use of glass panes as metaphors for the transition from internal to external states, culminated in his Simultaneous Windows series. (The series derives its name from the French scientist Michel-Eugène Chevreul's theory of simultaneous contrasts of color, which explores how divergent hues are perceived at once.) Delaunay stated that these works began his "constructive" phase, in which he juxtaposed and overlaid translucent contrasting complementary colors to create a synthetic, harmonic composition. Guillaume Apollinaire wrote a poem about these paintings and coined the word Orphism to describe Delaunay's endeavor, which he believed was as independent of descriptive reality as was music (the name derives from Orpheus, the mythological lyre player). Although Simultaneous Windows (2nd Motif, 1st Part) contains a vestigial green profile of the Eiffel Tower, it is one of the artist's last salutes to representation before his leap to complete abstraction.

David Bomberg, In the Hold, c. 1913-1914, oil on canvas, 77¼" x 91"

The subject of this painting is the hold of a ship, in which dock workers are handling heavy freight. However, Bomberg has divided the canvas into a grid of squares that are themselves divided. The effect of this is to shatter form, transforming the scene into a kinetic pattern of shape and dazzling colour. Though the image has become hard to decipher, the fragmented composition expresses the energy of men at work in an industrial environment. monumental canvas sought a language form that would convey the dynamism of the modern urban environment translation of the city, its motion, machinery - expressive of those things image is sort of a mosaic of exploding color fragments that are an energizing thoughts

Wassily Kandinsky, Improvisation 28 (2nd Version), 1912, oil on canvas, 44" x 63¾"

to have the viewer respond to a painting the way one would respond to an abstract musical composition like a concerto, sonata, or symphonytitle derived from musical compositions; gave musical titles to his works like "composition" and "improvisation"greater use of dark contrast, with thicker lines that are more deliberate and aggressivepalette is very familiar, with blues, reds, yellows and purples. These colours were not chosen at random, but the carefully considered approach to complementing colours togetherattempting to create a visual form of music within artliked his abstract scenes to be upon fairly large canvasesrepresentational objects suggested rather than depicted Feeling, movement, emotion,Virtually nothing you can recognizeMuch less obvious

Pablo Picasso, Still Life with Chair Caning, 1912, oil, paper, and oilcloth on canvas with rope, 10⅝" x 14⅝

1912 synthetic cubism - finding the real world and bringing it back in to their workPicking objects and putting them together in their work (synthesizing - to put together) Beginning of collageupper right: almost at the edge of the canvas (at two o'clock) there is the handle of a knife. Follow it to the left to find the blade. The knife cuts a piece of citrus fruit. You can make out the rind and the segments of the slice at the bottom right corner of the blade. At eleven o'clock is the famous "JOU," which means "game" in French, but also the first three letters of the French word for newspaper (or more literally, "daily"; journal=daily). In fact, you can make out the bulk of the folded paper quite clearlyThe subject of this piece is a still life. Picasso imprinted a photolithograohed pattern of a cane chair seat on the canvas and then pasted a piece of oil cloth on it, and framed it with rope.artwork was created to challenge the viewer's understanding of reality. Picasso was inspired by and exploring Cubism further using mixed media, in this case oilcloth, to create synthetic cubism.When this piece was made Countries were on the verge of WW1

Kasimir Malevich, Suprematist Painting: White Square on White, 1918, oil on canvas, 31¼" x 31¼"

A white square floating weightlessly in a white field, Suprematist Composition: White on White was one of the most radical paintings of its day: a geometric abstraction without reference to external reality. Yet the picture is not impersonal: we see the artist's hand in the texture of the paint and in the subtle variations of the whites. The square is not exactly symmetrical, and its lines, imprecisely ruled, have a breathing quality, generating a feeling not of borders defining a shape but of a space without limits. Malevich was fascinated with technology and particularly with the airplane. He studied aerial photography and wanted White on White to create a sense of floating and transcendence. White, Malevich believed, was the color of infinity and signified a realm of higher feeling, a utopian world of pure form that was attainable only through nonobjective art. Indeed, he named his theory of art Suprematism to signify "the supremacy of pure feeling or perception in the pictorial arts"; and pure perception, he wrote, demanded that a picture's forms "have nothing in common with nature." In 1918, soon after the Russian Revolution, the connotations of this sense of liberation were not only aesthetic but also social and political. Malevich expressed his exhilaration in a manifesto one year later: "I have overcome the lining of the colored sky. . . . Swim in the white free abyss, infinity is before you." It is one of the more well-known examples of the Russian Suprematism movement, painted the year after the October Revolution. Part of a series of "white on white" works begun by Malevich in 1916, the work depicts a white square, portrayed off-centre and at an angle on a ground which is also a white square of a slightly warmer tone. The work measures 79.5 by 79.5 centimetres (31.3 in × 31.3 in). Malevich dispenses with most of the characteristics of representational art, with no sense of colour, depth, or volume, leaving a simple monochrome geometrical shape, not precisely symmetrical, with imprecisely defined boundaries. Although the artwork is stripped of most detail, brush strokes are evident in this painting and the artist tried to make it look as if the tilted square is coming out of the canvas. Malevich intended the painting to evoke a feeling of floating, with the colour white symbolising infinity, and the slight tilt of the square suggests movement. At this time it was purported that the painting was indeed made in that year; yet since then it has been contested and the general consensus is that it's dated around 1915 or 1916. The painting itself is fundamentally an abstract oil painting, on a white background filled with geometric shapes. Within the centre of the canvas a blue triangle has been painted, which is large in size and slightly tilted to an angle favouring to be left of the composition. The triangle resembles that of a harbouring and somewhat motherly form. The triangle itself has been overlaid and assembled with geometric forms at each of the triangle's three extremities. These forms are of depicting colours and are placed at capricious angles, and are more agile, heterogeneous beings which interact in hierarchically organised configurations. Of exacting prominence is a deep blue tiny triangle which resides at the top of the piece; with a yellow rectangle located right of the centre of the work, and a greater rectangle cream in colour sitting just below it. Dynamic Suprematism is also referred to as Supremum 57, and comprises of an even application of paint, and it appears upon examination to have been painted directly to the canvas without the need for preparatory drawings and subsequent layering. The term Suprematism is derived from Supremus, in other words supreme. Malevich said Suprematism represented colour of form and the pure experience of painting. It was not about imitations of visible reality, Malevich was interested in the pure feeling for painting. The painting does not follow any physical law - it has no up or down and can be appreciated at varying angles.

Giacomo Balla, Swifts: Paths of Movement + Dynamic Sequences, 1913, oil on canvas, 38⅛" x 47¼

Balla, one of the founding members of Futurism, spent much of his career studying the dynamics of movement and speed. The subject of this painting is the flight of swifts; black wings whir before a window. Inspired by photographic studies of animal locomotion such as those by French physiologist Étienne-Jules Marey, Balla created an image of motion pushed close to abstraction. The wings each represent a different position in a trajectory of motion, and the bird's body is rendered as a diagrammatic line. Here Balla looks to science to establish a new, modern language for painting. Giacoma Balla painted Paths of Movement + Dynamic Sequences in Italy in 1913 . Balla was a key artist in the Futurist movement, which was happening in Italy at the time. The Futurist movement was started to get the Italian people to revolutionize everything from culture to art, to how they dressed. Balla believed, that because everything was always in motion, that paintings, and art in general should depict movement. The idea that a painting could move went along with the ideals of the Futurist movement. In general, Balla was very interested in how he could depict the movement of the subject of his paintings. He viewed his art as a mathematical study of movement. In one of his letters Balla wrote that motion was "the necessary starting point for the discovery of the lines of abstract speed."[1] In his study of motion he was especially fascinated with the movement of swallows. Paths of Movement + Dynamic Sequences was painted with oil on canvas. This particular painting is one of almost 20 studies that Balla did using swallows as his subject material. Balla was very interested in depicting the mechanics of swallows in flight.[2] The series of paintings get more detailed as his study progresses. This painting shows "a well-balanced synthesis of light and motion, space and state of mind, objectivity and subjectivity, elaborated to the point of abstraction."[3] Balla starts with a very clear subject, that of swallows flying past a window, and then he creates movement using different painting techniques to make the work abstract. This painting depicts a flock of sparrows as they move past a window. The image is abstract but there are several key features that show what the image is of. While the birds are blurred together, their wings clearly identify them as birds. The wings of each sparrow is shown at three different points in time as they move back and forth. Balla pained the wing in the middle the darkest; because he was trying to show that as the wings move back and forth they spend the most time in the middle. Balla felt that the lines in his painting "represented in synthetic form his spirit moving along the terrace in unison with the swallows as he observed their flight."[4] Balla's study of motion in this painting shows the ideals of the Futurist movement and also how Balla viewed art. This painting shows that Balla wanted a painting that showed how things move. The different technique that he uses shows his dedication to making a painting move.

