African Influences In Modern Art (African Art post 7/10)

It all started during the early 1990, when African art became a big influence to modern art and that’s what happened when In France, as a group of artist who formed a starting point in the development of modern art.

Artists like Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso along with their friends in the School of Paris, they started to emend and gave a new style to the human figure, where they blended African sculpture’s styles together with post-impressionism.

This style gave them a new scenery in their art, as they were impressed with their vivid colours and flatness, together with the Cubic shapes which have helped them to form modernism.They have recognised that African art is spiritual in their aspect of art and as they didn't know anything about these African arts. Yet they have still managed to push their own efforts and have moved a big gap from naturalism.

  

African Sculpture            New style - Cubism (Wifredo Lam)

African art gave the first starting point to Fauvism, this was the first movement of new concepts which was born in France in early 20^th Century. The Fauvists were the first group of artists to bread the Impressionism rules as well as older styles and traditional methods.
Their spontaneous subjects about nature were generally expressed in undisguised, bold brush strokes with vibrant and high pitched colours (i.e. light rainbow colours) which they applied straight from the tube, directly on the canvas. 

    

Andre Derain                                Maurice de Vlaminck                Henri matisse

Cubism was one of the most highly impressed arts from African art, where it even started in early 20^th century; Pablo Picasso created this art form together with Georges Braque in Paris. Louis Vauxcelles who was a French critic, have gave the name CUBISM after looking at his own landscapes that he drew as he got its name from the geometric cubes that they were making use of in their new style.

These distorts on Cubism was adapted from non-western arts, as one can see that the distortion in Picasso’s paintings were adapted from African art, where Picasso have seen his first African art pieces when he visited a museum called ‘Palais du Trocadero’ in Pairs. 

     

Georges Braque                       Picasso                 Diego Rivera

African Influences in Modern Art | Thematic Essay | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 2013. African Influences in Modern Art | Thematic Essay | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/aima/hd_aima.htm.

Fauvism | Thematic Essay | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 2013. Fauvism | Thematic Essay | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/fauv/hd_fauv.htm.

Cubism | Thematic Essay | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 2013. Cubism | Thematic Essay | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/cube/hd_cube.htm.