Many thoughts and ideas spring to
mind at the mention of the words painted art. There are many artists
that catch our attention at the museums and in private collections in
one's home.
We mostly judge the painting by the
looks; we find something particularly interesting about it, that
catches our attention and interest. But we rarely think about the
style of art, and we probably couldn't tell right away which painter
uses which style. Here are three distinctive art styles, and the
painters that represent them.
Let's start with Pablo
Picasso, Henri Matisse and Paul Gauguin. They were Cubists.
Distinctive features of Cubism are geometrical shapes that serve as a
basis for the painting. The word itself comes from the fact that the
predominant geometrical shape were the cubes. They believed that
everything that surrounded them, be it a human being or a still
nature, can be successfully depicted on the canvas through
geometrical shapes.
Their goal was to
deconstruct the object before them, and give it a 3-dimensional feel.
Another thing is the limited range of colors that is used for
painting. These colors were mostly earthly tones of yellow, brown,
and gray.
All three of these painters
have been influenced by the sculptures and other forms of art that
were custom in Native America and Africa. They were inspired by the
simplicity of forms and style of these cultures.
Next we have the abstract
style. It is, in a way, a continuation of Cubism. It had preserved
the idea of incorporating all geometrical shapes into the painting,
oftentimes stretching and distorting the image to such an extent that
the object was unrecognizable.
Abstract painters are
focused on depicting what is inside their soul. Their brush strokes
are short but energetic. They paint a very thin line between heaven
and earth, “up” and “down”, good and bad. The movement of the
brush is spontaneous, and yet there is a certain consistency to it.
A famous painter of abstract
paintings was Jackson Pollock. His art was denied and criticized by
the realists, who claimed that this style of painting was a horrible
attack on art.
He was given a nickname “Jack the Dripper”,
because he never finished a painting without dripping the paint
directly from the brush, while standing above the painting.
Realism is yet another
famous style of art. Whereas abstract style and Cubism were focused
on distorting the image, or giving it a third dimension using
geometrical shapes, the realists were adamant about painting it “like
it is”.
Their goal was to portray the object in such a way that it
looked real, and almost tangible on the canvas.
We can look at the realists
as a kind of journalists. They were only interested in the truth behind
what they painted. They wanted to show the multiple layers of the
society that they lived in. This wasn't a general rule, but most
paintings that were made by realists were painted in long, gentle
strokes. Red, blue, gray, black and white were the predominant colors on
the paintings.
The famous realist painter
was Gustave Coubert, who believed that a painter must stick to his
own experience as a basis of his work, in order to portray it
realistically.
However, Edouard Manet shocked the realists with his
painting called The Luncheon on the Grass. Although the details were
realistic, the whole concept of a naked woman sitting on the grass
with two fully clothed gentlemen was thought to be scandalous at the time.