Frantisek Kupka, Vertical Planes III, 1912-1913, oil on canvas, 78½" x 46½"

Born in Bohemia, Kupka was active in Paris for much of his career. He created his first abstract works in 1911, combining his interests in Cubism, Czech folk art, philosophy, and optics. These radical new paintings were among the first purely nonrepresentational works produced in Europe. Here, the multitude of rectilinear geometric forms in saturated colors interlock to suggest stained glass, textile design, or a folding screen.

Wassily Kandinsky, Painting with White Border, 1913, oil on canvas, 55⅜" x 79"

Conveys dramatic violence Based on st George killing the dragon undulating colored ovals traversed by animated brushstrokes, Black Lines is among the first of Kandinsky's truly nonobjective paintings. thin, agitated lines indicates a graphic, two-dimensional sensibility, while the floating, vibrantly hued forms suggest various spatial depths ealized, however, that it would be necessary to develop such a style slowly in order to foster public acceptance and comprehension. Therefore, in most of his work from this period he retained fragments of recognizable imagery. mass of swirling colors and lines in the center has been convincingly interpreted as the figure of a lance-bearing St. George on horseback, an allusion to Moscow's tsarist tradition (the state seal of Peter the Great included an emblem of the saint). wrote that his goal "was to let . . . [himself] go and scatter a heap of small pleasures upon the canvas."

Pablo Picasso, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, May-July 1907, oil on canvas, 8' x 7'8"

Cubism - huge part of modern artVentures into the realm of abstract artStarted by Picasso around 1907 in ParisBlue period - blues in paintings and tend to be sad, depressing, melancholy and somberRed - not obviously bleak and dreary, but not as rosy and rose suggestsNude women in a brothelradical break from traditional composition and perspective in paintingfaces were inspired by Iberian sculpture and African masksTransition from the narrative to the iconic - taking the story and instead of relying on figure placement and dress, telling the story, he wants a more blunt confrontational image to convey the feelings of the narrative rather than just the storyTaken cezanne's passage to the extremeBraodened areas and shapes so you have flat angular pointy shapesEyes, ears, breast, asymmetrical - no one is perfect to the extremeSome people think it is meant to be seen in both directionswork's title is a reference to a street in Barcelona famed for its brothels

Robert Delaunay, Simultaneous Contrasts: Sun and Moon, 1913, oil on canvas, 33" diameter

Delaunay was fascinated by how the interaction of colors produces sensations of depth and movement, without reference to the natural world. In Simultaneous Contrasts that movement is the rhythm of the cosmos, for the painting's circular frame is a sign for the universe, and its flux of reds and oranges, greens and blues, is attuned to the sun and the moon, the rotation of day and night. But the star and planet, refracted by light, go undescribed in any literal way. "The breaking up of form by light creates colored planes," Delaunay said. "These colored planes are the structure of the picture, and nature is no longer a subject for description but a pretext." Indeed, he had decided to abandon "images or reality that come to corrupt the order of color." The poet Guillaume Apollinaire christened Delaunay's style "Orphism," after Orpheus, the musician of Greek legend whose eloquence on the lyre is a mythic archetype for the power of art. The musicality of Delaunay's work lay in color, which he studied closely. In fact, he derived the phrase "Simultaneous Contrasts" from the treatise On the Law of the Simultaneous Contrast of Colors, published in 1839 by Michel-Eugène Chevreul. Absorbing Chevreul's scientific analyses, Delaunay has here gone beyond them into a mystical belief in color, its fusion into unity symbolizing the possibility for harmony in the chaos of the modern world.

Kazimir Malevich, Dynamic Suprematist Painting, 1915-1916, oil on canvas, 31⅝" x 31½"

Dynamic Suprematism is an abstract oil painting, square in its proportions, by the Russian artist Kazimir Malevich. Pictured against an off-white background, the canvas features at its centre a large pale blue triangle that is tilted at a slight angle towards the left of the composition. Painted on top of the central triangle and congregated around its three points is a sequence of geometric forms in a range of colours that are positioned at varying angles. Particularly prominent are a small triangle in deep blue towards the top of the work, a bright yellow rectangle to the right of centre and a larger cream rectangle just below it. This work, which is also known as Supremus 57, consists of a uniform layer of paint, and seems to have been painted directly onto the canvas without the artist using any preparatory layers or drawings (see Ronald Alley, Catalogue of the Tate Gallery's Collection of Modern Art Other than Works by British Artists, London 1981, p.471). Inscribed on the back of the canvas in Latin script are the title and date of the work, while written in Cyrillic is the artist's name and 'Moskva' (a transliteration of the name of the city of Moscow). There has been some uncertainty over the exact dating of Dynamic Suprematism. Previous accounts have suggested that it was shown in the seminal group show entitled The Last Futurist Exhibition of Paintings 0.10, which opened in Petrograd (now known as St Petersburg) in December 1915 and suggest that it was made in that year. However, more recent scholarship has cast doubt on the work's presence in the 0.10 show, and it is now dated '1915 or 1916'

Robert Delaunay, First Disk, 1913, oil on canvas, 54" diameter

French painter, born in Paris. Apprenticed for two years to a theatrical designer, then began to paint. Influenced by Neo-Impressionism 1906-7, afterwards by Cézanne; a friend of Metzinger and the Douanier Rousseau. Series of pictures of 'Saint-Séverin', 'The Eiffel Tower' and 'The City'. Married the painter Sonia Terk in 1910. Exhibited in the Cubist room at the Salon des Indépendants in 1911 with Metzinger, Gleizes, Léger and Le Fauconnier. Started to use pure colours again early in 1912 and at the end of the same year painted his first 'Disc' and 'Circular Forms', his first abstract pictures. First one-man exhibition at the Galeries Barbazanges, Paris, 1912. His work was much admired in Paris by Apollinaire, who gave it the name Orphism, and in Germany by Klee, Macke and Marc. Lived in Spain and Portugal during the First World War; returned to Paris in 1920. After painting various figurative themes such as nude women reading, runners and portraits, he returned in 1930 to complete abstraction and made numerous compositions with circular discs and colour rhythms, sometimes in low relief. Executed with assistants huge panels and coloured reliefs for the Aeronautics pavilion at the 1937 Paris International Exhibition. Died at Montpellier. Delaunay is most closely identified with Orphism. From 1912 to 1914, he painted nonfigurative paintings based on the optical characteristics of brilliant colors that were so dynamic they would function as the form. His theories are mostly concerned with color and light and influenced many

Umberto Boccioni, The City Rises, 1910, oil on canvas, 6'6x9'10

Futurism - Italian movement started in northern Italy in 1909 - thrived for 5 years (first major futurist work)Dynamic, energetic, violent, chaoticMake out numerous figures and objects (realistic elements are present - building and the space is rendered through perspective)Buildings in construction in a suburb can be seen with chimneys in the upper part, but most of the space is occupied by men and horses, melted together in a dynamic effort.[3] Boccioni thus emphasizes some of the most typical elements of futurism, the exaltation of human work and the importance of the modern town, built around modern necessitiespainting portrays the construction of a new city with developments and technology.been exhibited in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City as part of their permanent collection

Umberto Boccioni, Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, 1913, bronze, 44" x 38" x 16

Futurist sculpture - striving to porotray speed and dynamism expression of movement and fluidity human like figure (w/o arms and a discernable face) originally plaster, never cast into bronze in his lifetime fluid form Boccioni trained as a painter but began sculpting a year earlier wanted to depict a synthetic continuity of motion - synthesizes or puts together the process of walking into a single body (was the ideal form to him) completed several other sculptures including his 1913 development of a Bottle in space

Georges Braque, Houses at L'Estaque, August 1908, oil on canvas, 28¾" x 23½

Gave cubism its name - "the little cubes" by an art critic - reduced everything in his painting to cubes, leading to the adoption of the label Cubism several years latera stylistic change toward muted colour palettes and simple geometric formsUntil this point, Braque had been painting in the Fauvist style, but, after seeing Cézanne's work, began to experiment, as seen in this piece. Houses at l'Estaque uses a muted, earthy colour palette, which becamebroken the traditional rules of perspective: there is no central vanishing point and the foreground is impossible to distinguish from the backgroundThis work is one of several paintings Braque produced of the village of L'Estaque in France. It was a popular subject among artists, especially Impressionists. Paul Cézanne in particular painted many pieces depicting the area.Braque's experimental works were initially ill-received"The cylinder, the sphere and the cube" - cezanne - idea taken to the extremeCool tones of blue and green

Lubov Popova, Painterly Architectonic, 1917, oil on canvas, 31½" x 38⅝"

In Painterly Architectonic, one of a series of works with this title, Popova arranged areas of white, red, black, gray, and pink to suggest planes laid one on top of the other over a white ground, like differently shaped papers in a collage. The space is not completely flat, however, for the rounded lower rim of the gray plane implies that this surface is arching upward against the red triangle. This pressure finds matches in the shapes and placements of the planes, which shun both right angles and vertical or horizontal lines, so that the picture becomes a taut net of slants and diagonals. Influenced by her visits to western Europe before World War I, Popova helped introduce into Russian art the Cubist and Futurist ideas she encountered in France and Italy. Her model of abstraction is implied by her use of the term "architectonic": treating planes almost as solid material entities, Popova built a monumental composition focused on the interrelationships between individual parts. In 1916 Popova became a Suprematist, a term coined the previous year by artist Kazimir Malevich to describe an art that rejected painting's historic devotion to representation, focusing instead on the supremacy of pure artistic feeling. In the wake of the Russian Revolution, in 1917, many artists took up Malevich's aim, believing that a revolutionary society demanded a radically new artistic language. This is one in a series of abstract paintings Popova produced in 1916, called 'Painterly Architectonics'. These works are characterized by dynamic, overlapping planes which seem to float in space. In creating these paintings, Popova was influenced by the work of the Russian artist Kasimir Malevich, who had reduced the cubist style to a basic language of squares and rectangles. The coloured diagonal shapes in this painting suggest movement but also a sense of balance. The modelling of the shapes suggests a light source from outside the frame.

Robert Delaunay, Windows (Simultaneous Open Windows, 1st Part, 3rd Motif), 1912, oil on canvas, 18" x 14¾"

In his Windows series, a group of twenty-two paintings made between April and December of 1912, Delaunay rejected painting's traditional function as a window onto an imaginary world. Instead he turned to the pictorial surface as a place where the process of seeing itself could be recorded. "Without visual perception there is no light, no movement," Delaunay wrote in the summer of 1912. "This movement is provided by relationships of uneven measures, by color contrasts, which constitute Reality." Light and its structuring of vision, the simultaneous contrasts of colors and their steady rhythmic motion, became the subjects of Delaunay's Windows, setting the stage for his move into abstraction. "The Windows," he wrote, "truly began my life as an artist." Though Robert Delaunay had virtually discarded representational imagery by the spring of 1912 when he embarked on the Windows theme, vestigial objects endure in this series. Here, as in Simultaneous Windows 2nd Motif, 1st Part (Collection Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York) of the same moment, the centralized ghost of a green Eiffel Tower alludes to his enthusiasm for modern life. Analytic Cubism inspired Delaunay's fragmentation of form, oval format, and organization of the picture's space as a grid supporting intersecting planes. However, unlike the monochromatic, tactile planes of Cubism, those of Delaunay are not defined by line and modeling, but by the application of diaphanous, prismatic color. Delaunay wrote in 1913: "Line is limitation. Color gives depth—not perspectival, not successive, but simultaneous depth—as well as form and movement."¹ As in visual perception of the real world, perception of Delaunay's painting is initially fragmentary, the eye continually moving from one form to others related by hue, value, tone, shape, or direction. As focus shifts, expands, jumps, and contracts in unending rhythms, one senses the fixed borders of the canvas and the tight interlocking of its contents. Because identification of representational forms is not necessary while the eye moves restlessly, judgments about the relative importance of parts are not made and all elements can be perceived as equally significant. The harmony of the pictorial reality provides an analogy to the concealed harmony of the world. At the left of the canvas Delaunay suggests glass, which, like his chromatic planes, is at once transparent, reflective, insubstantial, and solid. Glass may allude as well to the metaphor of art as a window on reality.

Umberto Boccioni, Dynamism of a Soccer Player, 1913, oil on canvas, 76⅛" x 79⅛"

In this work a soccer player dematerializes into a luminous and flickering atmosphere, save for his firmly sculpted calf, at center. Here Boccioni offered a demonstration of a principle he articulated in his 1910 text "Technical Manifesto of Futurist Painting": "To paint a human figure you must not paint it; you must render the whole of its surrounding atmosphere . . . movement and light destroy the materiality of bodies." With stippled brushwork and kaleidoscopic color, the painting communicates the spirited energy of a youthful athlete. The painting depicts a dematerialized soccer player. The athlete's calf is seen in the center of the painting, and portions of other body parts can be seen around it. Due to its use of vibrant hues divided into sections, the painting gives the impression that rays of light are illuminating the subject.[1] Furthermore, the painting's use of transparent and opaque overlapping shapes exhibits a Cubist influence.[2] Dynamism of a Soccer Player demonstrates the following principle presented in Boccioni's Futurist Painting: Technical Manifesto, that "To paint a human figure you must not paint it; you must render the whole of its surrounding atmosphere...movement and light destroy the materiality of bodies."[3] Fascinated with the speed and noise of machinery and cities, the Futurists were intentionally rejecting traditional imagery and creating works that were utterly modern and radical. It was all about speed and the perception of movement. Umberto Boccioni's Dynamism of a Soccer Player, painted in 1913 challenges you to find the player: despite the well-pronounced leg and knee in the center of the picture, rhythmically repeated abstract lines and shapes are chaotically moving around the surface and make it impossible to recognize a familiar figurative depiction of a human body. Here, Boccioni is primarily concerned with representation of vibration and dynamics of the movement rather then depicting the player. The dynamic sensation is created through abstract shapes both transparent and opaque, and overlapping each other - clearly Cubist influence. Yet, to solve the problem of depicting motion, the Futurists drew on the sequential photographs taken by Eadward Muybridge in the end of the nineteenth century (Giacomo Balla's Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash is the best illustration of this influence). Here it was all about not just creating new paintings, but inventing a new way of painting and depicting aspects of familiar objects not presented before. Through abstraction and sequence Umberto Boccioni challenged the inherent stillness of paint on canvas and urged us to forget our cultural memory, rethink aesthetic sensations and confront traditional perception of surrounding objects. Futurism praises another, unconventional kind of harmony: harmony of speed of the modern age.

Pablo Picasso, Woman with a Guitar or Zither / "Ma Jolie," 1911-1912, oil on canvas, 39⅝" x 25¾

Ma Jolie (My pretty girl) was the refrain of a popular song performed at a Parisian music hall Picasso frequented. The artist suggests this musical association by situating a treble clef and music staff near the bold, stenciled letters. Ma Jolie was also Picasso's nickname for his lover Marcelle Humbert, whose figure he loosely built using the signature shifting planes of Analytic Cubism. far from a traditional portrait of an artist's beloved, but there are clues to its representational content A triangular form in the lower center is strung like a guitar; below the strings can be seen four fingers; an elbow juts to the right; and in the upper half, what may be a floating smile is barely discernable amid the network of flat, semitransparent planes. figure appears to disappear into an abstract network of flat, straight-edged semitransparent planes, together these elements suggest a woman holding a musical instrument high analytic cubism although at the same time representing a traditional theme different planes, angles, lines, and shadings, completely abstracting the face multiple modes of representation simultaneously: here, Picasso combined language (in the black lettering), symbolic meaning (in the treble clef), and near abstraction (in the depiction of his subject)

Natalia Goncharova, Cats (Rayonist Composition in Rose, Black and Yellow, 1913, oil on canvas, 33¼" x 33"

Natalia Goncharova was one of the most important figures in the inception and development of Russian Modern art in the years immediately preceding the 1917 Socialist revolution. er name is often mentioned together with Mikhail Larionov, her collaborator and partner of 60 years and together they experimented with the contemporary French and European styles, and in the second half of 1912 brought forth a unique fusion of Cubo-Futurism and Orphism they called Rayism. Rayism focused on depicting not the real state of being of material objects - in other words, not the way we would actually see a tree or an animal, but the rays (thus the name) of light reflecting from its surface. This revolutionary approach was largely influenced by the advances in the study of light and vision. As scientists discovered the real mechanisms in the perception of light by the human eye, Goncharova and Larionov found new ways of depicting these findings on canvas. Using intersecting vectors of color to depict refracted light rays, Rayist works recreate the surface play of light on objects. This perceptual approach to painting was based on scientific discoveries concerning the nature of vision, advances that had also influenced Neo-Impressionist color theories, the Cubist analysis of form, and the Futurist emphasis on dynamic lines. appears to represent two black felines with a tabby in between, illustrates the Rayist view that objects may serve as points of departure for explorations on the canvas. Goncharova used darts of color to suggest the effects of light on the cats' shiny coats and the way that adjacent surfaces reflect neighboring hues. The dynamic slashes of black and white evoke the energized, machine-inspired compositions of the Futurists. The artist's brilliant color recalls Robert Delaunay's exuberant depictions of the Eiffel Tower as well as Russian woodblock prints and painted trays. Cats also suggests the richly hued integration of animals and their environment that Franz Marc was developing contemporaneously in his own synthesis of Cubism and Futurism. Yet unlike Marc and other German Expressionist painters, Rayist painters did not seek to express spiritual goals through their art.

Frantisek Kupka, Vertical and Horizontal Planes, 1911-1913, oil on canvas, 53⅜" x 33⅝"

Not Done

Kasimir Malevich, Suprematist Painting: Black Trapezoid, Red Square, 1915, 39⅞" x 24⅜"

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Frantisek Kupka, The First Step, 1910-1913 (dated 1909 by the artist), oil on canvas, 32¾" x 51"

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Umberto Boccioni, States of Mind: The Farewells, 1911, oil on canvas, 27⅞" x 37⅞"

Set in a train station, this series of three paintings explores the psychological dimension of modern life's transitory nature. In The Farewells, Boccioni captures chaotic movement and the fusion of people swept away in waves as the train's steam bellows into the sky. Italian Futurist painter attempt to depict the psychological aspects of the drama and emotion of modern travel. the would be travellers and those seeing them off, the steam and smoke of the railway engines and even the station environment itself are all swirling together in a tumultuous vortex of waves around the only element of calm, the railway engine's number. The other two paintings in the series separately explore the feelings of the travellers and of those left behind on the platform. The Farewells was the first of Boccioni's three-part series, States of Mind, which has long been seen as one of the high points of the Futurist style in painting. The focal point of the picture is provided by movement itself - the locomotive, the airplane, the automobile: modern machines that gave new meaning to the word "speed." In this work, set in a train station, Boccioni captures the dynamism of movement and chaos, depicting people being consumed by, or fused with, the steam from the locomotive as it whizzes past.

Umberto Boccioni, States of Mind: Those Who Stay, 1911, oil on canvas, 27⅞" x 37¾"

Set in a train station, this series of three paintings explores the psychological dimension of modern life's transitory nature. In The Farewells, Boccioni captures chaotic movement and the fusion of people swept away in waves as the train's steam bellows into the sky. Oblique lines hint at departure in Those Who Go, in which Boccioni said he sought to express "loneliness, anguish, and dazed confusion." In Those Who Stay, vertical lines convey the weight of sadness carried by those left behind. Fascinated with the speed and noise of machinery and cities, the Futurists were intentionally rejecting traditional imagery and creating works that were utterly modern and radical. It was all about speed and the perception of movement.

Frantisek Kupka, Disks of Newton, 1911-1912, oil on canvas, 39⅜" x 29"

The title of this work refers to the seventeenth-century English physicist Sir Isaac Newton, who discovered that the light of the sun is composed of the seven colors of the spectrum: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. Kupka's radiant composition incorporates circular bands of vibrating color, including the full range of the spectrum as well as white. Kupka's vibrating colour orchestrations on the canvas were intended to unite visual and musical ideas. His title refers both to music and to 17th-century physicist Sir Isaac Newton, who first understood the relationship of light to colour and the formation of a rainbow. Orphist works were first exhibited at the Salon des Independants in 1913, but it was at the 1914 Salon that Orphism took centre stage. At that Salon Sonia Delaunay exhibited Electric Prisms (1914), an abstract painting that exemplified Orphism with its blend of Cubist geometry, Fauvist bold colour, and Futurist expression of movement. The Orphist canvases of the Delaunays and Kupka deeply impressed the artists August Macke, Franz Marc, and Paul Klee, who visited the Delaunays' Paris studio in 1912; that exposure had a decisive influence on their subsequent work. Orphism also influenced the development of Cubism in Germany.

Kasimir Malevich, An Englishman in Moscow, 1914, oil on canvas, 34⅝" x 22⅝"

The titular Englishman depicted in the painting is wearing a top hat and an overcoat. The man's face is partially obscured by a white fish.[4] Regarding the identity of the man painted by Malevich, the Head of Archives at the Stedelijk Museum, Michiel Nijhoff, has said, "The Englishman is not a specific Englishman but rather a metaphor in the juxtaposition of East and West; city and countryside."[5] The painting itself features a collage of geometric shapes and items such as a lit candle, scimitar, a ladder, a wooden spoon and other items. Malevich also painted symbols and text characters onto the canvas—segments of the words "partial" and "solar eclipse" are seen in Russian.[5] Malevich had been influenced by Russian literary futurists and the inclusion of Russian text, text fragments, and puns can be seen in at least two canvases (Portrait of I. V. Kliun (Improved) and Aviator) painted before An Englishman in Moscow. Indeed, a number of Malevich's paintings and drawings made their way from Russia to the Dutch capital during the early 20th century. In most cases it was local collectors deserting the country's political turmoil for safer havens in Northern Europe. On other occasions it was the Russian Government who sold on works by the likes of Malevich and Kandinsky in order to deal with shortages of finance at that time. There was a study sketch discovered in recent years which Malevich produced whilst planning for the very painting that you find here. The composition is virtually identical, perhaps one of several created by the artist before embarking on the final oil painting. There are a number of objects to be found here, all with symbolic relevance, one would immediately imagine. There are aspects here that remind us of Cubist still life paintings by the likes of Picasso, Braque and Gris. The gradients of colour were also used by Fernand Leger. The gentleman is filled with gradients of colour, unlike many of his more simple abstract lines and shapes found in other work. He used this same colouring technique for his depictions of peasants, a theme he made use of on several different occasions. If one takes a step back to examine this piece in summary, we can essentially see different compositions that would normally be produced independently, merged together into a busy and perhaps overpowering scene.

