Ten American Painters, 1897-1918

The Ten American Painters (also known as The Ten) was an artists' group formed in 1898 to exhibit their work as a unified group.

John Henry Twachtman, J. Alden Weir and Childe Hassam were the driving forces behind the organization. Dissatisfied with the conservatism of the American art establishment, the three artists recruited seven others from Boston, New York City, and elsewhere on the East Coast, with the intention of creating an exhibition society that valued their view of originality, imagination, and exhibition quality.

The Ten achieved popular and critical success, and lasted two decades before dissolving.

Foundation

In America, popular painting styles usually originated on the east coast in cities like New York and Boston.

The Ten continued a tradition of artists forming new groups in reaction to a lack of support from existing artists' groups. Thus, the National Academy of Design (founded in 1825 by students dissatisfied by the conservatism of the older American Academy of the Fine Arts) eventually became too conservative to suit the artists who in 1877 initiated the Society of American Artists so they could meet and exhibit their work as a collective.

Frank W. Benson | Summer, 1909

Wassily Kandinsky | VI - Il linguaggio delle forme e dei colori

Lo spirituale nell'arte, 1910

L'uomo che non ha musica in se stesso

che l`armonia dei suoni non commuove

sa il tradimento, e la perfida frode.

Le sue emozioni sono una notte cupa

i suoi pensieri un Erebo nero.

Alla musica credi, non a lui.

Shakespeare

Il suono musicale giunge direttamente all'anima. E vi trova subito un'eco, perché l'uomo "ha la musica in sé".

"Si sa che il giallo, l'arancione e il rosso ispirano e rappresentano un'idea di gioia, di ricchezza" (Delacroix).

The Giverny Art Colony, 1885-1915

Between 1885 and 1915, the village of Giverny attracted more than 350 artists (Americans accounted for the majority) from at least eighteen countries around the world (including Argentina, Australia, Canada, Great Britain and Poland) - transforming from a sleepy community to a vibrant and important Artists' Colony.

The presence of master Claude Monet (known to the American artists through both Parisian and American exhibitions), who settled in the village in 1883, attracted a small band of artists, including Theodore Robinson, Willard Metcalf, Louis Ritter, Theodore Wendel and John Leslie Breck.

John Leslie Breck | Garden at Giverny, 1887-91

Cloisonnisme (1888-1894)

Introduction and History

In French painting, the term "cloisonnism" (after the French for "partition") describes a style of expressionism associated, in particular, with Emile Bernard (1868-1941), Louis Anquetin (1861-1932) and Paul Gauguin (1848-1903).

Based on a two-dimensional pattern, featuring large patches of bright colour enclosed within thick black outlines, in the manner of medieval cloisonné enamelling or stained glass, the word Cloisonnism was first coined in 1888 by the art critic Edouard Dujardin.

One of the lesser known modern art movements, albeit an influential style of Post-Impressionist painting, the distinctive characteristics of Cloisonnism were its areas of pure colour (devoid of most shading or 3-D modelling effects) which gave it a strong two-dimensional appearance.

Émile Bernard

Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider)

The Blue Rider was a German Expressionist movement that was established in December 1911 by Kandinsky, Franz Marc and Gabriele Münter.

Painters Kandinsky and Marc worked on an almanac in which they showed their artistic conceptions. The title of the almanac, which then became the name of the group, Der Blaue Reiter - The Blue Rider, came from the painting by Kandinsky.

His Blaue Reiter Blue Rider was an adventure in the simplification and stylization of forms and the connection between music and painting.

Wassily Kandinsky | The Blue Rider

Wassily Kandinsky | VII - Teoria della Pittura

Lo spirituale nell'arte, 1910

Seconda parte: La Pittura

Dalla natura della nostra armonia si deduce che oggi non si può costruire una teoria compiuta, creare un basso continuo in pittura. Questi tentativi condurrebbero in pratica allo stesso risultato dei cucchiaini di Leonardo, che citavamo prima. Ma sarebbe imprudente affermare che in pittura non esisteranno mai regole fisse, princìpi paragonabili al basso continuo, e che qualsiasi regola condurrebbe inevitabilmente all'accademismo.

Anche la musica ha una sua grammatica: una grammatica che si modifica nel tempo, come ogni cosa vivente, ma che è sempre stata utile, come una specie di vocabolario.

Wassily Kandinsky | Pond in the park

Wassily Kandinsky | VIII - L'Opera d'Arte e l'Artista, 1910

Lo spirituale nell'arte, 1910

Seconda parte: La Pittura

La vera opera d'arte nasce "dall'artista" in modo misterioso, enigmatico, mistico.

Staccandosi da lui assume una sua personalità, e diviene un soggetto indipendente con un suo respiro spirituale e una sua vita concreta.

Diventa un aspetto dell'essere. Non è dunque un fenomeno casuale, una presenza anche spiritualmente indifferente, ma ha come ogni essere energie creative, attive.

Wassily Kandinsky | Delicate tension, 1923

Wassily Kandinsky | VIII - Art and Artists

Concerning the Spiritual in Art, 1910

Part II: About painting

In an obscure and puzzling way, the artist develops a work of art. As it gains a life of its own, it becomes an entity, an independent spiritual life, which as a being, leads the life of material realism.

It is, therefore, not simply a phenomenon created casually and Inconsequentially indifferent to spiritual life.

Instead as a living being, it possesses creative active forces. It lives, has power, and actively forms the above-mentioned spiritual atmosphere.

From an innermost point of view, the question finally should be answered as to whether creation is strong or weak. If too weak in its form, it is impotent to cause any kind of spiritual vibration.

Wassily Kandinsky | Succession, 1935