What is the Avant-Garde? Art Movements & Styles

The ’avant-garde’ is often used to describe something new or cutting-edge in art but where did the term come from and what does it mean? Who are the avant-garde and what did they do to become to be known as such? Emerging in the mid-19th century, the avant-garde received their name for their fighting spirit. Avant-garde is French for ‘vanguard’; a military term used to describe the front-line of an army moving into battle. Artists were compared with these soldiers, as they were often a group force, challenging long-established concepts and ideas about art and fighting an entrenched establishment. The early avante-garde artists such as Courbet, Gauguin and Kirchner were regarded with great hostility, because they pushed accepted boundaries. As these establishments denied the work public exposure, the avant-garde fought this censorship of their art. Find out more about the avant garde: Facebook: Twitte