The First Twenty Years Trivia Quiz

First used in 1906 by English art critic Roger Fry, Post-Impressionism is a blanket term for a number of influential artists and movements who, from the mid-1880s to the early 1900s, fought against the perceived limitations of Impressionism and expanded its scope. Those artists had different goals and adopted different approaches and techniques, laying the groundwork for many of the avant-garde movements that flourished in the first two decades of the 20th century. Among the most significant artists of this period there are Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, Georges Seurat and Paul Cézanne, who is regarded by many as the father of Post-Impressionism.

Particularly in his mature period (from the late 1870s to his death in 1906), Cézanne tried to restore a sense of structure to painting that he felt Impressionism had lost in its later stage. To achieve this goal, he concentrated on basic shapes and saturated colours - as shown by the many still lifes he created in those years, which capture the essence of the objects depicted, lending them an almost tangible quality. On the other hand, the geometrical shapes of his landscape paintings - almost sculpted by brushstrokes of vivid colour - foreshadow the development of Cubism by dispensing with traditional perspective.

"Mont Sainte-Victoire and Château Noir" (1904, on display at Tokyo's Artizon Museum), is one of a series of about 30 works depicting a mountain ridge near Cézanne's hometown of Aix-en-Provence, in southern France.

Regarded by many as one of the movements within Post-Impressionism, Pointillism was developed by French artists Georges Seurat and Paul Signac in the 1880s. As its name (coined by art critics with a disparaging meaning) suggests, this painting technique involves creating images by applying small dots of colour in patterns, relying on the viewer's ability to blend the dots in a coherent whole, rather than blending colours on a palette before applying them on the canvas. The first, and extremely influential, example of Pointillism was the large painting "A Sunday Afternoon at the Island of La Grande Jatte", painted by Seurat between 1884 and 1886 - just a few years before his untimely death in 1891, at the age of 31.

A related style, Divisionism (also known as chromoluminarism), was championed by Paul Signac, who met Seurat in 1884 and became his close friend and collaborator. While Seurat used small, closely placed dots of colour, the Divisionists formed images with larger, almost cube-shaped brushstrokes, similar to the pieces in a mosaic - as clearly shown by the work in the photo, depicting the coastal town of Antibes in southern France, where Signac spent the last 22 years of his life. The painting dates from 1911, and is on display at the Albertina Museum in Vienna.

In the early years of the 20th century, many artists who later became associated with other avant-garde movements were influenced by Divisionism. The style became especially popular in Italy, where it contributed to the development of Futurism.

The cultural movement known as Symbolism emerged in late 19th-century France, spreading to most of Europe and the US at the turn of the 20th century. A reaction against artistic realism, Symbolist painting was an eclectic phenomenon that prized dreams, mystical and religious experiences, eroticism and the unconscious over the materialistic values of bourgeois society. As such, it encompassed a wide variety of movements and styles - among which there were the groups known as Sezession (Secession) formed in Munich, Vienna and Berlin in the 1890s. The best-known of these, the Vienna Secession, was founded in 1897 by a group of artists that included Gustav Klimt.

Though Klimt had already left the Vienna Secession when he painted "The Kiss" (1907-1908), this iconic painting makes use of many of the elements that distinguished Klimt's work with the group - in particular the themes of love and intimacy and the influence of Byzantine and Eastern art, with their lavish use of gold and silver. Though often associated with the Art Nouveau movement that was holding sway in Europe and beyond at that time, Klimt developed his own unique style, which proved a major influence for artists throughout the 20th century and later.

One of the world's most frequently reproduced paintings, "The Kiss" is part of the collection of the Österreichische Galerie Belvedere in Vienna.

