Fauvism

this week's episode because we're going to be talking about a style that I love, but I don't necessarily understand.

So selfishly, I'm looking forward to it to learn more about that.

Um, so without further ado, Annie, can you tell us what we're going to be talking about today?

The subject is Fauves.

Les Fauves, F-A-U-V-E-S.

It may not be familiar to many, many people.

It was a very short-lived, um, I don't know what you would call, um, period of art.

Um, but it is probably the most important.

Everybody's heard of Impressionism, even Pointillism, but they do not necessarily know about Les Fauves.

Les Fauves are the wild beasts.

It was a very short period of time, 1905 to 1908, and it's mainly two [laughs] artists, which i- Matisse, at a certain point in his life, and Derain, who I adore.

Both of those are incredibly, incredibly important artists, and what they did, they sort of broke everything up.

They just destroyed but grew something which is amazing.

That's quite an opening-

[laughs]

... statement.

The most important thing-

Yeah

... ever.

Yeah, I think so.

Yeah.

It changed the 19th century, 'cause actually, when you look at the Impressionists, they were just doing very pretty...

I mean, people now accuse the Impressionists of being chocolate box, 'cause they have very pretty pictures.

Um, that's a bit damning, but-

Mm