Paul Serusier, The Talisman (Landscape of the Bois d'Amour), 1888, oil on cigar box cover, 10½" x 8"

This work marks the beginning of Sérusier's exploration into color, sensation, and abstractionThe river of loveOne hit wonder of paintingSmall painting, almost a good luck charmExperimenting with abstraction and symbolismfocused instead on translating his sensations onto the canvasBased upon his impressions of a day outside, Sérusier transformed each piece of nature into a swathe of color-filled energy, unified by vivid brushstrokesHe painted what he felt, not what he saw. Gauguin encouraged him to move beyond the straightforward representation of a scene, but the artist went one step further, creating an abstracted marvel based predominantly on emotion and personal vision.this painting was supposed to be their "talisman" (or the guide and good luck charm) for future work.aimed to free his fellow artists from the artistic shackles of representation and thus allow them to pour their thoughts and emotions onto the canvasinspirational guide to future abstraction and an emblem celebrating the prioritization of sensation over visual fidelity

Pablo Picasso, Guitar, 1912, cardboard maquette for sheet metal final version, 30½" x 13" x 7 1/2

To create Guitar Picasso made a radical leap from the sculptural tradition of modeling (carving or molding) to a new technique of assemblage. He created a first version of Guitar from cardboard in 1912, then later remade the work in sheet metal; the modern ordinariness of both of these materials is very different from traditional sculptural materials such as bronze, wood, and marble. The planes of the sheet-metal construction engage in a play of substance and void in which volume is suggested, not depicted. In a dramatic demonstration of the flexible way visual forms can be read in context, the guitar's sound hole, which normally recedes from the instrument's smooth surface, here projects outward into space. Sometime between October and December 1912, Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) made a guitar. Cobbled together from cardboard, paper, string, and wire, materials that he cut, folded, threaded, and glued, Picasso's silent instrument resembled no sculpture ever seen before. In 1914 the artist reiterated his fragile papery construction in a more fixed and durable sheet metal form. These two Guitars, both gifts from the artist to MoMA, bracket an incandescent period of material and structural experimentation in Picasso's work. Picasso: Guitars 1912-1914 explores this breakthrough moment in 20th-century art, and the Guitars' place within it. Bringing together some 70 closely connected collages, constructions, drawings, mixed-media paintings, and photographs assembled from over 30 public and private collections worldwide, this exhibition offers fresh insight into Picasso's cross-disciplinary process in the years immediately preceding World War I.

Kasimir Malevich, Suprematist Painting: Black Square, 1915, 31¼" x 31¼"

True to these principles, Black Square is radically non-representational. The slab of black paint that dominates the canvas works as grand refusal, repudiating nature in favour of abstraction. As such, the painting may be read in terms of the Kantian theory of the sublime. The first version was done in 1915. Malevich made four variants of which the last is thought to have been painted during the late 1920s or early 1930s. Malevich declared the square a work of Suprematism, a movement which he proclaimed but which is associated almost exclusively with the work of Malevich and his apprentice Lissitzky today. The movement did have a handful of supporters amongst the Russian avant garde but it was dwarfed by its sibling constructivism whose manifesto harmonized better with the ideological sentiments of the revolutionary communist government during the early days of Soviet Union. Suprematism may be understood as a transitional phase in the evolution of Russian art, bridging the evolutionary gap between futurism and constructivism.[citation needed] The larger and more universal leap forward represented by the painting, however, is the break between representational painting and abstract painting—a complex transition with which Black Square has become identified and for which it has become one of the key shorthands, touchstones or symbols.[10] the experience of pure non-objectivity in the white emptiness of a liberated nothing The brushwork is juicy and brusque: filling in the shapes, fussing with the edges. But the forms are weightless, more like thoughts than like images. You don't look at the picture so much as launch yourself into its trackless empyrean. Beyond its obvious design flair, the work looks easy because it is. Malevich is monumental not for what he put into pictorial space but for what he took out: bodily experience, the fundamental theme of Western art since the Renaissance.

Franz Marc, Fighting Forms, 1914, oil on canvas, 35⅞" x 51¾"

arc's very final works before the outbreak of the First World War, it is extremely difficult to identify any animals, since non-representational form and abstraction have taken over. dominated by two swirling shapes, one red and the other black clearly the product of a country at war. We see in Marc's painting two opposing forces that are very obvious Franz Marc actually participated directly in World War I. Marc enlisted as soon as the war started in 1914. - killed in the war depicts a great struggle for supremacy, good and evil attempting to overcome each other, perhaps for control of great power, perhaps simply because the two were enemies. The cause of this sort of work, showing off the battle of Yin and Yang, was clearly propaganda. Propaganda led the German people to believe strongly in good and evil. The Germans are the good, red side, crushing the opposing darkness, all the rest of Europe. shows the influence of color symbolism Marc use colors to humanize natural forms in the landscape, emphasizing his own interest in pantheism.

Hilma af Klint, Group IV, No. 7: The Ten Largest, Adulthood, 1907, tempera on paper mounted on canvas, 10'6" x 7'10" (approx.)

bold, colorful, and untethered from any recognizable references to the physical world groundbreaking pioneer of abstract art meditative like an ancient mandala ( free-flowing organic forms of different sizes and colors cosmic paintings dynamic like a changing piece of music symbols in 'adulthood' are weightier with great intent of purpose dance of life. forms, enriched by circling words and stylized letters (for example the white 'h' located on the bottom left corner), establish further levels of symbolism and metaphorical understandings. monumental paintings relate her understanding of an unseen but palpable spiritual world rarely exhibited her groundbreaking paintings and, convinced the world was not ready for them, stipulated that they not be shown for twenty years following her death. Ultimately, her abstractions remained all but unseen until 1986. practiced a kind of transcendental spiritualism - based on the belief that spirits can communicate with the living. These communications were often pursued through séances, works represent the stages of life, and start in childhood, and move through life up to adulthood, and then to old age combine elements of imagery that's derived from organic forms, and botanicals, and creatures, and objects that one observes in the real world. So, there are representational elements to them. But they also take off into fantastical realms.

Wassily Kandinsky, Circles within a Circle, 1923, oil on canvas, 33¾" x 37⅝

compact and closed composition. Kandinsky began a thoughtful study of the circle as an artistic unit starting from this painting. In his letter to Galka Scheyer he wrote, "it is the first picture of mine to bring the theme of circles to the foreground." The outer black circle, as if the second frame for a picture, encourages us to focus on the interaction between the inside circles, and two intersecting diagonal stripes enhance the effect, adding a perspective to the composition demonstrates Kandinsky's distinctive style from the early 1920s, when he began teaching at the Bauhaus in Weimar, Germany, and subsequently moved away from a spontaneous painting style to a geometric composition. In this work, a thick black circle surrounds twenty-six overlapping circles of varying sizes and colors, many of them intersected by straight black lines. Two strobes of blue and yellow extending from the top corners cross toward the center of the piece, changing the colors of the circles where they overlap. reflects his continued belief that certain colors and shapes signify emotions that can be codified and combined into a whole, reflecting the harmony of the cosmos. For Kandinsky, the circle, the most elementary of forms, had symbolic, cosmic significance. "the first picture of mine to bring the theme of circles to the foreground." russian painter and is known and famous as one of the pioneers of the abstract painting and the abstract expressionism The big black circle in the middle of the picture works like the second frame of the picture - This gigantic circle encourages us to concentrate us upon the internal interaction. In this work he has used two sharp diagonal lines. Vassily generates by these both cutting diagonal lines a perspective and shifted the focus point through the crossroads into the circle Within his work there are 26 overlapping circles in different sizes and colours. The deeper the blue is the more it calls the viewer into the infinite and awakes in him the longing for the pure and the extrasensory. A blue tone which sinks more to black gets an overtone of a not human grief, that is the theory of him.

