Painting Styles of the 20th Century

Painting is one of the oldest forms of art. It involves the use of colors and brushes to create masterpieces. Painting is a creative activity and, as such, possesses various styles and techniques. An art style is a distinctive or recognizable expression of art that people use to categorize works of art broadly. It usually refers to the physical aspect of the art based on the artist’s period, location, and teaching. Art historians and students also refer to them as schools or art movements. They could be individualistic or periodic and are essential to understanding and absorbing art. Artists use these styles to convey important feelings or statements.

The 20th century is arguably one of the most eventful periods in art history. Along with various other global movements, art also experienced a considerable shift, seeing the growth and development of many contemporary art styles due to a change in most artists’ perspectives on life. They found unique, exploratory approaches to their art, breaking tradition and abandoning the linear styles of previous centuries for more contemporary styles. The earliest example of this in the 20th century is Fauvism, an art style that developed in 1905. The name of this style roughly translates to mean ‘wild beasts,’ mainly because Fauvism rejected the delicate pastels of the impressionist period, opting instead for bold colors, distorted subjects, and abstract techniques. Through this, it sought to depict life as idealized and natural. This style began to take form in 1901, when French painters Henri Matisse, Andre Derain, and Maurice de Vlaminck decided to share a studio. Fauvism is a predecessor to individualism as an art style.

At the same time, another similar movement was brewing in Germany. Expressionism, popularized in 1913 by artists such as Paul Klee and Edvard Munch, shared various similarities to Fauvism. It shared Fauvism’s love for bold colors and subjectivity. However, Expressionism was an avant-garde style that created abstract, suggestive, and emotional self-expressive pieces. This style also conveyed the horrors of everyday life, using hyper-stylized brushwork to create horrific images. It was difficult for this art style to gain prominence as it came when the world needed more political art.

The most influential art style of this period, Cubism, also began in the 1910s. Artists like Picasso, Cezanne, and Braque were the pioneers of this movement that used geometric, cubed shapes to portray three-dimensional subjects and perspectives with familiar distorted imagery. Early Cubism was rational and usually used monochrome black and grey tones, but later synthetic Cubism integrated external components and bolder colors. After 1918, cubist paintings became lesser-used globally, but this style gave birth to another popular art style in Italy known as Futurism, used generously in painting and sculpting. Futurism was visually similar to Cubism, but it often depicted numerous poses in one single piece. Futurists valued beliefs such as youth and modernity, but they also believed in controversial ideologies such as nationalism, the industrial revolution, and technology over nature. These ideologies caused them to side with Fascist parties, which soured the movement’s reputation after the Second World War.

The mid and late 20th century saw the complete development of Abstraction in art. Influenced by earlier styles, Abstraction artists reduce a subject to its dominant hues, patterns, textures, and shapes to capture its essence instead of visible details. Abstract work purely spurns realism, opting instead for the subjective.

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