Something we didn't mention -- Fauvism!

Although it may have been mentioned briefly, we missed an entire artistic period during our presentations! Fauvism, although not a long-lived artistic movement, was absolutely critical to the development of many later artistic periods such as cubism, dadaism, and most importantly, post-impressionism. Henri Matisse is seen as the founder of Fauvism, which means "wild beasts" since his critics said that it looked like wild beasts could have painted his works, and the above painting is probably his most famous. Woman With a Hat is one of Matisse's early works and is a good representation of very early Fauvism. Like Cubists, Dadaists, and Post-impressionists, art for the Fauvists was about simplification and seeing the world differently. Notice the placement of color in the above painting, the woman's nose is accented in green and it appears that she spilled multiple colors of paint on the bib of her shirt. While not realistic, this remains aesthetically pleasing. Matisse said that he did not paint with a preconceived idea of where the color would go. Like Picasso and many future artists, Matisse allowed his artistic intuition to guide his brush, setting the stage for many future artistic innovations.