Irina Pushkareva

06.24.15

Early 20th Century Figure

Early 20th century was the time when artists experimented with representing objects, nature, and most importantly, the human form, in more abstract and self-expressionist style. The artists who are famous for experimenting with human forms and shapes were Henry Matisse, , and Egon Schiele.

Matisse used very abstract way to paint people. He depicted them in simple shapes with dark outline representing a basic human form. Pablo Picasso saw people as geometric forms in his Cubist paintings. He used rectangular shapes to convey his models' forms on a canvas. Picasso, as a very emotional person, often was affected by the political events or his lovers, which was reflected in what colors he used in his paintings. On the other hand, Egon Schiele's palette was limited to the light, soft colors, and the use of rough black contour around the figures. Schiele's goal was to show the mortality of human's body, and its fragility.

Henry Matisse was a law clerk in France, who accidentally found that he had a passion for . His paintings are bright , soft, and pretty abstract, compared to the artists of 19th and earlier periods. Matisse is known to be the founder of the called , where the pure colors and bright light are the main subjects. He was one of the artists of earlier 20th century, who was focused on the human's figure a lot in his paintings and collages. Henry

Matisse represented the body in simple, abstract shape, that captures every curve of the figure. The change in thickness of outlines around the figures adds sense of volume and perspective to the body. Matisse also loved when the figures interact with each other and the background of the painting. His use of colors that are relevant with each other, unexpected highlights and shadows around the humans' figures, that helps to emphasize certain figures and fade others to the background, bring the unity to his paintings. The great example of such artwork is "," which translates like the "Joy of Life." Henry Matisse depicts a big field in a garden, or in a forest, with a lake on the background, and with sixteen people relaxing there. The nature has been depicted in very minimalistic way. Henry Matisse did not paint each leaf, or each trunk, which made the forest look very empty. Though, the artist used pure colors such as, red, orange, and light brown, for painting different areas of forest, which added the sense of space to the painting. Most of the tree trunks are painted in bluish-green, which gives a good contrast with the warm colors of the background. Henry Matisse chose very bright yellow for the grass, which gives a sense of light to the painting. The figures, on the other hand, are painted in very soft colors such as, light pink, warm yellow, peachy white, and yellowish blue. Each body is outlined with thin red line, and it emphasizes the body's form and curves. The artist only drew out the certain body parts such as, breasts, faces, belly bottoms, and very loosely hands and feet. Even though, all the bodies are painted in the same style, the artist really focused on the individual shapes and forms. Some have longer bodies, others have longer legs. It is also very difficult to say if there are any men in the painting. As I can see, there are possibly two men, but the artist made them hard to recognize, for the bodies are in fetus position, and the details are not shown. Maybe, it was the artist's idea to name the painting the "Joy of

Life," and depict more women, for he had the obsession with them, and they meant the "joy" for the artist. Nevertheless, it is one of Henry Matisse's best paintings. All the figures are represented in minimalistic way, but the details are still captured well enough to give a viewers the sense of bodies' positions, and motions. The colors of the background behind each human figure work very well with each other. The pink bodies on the foreground interact with bluish green, and deep blue grass behind them. The two women's bodies have been outlined with green and red, the colors which are also used in the leaf areas. All these little color details really connect all the details together. The bodies perfectly interact with each other and the background all together. Even though, there are a lot of them, the artist was able to bring the sense of unity to the artwork.

The second well-known painter of early 20th century was Pablo Picasso. He was born in Spain in 1881, but moved to to create his artworks. Picasso is the founder of famous art movement, called , where the organic shapes and realistic representation of objects and humans is not acceptable. The first artwork that was created in Cubist style was "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" by Pablo Picasso in 1907. The artist depicted five naked prostitutes, on a very abstract background. The work has been done in Cubist style, so mainly, the forms are very geometrical. It seems like a strange mosaic combined of many triangular looking shapes. The background seems to be just a white cloth and brown wall. On the foreground, the artist depicted fruits such as, grapes, pears, and a piece of melon. Each of the fruit is done in very simple, abstract shape, though, it captures the form very well, and makes the objects recognizable. The main part of the painting if the five naked figures of women. Picasso was sell-known to be a big lover, and had dozen of women during his lifetime. Most of them were his models, and they inspired him. Picasso also liked to spend time with prostitutes, whom he depicted in "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon." The figures are painted in

Cubist style as well as the background. They are also combined of the geometric shapes, that do not look organic at all. The hands are massive, which is unnatural for women. The artist used basic 5 angular shapes for the hands, which does not depict each curve of the hand's muscles. The women's shapes are very narrow in details in overall. Picasso drew out he basic half circle shapes for breasts, unnaturally big eyes and noses. Three of the women have just a little black line for the mouth, which does not give them any emotions at all. Their eyes are staring at a viewer, but it seems like they just think about their own, and don't pay much attention on a viewer. All three faces are done int he same style using very similar face features, and it makes them look the same. Even the colors artist used are the same. Picasso did not experiment much with it as he did with the body shapes converting them in geometric abstraction. For the skin color he used very natural, body tone. The hair are black, which works well with the outlines of the figures. As Henry Matisse, Picasso used outlines on his human figure to capture the sense of shadow and movement of the body shape. Though, other two figures on left side are different. Their faces are the different color front eh body, though unlike other three figures, they seem to have the emotions. The months are painted with the simple oval shape, and the noses look like converted rectangles. The bodies are combined of the geometric figures, such as, ovals, squares, triangles, and rectangles. Even though, Pablo Picasso was a huge lover of women, who always depicted their sexuality in very unattractive way. The bodies made out of geometric looking shapes with sharp angles identifying curves, instead of the organic, smooth lines, that will capture the body details more realistically. Pablo Picasso was drawn by his feelings to the certain model, and his goal was to convey these feelings on a canvas. He tried to capture the sexuality in his own way, based on the emotional state he was getting from the particular model.

