The avant-garde of the early 20th century

To know well how contemporary art and the avant-garde of the 20th century emerged we have to travel to the end of the 19th century, since impressionism and post-impressionism established the bases of all the artistic movements that would come later, with that first painting that was It moved away from the reliable representation of reality and opted for a different, more artistic, more modern vision.

The avant-gardes that began to define contemporary art were also characterized by giving shape to a group. A group of artists who, in a kind of brotherhood, signed their own manifesto and showed it to the world through their nonconformist canvases and their brushes that always pointed to the future.

Those avant-gardes changed the patterns of art and configured a new artistic map, as well as a new critical eye and a new look, the contemporary look. And those tendencies were something like sisters from the same family.

The surrealism

Dreams and the subconscious took over the minds of the artists who gave shape and meaning to this trend, such as the Spanish Salvador Dalí or Joan Miró. They drew a dream world, full of incredible references and nods to their innermost fears and passions. Today, his works are admired in museums such as the Reina Sofía in Madrid or the MoMA in New York. And they have, almost a century later, the beautiful ability to make us daydream.

The cubism

Cubism was, perhaps, the most nuanced avant-garde. First, it went through a phase in which artists decomposed reality into geometric shapes; Later, she wanted to capture the multiple points of view of each object in two dimensions, and she did so relying on straight lines and playing with different materials, playing with collage, that discipline that so many women artists develop today.

Once again, Spanish artists were the spearhead of this current of contemporary art. From Picasso to the sculptor Pablo Gargallo, the edges that they drew and sculpted continue to be admired today from a thousand perspectives.

abstract art
Give a new role to the canvas and transform it into a corner to capture the most internal drives, those that have little to do with ordinary figures.

That is what abstract or non-figurative art achieved, characterized by not representing known forms - there is no place for human beings or still lifes of objects in this movement - but quite the opposite.

Shapes that mean nothing and can mean everything. Each person who observes a painting interprets it in one way or another. And to understand it, you don't need much more than sensitivity and learning to stop looking and start seeing.

expressionism

This avant-garde is pure emotion. Painting that speaks to us from the inside. Art that reaches our stomach, that tells the feelings in a truthful and voracious way. Expression loaded with symbolism, strong lines, powerful colors, rage, sometimes; of dreams, on other occasions.

Expressionism was essential in the artistic development of the 20th century, with groups such as the so-called The Blue Horseman bringing together significant artists and with works, such as 'The Scream', by Munch, forever recorded in our collective memory.

fauvism

One of the least groundbreaking avant-garde movements if we look at it with the eyes of the present, but if we look at it with those of the time in which it was born, the sensation changes. Painters such as Henri Matisse or George Braque were part of Fauvism, which left naturalistic colors aside in favor of more vibrant and energetic tones, while taking over thick lines.

These avant-garde movements, along with others perhaps less remembered, such as Dadaism or Futurism, represented a total change in the artistic paradigm at the beginning of the last century. And even today, its mark continues to be felt, even when we hear that “in art everything has already been invented” we think that, perhaps, it is because the artists of the first avant-garde already did it.