He Avant-garde Is characterized by going beyond its time; The exploration of new artistic techniques and materials that before their time had not been explored (Education, 2017).
The themes chosen within the avant-garde sought to embrace the use of new techniques and artistic methods that would help artists to produce a better art.
In this way, many artists emphasized in the design and planning of their works, beyond mere"artistic incidents", since rarely could a sculptor or painter be avant-garde without premeditating.
The avant-garde were called subversive, controversial and radical for questioning the guidelines proposed by classical art. In this way, all the limits of art were transgressed as it was known until the end of the 19th century (Education, 2017).
Within The avant-garde Picasso stands out, for the analytical questioning that made to the use of the visual perspective within the painting.
There are also the impressionists Monet and Van Gogh with a"demential"proposal in the application of color. However, the greatest exponent of avant-gardism was Duchamp , With his revolutionary Dada or given.
Key features of avant-garde
1- Radical and subversive
The term"Avant Garde"was first used by Frenchman Henri de Saint- Simon at the beginning of the 19th century. He stated that the artists who worked at the service of the avant-garde were directed towards social progress and went beyond that of scientists and experts in other disciplines.
However, at the beginning of the twentieth century, the term was characterized as a synonym for radicalism and implied that avant-garde artists should question the status quo of art in order to be able to go a step beyond this.
This is how the themes treated by avant-gardism debated all the aesthetic dynamics, intellectual movements, conventions and methods of artistic production. For this reason, artists were classified as subversives (Harland, 2013).
2- Experimentation
Avant-garde artists were characterized by treating art in a different way, coming to explore numerous techniques.
Some of these techniques gave rise to new artistic movements, as was Picasso's cubism. Others were unsuccessful and never really implemented.
Experimentation in the vanguardism began years after the French Revolution passed. In this way, this movement is understood as the awakening of art at the beginning of the twentieth century.
The traditional techniques of oil painting were questioned, and art began to capture landscapes, forms and figures with a new romanticism. This is how impressionism is born as one of the great avant-garde schools (Johnson, 2017).
3- Color Conventions
It can be said that the avant-garde movements turned heads the way the color was used. Suddenly, the forests could be red and the stacks of blue hay.
All this was due to the importance that some artists began to give to the natural phenomena in specific moments, like the incidence of the sun on the elements perceived by the artist's eyes.
This change in color conventions may be commonplace today, but at the beginning of the 20th century, the public was shocked by the violence with which art was being treated (Terraroli, 2006).
4- From the rational to the illogical
The vanguardismo counted on numerous exponents and resulted in multiple artistic movements and schools, known today as avant-gardes. Each avant-garde had its own way of approaching art and dealing with different themes.
This is how we can see movements such as Fauvism, with an unnatural and dramatic color scheme, where its creators were known as"wild beasts", and movements such as cubism, where primacy of form analysis, criticizing the conventional idea of the Linear perspective in favor of the emphasis on the use of two-dimensionality.
In this way, the avant-garde scandalized the academics of the time, with exhibitions in Paris, New York, Munich, Dresden and Berlin.
In these last places, German expressionism was in charge of breaking the traditional schemes with a style of marked edges that are used until today (Scheunemann, 2000).
5- Anarchism and innovation
The avant-garde movement par excellence is Dadaism, which dealt with themes that revolved around the direct criticism of the visual arts and the proposal of an art that included an innovative mixture of anarchy and hyper-modernism.
Dadaism was highly controversial and challenging, rejecting all the fundamental pillars of classical art.
Dada turned garbage and objects found on the street into three-dimensional collages. In this way, the exponents of this current created a more conceptual art with which one could interact.
6- Conceptual art
The vanguards were mostly conceptual. From them we can see what is known today as performance art and happening.
Mainly the Dada current is understood as the precursor of conceptual art that would come almost fifty years later with postmodernism.
Each stream of vanguardism was the successor of a new stream. This is how Surrealism is born of Dadaism, and art is becoming more and more conceptual, laden with figures emerging from the dreams of Salvador Dalí.
7- Geometry
This is a subject strongly treated by the avant-garde, since the concepts of figure and form were clearly debated.
This is how the De Stijl movement was born at the hands of the artist Piet Mondrian, and reality is interpreted from an abstraction of basic and experimental geometric figures.
Geometry was not only treated by painters, but the sculptors also questioned this aspect of art, giving rise to movements such as futurism, where the form was represented from a spatial ideal of more sinuous forms and metallic textures.
8- Abstraction
Within the avant-garde, the abstraction of elements from classical art reached a point where it was unlikely to simplify forms and figures any more.
In the late twentieth century, abstraction dominated the art world and it was difficult for artists to create new and surprising pieces.
At this time, Jackson Pollock creates the technique of painting in action, giving a twist to the popular subject of abstractionism. The colors and strokes again had emotion and the message it was intended to deliver was more potent (Kordic, P, Martinique, & P, 2017).
References
- EDUCATION, E. O. (2017). ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ART EDUCATION . Retrieved from"Avant-Garde Art: visual-arts-cork.com.
- Education, M. o. (2017). Spain is Culture . Retrieved from Modernism and Avant-garde movements: spainisculture.com.
- Harland, M. (2013). Democratic Vanguardism. London: Lexington Books.
- Johnson, G. (2017). Counter-Currents Publishing . Retrieved from"Vanguardism, Vantardism, & Mainstreaming: counter-currents.com.
- Kordic, A., P, S., Martinique, E., & P, N. (2017). Art History - Widewalls Editorial . Obtained from UNDERSTANDING THE SIGNIFICANCE OF AVANT-GARDE: widewalls.ch.
- Scheunemann, D. (2000). European Avant-garde: New Perspectives. Atlanta - Amsterdam: American Comparative Literature Association.
- Terraroli, V. (2006). 1900-1919: The Avant-garde Movements. Skira.