Victor Vasarely (1906-1997)
Internationally recognized as one of the most important artists of the 20th century. He is the acknowledged leader of the Op Art movement, and his innovations in color and optical illusion have had a strong influence on many modern artists.
In 1947, Vasarely discovered his place in abstract art. Influenced by his experiences at Breton Beach of Belle Isle, he concluded that "internal geometry" could be seen below the surface of the entire world. He conceived that form and color are inseparable. "Every form is a base for color, every color is the attribute of a form." Forms from nature were thus transposed into purely abstract elements in his paintings. Recognizing the inner geometry of nature, Vasarely wrote, "the ellipsoid form...will slowly, but tenaciously, take hold of the surface, and become its raison d'etre. Henceforth, this ovoid form will signify in all my works of this period, the 'oceanic feeling'...I can no longer admit an inner world and another, an outer world, apart. The within and the without communicate by osmosis, or, one might rather say: the spatial-material universe, energetic-living, feeling-thinking, form a whole, indivisible...The languages of the spirit are but the supervibrations of the great physical nature."
Vasarely was born in Pecs, Hungary in 1906. After receiving his baccalaureate degree in 1925, he began studying art at the Podolini-Volkmann Academy in Budapest. In 1928, he transferred to the Muhely Academy, also known as the Budapest Bauhaus, where he studied with Alexander Bortnijik. At the Academy, he became familiar with the contemporary research in color and optics by Jaohannes Itten, Josef Albers, and the Constructivists Malevich and Kandinsky.
After his first one-man show in 1930, at the Kovacs Akos Gallery in Budapest, Vasarely moved to Paris. For the next thirteen years, he devoted himself to graphic studies. His lifelong fascination with linear patterning led him to draw figurative and abstract patterned subjects, such as his series of harlequins, checkers, tigers, and zebras. During this period, Vasarely also created multi-dimensional works of art by super-imposing patterned layers of cellophane on one another to attain the illusion of depth.
In 1943, Vasarely began to work extensively in oils, creating both abstract and figurative canvases. His first Parisian exhibition was the following year at the Galerie Denise Rene which he helped found. Vasarely became the recognized leader of the avant-garde group of artists affiliated with the gallery.
In 1955, Galerie Denise Rene hosted a major group exhibition in connection with Vasarely's painting experiments with movement.
During Vincent Van Gogh’s childhood years, and even before he was born, impressionism was the most common form of art. Impressionism was a very limiting type of art, with certain colors and scenes one must paint with. A few artists had grown tired of impressionism, however, and wanted to create their own genre of art. These artists, including Paul Gaugin, Vincent Van Gogh, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and Paul Cezanne, hoped to better express themselves by painting ...
Georges-Pierre Seurat was a French Post-Impressionist painter, as well as a fine draftsman. He was born and raised in a wealthy family in Paris on December 2, 1859. He lived a short life of thirty-one year of age, and in his time, Seurat not only invented his style of pointillism, but he also became the first Neo-Impressionist. In pointillism, Seurat used miniscule dots of various colors on a base color to produce the local color. This creates an optical mixture from afar for the viewer and makes the image livelier. As the first Neo-Impressionist, he systematically painted his works instead of the rough brushworks of the earlier Impressionists (Chu 410-411, Gage 452, Georges). Since Seurat first started to dig deep into the arts when he was merely sixteen, he really changed the modern art world within 15 years; barely half of his life! Seurat truly worked hard to get the reputation he has today and his works are unquestionably phenomenal through his techniques he used.
At the age of 17, Balanchine entered the Conservatory of Music. He studied piano, composition and th...
...rovence. A year after his death in 1907 his paintings were displayed in Paris in a large museum-like retrospective. This viewing affected the direction of new and upcoming artist, which elevated him to his position as one of the most significant artists of the 19th century and to the creation of Cubism.
...bove and amazed many people with his talents. He had a creative passion for his works that is indescribable.
On December 2, 1859, in Paris, Georges Seurat was born. He was the third child of Ernestine Faivre of Paris and Antoine Chrysostome Seurat of Champagne (The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation). Seurat had an interest in drawing at an early age. Seurat first attended school at the municipal school of Justin Lequien (The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation). He was then enrolled in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts where he was taught by Henri Lehmann (The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation). Seurat was deeply influenced by his teacher who was a disciple of Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (Pioch). Other influences in Seurat’s life included Rembrandt and Francisco de Goya. Much of the education that he received here resulted in his curiosity of the theory of contrasts (The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation). In 1879, Seurat enrolled in the military. Seurat only served a year in the military at Breton coast. After his service, he returned to Paris (The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation).
