Vanguard movements: What is it, Characteristics and Meanings

Vanguard movements

Avant-garde movements or avant-garde movements are known as the set of artistic and literary movements that emerged at the beginning of the 20th century, characterized by the break with the western artistic tradition and the search for innovation.

Some avant-garde movements were characterized by being interdisciplinary, while others were specific to certain disciplines, despite the influences they exerted on others. Before explaining each of them, we will make a short list of movements grouped by discipline.

• Interdisciplinary vanguards (artistic and literary):
  • Futurism;
  • Dadaism;
  • Surrealism.
• Artistic vanguards:
  • Cubism;
  • Lyrical abstraction, constructivism, suprematism and neoplasticism;
  • Abstract expressionism;
  • Pop Art;
  • Performance and happening;
  • Hyperrealism;
  • Minimalism
• Literary Vanguards:
  • Creationism;
  • Ultraism.

The avant-gardes are usually grouped into two major periods for study in the first wave and second wave. Let us know below the main avant-garde movements of the 20th century in chronological order , their elementary concept, their main exponents and some examples.

First wave of avant-garde movements

The first wave of the avant-garde ranges from about 1907, with the appearance of Cubism, to the so-called interwar period, with the appearance of Surrealism.

Cubism (1907)

Pablo Picasso. Guitar and violin . 1912. Oil on canvas. 65.5 x 54.3 cm. Museum of Modern Art. New York.

It was an artistic movement, especially pictorial, although it also had its expression in sculpture. Its greatest exponents were Pablo Picasso, Juan Gris and Georges Braque. It was characterized by geometric synthesis, the representation of various planes in one and the application of mixed techniques such as collage and typography. It was the first movement to totally break with the principles of traditional art.

In the literary field , the disruptive spirit of Cubism was inspiration for various authors such as Guillaume Apollinaire, defender of pictorial Cubism and representative of the so-called visual poetry, as well as Gertrude Stein, Blaise Cendrars and Blaise Cendrars. They bet on breaking the conventional forms of writing, as Picasso and Braque had done, although one cannot properly speak of a literary cubism.

Futurism (1909-1944)

Gioacomo Balla: Dynamism of a dog on a leash . 1912. Oil on canvas. 89.8 x 109.8 cm.

He was born in Italy in 1909, by the hand of the Futurist Manifesto, written by the poet Filippo Tomasso Marinetti. It was expressed both in literature and in the plastic arts (painting and sculpture).

It was a movement based on the exaltation of the machine age, nationalism, revolution and war, which is why it was the only avant-garde movement close to the right. In literature, Giovanni Papini and Marinetti himself stood out.

In plastic arts, the Futurist movement tried to incorporate the representation of movement into painting and sculpture. Some of its main representatives were Umberto Boccioni, Gioacomo Balla and Carlos Carrà.

Vehement God of a race of steel, / car drunk with space, / that paws with anguish, with the brake on its strident teeth!

Marinetti, The Car Song

Lyrical abstraction (1910)

Vasili Kandinsky: Composition IV . 1911. Oil on canvas. 159.5 x 250 cm.

It is the first movement that makes the leap to total abstraction, which it assumes from absolute formal freedom, proclaiming the autonomy of art with respect to content. It was represented by Vasili Kandinsky. This movement, added to cubism, gave way to geometric abstraction. For example, constructivism, suprematism, and neoplasticism.

Constructivism (1914)

The Lysitsky: Illustration and layout for a book by Vladimir Mayakovsky. 1920.

He was part of one of the currents of geometric abstraction. It was developed by Vladimir Tatlin from his association with the Cubists. It was the result of experiments carried out with various materials (wood, wire, fabrics, pieces of cardboard and metal sheet) in real space. Put aside illusory resources. Committed to the left, it aspired to be a collective art. One of its highest representatives was El Lissitzky.

Suprematism (1915)

Kazimir Malevich: Red box . 1915. Oil on canvas. 53 x 53 cm.

He was part of one of the currents of geometric abstraction. It was represented by Kazimir Malevich, who published the Suprematist Manifesto in 1915. It was a painting based on flat geometric shapes, absent from any intention of representation. The main elements are: rectangle, circle, triangle and cruciform figures. Through the manifesto of Suprematism, Malevich defended the supremacy of sensibility over objects. It was therefore based on the formal and perceptual relationships between form and color.

Dadaism (1916)

Marcell Duchamp: The fountain . 1917. Ready made. 23.5 x 18 cm.

He was born in Switzerland. Dadaism was both a literary and artistic movement that questioned the Western way of life that would eventually generate the First World War, which they opposed.

It confronted the concepts of art, artist, museum and collecting through irreverent rupture and reduction to the absurd, which made them define themselves as a rather anti-artistic movement.

Dadaism was a breeding ground for Surrealism, to which some of its participants will later join. Its highest literary representative was the poet Tristán Tzara and in the visual arts the artist Marcel Duchamp.

the hungry teeth of the eye / covered in silk soot / open to rain / all year round / naked water / darkens the sweat of the forehead at night / the eye is enclosed in a triangle / the triangle supports another triangle /

Tristan Tzara, Wild Water

Neoplasticism (1917)

Piet Mondrian: Composition with red, yellow and blue . 1937-1942. 72.5 x 69 cm.

