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Timeline of Art

The Thread:

     The thread which joins all the isms in the twentieth century are its
slow evolution from one period to another.  As artists from one concepts
were exploring a certain idea that led to another either just for the sake
of the curiosity or by sheer boredom.  Therefore my paper deals with the
evolution of different isms in this century. Fauvism:
     From 1904-7, for a very brief period, a few Paris painters evolved a
style of painting that earned the name Les Fauves (wild beasts).  Henri
Matisse, Andre Derain and Maurice Vlaminck were the major contributors to
this style of painting which gained popularity due to its apparent freedom
of expression with the use of pure colors and exaggeration of drawing. 
Among all of the twentieth century art movements, this was the most
transient and least definable.  The three major painters' work was highly
individual and shared only for brief periods.  The momentary excitement
that held these painters aloft and allowed them the maximum of freedom,
deserted them as their work developed and matured.  The hangover from this
movement led to new means of expression.  It was never a movement with aims
that could be realized such as successive movements as Cubism was, but was
a erratic process of experiments with possibilities suggested by the post-
impressionist painters.

Cubism:

     Cubism, which began very shortly after Fauvism, is exemplified by
Pablo Picasso.  In this movement the flattened space including background
and foreground are related in a new and more abrupt manner.  The first
effect is of a camera in motion, a kaleidoscopic impression of the solid
portions of the figure.  This certain feature can be contrasted to the
impressionist movements' works.  Added to this kaleidoscopic quality is
another new element.  Picasso and his Cubist colleagues disintegrated the
form into a series of simultaneously viewed but different aspects of the
same subject.  A cubist painter, to achieve a greater understanding, walked
about the subject, observing it from significant various angles and
recording them as his impressions of form.  But this procedure led to
actual destruction of form and its reduction to a series of decorative
elements. Negro art and sculpture had a profound effect and it was quite
extensively used by Picasso.  Negro sculpture approved his subject in a
more conceptual way than a naturalistic depiction, mostly by a western view.
 This resulted in forms that were more abstract and stylized and in a sense
more symbolic.  Picasso held the view that it was art that held the key to
the young twentieth century painters to liberate themselves and was more
representational and anti-naturalistic. The rational, geometric breakdown
of the human head and body provided Picasso re-appraisal of his subjects. 
This style gave birth to the next phase of development, known as synthetic
Cubism.  Georges Barque was major contributor to this style, in which he
joined bits of real wallpaper, playing cards, tobacco package labels and
other materials.  These were selected not to form impact but for decorative
and compositional-making.  In this form, the Cubists were more concerned
with textural and decorative values.  Cubism was an art of experiment which
stripped bare the mechanics of pictorial creation and destroyed the
artificial barriers between abstraction and representation. It still
remains the pivotal movement in the art of the first half of this century.

Abstract Expressionism:

     Since the World War II the paintings' movement had gathered
considerable momentum.  The political realities of the time- from 1943 to
early 1950s- the War, the Holocaust in Europe, the apparent threat of the
world destruction by atomic bomb, the conservative reaction of McCarthyism
in United States and even intensified hurly burly of city life-resulted in
a movement called Abstract Expressionism.  Abstract Expressionism combined
two tendencies already evident in the twentieth century; the drive to
create totally abstract works and express emotion through the use of
brilliant colors.  The leading  figure of this new painting style was
Jackson Pollock, who produced his large works by dribbling strands of paint
on the canvas, involving his whole body in the activity and creating
sensations of sparkling energy and movement.  The term "Action Painting"
was coined to describe how Pollock worked.  Pollock felt, he could become
emotionally involved with his work and through it communicate his emotions
to the viewer.  A more violent and intense form of Action Painting was
devised by Willem de Kooning from whose seeming destruction of form
gradually emerged a bodily image.
     During the fifties, older and younger artists alike were affected by
the trend towards discarding all standards of form. Mark Rothko developed a
uniquely personal, reserved, almost mystical mode of painting in which
colors interacted as they appeared to shift in space.   In this geometrical
abstraction, a clarity of design appeared, together with the use of
flickering effects of color.  The example of Abstract Expressionism was
followed within a short time by artists all over the world.  In Great
Britain, abstract art took on fresh importance when new relationships of
form and color were highlighted in two and three dimensions.  A number of
painters in Belgium, Holland and Denmark added the aggressive aspects of
Abstract Expressionism to their own versions of Northern-European
Expressionism. Again, in Germany and Italy there also emerged followers of
the new fashion who strove to express their own feelings through
unobstructed out-pouring in paint.  This led to matter painting in which
very thick layers of paint, mixed with plaster and manipulated on the
surface of the canvas.  At the height of popularity of Abstract
Expressionism worldwide, the fashion was swept aside and interest turned in
the appearance of Pop-Art.

