Wassily Kandinsky, a native of Russia, sits in a rare position among Matisse and Munch under the labels of “‘Fathers of Modern Art.”  Similarily, Kandinsky is often hailed as “The Painter of Sound and Vision.” He is most known for his “Composition” series, where he expertly explores the idea of complex abstract symbolism and as it’s name suggests, compositional elements that were unheard of before his time. Although labelled as an expressionist, several pieces of his can also be applied to the genre of fauvism. However, it would be wisest to say that Kandinsky creates his own category of revolutionary abstraction.

Kandinsky waited until his thirties to become an artist. Perhaps it is for this reason that his art defies all historical guidelines; that he branches out into unfamiliar territory fearlessly and without mind for critic opinion. He was inspired by the creations of Claude Monet. His love of forward moving ideas eventually would gain him a career at the Bauhaus, a school of art and design that valued morals like “form follows function,” and produced many interesting and modern-looking pieces of work, ranging from furniture to appliances to pieces of design and art.

I keep using the word “revolutionary” when referring to Kandinsky’s work, and that is not without great cause. Many sources attribute him as not only one of the Fathers of Modern art, as mentioned earlier, but as the sole Father of Abstract. Notablebiographies.com describes him as many others do, stating:

“Kandinsky is still greatly admired today for his own paintings and for being the originator of abstract art. He invented a language of abstract forms with which he replaced the forms of nature. He wanted to mirror the universe in his own visionary world. He felt that painting possessed the same power as music and that sign, line, and color ought to correspond to the vibrations of the human soul.”

“The Houses at Murnau”These may seem like bold claims, but Kandinsky does not fall short of his modern legacy. His outstanding use of color and line, his overwhelming yet harmonious compositions, and his unmatched ability for translating indescribable phenomenons and feelings into a visual manifestation without a doubt earn him the hundreds of heroic titles attributed to him.

“Kandinsky viewed non-objective, abstract art as the ideal visual mode to express the “inner necessity” of the artist and to convey universal human emotions and ideas. He viewed himself as a prophet whose mission was to share this ideal with the world for the betterment of society.”

~www.theartstory.org

However, regardless of his famous modern day reputation people regarded the expressionists as a whole as illegitimate artists, and their success was often owed to only a handful of people that believed in them. This could certainly be said of the Bauhaus for Kandinsky.  He would go on to inspire the students of the Bauhaus before their dismissal during World War 2, as well as the entire generation of Abstract Expressionists that arose in the post war period.

Composistion IX, 1936https://www.notablebiographies.com/Jo-Ki/Kandinsky-Wassily.html

https://www.wassilykandinsky.net/

https://www.theartstory.org/artist-kandinsky-wassily.htm

“My drawings inspire, and are not to be defined. They place us, as does music, in the ambiguous realm of the undetermined.”

~ Odilon Redon

Odilon Redon, a frenchman, stands alone in the artistic community in his unique use of his historic inspiration and innovative immagination. He combines the brushwork of his contemporaries, the Pre-impressionists with the previous influences of the great Baroque and Rococo masters. Redon’s work is an odd combination of Francisco Goya’s otherworldly imagination and Turners’s aggressive layers of brushwork and color. Other pieces, however, maintain the simplicity of Ukio-e, while his religious interpretations compare to no other. He was a creative that the artistic audience seldom experiences, mixing the real world into the depths of his imagination; the product being a surreal journey through his psyche. Redon heavily employed symbolism, and his paintings contained complex meanings that are still debated and pondered over.

“Redon’s work represents an exploration of his internal feelings and psyche. He himself wanted to “place the visible at the service of the invisible”; thus, although his work seems filled with strange beings and grotesque dichotomies, his aim was to represent pictorially the ghosts of his own mind.”

~odilon-redon.org

Redon was native to Bordeaux, France, and had always been entwined with the arts. From the times of grade school he was recognized for his innate ability for draftsmanship. He would later join the war. Upon Redon’s return, his reputation would lay dormant for a number of years. It was an appearance in a  novel by Joris-Karl Huysmans, titles “Against Nature” that thrust Redon into the public eye. Oddly enough, Redon was celebrated within the artistic community and would recieve the Legion of Honor in 1903.  Acceptance and support was an extreme luxury for him, as many of his contemporaries were heavily criticized to the point of public rejection.

