What is Fauvism?

Fauvism, is a term applied to works of art characterised by high-contrast colours and strong brushwork, that exhibit a more raw and less natural form of expression, produced by a group of artists referred to as Les Fauves (the wild beasts, will now be referred to as The Fauves). Artists who shared similar style direction include Henri Matisse and André Derain. Active around 1899 to 1910, Fauvism is considered the first art movement of the twentieth-century.

Much like the Impressionists before them, The Fauves derived their inspirations directly from nature but were more focused on strong reaction to the depicted subjects. Moving as a pre-cursor towards Expressionism, most of the works generated by The Fauves can be seen as an extension of Vincent van Gogh's post-impressionism and Georges Seurat's neo-impressionism, moving further from realistic three-dimensional space to create a new pictorial spaces with layers of flat images. With brilliant colours and spontaneous brushwork, this movement is often compared to German Expressionism which emerged around the same time. Other like-minded artists associated with Fauvism included Georges Braque, Raoul Dufy, Georges Rouault, and Maurice de Vlaminck.