Modernism and Cubism: Art Movements of the 20th Century
Modernism
1) Modernism: This movement breaks from past historical styles. At the end of the century, it decorated the finest works in France (Art Nouveau), England (Liberty), Germany (Jugendstil), and Austria (Secession). The most important feature is the sinuous line, based on plant stems, the neck flexion of swans, and turkey tails. It truly captures the rhythm of curly hair and naturally conveys femininity. The architectural style bends walls, and the interior design is a curvilinear unit.
Victor Horta
Victor Horta emphasized the primacy of curved volumes and the use of iron brackets in balcony railings, stairways, and exteriors. His renovation of interiors eschews corridors and rooms in a row, creating a greenhouse effect with tulip columns in his lamps. He gave all his houses that vegetal style. Notable works include the Maison du Peuple and À L’Innovation department stores.
Antoni Gaudí
Antoni Gaudí is considered one of the most creative minds of all contemporary architecture. He was a mixture of bourgeois intellectual, medieval artisan, and bohemian modernist, a formula that led him to plan totalizing laws (he designed city projects, furniture, and decorative objects). Even Catalan bishops initiated his beatification, based on his life, his mysticism, and his secular spirituality. In 1878, he graduated from the Barcelona School of Architecture, where he received a historicist education. His early works were El Capricho and the Episcopal Palace of Astorga. He also became famous for the urban palace built on the Ramblas, Park Güell. In the crypt and colony of Güell Park are traits of his peculiar and mature style: parabolic arches, leaning columns, roofing, and materials such as stone, brick, and ceramic fragments of color integrated with iron and glass cement. He used leaded glass for decorative purposes, drawing inspiration from nature: geology, botany, and zoology. He also built Casa Milà and Casa Batlló on Passeig de Gràcia. Finally, he began building the Sagrada Família, which remains unfinished and is the emblematic cathedral of Barcelona.
Cubism and Picasso
2) Cubism and Picasso: Cubism breaks the image into a polyhedral structure, reflecting different points of view. It reduces the figure, the object, and the landscape into cubes. This is a remarkable phenomenon in contemporary art because it represents a break with traditional plastic conventions established in the Italian Quattrocento. This aesthetic revolution was undertaken by Picasso, whose genius is only comparable in the 20th century to the realities on the ground of thought by Freud, founder of the psychoanalytic school, or by Einstein in the field of science.
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasso: His father was a drawing professor at the School of Arts and Crafts in Málaga, where Picasso was trained in painting during childhood and early adulthood. Between 1901 and 1904, he painted his Blue Period, a reaction against Impressionism, expressing a squalid, unhappy, and suffering humanity in its tragic existential condition. He then abandoned melancholy and lightened his palette, starting the Rose Period, giving life to characters from traveling circuses and small theaters. In contrast to the pink lyricism and compositional harmony, Picasso was influenced by the work of Cézanne, who was devoted an exhibition hall in the autumn, and by African masks from the Musée de l’Homme. His first Cubist work was Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (five prostitutes posing naked in an exhibitionist manner for a client, their bodies decomposed into geometric blocks). Disillusioned by criticism, Picasso set the painting aside in his workshop. He continued to experiment within Cubism, remaining at the forefront. During this period, two phases are noted:
- Analytical Cubism: Focusing on landscape and the human figure, the method remained the same: breaking down the form and then reassembling it. This way, he abstracted from reality and discovered collage. Notable works include portraits of Ambroise Vollard and Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler.
- Synthetic Cubism: Incorporating real objects into the work, such as newspaper clippings, musical scores, numbers, and restaurant menus. He created still lifes like Still Life with Chair Caning (where a twisted piece of rubber represents a chair).
Finally, he returned to the human figure and decoration. He made two versions of The Three Musicians and Pan’s Flute. He became a living legend, and this was his most outstanding Cubist phase.