I myself harbor a love for all things odd and strange, that defy category and speak volumes on their subject regardless of their given context, and Redon does exactly this for me. His work ranges from extremely complex to the simplest of color palettes and subject matter, and I cannot help but appreciate such a versatile artist. Apparition is an excellent example of how Redon molded the real world (recognizable figures like the butterflies and two figures on the right) combine with abstract shapes of his own mind.For myself, his art almost works as a precursor for surrealism, one of my favorite times in art history. I adore his use of colors and textures, and his religious works resonate deeply with me. This is hard to achieve with me, as I have no religious interest or background, but Redon’s renditions of the Biblical features (featured above) seem real for the first time. (Yes, this includes Caravaggio’s Jesus, even Grunewald’s Madonnas. I suppose Redon is the first one to make them seem flawed, raw, and emotional, rather than stagnant and completely void of sin, like real people are.)

https://www.topofart.com/artists/Redon/art-reproduction/3589/Poet-s-Dream.php

https://www.google.ca/url?sa=i&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjovt-IgK3eAhXxFzQIHf08AegQjRx6BAgBEAU&url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FThe_Cyclops_(Redon)&psig=AOvVaw0DXkkSs4VAk2nyUJWXQr-b&ust=1540948871580649

http://liturgy.slu.edu/28OrdB101115/main.html

https://www.google.ca/url?sa=i&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwibzuLbja3eAhUEL30KHcznBE0QjRx6BAgBEAU&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pinterest.com%2Fpin%2F559501953679403844%2F&psig=AOvVaw3GFBeOKuucXH6C0AQbc21F&ust=1540952535610220

http://artmuseum.princeton.edu/collections/objects/22394

Francois Boucher (1703-1770) was perhaps one of the most celebrated Rococo painters of the eighteenth century. Born in Paris, he would start his lengthy and prolific career as staff to the Royal Painting and Sculpture Academy in his hometown and would eventually go on to become the Premier Peintre du Roi (First Painter of the King) in 1765. In the end of his career, repeated accusations against his character were made by French philosopher Denis Diderot. These statements certainly ruined his reputation, as Diderot claimed that he was “prostituting his wife” and “illustrated the extramarital relations of the king” (www.francoisboucher.org).

“[Boucher] forgoes traditional rural innocence to portray scenes with a definitive style of eroticism, and his mythological scenes are passionate and amorous rather than traditionally epic”

~www.francoisboucher.org

Personal actions aside, Boucher possesses an incredibly imaginative and romantic mind that rivals that of Fragonard and Watteau. His playful interpretation of erotica was a uniquely naive look into the sexualized nature of the average citizen as well as the powerful gods. Such is displayed in his pieces shown below, with emphasis on his piece “Jupiter and Callisto,” one of the few paintings that focuses on same-sex romantics, although veiled in mythological trickery.

Hercules and Omphale is an excellent example to Boucher’s interpretation of love and sex. It is a gentle kind, with no fault or crudeness. We see here that the infant Cupids are relaxed, unconcerned with the activities going on, signifying no wrongness. Each of the figures is covered and rendered in a loving embrace with delicate skin.

Even here, where Boucher depicts a company-less Venus, she is carefully rendered with love and compassion. We see love in the playful strokes of Boucher’s art, regardless of the topic, sensual or otherwise. We gain an intimate knowledge of the scene, and it feels as if we could be peering in from behind the bushes to observe each character as opposed to the separated audience we are. Boucher marks the Rococo period excellently with his work, and does so in a playful yet refined manner.

Sources:

https://www.google.ca/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwi1ltav1ubdAhVVIDQIHfngC_0QjRx6BAgBEAU&url=https%3A%2F%2Fcommons.wikimedia.org%2Fwiki%2FFile%3AFrancois_Boucher_Heracles_and_Omphale.jpg&psig=AOvVaw0EyHfiUbtXUS8XgSbxBjmX&ust=1538532493936357

https://www.francoisboucher.org/biography.html

https://www.google.ca/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjX5J2U2ebdAhXTFzQIHRiDAlYQjRx6BAgBEAU&url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FJupiter_and_Callisto_(Boucher%2C_1744)&psig=AOvVaw3iMklEhWfc28ER_on7wi7x&ust=1538532352318447

https://www.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fupload.wikimedia.org%2Fwikipedia%2Fcommons%2Fd%2Fd9%2FBoucher_charmes_de_la_vie_champetre.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fcommons.wikimedia.org%2Fwiki%2FFile%3ABoucher_charmes_de_la_vie_champetre.jpg&docid=78KaPoYLrkZcsM&tbnid=iOYLwQf0NvizKM%3A&vet=10ahUKEwirk-S12-bdAhUiNX0KHUu5D5UQMwg4KAAwAA..i&w=758&h=520&bih=657&biw=1396&q=the%20charms%20of%20life%20champetre%20analysis&ved=0ahUKEwirk-S12-bdAhUiNX0KHUu5D5UQMwg4KAAwAA&iact=mrc&uact=8

