"Movements and -Isms" of 20th Century

Ayushi Kadakia
4/1/2017

"Movements and -Isms" of 20th Century

Women in the 20th Century were entirely focused on women empowerment, which began by the ability for women to have equal rights - such as voting. It was an era were women began to become recognized for the integral role that they play in society. However, the explosion of women empowerment was slow, with women still "subliminated their careers so as not to outshine the men in their lives," (Guerilla Girls, 59). Regardless, women had more opportunity than ever to present themselves equally to men. In Western Europe, there were movements that implicated the growth in women artists through different "movements and -isms." Modernism was a movement that was influenced by changing factors in terms of the explosion of industrialization, freedom and equal rights for women leading to genres of art that defy all the social normalities of the past.

Abstraction developed based on the techniques that were presented during Post-Impressionism, while rejecting its limitations. Abstraction focused on vivid colors, and thick application of paint and real-life subject, while emphasizing geometric forms and the use of unnatural or arbitrary color. Sonia Delaunay, a Russian artists, began a pattern forming art surface that changed and revolutionized the art world - and commercial items. Delaunay played with surface structure, and different colors that is visible in her dresses. Delaunay "began to make simultaneous dresses, in reaction against the drabness of current fashions. Their patterns of abstract forms were arragned both to enhance the natural movement of the body and to establish a shimmering movement of colors," (Chadwick, 262). 

Sonia Delaunay, Designs for Clothes and Cars, 1925

Sonia Delaunay, Simultaneous Contrasts, 1912

German Impressionism was a movement that emphasized and further solidified abstraction - with artists such as Vasily Kandinsky. Kandinsky hailed his style from "the Munich period [were] influenced by Russian folk art, Tunisian abstract geometric motifs," (Chadwick, 254). Impressionism in Germany also brought forward "Dadaism," which consisted of primarily men. However, artists such as Hannah Hoch pushed through and set a revolution with art that attempted to deteriorate the male gaze. She broke the normalities of art to present work that was entirely to destroy the burgoeis society. For instance, her art such as "The Kitchen Knife cuts through Germany's First Weimar Beer Belly Culture," 1919, depicted a photomantage that spoke towards the political tyranny and the importance of dadaism.

Hannah Hoch, The Kitchen Knife Cuts Through Germany's First Weimar Beer Belly Culture, 1919

Lastly, Surrealism was a movement that was defined as "artists sought to channel the unconscious as a means to unlock the power of the imagination." Artists such as these focused on the tumulus power of their mind to reveal their imagination that is deeply rooted into their subconsious- until now. The movement sought to fight against the gender stereotypes that surrounded women.Claude Cahun was one of the first women to take photographs that defied sexual identity and exposed the female sexuality. In "Self-Portrait," Cahun posed and stared directly towards the camera, with one slight change - she looks like a man. In fact, "Claude's sexual identity was so confounding that some books on surrealism list her as a man," (Guerrilla Girls, 62). Another astounding artist in Mexico that mimicked the same ideology was Frida Kahlo. Frida Kahlo, a woman artist that suffered due to the various reasons both physically and emotionally, lived a devastating life, which was depicted in her paintings. Her ability to fuse her life into her painting was caused by various aspects of physical pain- an accident that left her broken (literally) from the inside, with the various affairs of her husband, Diego Rivera, and abortions. Her art depicted the subconscious in painful manner, while liberating her soul. With brilliant artists such as this defined Modernism for what it truly was - an era of mass recognition and gender equality that continued throughout the 20th Century, influencing millions of artists today. 

Claude Cahun, Self-Portrait, 1928

Frida Kahlo, Broken Column, 1944

Works Cited 

 Whitney Chadwick, Women, Art, and Society, 4th edition, (New York: Thames and Hudson), 2007.

The Guerrilla Girls, The Guerrilla Girls’ Bedside Companion to the History of Western Art (New York, Penguin Books, 1998)

"German Expressionism." MoMA.org. N.p., n.d. Web. 

"Surrealism Movement, Artists and Major Works." The Art Story. N.p., n.d. Web.