Les fauves

(Fauvism) which means "the wild beasts in French, a short-lived and loose group of early twentieth-century Modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong colour over the representational or realistic values retained by Impressionism. While Fauvism as a style began around 1900 and continued beyond 1910, the movement as such lasted only a few years, 1904–1908, and had three exhibitions.


Fauvism has its roots in the post-impressionist paintings of Paul Gauguin. It was his use of symbolic colour that pushed art towards the style of Fauvism. Gauguin proposed that colour had a symbolic vocabulary which could be used to visually translate a range of emotions. In 'Vision after the Sermon' where Gauguin depicts Jacob wrestling with an angel, he paints the background a flat red to emphasise the mood and subject of the sermon: Jacob's spiritual battle fought in a blood red field of combat. Gauguin believed that colour had a mystical quality that could express our feelings about a subject rather than simply describe a scene. By breaking the established descriptive role that colour had in painting, he inspired the younger artists of his day to experiment with new possibilities for colour in art.


2 artists => Matisse & Derain


At the start of the 20th century, two young artists, Henri Matisse and André Derain formed the basis of a group of painters who enjoyed painting pictures with outrageously bold colours. The group were nicknamed 'Les Fauves' which meant 'wild beasts' in French. Their title was coined by the art critic Louis Vauxcelles who was amused by the exaggerated colour in their art. At the Salon d'automne of 1905 he entered a gallery where Les Fauves were exhibiting their paintings. Surprised by the contrast with a typical renaissance sculpture that stood in the centre of this room, he exclaimed with irony, "Donatello au mileau des fauves!" ( Donatello in the middle of the wild beasts! ). The name stuck.

(by Matisse)

(by Derain)

Library Source: "Les Fauves, a Sourcebook" /Russell T. Clement


"The initial contacts that led eventually  to the creation of Fauvism date to 1892. In that year, Henri Natisse, 22 years old and having just spent his first year in Paris in the stifling and frustrating atmosphere of William Adolfe, Bouguereau's class at l'Académie Julian, joined the studio of celebrated symbolist Gustave Moreau at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Ironically, Bouguereau's vast studio on the Left Bank, in the rue Notre Dame des Champs, was taken over after his death in 1905 by the Fauve painter Othan Friest." (introduction xiii)