School of Paris

From 1900 until about 1940, Paris was a center of international art, of artistic activity that provided unparalleled conditions for the exchange of creative ideas. Paris was a real mecca for artists who flocked there to participate in the most advanced aesthetic currents of their time. Paris was attracting artists from all over the world – a time when the French capital was regarded by one and all as the greatest laboratory of modern art.

School of Paris described a group of artists, most of them of foreign extraction, who had chosen to live and work in Paris. A wave of artists of all nationalities gravitated to the French capital and fostered an inspiring climate of imaginative cross-fertilization. Because of the enormous influx of non-French artists living and working in Paris, a loosely defined affiliation developed referred to as the School of Paris. The international activity associated with this group in Paris was initially concentrated in Montmartre, but subsequently moved to Montparnasse in the early 1910s. French La Ruche (English The Beehive) artists' settlement on the outskirts of the Montparnasse section of Paris in the early 20th century became the centre of avant-garde activity. The Beehive housed the ramshackle living quarters and studios of many painters and sculptors,among them Marc Chagall, Fernand Léger, Robert Delaunay, Chaim Soutine, Jacques Lipchitz, Henri Laurens, Alexander Archipenko, Albert Gleizes, Jean Metzinger, and André Lhote. In addition, this bohemian colony attracted the poets Guillaume Apollinaire, Max Jacob, Blaise Cendrars, and Pierre Reverdy. No single style dominated the settlement; rather, experimentation of all kinds was encouraged.

Modigliani, Soutine, Chagall, Pascin, Fujita and Kisling, are just a handful of the School’s most illustrious representatives. Modigliani’s oval faces and almond eyes, Fujita’s stunning detail and mix of the West and East, and Soutine’s haste and frenzy were all aspects that suggested that the «School of Paris» referred more to a community of artists than to any precise style or movement The school of Paris is not one style; the term describes many styles and movements. The practitioners and adherents of fauvism, cubism, and orphism all belonged to the school of Paris, as well as many artists whose styles fit into no one category. Focusing on conventional subjects such as portraiture, figure studies, landscapes, cityscapes, and still lifes, artists of the School of Paris employed a diversity of styles and techniques including the bold, dynamic colors of Fauvism, the revolutionary methods of Cubism, the animated qualities of Expressionism, and the private worlds of Symbolism After the war, when New York City challenged Paris's preeminence in the art world, the school of Paris continued to produce major figures and styles in art: Jean Dubuffet and the Art Brut school are recent examples. The name Ecole de Paris (School of Paris) was still in use after World War 2. Its use was then extended to encompass all non-figurative artists. The name finally ended up referring to so many different artists that it lost all specific meaning. In the early 1920s it encompasses more than one style and movement, including fauvism, cubism, and orphism.

When critics referred to the School of Paris, their intent was above all to combat the modern hegemony of the New York School. In the end the name veiled the diversity of the artists, and the later School of Paris never earned the success and recognition of its earlier years

A leading figure of the School of Paris, the Spaniard Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) moved to France in 1904. Picasso's variety of creative styles are representative of the kind of cross-fertilization that transcends the works of the School of Paris artists. His groundbreaking collaboration with the Frenchman Georges Braque (1882–1963), which began in 1907, fostered the development of Cubism. Subsequently associated with the Surrealist artists working in Paris in the early 1920s (although never an official member of the movement), Picasso's use of Surrealist imagery is evident in Nude Standing by the Sea (1996.403.4). His morphed and organic forms are comparable to Joan Miró (1893–1983), another Spaniard living in Paris and a pioneer of the Surrealist movement. The influential Italian artist Giorgio de Chirico (1888–1978) also resided in Paris (1911–15 and again in the 1920s) and is considered a precursor to the magical realism among the Surrealists, as exemplified in his ominous, dreamlike composition Ariadne (1996.403.10) of 1913.

Other artists within the School of Paris who exchanged styles and ideas about painting and sculpture include the Italian Amedeo Modigliani (1884–1920), who moved to Paris in 1906. Initially working alongside the Romanian sculptor Constantin Brancusi (1876–1957), who had been in Paris since 1904, Modigliani made, from about 1909 to 1915, a series of sculptures, such as Woman's Head (1997.149.10), with elongated features, oval heads, and thinly incised eyes that show the definitive influence of Brancusi as well as of African sculpture. In Reclining Nude (1997.149.9) from 1917, Modigliani used these stylistic elements, for example the almond-shaped eyes, in his distorted depiction of a nude figure. Another artist whose work exemplifies the exchange of ideas and styles among artists living and working in Paris is the expatriate and friend of Modigliani, the Lithuanian artist Chaim Soutine (1893–1943). Soutine arrived in Paris in 1913 and created pictures imbued with torment and personal expression. In his portrait Madeleine Castaing (67.187.107) from 1929, he alters the figure's facial features just enough to create a psychological intensity and agitation comparable to works by Austrian Expressionists Oscar Kokoschka (1886–1980) and Egon Schiele (1890–1918).

A prominent figure in the School of Paris, the Russian artist Marc Chagall (1887–1985) initially lived in Paris from 1910 to 1914. Moving into a studio in Montparnasse adjacent to Modigliani and near the Frenchman Fernand Léger (1881–1955) and Soutine, Chagall quickly absorbed the stylistic influences of the avant-garde working in Paris. Chagall's The Betrothed (2002.456.8) of 1911 elicits charm and luminescence characteristic of his work at this time. In The Marketplace, Vitebsk (1984.433.6), painted in 1917 after his return to Russia, Chagall's use of unrealistic perspective, sharply defined contours, and figures in various scale show the influence of the French artist Robert Delaunay (1885–1941). Chagall became a leading artist of the School of Paris during the 1920s and '30s after his exile from the Soviet Union in 1923.

The unprecedented migration to Paris of foreign artists who worked in tandem with French luminaries such as Henri Matisse (1869–1954), André Derain (1880–1954), Pierre Bonnard (1867–1947), and Jean Dubuffet (1901–1985) came to an end with the outbreak of World War II (1939–45). Many artists fled to New York or returned to their homeland and the frenzied activity experienced by members of the School of Paris concluded.

Main Representatives:

Amedeo Modigliani

Marc Chagall

Moise Kisling

Tsuguharu Fujita

Chaim Soutine

Jules Pascin

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14