Charting the Avant Garde: From Romanticism to Utopic Abstraction

This first course in the Touring Modernism: From the French Avant-Garde to American Pop and Beyond program covers the 19th century movements of Romanticism, Realism, and Impressionism. These movements eventually set the stage for the radical expressions of Post Impressionism, Fauvism, Cubism, and the pure abstraction of Kandinsky, Mondrian, and Malevich, all of which pushed the boundaries of rebellion into new heights.

What Students Are Saying:

• Utopia and Progress: Abstraction to Futurism
• This session will explore artists’ desire for progress and idealized revolutions through the emergence of Abstraction.
• Rebellion in the 19th Century: Avant-Garde to Realism
• This session will survey the rebellious art movements of the Avant-Garde, Neo-Classicism, Romanticism, and Realism.
• The 20th Century Explodes: Fauvism to German Expressionism
• In this session, we’ll see how colors became bolder and brighter and see the shift in the representation of structure and form throughout the Fauvism, Cubism, and German Expressionism movements.
• Form and Color in Painting: Impressionism and Post-Impressionism
• This session will go over the beginnings of landscape painting and its transition into Impressionism. We’ll also take in-depth looks into Post-Impressionist artists like Cézanne to Gauguin.