Wassily Kandinsky, Composition VII, 1913, oil on canvas, 79" x 108"

considered to be the apex of his artwork before the First Word War. More than 30 sketches made in watercolors and oil paints precede this painting, and they can serve as "documentary" proof of this work creation combination of several themes namely Resurrection, the Judgment Day, the Flood and the Garden of Eden saw his art as linked to music, and used the terms 'improvisations' and 'compositions' to describe them. He reduced objects to symbols, eventually dispensing with them altogether, using colours and shapes to convey meaning may appear to be a random choice of shapes and colours, but it was meticulously planned out for several months prior to its final creation, which took Kandinsky four days. vortex-like design, with a central oval that is criss-crossed by black lines, around which a riot of colours and patterns swirl. The eye tries to pick out forms and make sense of them; perhaps the shape in the bottom left is a boat with oars, or we see a bird on a branch near the centre. A closer look, however, shows that nothing is representational in the painting and the whole piece is purely abstract. Out of the chaos of the intersecting forms and colours comes harmony. Composition VII has been called operatic, and Kandinsky believed that paintings could evoke sounds, just as much as music evoked images, and that both were a way of conveying emotion. the principle in the creation of a Composition was the "expression of feelings" or "inner necessity" through purely pictorial means Kandinsky believed that this "inner sound" of the picture was crucial to its success and the key to its understanding.

Juan Gris, The Table, 1914, paper, opaque watercolor and charcoal on canvas, 23½" x 17½

depicts a Cubist still life using an elaborate combination of traditional naturalism, abstraction, and papier collé (pasted paper collage). Objects or parts of objects, including a pipe, a glass, bottles, and a key, have been meticulously drawn and shaded in charcoal. Their arrangement is, however, abstract, and many of them have been broken into sections and partly obscured. Most of the objects are depicted from above and are placed along one of two distinct axes: one vertical and one diagonal used a variety of papers in this work. In addition to the wallpaper and the printed wood grain paper, there is a page from a detective novel, part of the front page of a newspaper, and different types of unprinted paper. The charcoal drawings and paint appear on all the papers, creating a woven tangle of forms in which it is impossible to clearly determine the represented location and spatial relationships of the objects. intersecting diagonals, verticals, and horizontals within a perfect oval, that suggested the shape of the table. fragmented headline of a newspaper article, 'Le Vrai et le Faux', which means 'the true and the false' in French. In this way, the artist made a playful statement, communicating to the viewer that the subject of the painting is the contradiction of truths and falsehoods. Gris referred to his status in the Cubist art movement It is reasonable to assume Gris felt overlooked, thus the idea of truths and falsehoods in The Table was a way to assert that he is a 'true' Cubist worthy of acknowledgment. True to the Cubist spirit, The Table functions like a puzzle: the artist leaves hints for the viewer to decipher the mysterious meaning of the artwork.

Fernand Léger, Nudes in the Forest, 1909-1910, oil on canvas, 47¼" x 67

had trained as an architect, but soon switches to painting finds inspiration in the cubism of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. With this as a basis, he develops a very distinctive cubist style, in which he reduces reality to rhythmic compositions of cylinders, tubes and cones. three nudes composed of geometric shapes: a standing figure with raised arms on the left, a sitting nude slightly lower down and another on the far right with one arm raised. The apparent confusion of shapes makes the work highly dynamic. shades of green, blue grey, grey and white as a 'battle of volumes'. 'I thought that I shouldn't give it any colour. The volumes alone were enough'. show his earlier shift from Impressionism into this more unusual style combines the shapes of humans with the shapes of trees, creating a beautiful and confusing canvas that draws the eye and confounds the mind. Instead of the flat style of many cubist artists of the time, Leger is distinct in the fact that he continues to create three dimensional shapes in his art. Though the colours could seem unimpressive compared to the work of other cubists, Leger uses shape and form more than colour in Nudes in the Forest to create interest. original French title as being Nus dans la forêt. You will find similar within the work of Gris and Braque who often produced whole scenes in variants of dark brown, similar to how a newspaper would look at that time.

Hilma af Klint, Group X, No. 1: Altarpiece, 1915, tempera on paper mounted to canvas, 10'6" x 7'10

imposing and overwhelming canvas - 10 feet tall circular and triangular forms made of grids and spheres of bright colour on a black ground, a colossal painted mosaic that represents nothing, and yet seems to possess the secret meaning of Everything. painting brings to mind an Egyptian temple, which using a highly developed intuitive intelligence, was built in line with the rising and setting sun. equilateral triangle divided into rainbow building block sections, with a run of oval discs adding more stability as a spine down the centre. The 'sun' rises above, and all of the saturated highly colored shapes are set against a black background. Each one of these wide spectrum of colors has symbolic meaning within Theosophical and Anthroposophical spiritualist theory remarkable color combinations, monumental formats, shapes that are once both organic and otherworldly" possessed spiritual messages in need of decoding triangle is an ancient symbol which "points towards enlightenment, connecting the material and the spiritual worlds cosmic, universal connotations formal training at the art academy in Stockholm name implies that it is to help viewers transcend beyond mortal and earthy realms

Pablo Picasso, Glass and Bottle of Suze, after Nov. 1912, gouache, pasted paper, and charcoal, 25¾" x 19¾

key image of the late Synthetic Cubism artists synthesized separate elements from real life in their pictures to suggest objects and environments used cut fragments of newsprint, wallpaper, and construction paper, as well as gouache and charcoal, to suggest a liquor bottle with a label and, on the left, a glass and an ashtray with cigarette and smoke elements all appear to rest on a blue table in front of a wall with diamond-patterned wallpaper and newsprint. texts add a political and social dimension to the image: they juxtapose newspaper articles referring to horrific events from the First Balkan war with stories of Parisian frivolity. Along with the texts, the distorted, fragmented forms in this Cubist image allude to such conditions of modernity as the lack of coherent perspectives or meanings in a constantly changing world. creates the overall atmosphere of a Parisian café. Most of the fragmentation occurs in the background, instead of within the objects. In one way, this makes the work seem more representational; however, the forms of the objects have been greatly also simplified into trapezoidal and circular shapes that the viewer may not be able to identify at first glance. The image is tranquil and carefully organized and composed, as in Analytic Cubism. The viewer's eye is focused to the center of the composition where the objects are congregated. layfulness is derived from the bold color of the table The overlapping materials also create interesting positive and negative spaces that keep the eye moving from object to object. Even if the viewer is not familiar with the brand of liquor, the significance of this type is quite obvious due to the name of the work and its placement on a shape resembling a bottle

Giacomo Balla, Street Lamp (Lamp—Study of Light), 1909, oil on canvas, 68¾" x 45¼"

large canvas displaying a huge electric street light, on a canvas that is over five feet tall, with a diminutive moon in the corner member of the Italian Futurist movement, Balla was passionately invested in making art that reflected "the future": that is, the increasingly industrialized and technological world of the early twentieth century. embracing modernity and violently dismissing Italy's honored artistic heritage rejected traditional subject matter in this painting, and instead has painted an object that is forthrightly modern and technological abandoning its past and entering the modern age the small moon stands for the past. In part Balla means this in a literal sense. In the past people relied on the moon to see at night; in modern times we rely on electricity. dividing colors into their constituent parts on the canvas and letting brushstrokes remain visible instead of smoothly blending them together obvious, bold brushstrokes in a repeated V-pattern to illustrate the light and energy radiating from the lamp. The saturated colors of Street Light—from the almost blinding white and yellow at the center of the lamp, to the cooler hues further from the light's bulb—are also typically Divisionist. analytical study of the patterns and colors of a beam of light;[11] it typifies his exploration of light, atmosphere, and motion

Georges Braque, The Portuguese, fall 1911-winter 1912, oil on canvas, 46" x 32"

lettering represents a transition between synthetic cubism and analytical cubism. stencilled numbers and letters in the art are the assertions of realistic intentions of the Cubism technique. In the painting, the stencilled or written letters across the surface represent the most conclusive ways of emphasizing the picture's two-dimensional character and they also help stress the quality of the artwork. numbers and letters are purely compositional additions. Function to show all sides of a subject Content: neither naturalistic nor conventional fractured forms clear edged surfaces on the picture plane—not recessed in space nearly monochrome not a portrait of a portuguese musician, but rather an exploration of shapes only realistic elements are stenciled letters and numbers Analytical Cubism (1907-1912)first phase of cubismhighly experimental, jagged edges, sharp and multifaceted linesWorked with Picasso to develop this style"By breaking these objects into smaller elements, Braque and Picasso are able to overcome the unified singularity of an object and instead transform it into an object of vision" (Khan Academy - Analytical Cubism)

