So, here is the final verdict on your preferences in art:
Style: fauvism
Genre: portrait
Portraits did not become favourite with the fauvists, and there is a good reason for that.
The main character of fauvist paintings is colour, the main purpose is to trigger basic emotions and raw instincts through the powerful qualities of pure colour. Other techniques used by old masters thus lose their importance.
The simplified forms that lead to distortion, ruling out the traditional principles of light and shade and linear perspective; the crude contrasting colours transformed the model beyond all recognition and made people in the portraits ugly from the perspective of an average unwordly viewer. Henri Matisse said: “I don’t paint women. I paint pictures”. And therefore if the composition benefits from a green patch in the place where a nose is supposed to be, the nose is bound to be green, for it’s not the model with a natural nose, but the colour itself that is in fact represented in fauvist portraits. Fauvists gave preference to art for art’s sake over the traditional perception of art. In their paintings instincts dominate over intellect, and the paintings shock and awe, rather than provide food for thought. This is the reason why fauvist turned to the genres of landscape, still life, interior, with portraits taking the back seat.
A person who prefers fauvist portraits is not a people person; his attitude to life is expressively sarcastic. He studies human nature the way a bug hunter studies insects… thoroughly and methodically, with a hint of condescention, but no sympathy, just to please his cognitive interest. His pragmatism makes him extremely diligent and responsible, he won’t rest on his laurels. He goes all the way with his work, people and life itself, sets his sights high, and aims for the sky. Those who can make a breach in the wall of his indifference will be surpsised by the devotion and care he has been storing up for the right person in his life.
Must See for you:
Maitres: Kees van Dongen (the Netherlands), Maurice de Vlaminck, Henri Matisse, Andre Derain (France)
Modern artists: V.N. Alyekseyev, O.O.Belousov (Russia)
Paintings currently available in online galleries:
