ELI5: What Is Fauvism?

Fauvism is a style of painting where artists use bright, wild, and unnatural colors to show how a scene feels rather than how it actually looks in real life.

Imagine you are coloring in a coloring book. Usually, you would color the sky blue, the grass green, and the sun yellow. But what if you felt super happy and energetic, so you colored the sky bright orange, the grass hot pink, and your family dog purple? That is exactly what the Fauvist painters did!

In everyday life, Fauvism is like:

• Wearing mismatched clothes: Imagine wearing a neon-yellow shirt with bright red pants and sparkly green shoes simply because those colors make you feel joyful, even if the clothes do not "match."


• Using fun photo filters: When you take a picture on a phone and put a crazy filter on it that turns your friend's face blue and the trees purple, you are making art just like a Fauvist.


• Flavoring candy: In real life, water is clear, but a blue raspberry drink is bright neon blue so that it feels exciting and fun to drink.

Famous artists like Henri Matisse were not trying to draw things incorrectly; they just realized that color could express strong emotions. Instead of painting a boring, everyday street with gray sidewalks, a Fauvist artist would paint the street bright red to show that the city feels alive, noisy, and full of energy.

So, whenever you see a picture where the colors are completely wild and different from reality, you are looking at Fauvism!