Andre derain brief biography
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The French painter André Derain was one of the foremost practitioners of Fauvism and one of the most prominent figures of the modern movement.
In 1898 Derain abandoned his engineering studies in order to take up painting. He began to attend the Académie Carrière while making sketches at the Musée du Louvre. He was initially greatly influenced by Paul Cézanne and was later fascinated by the work of Vincent van Gogh on display at the Galerie Bernheim-Jeune. During these initial years he shared a studio with Maurice de Vlaminck in Chatou and had a close relationship with Henri Matisse, with whom he spent the summer of 1905 in Collioure, where he began to employ the pointillist technique. Under the influence of Paul Signac’s painting, Derain applied pure colours straight from the tube onto a canvas with a white ground in thick, square dabs of the brush that gave the picture surface the appearance of a mosaic. When Derain’s works were shown alongside those of Matisse, Vlaminck and oth
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Summary of André Derain
André Derain had a major role in the development of two of the most significant artistic movements of the early-20th century. He, Henri Matisse, and Maurice de Vlaminck were responsible for generating works with a totally new style which would become Fauvism and his association with Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque was integral to early Cubism. Nevertheless, his contribution as the elektrisk maskin of the ideas behind these movements is constantly debated, and some consider his work derivative. This is due in part to the fact that, continually in search of artistic meaning and attempting to create a timeless art removed from the specificity of the modern age, he experimented with different stylistic idioms. Whichever side of the Derain debate you end up on, we can all appreciate his use of expressive vibrant color, his simplification of form, and his fascination with primitive art were constants throughout his work and played a major role in the creation and prop
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He received a sound education at the College Chaptal since his father was ambitious to make him an engineer. Drawn to painting, however, Derain became Carriere's pupil and a friend of Matisse. In 1889 he met Vlaminck and together they formed the Chatou school. Derain's debt to Vlaminck is undeniably one of subject (they both had the same passion for Van Gogh), notably landscapes and suburban scenes such as The Barges, Le Pont du Pecq and The Banks ofthe Seine, but also of brushwork, applied in squares, dots and short strokes, and of colouring, as bold and contrasted as Vlaminck's but less gay and dominated by tones of green and violet; also certain methods of composition (a predilection for curves). Yet it was Matisse who effected the crystallization of Derain's talent. On one occasion, when staying at Collioure with Matisse, Derain said: "I knew moments of great doubt and it was Matisse who reassured me." Contact with his companion's work gave his own paint