Synchromism

Synchromism was a Paris-based movement founded in 1912-1913 by American artists, Stanton MacDonald Wright and Morgan Russell. The movement was based on the arrangement of colors in harmonius and musical patterns. The first Synchromist work by Russell - Synchromy in Green, was exhibited at the Salon des Independants in 1913.

    Morgan Russell

Archaic Composition No. 1

Morgan Russell was born in Greenwich Village in New York City in 1886. He studied at the Art Students League and the New York School of Art before settling in Paris in 1909, where he studied sculpture with Henri Matisse. He was aware of the avant-garde movements Cubism, Orphism, and Futurism. Turning his attention from sculpture to painting, he developed a style based on the rhythmic use of color, analogous to symphonic musical composition, which he termed Synchromism. Like his contemporaries Frank Kupka and Robert and Sonia Delaunay, Russell was interested in color theory.

Russell exhibited his Synchromist paintings, along with those of another young American, Stanton Macdonald-Wright, first in Europe and then in New York in 1914 and 1916. Although Russell was discouraged by financial difficulties and abandoned his Synchromist style by 1930, his work had suggested to his American contemporaries the possibilities of a new style of abstract painting that emphasized color. He returned to America in 1946 and died in Broomall, Pennsylvania in 1953.

References:

http://wwar.com/masters/movements/synchromism.html

http://www.moma.org/learn/resources/archives/EAD/Russellf

Section d'Or

Section d’Or, ( French: “Golden Section”) Paris-based association of Cubist painters; the group was active from 1912 to about 1914.

The group’s name was suggested by the painter Jacques Villon, who had developed an interest in the significance of mathematical proportions such as the ancient concept of the golden section, the section d’or. The name thus reflects the Cubist artists’ concern with geometric forms, although Villon and Juan Gris were the only Cubists who directly applied such concepts to their work. The principal members of the group were Robert Delaunay, Marcel Duchamp, Raymond Duchamp-Villon, Albert Gleizes, Juan Gris, Roger de La Fresnaye, Fernand Léger, André Lhote, Louis Marcoussis, Jean Metzinger, Francis Picabia, and André Dunoyer de Segonzac.

Roger de La Fresnaye

Artillery, 1911

Painted three years before the outbreak of World War I, the subject of this painting appears prophetic. La Fresnaye could often have observed similar military reviews near Les Invalides in Paris. Artillery officers on white and brown horses accompany a caisson (ammunition wagon for moving artillery) that transports a field gun and three soldiers in helmets. In the background a military music band approaches, wearing the blue and red uniforms of the infantry. Although Artillery represents an imaginary scene, La Fresnaye, as the son of a military officer, paid close attention to the various uniforms. Forms are reduced to their utmost simplicity and geometric core, while the color scheme—taking its cue from the tricolore held aloft—is composed of red, white, and blue, along with earthen tones. Painted in 1911, the year he became associated with Cubism and joined the Section d'Or group, Artillery demonstrates the artist's ever greater emphasis on the solid geometry that underlies all forms in nature.

References:

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/531974/Section-dOr

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/1991.397

Der Blaue Reiter

Der Blaue Reiter was formed in 1911 in Munich as a loose association of painters led by Vasily Kandinsky and Franz Marc. They shared an interest in abstracted forms and prismatic colors, which, they felt, had spiritual values that could counteract the corruption and materialism of their age. The flattened perspective and reductive forms of woodcut helped put the artists, especially Kandinsky, on the path toward abstraction in their painting.

The name Blaue Reiter (“blue rider”) refers to a key motif in Kandinsky’s work: the horse and rider, which was for him a symbol for moving beyond realistic representation. The horse was also a prominent subject in Marc’s work, which centered on animals as symbols of rebirth.

Vasily Kandinsky

The specific source for the imagery in The Garden of Love is most likely the biblical story of Paradise and the Garden of Eden, one of several Old and New Testament themes addressed by the artist. The imaginary landscape revolves around a large yellow sun in the center of the composition, which pulses with rays of red. The garden is occupied by three abstract pairs of embracing figures: a reclining couple above the sun, another at the lower right, and a third, smaller pair seated at the left. Surrounding them are several animals—certainly a snake and perhaps a grazing horse and sleeping dog. Kandinsky, who was a master watercolorist, successfully achieved a similar effect in this oil painting.

References:

http://www.moma.org/explore/collection/ge/styles/blaue_reiter

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/49.70.1

Futurism

Futurism was primarily concerned with images of speed and motion, which were intended to represent the spirit of the modern age. Although the greatest expression of Futurism is found in the medium of painting, there were some sculptural pieces executed as well, most notably by Umberto Boccioni. Architecture, a later focus for the movement, provided another three-dimensional forum for Futurist ideas about dynamism. The resulting schemes were visionary imaginings that were difficult to translate into actual structures and so remained, for the most part, studies on paper.

Umberto Boccioni

Unique Forms of Continuity in Space

The Italian Futurist Umberto Boccioni had a short but very productive life. He worked primarily as a painter, but also produced drawings, prints, and sculptures that were similarly infused with the energetic movement that symbolized the modern machine age. In 1910 he was one of the signers of the first Manifesto of the Futurist Painters and the Technical Manifesto of Futurist Painting..

Here, in one of Boccioni's few cast pieces, he creates an anonymous superhuman figure striding purposefully through space, but bound to its architectonic base. Considered the most successful of Boccioni's sculptural experiments, this bronze casting was done posthumously in 1949, from the artist's original plaster (which was never cast during his lifetime).

Virgilio Marchi

Architectural Study: Search for Volumes in an Isolated Building

In its upwardly spiraling movement, this drawing by Virgilio Marchi typifies Futurist architectural design. It is one of several renderings made by Marchi in 1919 and 1920 for an ideal contemporary city that was never erected. His plans indicated the preoccupation of the period with technological advances in transportation and construction. The building in the present study resembles a cone—round at the bottom, pointed at the top. There are tunneled areas and open archways below, with stairs leading to various flat levels. The two towers that rise from the center are openly constructed with stairs and columns. A spotlight is perched on a beam that extends from the peak of the left tower. The sweeping curves and strong, linear slashes of this beautiful drawing are reminiscent of Giacomo Balla's earlier painted imagery.

References:

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/1990.38.3

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/1984.91