More than a movement, Naïve art is a style of visual art created by someone who lacks formal artistic training. In the context of early 20th century art, it is mainly associated with French painter Henri Rousseau, a self-taught artist whose highly individual work was discovered by none other than Pablo Picasso just a couple of years before Rousseau's death in 1910. Many of Rousseau's works depict striking jungle scenes, although the artist had no direct experience of that particular environment, as he never left his native France. His inspiration mainly came from books and frequent visits to botanical gardens, as well as tales told by soldiers who had participated in the Second Franco Mexican War (1861-1867).

The painting in the photo, titled "Fight Between a Tiger and a Buffalo" (1908, on display at the Cleveland Museum of Art), provides an outstanding example of Naïve or Primitive art. With its nearly flat rendition of the jungle's lush vegetation, the exaggerated size and bright colours of the flowers - which seem to dominate the painting - and the stylized portrayal of the two titular animals, the painting may have appeared childish and unsophisticated to art critics at the time. However, Picasso's interest in Rousseau's work revealed this unique artist's genius to a slew of avant-garde artists, who took Rousseau's influence to heart.

The word "expressionist" to denote a style of painting that depicts subjective emotional responses to reality may have been used as early as the mid-19th century. However, the avant-garde artistic and literary movement that bears this name originated in Northern Europe in the early years of the 20th century. 16th-century Mannerist painter El Greco, with his distinctive use of colour and dramatically elongated figures, is widely regarded as one of the movement's precursors. Two groups in particular are associated with German Expressionism. The earliest of the two, Die Brücke (The Bridge), was founded in Dresden in 1905, while the second, Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider), was founded in Munich in 1911 by a group of artists that included Wassily Kandinsky (one of whose paintings gave the group its name), Paul Klee and Franz Marc.

The mature works of Franz Marc, who died in 1916 at the Battle of Verdun, at the age of 36, are mainly focused on animals, particularly horses. The painting in the photo, "Blue Horse I" (on display at the Lenbachhaus in Munich), was created in 1911, and shows a more naturalistic depiction of the horse compared to some of his later works, which are strongly influenced by Cubism and Futurism. The use of bright, primary colours and simple, almost three-dimensional shapes are among the trademarks of his work: in particular, Marc identified the colour blue with masculinity and spirituality, and yellow with femininity and joy. Though Marc was condemned by the Nazis as a "degenerate artist", most of his output survived WWII.

The term Fauvism comes from the French word "fauve", meaning wild beast - a name given with disparaging intent by art critic Louis Vauxcelles after he attended the first of the movement's three exhibitions, the Salon d'Automne held in Paris in 1905. This less-than-complimentary sobriquet referred to the group's use of strong, pure colours and seemingly random brushwork, inspired by the work of Post-Impressionist artists such as Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin and Paul Cézanne. This short-lived but highly influential group, formed at the end of the 19th century at Paris' École des Beaux-Arts under the tutelage of noted Symbolist painter Gustave Moreau, included Henri Matisse and André Derain (generally regarded as its leaders), as well as a number of lesser-known artists. Though many critics remained hostile to the Fauvists' work, even comparing it to "a pot of paint flung in the face of the public", others were more receptive.

The painting in the photo, a portrait of Matisse's wife, Amélie, generally known by the title of "The Green Stripe", embodies many of the essential features of Fauvism, in particular its bold, non-traditional use of colour - like the vertical green stripe running through the middle of Madame Matisse's face. Dating from 1905, the work was created during Matisse's stay in the town of Collioure in southern France, where he also painted a number of other works (such as "Woman With a Hat", also depicting Amélie) considered foundational for the Fauvist movement. "The Green Stripe" is part of the collection of the Statens Museum for Kunst in Copenhagen.

The origins of the artistic and social avant-garde movement known as Futurism lie in the Manifesto written by Italian poet and editor Filippo Tommaso Marinetti in 1909. When the article was published on the French newspaper "Le Figaro" on 20 February of that year, the movement's ideals - based on an unrelenting hatred for the past and the unconditional embrace of modernity - were brought to international attention. The Manifesto's glorification of technology and speed - embodied by cars, airplanes and industrial cities - represented a drastic break with classicist tradition, while its praise of war, anarchy and violence inevitably led Marinetti and some of his followers to support Fascism, which they hoped would modernize Italy. On the other hand, the branch of Futurism that developed in Russia in the same period was close to the communist ideals of the October Revolution.