Fernand Leger, Three Woman, 1921, oil on canvas, 6'½" x 8'3

offers a machine-age update to a time-honored subject in the history of painting: the group portrait of female nudes in repose. In this monumental canvas, a self-possessed trio, flanked by a black dog, luxuriates around a coffee table in a chic, modern apartment bodies consist of clusters of spheres and sharply contoured forms precisely shaded so that their silver and ocher skin as well as their slick, sideswept hair gleam like sheet metal. The features of these anonymous, impassive women, who gaze unflinchingly at the viewer, appear interchangeable, like mass-produced machine parts lushly vibrant domestic interior filled with brightly colored decor, stylized furniture, and an acutely slanted, dazzlingly patterned floor. The gridded background of interlocking angles and curvilinear forms gives the painting a shallow, mural-like appearance machinelike precision with which the figures in Three Women are rendered, and their seamless integration with their setting, reflects Léger's singular vision of a harmonious reconciliation between man and machine in the modern era.

Robert Delaunay, Windows on the City: 1st Part, 2nd Motif, 1912, oil on canvas, 18⅛" x 15¾"

orphism The Eiffel Tower can just be made out among the planes (flat areas) of colour here. Delaunay included the structure in many paintings. Its construction 25 years earlier caused controversy. Critics called it a 'ridiculous tower dominating Paris like a gigantic black smokestack'. When Delaunay made this work, it was still a symbol of modernity. He took his inspiration from a postcard showing the tower overlooking rooftops. The many bright colours evoke intense light and suggest fast-paced interactions experienced in the city. The Simultaneous Windows series are Delaunay's last semi figurative works before he began experimenting with complete non-objectivity. Here we are looking through a window - the outline of the Eiffel Tower reveals itself beneath fragmented color panes, creating an illusion of depth along with the kaleidoscopic effect that was characteristic of Orphism. The palette is bright and the fluid blocks of color give the illusion of softness and movement. In 1911, Sonia had created a patchwork blanket for their son that famously inspired these works. The Windows series is characterized by a forward thinking and Futurist aesthetic but Delaunay also drew on earlier movements, the motif of looking through windows could be seen in works of the Impressionists and Fauvists and could also have been inspired by the Symbolist concept of a window onto the soul.

Giacomo Balla, Abstract Speed + Sound, 1913-1914, oil on unvarnished millboard in frame painted by the artist, 21½" x 30⅛

painting by Italian Futurist painter Giacomo Balla, one of several studies of motion created by the artist in 1913-14. The painting may be the second in a triptych narrating the passage of a racing car through a landscape, beginning with Abstract Speed (Velocità + paesaggio) (1913) and ending with Abstract Speed—The Car Has Passed (1913). The three paintings share indications of a single landscape, and each painting is continued onto its frame Balla chose the automobile as a symbol of speed, reflecting the statement of Futurist founder Filippo Tommaso Marinetti's 1909 first manifesto: "The world's splendor has been enriched by a new beauty: the beauty of speed... A roaring automobile...that seems to run on shrapnel, is more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace." The painting evokes the sensation of the passing of an automobile, with crisscrossing lines representing sound. The painting is said to have captured the ideals of Italian Futurism.[4] It was featured on the 1980 British television series 100 Great Paintings, which presented five paintings from each of 20 thematic groups. In late 1912 to early 1913 Giacomo Balla turned from a depiction of the splintering of light to the exploration of movement and, more specifically, the speed of racing automobiles. This led to an important series of studies in 1913-14. It has been proposed that Abstract Speed + Sound was the central section of a narrative triptych suggesting the alteration of landscape by the passage of a car through the atmosphere. Indications of sky and a single landscape are present in the three paintings; the interpretation of fragmented evocations of the car's speed varies from panel to panel. This work is distinguished by crisscross motifs, representing sound, and a multiplication of the number of lines and planes. The original frames of all three panels were painted with continuations of the forms and colors of the compositions, implying the overflow of the paintings' reality into the spectator's own space.

Kazimir Malevich, A Woman Standing at a Poster Column, 1914, oil and collaged materials / lace on canvas, 28" x 64¼"

painting that cannot be reconciled to a single interpretation, or by the sense of the exercise's absurdity Malevich was inconsistent in the titles he gave individual works, suggesting he recognized the range of possible interpretations the title provides a frame of references otherwise completely absent from the image, for there is no woman here, and no column. This lack of clarity results from Malevich's particular use of Picasso's synthetic cubism. For unlike that cubism, Malevich's works refuse to synthesize or construct a coherent world out of their constituent objects; instead, collaged elements retain their separate identities on the picture plane Whereas in Picasso's pictures a piece of newsprint might be a violin, the pink rectangle of Woman at a Poster Column is nothing but a pink rectangle Malevich, on the other hand, "works in some way against the [represented] subject, as undermining and challenging its importance and supremacy Malevich's paintings are constructed with the materials of synthetic cubism, they never really portray its bourgeois world, or any other abundance of identifiable experiences. It is not only that a pink rectangle might be a face: this reasonably sized painting could be "about" anything from local literary polemics to the coming World War. Malevich's painting is a proposition whose viewer makes interpretative choices, no matter how tentatively, about the work. Interpretative choices here are not made in the face of an undifferentiated multiplicity of traces or a singular form—say, in a Pollock or Malevich's own Black Square—but discreet and enumerable objects. That is to say that the relevance of the particular within the picture is maintained in the process of offering conclusions.

Juan Gris, Portrait of Pablo Picasso, 1912, oil on canvas, 36⅝" x 29¼"

participated in the development of Cubism. Just six years later, Gris too was known as a Cubist and identified by at least one critic as "Picasso's disciple." Gris's style draws upon Analytic Cubism—with its deconstruction and simultaneous viewpoint of objects—but is distinguished by a more systematic geometry and crystalline structure. fractured his sitter's head, neck, and torso into various planes and simple, geometric shapes but organized them within a regulated, compositional structure of diagonals further ordered the composition of this portrait by limiting his palette to cool blue, brown, and gray tones that, in juxtaposition, appear luminous and produce a gentle undulating rhythm across the surface of the painting. The inscription, "Hommage à Pablo Picasso," at the bottom right of the painting demonstrates Gris's respect for Picasso as a leader of the artistic circles of Paris and as an innovator of Cubism. At the same time, the inscription helped Gris solidify his own place within the Paris art world when he exhibited the portrait at the Salon des Indépendants in the spring of 1912. Gris created a very organized composition with a regulated structure of diagonals. The painting has limited to a palette of cool tones of blue, brown, and grey. This was also characteristic of Analytic Cubism because a simplified color palette further emphasized the structure of the forms. What distinguished the portrait was the contrast produced by the blues, browns, and grey that gave the colors a luminous quality.

