Epic Landscapes, Graphics, Art Movements

Abstract Impressionism

Abstract Impressionism is a type of abstract painting where small brushstrokes build and structure large paintings. Small brushstrokes exhibit control of large areas, expressing the artists emotion and focus on inner energy, and sometimes contemplation, creating expressive, lyrical and thoughtful qualities in the paintings. The brushstrokes are similar to those of Impressionists such as Monet, and Post-Impressionists such as Van Gogh and Seurat, only tending toward Abstract Expressionism.  While in the action painting style of Abstract Expressionism, brushstrokes were often large and bold and paint was applied in a rapid outpouring of emotion and energy, the Abstract Impressionists short and intense brushstrokes or non-traditional application of paints and textures is done slowly and with purpose.

Art Nouveau

The Name Art Nouveau is French for “New Art”, it is also known  as Jugendstil, German for “Youth Style”. A reaction to Academic Art of the 19^th century, it was inspired by natural forms and structures, not only in flowers and plants, buyt also in curved lines. Architects tried to harmonize with the natural environment. It is also considered a philosophy if design of furnature, which was designed according to the whole building and made part of ordinary life. The style was strongly influenced by Czech artist Alphonse Mucha, when he produced a Lithographed poster which appeared on January 1, 1895 in the streets of Paris as an advertisement for a play. Art Nouveau was most popular in Europe but its influence was Global. Hence, its known in various guises with frequent localised tendencies.

Cubism

Cubism is a 20^th Century Avant-Garde Art Movement, pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, which revolutionized European painting and sculpture, it also inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. In Cubism artworks, objects are broken up, analyzed and re-assembled in an obstructural form, instead of depicting objects from one viewpoint, the artist depicts the subject from a multitude of viewpoints to represent the subject in a greater context. Often the surfaces intersect at seemingly random angles, removing coherent sense of depth. The background and object planes interpenetrate each other to create the shallow ambiguous space, one of Cubism’s distinct characteristics. Historians have sought to analyze the history of Cubism in terms of Phrases. In one scheme, a first branch of cubism, known as Analytic Cubism, was both radical and influential as a short but highly significant art movement between 1907 and 1911 in France. In a second Phase, Synthetic Cubism, the movement spread and remained vital until 1919, when the Surrealist movement gained Popularity.

Futurism

Futurism was an artistic and social movement that originated in Italy in the early 20^th Century. It emphasised and glorifies themes associated with contemporary concepts of the future, including Speed, Technology, Youth and Violence, and objects such as the car, the aeroplane and the industrial city. It was largely and Italian Phenomenon though there were parallel movements in Russia, England and elsewhere. The Futurists practiced in every medium of art including, Painting, Sculpture, Ceramics, Graphic Design, Industrial Design, Interior Design, Theatre, Film, Fashion, Textiles, Literature, Music, Architecture and even Gastronomy. The founder of Futurism and its most influential personality was the Italian writer Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, who launched the movement in his Futurist Manifesto which he published in 1909. He was soon joined by the painters Umberto Boccioni, Carlo Carra, Giacomo Balla, Gino Severini and the composer Luigi Russolo.

Minimalism

Minimalism describes the movement in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is set out to expose the essence, essentials or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or concepts. As a specific movement in the arts is identified with developments in post-World War II Western Art Most Strongly with American Visual Arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with this movement include Donald Judd, John McCracken, Agnes Martin, Dan Flavin, Robert Morris and Frank Stella. It is rooted in the reductive aspects of Modernism and is often interpreted as a reaction against Abstract Expressionism and a bridge to Post-Minimal Art Practices.

Photorealism

Photorealism is the genre of painting based on using the camera and photographs to gather information and then from this information and then from this information creating a painting that appears photographic. The tem is primarily applied to paintings from the United States art movements that began in the late 1960s and early 1970s. As a full-fledges art movement, Photorealism evolved from Pop Art and as a counter to Abstract Expressionism, as well as Minimal Art Movements. Photorealists use a photograph or several photographs to gather the information to create their paintings and it can be argued that the use of a camera and photographs is an acceptance of Modernism. However the admittance to the use of Photographs in Photorealism was met with intense criticism when the movement began to gain momentum in the late 1960s , despite the fact that visual devices had been used since the 15^th century to aid artists with their work.

Pop Art

Pop Art is an artistic movement which emerged in the mid 50’s. Pop Art presented a challenge to traditions of Fine Art by including imagery from popular culture such as advertising, news, etc… In Pop Art, material is sometimes visually removed from its known context, isolated and/or combined with unrelated material. The concept of Pop Art refers not a much to the art itself, as to the attitudes that led to it. Employing aspects of mass culture such as advertising, comic books and mundane cultural objects, Pop Art is widely interpreted as a reaction to the then-dormant ideas of Abstract Expressionism as well as an expansion on them. Due to its utilization of found objects, Pop Art is aimed to employ images of Popular as opposed to Elitist culture in art, emphasizing the banal or kitschy elements of any given culture most often through the use of irony.

Romanticism

Romanticism was an Artist, Literary and Intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18^th century in Europe and strengthened in reaction to the Industrial Revolution. In part, it was a revolt against aristocratic social and political norms of the Age of Enlightenment and a reaction against the Scientific Rationalization of Nature. It was embodied most strongly in the Visual Arts, Music and Literature but had a major impact on Historiography, Education and Natural History. The movement validated strong emotion as an authentic source of aesthetic experience placing new emphasis on such emotions as Trepidation, Horror and Terror and Awe- especially that which is experienced in confronting the sublimity of untamed nature and its picturesque qualities, both new aesthetic categories. It elevated folk art and ancient custom to something noble, made spontaneity a desirable characteristic, and argued for a ‘natural’ epistemology of human activities as conditioned by nature in the from of language and customary usage.