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Fauvism

Fauvism used wild, pure colour straight from the tube. The name means wild beasts, given by a critic in 1905.

Period
Early twentieth-century modernism
Approximate dates
c. 1905 to 1910
Place of origin
Paris, France
Key regions
France
Art forms
Painting
Major artists
Henri Matisse, Andre Derain, Maurice de Vlaminck, Raoul Dufy

Visual introduction

  • Woman with a Hat

    Henri Matisse · 1905 · Oil on canvas · San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

    Bright, unblended colour on the face and hat shocked critics at the 1905 Salon d'Automne.

    Image: Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

  • The Green Stripe (Madame Matisse)

    Henri Matisse · 1905 · Oil on canvas · Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen

    A green line down the centre of the face shows colour used for design instead of realism.

    Image: Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

  • The Pool of London

    Andre Derain · 1906 · Oil on canvas · Tate, London

    Bold, unmixed colour is used on the River Thames in a Fauvist reading of a busy city view.

    Image: Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Historical context

The Fauves exhibited together at the 1905 Salon d'Automne in Paris. They learned from Van Gogh, Gauguin and the colour theories behind Pointillism, and they were also looking at African and Oceanic objects that were arriving in European museums and collections.

The group lasted only a few years, but it showed that colour could be the main subject of a painting, and it influenced Expressionism and later abstraction.

Visual characteristics

Colour: bright, unmixed and often unrealistic colour, such as green lines on a face.

Form: simplified shapes, flat areas and strong outline.

Brushwork: bold, rapid strokes. Mood is joyful and direct, and traditional perspective and modelling are reduced.

Related movements

Sources and further reading

Further reading: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. Tate, Art Terms. Smarthistory.