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After flirtations with Realism, Impressionism, and Symbolism, Kiev-born Kazimir Malevich (1878-1935) found his métier in dissolving literal, representational figures and landscapes into pure emotionally-charged abstraction. In 1915, he created what is widely lauded as the first and ultimate abstract artwork: Black Square, a black rectangle on a...

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938) is regarded as one of the key figures in 20th-century European art. A Modernist to his bones, he sent seismic waves through the art world with his hard-edged, intensely colored paintings and disseminated his ideas through Die Brücke art movement and the MUIM-Institut school of modernist painting, both of which he...

From court portraits for the Spanish royals to horrific scenes of conflict and suffering, Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (1746-1828) made a mark as one of Spain's most revered and controversial artists. A master of form and light, his influence reverberates down the centuries, inspiring and fascinating artists from the Romantic Eugene Delacroix...

Psychodrama: The reverberating power of an Expressionist icon A hairless, ghostly figure on a bridge. The sky orange-red above him. His hands raised to his ears, his mouth wide in a haunting wail. In painting The Scream, Edvard Munch (1863 1944) created Mona Lisa for our times. The shriek of his iconic figure reverberates around the world, its echo...

“Why shouldn't art be pretty? There are enough unpleasant things in the world." ?Pierre-Auguste RenoirPierre-Auguste Renoir's timelessly charming paintings still reflect our ideals of happiness, love, and beauty. TASCHEN's Renoir: Painter of Happiness, the most comprehensive retrospective of his work yet published, examines the personal history and...

Sharp angles, strange forms, lurid colors, and distorted perspectives are classic hallmarks of Expressionism, the twentieth century movement that prioritized emotion over objective reality. Though particularly present in Germany and Austria, the movement's approach flourished internationally and is today hailed as one of the most influential shifts...