He was part of one of the currents of geometric abstraction. He stripped art of any accessory element, eliminating the curved line in all its manifestations and applying the cubist grid, reduced to horizontal and vertical lines that contain pure color (primary colors).

Its disseminating body was the magazine De Stijl , founded by Piet Mondrian and Theo van Doesburg. Among its main representatives were also Wilmos Huszár, Georges Vantongerloo, Jacobus Johannes Pieter Oud and Gerrit Thomas Rietvel.

Creationism (1916)

Creationism was a Spanish-American literary movement promoted by the Chilean poet Vicente Huidobro. This movement conceives the writer or poet as a kind of creator god, whose words are not intended to be significant but to be endowed with aesthetic value. Therefore, they are exempt from serving the likelihood principle. This constituted a break with the poetic tradition, in a way that consecrated the movement as an avant-garde.

Vicente Huidobro: Harmonic Triangle . Calligram.

Ultraism (1918)

Ultraism was a literary avant-garde inspired by Huidobro's creationism. Its epicenter was the country of Spain. One of its most distinguished representatives were Rafael Cansinos Assens, Guillermo de Torre, Oliverio Girondo, Eugenio Montes, Pedro Garfias and Juan Larrea. In Argentina, Jorge Luis Borges would be one of its exponents.

Surrealism (1924)

René Magritte: The betrayal of images or This is not a pipe . 1928-1929. Oil on canvas. 63.5 x 93.98 cm.

It was a movement born in the interwar period, with a literary and artistic vocation. Like many other avant-gardes, it was born with the publication of the surrealist manifesto written by André Bretón, which came from the ranks of Dadaism.

It was characterized by exalting the psychoanalytic notions of the unconscious and the subconscious. However, as regards the visual arts, it was severely criticized for being considered a return to the slavery of content over form.

In literature figures such as André Breton, Louis Aragón and Philippe Soupault stood out. In plastic arts, the artists Salvador Dalí, Max Ernst, René Magritte and Joan Miró stood out.

Give me drowned jewels / Two mangers / A ponytail and a dressmaker's mania / Then forgive me / I don't have time to breathe / I am a destiny

André Breton, Straw Silhouette

Second wave of avant-garde movements

The second wave of avant-garde developed with the end of the Second World War, especially from Abstract Expressionism onwards.

Abstract expressionism (c. 1940)

Jackson Pollok: Convergence . 1952. Oil on canvas. 393.7 x 237.5 cm.

Abstract expressionism is a pictorial school whose purpose is the representation of emotions, uncertainty and the problematization of morals through absolute plastic values. It was characterized by exalting the creative process, of which the painting became a testimony, as well as by valuing improvisation and automatism. One of the most used techniques in this movement was action painting (c. 1950), originally implemented by Jackson Pollok. Another important exponent was Clement Greenberg.

Pop art or pop art (c. 1950)

Roy Lichtenstein: Wham! Oil on canvas. 1963. 172.7 x 421.6 cm.

It took its name from the expression "popular art." It was a reaction against abstract expressionism, accused of being intellectual. He created from images of massive popular interest. Influenced by Dadaism and the American trompe l'oeil. He fearlessly used the technique of reproducing emblematic figures of society as well as industrial objects, posters, packaging, comics, traffic signs and other objects. Some of its best known artists were Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol.

Op art, optical art or kineticism (c. 1960)

Victor Vasarely: Keple Gestalt . 1968. Acrylic on canvas. 160 x 160 cm.

He used elements of geometric abstractionism based on optical perception. He explored the conditions and possibilities of receptivity proper to the human eye. Hence the importance of the physiology of chromatic combinations, modifications and distortions, as well as geometric decontextualization and the valuation of emptiness as a work material, all of which was used in order to offer optical illusion of movement. Some of its greatest exponents were the Hungarian Víctor Vasarelly and the Venezuelans Carlos Cruz Diez and Jesús Soto.

Happening (h. 1950)

It was a current that proposed the development of an action planned by the artist in its basic lines, but conditioned by the situation itself, the spontaneous behavior of the actors, the participation of the audience and / or chance. All this was done with the intention of eliminating the borders between art and everyday life. One of its representatives has been Allan Kaprow.

Conceptual art (c. 1960)

It is an artistic trend that privileges the concept over the real object. He was born around 1960. By means of this gesture, the artist eliminates the mediation of the art critic, to become the one who explains his work. One of its best known representatives has been Yoko Ono.

Performance (c. 1960)

It is a current that seeks to "represent" a live action before an audience. You can also consider a certain event as a work of art in itself. It often includes improvisation. One of its most distinguished representatives was the Fluxus Movement.

Hyperrealism (c. 1960)

Audry Flack: Jolie Madame . 1973.

He wanted to reproduce reality more exactly than the eye itself can see it. It was also related to photorealism. It was characterized by descriptive verism, photographic visuality, and academic language. Some prominent exponents were Audry Flack and Malcolm Morley.

Minimalism (c. 1970)

Donald Judd: Untitled . Stainless steel and yellow plexiglass. Six units.

He reacted against the hedonism of pop art as much as against abstract expressionism. He preferred sculpture as a manifestation. His works were defined as structures or systems in which elementary geometric shapes and rudimentary materials predominated. He sought the interaction of the works with the environment, the accentuation of voids and spaces and maximum sobriety. Some exponents are Carl Andre and Ruth Vollmer.

Timeline of the 20th century avant-gardes

• Update date: March 10, 2021.

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