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Lesson
Lesson 3. The avant-garde: giving up likeness
Understand the logic of the avant-garde (abstraction, Cubism, Expressionism) and learn to look at a painting that does not depict a recognizable world.
When likeness stopped being the goal
What's the point of a painting where “nothing makes sense”
In the early 20th century came what the whole previous path had been leading to: artists gave up, once and for all, the duty to depict the world as it looks. The avant-garde appeared — many bold movements that broke the familiar rules.
One of the main reasons was photography. If a camera copies reality precisely in a second, an artist no longer needs to compete with it in likeness. Set free, painting asked itself: what can it do that photography cannot?
The answers varied:
— Cubism (Picasso, Braque) — showing an object from several sides at once, broken into facets.
— Expressionism — intensifying color and form to the extreme to express a strong emotion (fear, a scream, anxiety).
— Abstraction (Kandinsky, Malevich, Mondrian) — removing recognizable objects altogether and working with pure color, form, and line, the way music works with pure sound.
How should you look at such a painting? Don't ask “What is it?” Ask “What do I feel?”: what mood the colors set, where the rhythm of lines and patches leads, whether it feels heavy or light, calm or anxious. Many techniques from earlier units — composition, contrast, warm and cool — work here even without a subject.
Lesson notes
What's the point of a painting where “nothing makes sense”
In the early 20th century came what the whole previous path had been leading to: artists gave up, once and for all, the duty to depict the world as it looks. The avant-garde appeared — many bold movements that broke the familiar rules.
One of the main reasons was photography. If a camera copies reality precisely in a second, an artist no longer needs to compete with it in likeness. Set free, painting asked itself: what can it do that photography cannot?
The answers varied:
— Cubism (Picasso, Braque) — showing an object from several sides at once, broken into facets.
— Expressionism — intensifying color and form to the extreme to express a strong emotion (fear, a scream, anxiety).
— Abstraction (Kandinsky, Malevich, Mondrian) — removing recognizable objects altogether and working with pure color, form, and line, the way music works with pure sound.
How should you look at such a painting? Don't ask “What is it?” Ask “What do I feel?”: what mood the colors set, where the rhythm of lines and patches leads, whether it feels heavy or light, calm or anxious. Many techniques from earlier units — composition, contrast, warm and cool — work here even without a subject.