Fernand Léger, Contrast of Forms, 1913, oil on canvas, 39½" x 32"

series. An inventory of repeated forms—geometric cones, cubes, cylinders—jostle and pile across the surfaces of these works. Here, Léger rejects illusion to focus on the mechanics of representation, drawing attention to them with roughly blocked forms, exposed supports, unmodulated color straight from the tube applied in painterly patches, and highlights detached from any light source. Chiaroscuro, the traditional technique of light and shadow used to create the illusion of three-dimensionality within the two-dimensional reality of the picture plane, becomes a language of absolute contrasts: strident black and white or colored striations clash with one another across the works. marks the maturation of his abstract style. This series of around 50 works is essential to Léger's abandonment of representational concerns towards a focus on composition. It is equally as important to the history of modern art at the beginning of the twentieth century as it was crucial to the development of Cubism and the emergence of abstract art. In this series, Léger painted variations of a logical, geometric language comprising of cylindrical forms, intersecting solids and voids with lines and patches of unmodulated primary color. There is a raw quality to the composition, as the canvas is exposed beneath and between the forms and colors, subsequently placing the focus on the mechanics of representation rather than on a traditional subject represented. Crucial to this exposure is the use of contrast. Léger abandoned any attention to the correct placement of light to create traditional chiaroscuro. Instead he applied seemingly random highlights to create a sense of dissonance and intensity, placing even further distance between his work and representation. Another aspect to Leger's Contrast of Forms which set him apart from his peers is the use of colour in such a patchy, uneven fashion. His use of primary colours is not unusual, but his application stands out. With the addition of the strong, firm black lines around the cylinders and shapes, the colours contrast intensely with one another and yet do not have the slick look of many other cubist pieces. Leger was not one to follow the rules, even in the cubist field which was already based on changing the artistic landscape. Somehow, Leger took these changes and created a style of his own. Over time, Leger would come to be known as one of the forefathers of Pop Art, largely due to his later works although the initial shift in his style can be seen in many early paintings such as this one. By defying the standards given to the movement, Fernand Leger created his own path in French contemporary art and left behind work that remains highly regarded all these years later.

Fernand Léger, The City, 1919, oil on canvas, 7'7" x 9'9½"

served in the French army throughout World War Iconvinced that modern conflict had imposed a new mentality—unsentimental, dynamic, ever shifting and art should reflect thatStenciled letters stand for advertising billboards, a balcony railing signifies the facade of a building, and bits of metal girder denote construction machinery, scaffolding, or electrical pylons.glimpses of a cityscape are set within a taut framework of vivid hues and clashing shapes, producing visual intensity to rival the modern urban environment.mural-like in its sweep, flatness, and scale, enveloping the viewer like a theater backdrop or a movie screen.

Georges Braque, Violin and Palette, 1909-1910, oil on canvas, 36¼" x 16⅞"

simplified faceted forms, flattened spatial planes, and muted colors high Analytic Cubism. The hallmarks of this advanced phase, so-called for the "breaking down" or "analysis" of form and space Objects are still recognizable in the paintings, but are fractured into multiple facets, as is the surrounding space with which they merge compositions are set into motion as the eye moves from one faceted plane to the next, seeking to differentiate forms and to accommodate shifting sources of light and orientation abandoned a bright Fauve palette for muted colors much of the painting is not naturalistic, we can identify the still-life objects Some of the distortions can be explained as the result of combining several angles of view into a single depiction the elimination of entire parts of the instrument. surrounding space is represented as if it too were fractured geometric abstractions of solid forms muted colors allow the play of light and shadows so that as we move from side to side or stare hard at the painting, the various pieces seem to move or merge with other pieces There is even a sheet of music visible between the violin and the palette. (painted more realistically) This revolutionary movement paved the way for more art movements, including Abstract art and Purism.

Wassily Kandinsky, Black Lines, 1913, oil on canvas, 51" x 51¼"

smoothly rising and falling ovals with animated and lively brushstrokes traveling across them experimented over time with differing levels of abstraction - believed sudden changes in his style would be misunderstood- changed suddenly so others would be comfortable with the progression among the first of his truly non objective paintings thing agitated lines floating brightly hued forms suggest various spatial depths There are oranges, yellows, blues, purples and greens.

Wassily Kandinsky, Composition IV, 1911, oil on canvas, 62¼" x 98⅝"

used vivid and contrasting colours to make a visual, spiritual and emotional impact on the observer. Two Cossacks are seen with sabers in the upper left corner of the painting. On the right, are several Cossacks carrying lances and one with a saber against a blue hill with a house on it. A rainbow in the middle left of the picture signifies a bridge. Yellows and reds are outlined by black lines. Sharp lines of varying thickness contrast with the softer colours painted, while two vertical lines seem to divide the composition. The viewer is immediately drawn to the area coloured blue, in a background that is largely coloured in light pastels. Colours merge together, and lines and shapes combine, hinting at peace and salvation to follow. 1. Mass (Weights)Colorsin the middle at the bottom - blue (providing cold tone to the whole)on the right at the top - separated blue, red and yellowon the left at the top - black interlacing lines of horseson the right at the bottom - extended lines of lying figures 2. Contrastsbetween mass and linebetween precision and blurbetween line interlacing and color interlacing, andthe main contrast between sharp abrupt movement (battle) and light cold delicate colors 3. Overlappingof contours by colors.Only all outlines of the castle are weakened by the sky flowing through its contour. 4. Two centers:1. Line interlacing2. A sharp shape modeled by blueseparated from each other by two vertical black lines (lances) used contrasting, striking and vivid colours to make a visual, emotional and spiritual impact on the observer. Using an intense blend of colours and rough brushstrokes, with less emphasis on an actual form to favour abstraction, the artist had captured the sociopolitical conflict and revolutionary turmoil that Russia experienced during such period. The representational elements have been veiled, and, as a result, the painting's emotional impact is expressed through arrangements of color, form, and symbol. It thus fulfills Kandinsky's objective to create by "pictorial means, which I love above all other artistic means, pictures that as purely pictorial objects have their own independent, intense life." the principle in the creation of a Composition was the "expression of feelings" or "inner necessity" through purely pictorial means Kandinsky believed that this "inner sound" of the picture was crucial to its success and the key to its understanding.

Wyndham Lewis, Composition, 1913, pencil, ink and watercolor, 13½" x 10½"

vorticism - growing facisnation with industrial and technological Hard edges , geometric shapes compressed series of mechanical forms and abstract references to the modern city. However, it is possible to recognise traces of human figures. Dynamic thrusting shapes rise from the lower left but are contained within a claustrophobic, abstract environment. These forms can be seen as a dancing couple. The woman, on the right, bends backwards. The white parallelogram halfway up the right edge is perhaps her hair. The pleated curving architectural form at the bottom centre could be her skirt. Art movement: vorticism English writer, painter, and critic. He was a co-founder of the Vorticist movement in art and edited BLAST, the literary magazine of the Vorticists.

Franz Marc, The Fate of the Animals, 1913, oil on canvas, 6'4¾" x 8'9½

work contrasts most of Marc's other works by presenting animals in a brutal way rather than depicting them in a peaceful manner. Marc's strong ties with animals as his subjects remains uncertain, but it is predicted to stem from his childhood dog displays Der Blaue Reiter style that he co-founded with Wassily Kandinsky last third of the painting was damaged in a warehouse fire in 1916 after Marc's death and was later restored by one of his close friends, Paul Klee.[2] Klee restored the painting using old photographs. He added a brownish tint to the paint creating an obvious variation from the rest of the painting derives from the chaotic scene depicted. There are animals scattered throughout the canvas in what is referred to as a post apocalyptic setting. The scene depicts a forest that is being destroyed by the flames that are evident all around. The painting consists of a blue deer in the middle of the canvas, two boars on the left side, two horses above the boars, and four unidentified figures on the right. The four unidentified animals are believed to be either deer, foxes, or wolves. Most scholars believe that the animals are deer based on Marc's older works where he depicts them with the same colors and physical attributes. All of the animals are panicked, their faces and bodies contorted to express the terror of trying to escape their inescapable demise. response to the onset of WWI and changing climate of the world destruction, the chaos, and the sadness that the viewer sees sums up the evident outcome the future war would bring captures the viewer's attention by creating unease. It is dynamic and chaotic: the trees are inclined/falling, the animals are fleeing/panicking. The strong colours increase the sense of danger. contains only diagonal lines. The lack of horizontal and vertical lines throughout the painting along with the deep colors, create tension. This tension further highlights the chaos and violence of the animal's lives. These diagonals are emphasized in three primary ways: composition order, diagonal posture of the animals, and "the animal's position in conformity with the diagonals."[1]: 226 The diagonals also help with the narration by acting as fire sparks scattering across the canvas.