The beginnings of Futurist art were influenced by Divisionism and Cubism, but then artists such as Umberto Boccioni, Giacomo Balla and Gino Severini developed their own individual styles, depicting modern urban scenes and exploring colour and dynamism. Gino Severini, who spent much of his life between Paris and Rome, focused on the portrayal of dancers and urban scenes rather than machines. "Le Boulevard", painted in 1911, renders a lively city scene at night through the use of vivid colours and jagged, geometrical shapes. The painting is part of the Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art in London.

Cubism may be the most readily recognizable of all early 20th-century art styles due to its unique approach to the representation of reality - in which objects and human figures are broken up and reassembled, creating abstract, sharply geometrical shapes. Like other artistic and cultural movements of that time, Cubism had its beginnings in Paris in the early 1910s, with the partnership between Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. They were soon joined by a number of other artists, such as Jean Metzinger, Juan Gris and Fernand Léger, who also produced their own personal versions of Cubism. A major influence on the movement was Post-Impressionist painter Paul Cézanne's depiction of three-dimensional forms, particularly evident in his landscape paintings.

Juan Gris' portrait of his fellow Spaniard Pablo Picasso (1912, on display at the Art Institute of Chicago) exemplifies the Cubists' approach to the depiction of the human form, with the subject's face turned into an assemblage of sharp, angular shapes. However, unlike Picasso and Braque, who favoured neutral shades and often created monochromatic compositions, Gris is noted for his use of bright, bold colour combinations.

Until nearly the end of the 19th century, painters mainly concentrated their efforts on the realistic portrayal of people, objects and places. The rise of abstract art reflects the pivotal societal and cultural changes that were occurring at the turn of the 20th century. Artists increasingly focused on compositions that experimented with colour, form and line without explicit visual references to the real world. Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky, whose work was profoundly influenced by the currents of mysticism and spiritualism that were widespread in the Russian Empire at the time, was one of the undisputed pioneers of abstract art in the early years of the new century.

Born in Moscow, Kandinsky moved to Munich in the late 1890s, where he was one of the founders of the group Der Blaue Reiter, which was named for one of his paintings. "Color Study, Squares with Concentric Circles" (1913, part of the collection of the Lenbachhaus in Munich), is one of his best-known works, part of a series of paintings in which Kandinsky explored the relationship between colour and form as preparation for his larger abstract canvases. The washes of watercolour applied to the concentric rings blend into each other and subtly alter each shape.

The style known as metaphysical art ("arte metafisica" in Italian) originated in 1910s Italy from the early work of painters Giorgio De Chirico and Carlo Carrà. While the latter was originally involved with the Futurist movement, De Chirico (who first used the definition during his stay in Paris between 1910 and 1915) began his career by painting scenes inspired by his native Greece, which later developed in haunting, dreamlike depictions of empty cityscapes inhabited by statues or eerie-looking mannequins. Not surprisingly, metaphysical art was extremely influential in the development of Surrealism in the late 1920s.

Painted in 1916, "The Disquieting Muses" ("Le muse inquietanti") is one of De Chirico's most famous works. The titular Muses are at the front of the painting, dressed in classical clothing and surrounded by various objects; a statue of Apollo, the patron god of the Muses, stands in the background before a depiction of the Castello Estense in Ferrara (where De Chirico was living at the time). These three characters' eyeless mannequin heads reinforces the silence and disturbing stillness of the scene. The painting is characterized by a distinctive colour scheme, which juxtaposes the artist's trademark brick-red with darker, cooler hues, and its idiosyncratic use of reverse perspective.

De Chirico made many replicas of his works, and this version of "The Disquieting Muses" (in the collection of the University of Iowa Museum of Art) was painted in 1947.