Modernist artist - representative of modern style

The direction in art, which became popular in the last decade of the XIX century and the beginning of the XX century, united such trends as expressionism, abstractionism, cubism, Dadaism, futurism, surrealism, called modernism. It is a collection of stylistic trends in painting on the verge of centuries.

What is Art Nouveau style?

Therefore, the modern artist could belong to any of these directions, which flowed from one another, being something new in relation to the previous one. From French moderne is translated as "modern". Modernism embraced all countries of Europe and America. In many of them it had its own names: Art Nouveau, Art Nouveau, End of the Century, Liberty and others. All of them embodied a new direction in art, the essence of which was not the real reflection of the world, but the transmission on the canvas of its own subjective world of the creative personality. In some articles it is pointed out that the modernist artist denies the cultural heritage, in others it is reported that he refused from straight lines and angles. What about Cubism? At the turn of the century, there were so many different currents, trends, circles and societies that carried a new talented and sometimes brilliant word, and a new direction united them all with the general idea of reconstructing the world under their banner, as all the Russian poets of the same time united the Silver Age.

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As a rule, innovators were young, talented, original people, they were all interested, they hated the foundations, wanted to achieve maximum self-expression, created their worlds within the framework of one picture. Undoubtedly, modernism is a special style of artistic thinking. As mentioned above, the Art Nouveau style in painting and architecture was named in Russia and, of course, had its own national features. There is an opinion that we had somehow been blurred, there was no clear, pronounced character. Maybe it was because there are a lot of things in Russia - many brilliant artists, many schools and directions, and any idea coming from outside acquires a national flavor.

School of Art Nouveau in Russia

Artists of Russian modern, such as Bilibin and Borisov-Musatov, Vasnetsov and Vrubel, Golovin, Malyutin and Nesterov, modern women Golubkina, Polenova, Yakunchikova in their work echoed with the pan-European direction, but brought modern and national features to the modern. This style is traced in the individual works of Kandinsky and Korovin, Levitan and Petrov-Vodkin, Roerich and Serov. On the verge of centuries in Russia there were publications promoting the ideas of modern style - the monthly "Libra", magazines "Art and the art industry" and "World of Art", the leading figures of which also represented Russian modernity as their creativity. The brightest of them are Bakst and Benoit, Dobuzhinsky and Somov. Thanks to the listed names you can imagine this powerful layer of different, but united by the general direction of creativity of talents.

The brightest representatives of style

Modernist artist Ivan Yakovlevich Bilibin (1876-1942), a famous book illustrator and theater designer, was a member of the "World of Art". His portrait of the work of B. Kustodiev in 1901 perfectly conveys the image of the representative of the capital of Bohemia and the Art Nouveau style. Mikhail Vrubel (1856-1910) deserves separate words. The modernist artist, the forerunner of symbolism with the original unique manner of writing, he was not very revered by his contemporaries, and Stasov condemned him at all. About the work of this artist with a tragic fate still argue. His illustrations to the works of M. Yu. Lermontov are amazing, Blok called Vrubel's drawings bizarre drawings, stolen from eternity. The artist is considered the founder of Russian Art Nouveau, he was at his sources.

The concentration of talents in Russia at the turn of the ages

Another powerful figure, representing Russian Art Nouveau in painting, is Nikolai Roerich (1874-1947), who headed the association "World of Art". He was a versatile personality. For life in Russia and abroad, where he emigrated in 1917, he wrote more than 7,000 paintings. But Roerich was still a writer, an archeologist, a philosopher-mystic, a traveler and a public figure. One of the most famous of his paintings, written at this time, - "Overseas guests" in 1901.

Russian Art Nouveau was a powerful phenomenon that seized fine art, architecture, literature, industry and everyday life. The extraordinary number of talents concentrated in both capitals, viewing modernity as the construction of a new world, ended quickly. Many modernists did not accept the revolution, they emigrated, and socialist realism became the dominant trend in the work of Soviet artists .

Short, but very bright direction

The best paintings of modernists, the current classics adorn all the world's museums. Cloths are the pearls of Russian museums. The works of Vrubel, Vasnetsov, Roerich, Kustodiev and others are recognizable and beloved. Who does not know vasnetsovskih heroes or vrublevskaya Tsarevna-Swan, his Demon or Pan? Beautiful, mysterious, mystical, refined and inimitable, they adequately represent a brief but time-consuming but very significant layer in Russian art.

To summarize, one can say that the most typical representatives, the most brilliant modernists, artists of the 20th century are Alfons Mukha, Edvard Munch, Paul Gauguin and our compatriots Ivan Bilibin, Mikhail Vrubel and Nikolai Roerich.