Pablo Picasso was not only focusing on Cubism, and , but he also tried another major art movement of 20th century, .

Even though, he was against this art style, still, he was inspired by the content of the art movement. The idea was to represent our daily objects, and human

figures in deformed, and sometimes even ugly way. This style gives freedom of self-expression to the artist, which Pablo Picasso could not have missed. As a person who easily get affected emotionally by the world events, and most importantly, his lovers, Pablo Picasso created couple of paintings in Surrealistic style, where he showed brighter, bolder colors, and thicker outline around the human figures. One of the most famous Surrealist paintings of Pablo Picasso was the

"Girl in Front of Mirror," painted in 1932 .The artist depicts a woman who touches a big mirror which is right in front of her. The woman's body is very deformed.

Unlike in the in the painting "Les mademoiselles d'Avignon," the woman's figure in this painting is created out of the very round and smooth shapes. It gives more organic and alive look to the figure. Unnaturally, Pablo Picasso painted a big stomach, making the model look pregnant. Maybe, she was pregnant at the time Picasso painted her, or it might be just the artist's exaggeration of her body's curves. The face features such as, eyes and nose, are exaggerated in size as in all Picasso's portraits, and it is a half way view on it. The woman does not show much of the emotions to the viewer. The whole point of the artwork is the deformed figure. Looking at this painting, it is easy to say that Pablo Picasso was inspired by the Surrealist movement, but he managed to interpret it in his own way. Compared to his other paintings of Blue Period, or Cubist paintings, the woman's figure looks much more organic and smooth, for the artist did not use many rectangular shapes and sharp angles to create a silhouette of a body. Though, being inspired by the Surrealist idea of representing objects and figures, the reflection of the woman in the mirror is very deformed. Thats where the artist really showed the ugly and unattractive body, even it is hard to see a regular naturalistic body, because of the artist' s abstract view on it. The colors are darker and colder in the mirror reflection. The breasts are on the different levels, and a face looks less brighter, and more scarier because of the dirty pinkish color combined with green on the top. The whole sense of ugliness also exaggerated by the artist's use of brush strokes. In the mirror reflection, Picasso put fast, visible strokes, which makes the picture look very dirty and rough. On the woman herself, he made more careful and smother strokes, which adds some king of romantic feeling to the piece.

Probably the most famous artist of early 20th century who loved to paint human figures was Egon Schiele. He was born on June 12, 1890 in small town near . His school art teacher discovered Schiele's talent, and recommended him to continue study in that field. As the professional artist, Egon Schiele had many exhibitions all around Europe, but was banned for his works' content. He loved to depict naked pictures of himself, or very erotic and sexual images of his models. As Pablo Picasso, Egon Schiele loved women a lot, and also had many lovers, who served as models too. Though, he was banned by local people in Czech Republic, where he lived in his mother's town, because of using children as the models for his art. Egon Schiele loved to use old classical materials, as gauche, and watercolor. He was also very famous for using black contour lines outlining the body curves and forms. One his most famous works is the "Standing

Nude with Stockings." The artist depicted naked woman standing in the middle of a canvas. She has short dark hair and big black eyes. The position is very aggressive. Her left shoulder is higher than the right one, and she looks to the left, like she is a wild cat, which wants to attack the prey. The body curves are exaggerated. The artist showed out the bones on the shoulders, which makes the model look too skinny. Nevertheless, Egon Schiele was able to show the sexuality of the figure. Unlike the Matisse's and Picasso's figure paintings, Schiele's one has many body details, which the artist achieved using little brush stories over the whole body. His goal was not to idealize the figure, but to show it as it is. The second famous sketch of the woman's body y Egon Schiele is the

"Seated Female with Raised Arm." The body is presented seated, but the background is plain and has nothing on it. The body is not idealized, nor the curves are exaggerated. This is one of the artist's most realistic paintings of a women. Though here, Schiele experimented with the watercolor. He painted the whole body in orange, and as usual, outlined the whole body with the contour line. Somewhere he pressed hard and in some areas very weakly, which gives the line a sense of shadow and light on the body. Also , unlike in the majority of his paintings, the line is pretty steady, and looks like a perfect clean outline.

Egon Schiele, unlike two previously mentioned artists: Pablo Picasso and Henry Matisse, only focused on the figures. All of his paintings do not have a painted background, which makes a figure the emphasis of all his works.

These three leading artists of early 20th century represented the human figure in many different and unique ways. Henry Matisse chose simple and even shier way to depict the human forms. The minimalistic shapes, and pure colors of human bodies interacting with the landscapes, and painted with careful, nice strokes, is all about Matisse's key style. The second artist is Pablo Picasso, who was the one of the most famous womanizers in art history, though he is still famous for the paintings of his lovers. Very expressive, symbolic, and bright, his paintings of human bodies are still highly admired. On the other hand, Schiele had a strong passion for human forms, especially women's ones. He was famous for his bold, nude and very erotic depictions of human figures. His use of contour outlines out stands his artworks form many other paintings of other artists at that time. He was banned for creating too erotic images, but nevertheless, he continued with that subject till his death.