"Fauvism" is so named because the term "fauve," or "wild beast," was attributed to certain artists exhibiting at the 1905 Salon d'Automne. Their lack of realism, especially in the use of nonrepresentational colors, led to severe criticism of their work. Their movement was named after this insulting nickname.

"Fauvism" is so named because the term "fauve," or "wild beast," was attributed to certain artists exhibiting at the 1905 Salon d'Automne. Their lack of realism, especially in the use of nonrepresentational colors, led to severe criticism of their work. Their movement was named after this insulting nickname.

This image is from one of the Pop Art Movement's most influential artists, Andy Warhol. Warhol was a leader during this movement and his series of Campbell's soup cans showed the accessibility to everyday objects that could be transformed into art.

Robert Rauschenberg was a painter who helped presage the Pop Art movement when he first entered the art scene in the 1950s. His particular genre, which he called "combines," mixed Abstract Expressionist painting with found object art and photography to create paintings with sculptural elements coming out of them. These combines' use of commercial art and images from popular culture became cornerstones of the Pop Art aesthetic.

The twentieth century saw an explosion in artistic forms that both presented non-realistic images, especially Abstract Expressionism and Cubism, or depicted elements of everyday life or lower culture, as Pop Art did. In this, one of the key forerunners to these movements was the late-nineteenth-century movement known as Impressionism. Impressionism had vivid brushstrokes that made images look less realistic, and intentionally depicted scenes of everyday life, like farmwork, cafés, and parks.

Mark Rothko essentially took abstract art to a logical place, creating massive canvases that featured only a few large swaths of color. While seemingly simple, these "colorforms," Rothko's own term, feature multi-layered paint and subtle gradations. Rothko developed the style shortly after World War II, and the creation of these paintings made Rothko world famous.

Marc Chagall was born in Belarus in 1887, and worked in France and the Soviet Union, before having to leave for the United States after the Nazi occupation of Paris. Chagall had worked in various modernist styles, like cubism and expressionism, and his background made him even more prominent after World War II. Remarkably, Chagall was commissioned to create replacement stained glass windows in French churches that had been damaged by German bombing.

Joseph Lawrence's The Migration of the Negro is a sixty panel work, with each panel captioned, telling the story of the mass migration of African-Americans from the rural south to northern urban centers in the first part of the twentieth century. Lawrence stood apart for the way his work adapted more from cubism than expressionism or surrealism. Lawrence often commented that he was more influenced by his surroundings in Harlem, but that everywhere he looked in his community he saw elements of cubism.

Robert Rauschenberg was a painter who helped presage the Pop Art movement when he first entered the art scene in the 1950s. His particular genre, which he called "combines," mixed Abstract Expressionist painting with found object art and photography to create paintings with sculptural elements coming out of them. These combines' use of commercial art and images from popular culture became cornerstones of the Pop Art aesthetic.

Art Nouveau was an art style that surged to popularity in Europe and the US during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its forms and figures could be described as natural, organic, or flowing. Its general style was a very different from the bold, geometrical shapes of its successor, the Art Deco style.