20th-Century Avant-Garde Movements (Cubism, Surrealism, Expressionism, Abstraction)
What the exam tests
This domain asks you to identify avant-garde movements by their formal strategies and their theories of art, not by chronology alone. Madrid PAU questions often present a Cubist still life, an Expressionist woodcut, a Surrealist object, or an abstract canvas and ask you to justify the label. You need to connect manifestos, techniques, and historical context - especially the First World War and Freudian psychoanalysis.
Core rules and concepts
- Cubism. Picasso and Braque replace single-point perspective with multiple viewpoints; analytic Cubism fragments form into faceted planes and muted ochre/grey; synthetic Cubism reintroduces colour, collage, and papiers collés. The grid, stencilled letters, and shallow space signal modernity.
- Expressionism. Die Brücke and Der Blaue Reiter use distorted form, non-natural colour, and violent brushwork for subjective emotion. Kirchner's street scenes, Kandinsky's improvisations, and the woodcut revival are key. It is not simply "sad art".
- Abstraction. Kandinsky's non-objective painting, Mondrian's neoplastic grid, and Malevich's Suprematism each define abstraction differently: spiritual expression, universal order, and pure feeling. Constructivism and Bauhaus link abstraction to design and politics.
- Surrealism. Breton's manifesto (1924) draws on dreams and the unconscious; automatism (Masson, Miró) and veristic illusion (Dalí, Magritte) are two routes. Objects such as Meret Oppenheim's fur teacup test the boundary between image and thing.
Worked example
Prompt: "Explain why Guernica is both Cubist and politically engaged." Reasoning: identify the fragmented bodies, multiple viewpoints, and compressed interior/exterior space as Cubist inheritance; note the monochrome palette and newspaper-like texture as references to reportage; connect the bull, horse, and lamp to Spanish iconography and the bombing of 26 April 1937. Then explain the commission for the Paris International Exposition and Picasso's exile. The mark comes from linking formal disruption to historical violence, not from listing symbols.
Traps that cost marks
- Calling every abstract work "Cubist"; Cubism is a specific analytic/synthetic method.
- Treating Surrealism as fantasy illustration; automatism and the unconscious are central.
- Ignoring the difference between Expressionist colour as emotion and Fauvist colour as structure.
- Forgetting the Russian avant-garde and Bauhaus in abstraction.
- Using "avant-garde" as a synonym for "modern" without naming the group or manifesto.