Painting from 1900 to 1925 [antikvár]

Introduction Twentieth-century art was marked, at its beginníng, by a number of revolutionary movements which entirely transformed the world of painting. The representation of reality according to the rules of iinear perspective had come to be regarded as the only conceivable form of artistic expression, so that to modern Europe the art of another age—its own Mediaeval art—or of another coníinent seemed to be of lesser worth. About 1900, however, European painters realized that figurative representation based on Iinear perspective had no more than a relatíve scope and that if reality were to be repre-sented in all its complexity and its many different aspects, other ways would have to be explored. Mediaeval European art, Orientál and African art, that of Oceania and that of Pre-Colombian America contributed to the crea-tion of new modes of plastic expression, better adapted to the situation of modern man in the world. Modern art alsó did away with the barriers which had formerly denied us access to these unknown or forgottén realms of art and prevented us from understanding them through direct experience. So came into being that imaginary museum of world art, through which we can now move freely. It was in Europe, at the beginning of the twentieth century, that this revolution in plastic expression, which influenced the arts of the peoples of the whole world, took place. It was foreshadowed at the end of the pre-vious century by a series of individuai, often splendid, attempts, forming a landmark on the royal road of the history of French painting. The well-spring of twentieth-century world art is to be found in nineteenth-century