PAINT MOVEMENTS

In this series of articles, I will give you, dear friends and readers, a simplified idea of the main styles and movements of painting.

(9) Figurative art

From the period of drawing traces on the walls of prehistoric caves, until the early twentieth century, art has always had a figurative dimension. The figurative artist seeks to represent and imitate what he sees, realistically or otherwise. The figurative artist tries to reproduce daily scenes representing nature, objects, man and animals.

These prehistoric rock paintings are in Manda Guéli Cave in the Ennedi Mountains, Chad, Central Africa.

There are several figurative artistic styles:
Realistic Figurative: like Renaissance, Baroque, Realism or Hyperrealism. With these styles the artists represent in their works the real.

“Ariadne, Venus and Bacchus”-TINTORETTO (1518-94)

c.1576 (oil on canvas)

Modified Figurative: like expressionism, symbolism, impressionism or surrealism …, they are not so rigorous in their representation of reality.

“Memory of the Garden at Etten (Ladies of Arles)”- Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890)

1888 (oil on canvas)

Figurative distorted: as in Cubism and Pop art, which targets a wide audience, and represents the real world in a way reinterpreted subjectively by the artist.