Fauvism

            Fauvism (which is French for "wild beast") is a term that art critics hurled at the painters whose art they neither liked nor understood when they first viewed it in art galleries. It was a short-lived art movement (1905-1908) that was adopted by a group of French painters: Henri Matisse, George Roualt, Claude Derain, Maurice de Vlamink, Georges Braque, Raoul Dufy, Othon Friesz, Albert Marquet, and Kees van Dongen (a Dutch painter living in Paris).
             The Fauves' influence was international and is considered as having been crucial to Twentieth Century art. It was characterized by a bold distortion of forms and exciting color, which was what we call an Expressionist style. Only Matisse continued to experiment with it after 1908; the other painters launched into their own unique visions, such as Cubism, the movement immediately following Fauvism. The Impressionist and Post-Impressionist movement in the latter part of the Nineteenth Century preceded it.