Pop-Art:

     By early 1960s a newer style called Pop Art began to thrust into fore-
front.  Pop Art depicted every day objects and images in techniques
borrowed from advertising and the comics.  The first Pop Art work was made
in Britain.  In America it grew by slow stages out of the prevailing
abstract expressionist style. Its reception was not too warming.  According
to the critics, " Pop art depicts the consumer environment and its
mentality: ugliness becomes beauty."  Another said, " Subject is raised to
the status of content by the artist's attitude to it."  as it emerged from
the experiment of the fifties, Pop art was the ideal instrument for coming
to grips with the American urban environment.  Although the imagery
referred to popular culture, the works of the pop painters  were as much
art made out of art as the self-conscious purely formal arrangement.  Pop
art was the product of industrial revolution which succeeded it.  It
brought together fashion, democracy, and the machine. Andy Warhol, a
leading Pop artist, as a commercial illustrator used, whimsical methods in
"Ethel Scull 36 Times", grotesquely made up Marilyn Monroe and tearful
Jackie Kennedy.  As the fashionable fever over Pop art died down, the other
styles pressed forward.

Op Art:

     The painters showed renewed interest in investigating the technical
possibilities of abstract painting and extending its ability to create
optical sensations with or without emotional content, called "Op Art". 
This led to optical illusion and other visual effects achieved by
manipulating abstract form and color areas.  Op art was first referred in
Life.  By 1965, Op art was a household phrase referring to black and white
boldly patterned fabrics, window displays, and generally used objects.  Op
art's crucial aspect involved a technique rather than an ideology.  It was
impossible to make exact distinction where the movement began and ended. 
Sometimes. Kinetic and op art were grouped together to achieve a unique
illusion.  The number of artists working in op art were very limited. Most
famous explored such effects like the wavy shimmering forms on watered
silks.  Op paintings do not necessarily lend to intellectual exploration. 
There main reason is to provoke an intense sensual and often sensational
impact.

Minimalism:

     Minimalism can be best described as the art which no longer cared
about to serve state and religion.  It wanted to exist for itself and for
itself only.  Minimalism celebrated rationalism and a mathematical way of
thinking, where an object would point toward an immediate legible geometry.
Minimalism defined a mutual sense of psychologically indifferent decoration.
 The minimalists shared the view that a work of art should be completely
conceived by the mind before its execution.  They wanted to get away from
the idea of self-expression.  The Minimalists introduced the idea with a
commitment to clarity, conceptual region and simplicity.  Despite some
earlier opposition, Minimalism became a decisive force in painting, music
and dance.

Conceptual art:

     In late sixties to early seventies an extended free-for-all art began
which lasted for more than a decade.  This extremely diverse range of
activities were labeled as Conceptual ,Idea or Information Art.  This
movement placed an emphasis on ideas: ideas about everything around us, an
unruly range of information, subjects and concerns.  These diverse ideas
were conveyed by written proposals, photographs, documents, charts, film
and video, maps, artists' use of own bodies and language.  This resulted in
art form which demanded a new kind of attention and mental participation
from the viewer.

Post modern Art:

     Post modern art started in late seventies and then was applied to
everything that followed it. The post modernist is best exemplified by some
of the artist's works around 1980 that recycled conflicting images and
systems of representation. Identities rooted in gender and sexuality became
central forces in the development of post modernism.  The emergence of gay
and feminist movements in 1970s challenged conventional assumptions about
sexuality and gender. Explicitly feminist and gay perspectives began to
affect the arts. By frankly engaging in social issues, post modernists deal
with ideology, the mass media and the dynamics of authority. ACT UP and
WHAM, the two organizations were actively involved in bringing out social
education in the AIDS crisis. The arts world presence in a number of
controversial  issues brought forward the wrath of conservatives in the
Congress.  Along with by highlighting some abuses in the arts world
Congress tried to cut major funds to a number of individual artists and
museums. Art has been a major part of our development. One can accumulate a
number of high-tech weapons to gain superiority but it is gain in the art
world which brings harmony and peace in this diverse world.  Even before
the Cold War ended, the involved countries were familiar with each other
only by heir respective artistic talents. There was always artistic
exchanges among the countries with an understanding to know each other
differences and similarities.  Art world's subsidization  should be a major
part of our budget.  America is known more in the foreign world for its
various artistic talents as in films and video as for its better-equipped
army.