https://www.google.ca/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjencTh3ObdAhXkIDQIHagzBbgQjRx6BAgBEAU&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sightswithin.com%2FFrancois.Boucher%2FAre_They_Thinking_About_the_Grape%253F%2F&psig=AOvVaw2mqnLxreXbsSvmWI-PlXiS&ust=1538534210852180

Jan Steen (1626-79) was a Flemish painter best known for his lively rendition of the everyday scene. Steen’s youth found him studying at the University of Leiden, but dropped out after two years to take a painter’s apprenticeship. He studied under the direction of Jan van Goyen, Nicholas Knupfer, and Adriane van Ostade. In 1648 he co-founded the Leiden guild of artists. His work is often referred to as a “comedy of manners,” satirical interpretations of contemporary society. Steen’s work focuses on the regular citizen, and many are titled by seemingly mundane activities when compared to the dramatic Italian works that preceded the Baroque era. “The Dancing Couple,” “Doctors Visit,” “Adolf and Catharina Croeser on the Oude Delft,” and “The Happy Family” (pictured below) are all perfect examples showing where Steen’s interests lay.

Steen has been described as “a man with no restraint” (riksmuseum.nl), and I can understand why biographers may describe him as so. In the 17th century painters were focusing on an authentic representation of human experience and form, and the audience would need some adjusting. For baroque artists, coming off the tail of mannerism, this would not have been an uncommon experience. However, in comparing his work even to others at the time I highly favor his work. If I were to compare him to someone like Caravaggio, I would say that they were complete opposites who complimented eachother.  Caravaggio’s work was intense, precise, heartfelt and dramatic. Steen is heartfelt but joyful, simple, and full of life. Caravaggio’s characters seem to writhe in pain on each canvas, where Steen’s bustle with joyful activity. This is excellently displayed in the pieces displayed below. Additionally although Steen still worked in chairoscuro, it is because of the movement of the body and the joy of the characters that it affects each artists work so differently. We see below Caravaggio’s Supper at Emous, and although it resembles a similar scene to Steen’s The Merry Familiy,  the seperation in the two artists style is defined between these two pieces.

Resources:

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jan-Havickszoon-Steen

https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/rijksstudio/artists/jan-havicksz-steen

Paolo Veronese (Venice, 1528-1588) first gained notoriety when commissioned to work with Venetian authorities to decorate the Palazzo Ducale. He first gained public admiration here, but later went on to become a master of fresco, and is most well known for said pieces. Veronese is hailed for his compositions of foreshortened groups, as well as his masterful pairing of figures in motion against strong, sturdy backgrounds. He was a master of lighting and texture, adorning each figure with the richest fabrics that could be soft to the touch. Additionally, he is one of few of his time who personified the biblical figures. Veronese’s Jesus and Mary became real people at the tip of his brush. Their genuine expressions and renderings break the typical relationship the audience has with religious artwork. The juxtaposition is one that will later define his work, but first showed up in the ceiling piece of “The Story of Esther” (pictured last below).

His style defines itself with masterful juxtaposition and illusionist perspectives. It is although the viewer is walking among his pieces; the audience is removed from their roles as observers and placed directly among the action of the piece. The Summit Lighthouse in their article “Paolo Veronese” describes his legacy.

“The striking use of color was not Veronese’s only gift to Renaissance art. Paul saw beauty as the most powerful catalyst for enlightenment, and he endowed the figures of Jesus, the apostles and saints with lifelike expressions. By associating them with easily identifiable places and things, he put them within the reach of the common people…
With fresh perspective, he approached serious and sacred subjects with a simple familiarity that shattered the idolatry inherent in previous medieval and Renaissance painting—an idolatry which had separated the common people from God and his saints and oppressed them with a sense of their own sin. Veronese opened the world of the holy to all, portraying it with a delight and a sense of mirth.”

A prime example of Veronese’s collection  of skills is his series “Four Allegories of Love,” pictured below.

Articles and Photos:

https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/paolo-veronese-unfaithfulness

https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/paolo-veronese-scorn

https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/paolo-veronese-respect

https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/paolo-veronese-happy-union

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Paolo-Veronese