A couple years after having his photographs displayed, he continued to produce his prints in black and white. He also started producing color photographs by using the dye-transfer process. He used color photography to produce photographs that are more realistic. He became famous for encouraging the acceptance of color photography, which was to be considered as artistic at that time. The photographers viewed color photography as splashy, commercial photography with bright and unrealistic prints, whereas black an...
His analysis of color associated blue with the masculine, yellow with the feminine, and red with the physical often violent. He took a cubist approach, in the display and creation of the animals that he depicted in his works; simplicity was often seen as a means to his creative process as well, as most pieces simply focused on the animal, and the raw emotion, as opposed to drawing in from external factors, to create the printed art works during his
Georges Seurat was a French born artist born on December 2nd 1859 in Paris, Frrance. He study at École des Beaux-Art, which was one of the most prestige art schools in the world, which is also known for training many of the renounced artist we know. George Seurat left the École des Beaux-Art and began to work on his own; he began to visit impressionist exhibitions, where he gained inspiration from the impressionist painters, such as Claude Monet. Seurat also was interested in the science of art; he explored perception, color theory and the psychological effect of line and form. Seurat experimented with all the ideas he had gained, he felt the need to go beyond the impressionist style, he started to focus on the permanence of paintin...
This group ran their own exhibition, and over time, became some of the famous names we know today, such as: Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, and Alfred Sisley. However, it was not all fame and fortune from the beginning. Most patrons who came to the exhibition were so used to the classic, disciplined style that they often criticized the artists’ works, calling them “unfinished” and offended that they could showcase “sketches” as finished pieces. But this is exactly what these artists embraced; letting go of formality and embracing the “freedom of technique” (“Impressionism”,
In present time, Vincent van Gogh is probably the most widely known and highly appreciated person of postimpressionism. During his brief lifetime, Vincent’s work went almost unknown to this world. His work now hangs in countless museums throughout the world and is considered priceless. His work became an important bridge between the 19th and 20th centuries.
The painting was done near the beginning of the twentieth century when science was developing at a rapid rate. Einstein's Theory of Relativity was gaining ground at the time. Malevich's painting seemed to borrow from this theory that attempted to explain relative motion. His suprematism style attempted to capture a neo-realism in painting portraying pure feeling and perception. This new style was communicated by the discarding of natural references. Malevich grew tired of painting in the traditional style with everything looking and feeling the way they are in life. His new style tried to free viewer from their traditional a priori views concerning shape and colors imposed on them by their senses. Suprematist style focuses was on depictions of movement and dynamism. Flight and anti-gravity fascinated Malevich. Much of his paintings were a top down view of the subjects arranged on a white background. The white background represents infinite space, while the subjects were reduced to geometric blocks. The message of the paintings comes out in the relative position of the blocks to the background. The infinite background of the paintings is to divorce the paintings from the finite earth. Malevich himself said that his paintings "do not belong to the earth exclusively." The paintings sought to transcend to a different level. Malevich's suprematist style sought to take people to the fourth dimension, which was pure sensation.
During that time, he also began drawing. Vincent for the most part educated himself. In March 1868, he ends his formal education and begins an apprenticeship with Goupil and Cle. Fine Art Web Design. The Goupil and Cle. Art dealers in Europe and Vincent was stationed at their Paris Headquarters.
Born as Armand Fernandez in 1928 at Nice, the son of an antique dealer. His first lessons in painting were given him by his father. He took his Baccalauréat in philosophy and mathematics in 1946 and began to study painting at the École Nationale d'Art Décoratif, Nice. In 1947 he met Yves Klein and Claude Pascal in Paris and accompanied them on a hitch-hiking tour of Europe. Completing his studies in Nice in 1949, he enrolled as a student at the École du Louvre, where he concentrated on the study of archaeology and oriental art. His pictures at this time were influenced by Surrealism. In 1951 he became a teacher at the Bushido Kai Judo School. He completed his military service as a medical orderly in the Indo-Chinese War. He did abstract paintings in 1953.
After months of meticulous research, Van Gogh attended his first art school in the fall of 1880. Here he learned more about the technical sides of art, such as perspective and anatomy. In 1882 after practicing the techniques he learned at his first school, Van Gogh attended another famous art school called the Hague. Van Gogh was influenced and motivated by his teacher, Anton Mauve, a great...