Fauvism or "French Fauvisme" was a movement in French painting that revolutionized the concept of color in modern art, flourishing in France from about 1898 to 1908.

The Fauve painters used pure, brilliant color, applied straight from the paint tube in an aggressive, direct manner to create a sense of an explosion on the canvas. They usually painted directly from nature just as the Impressionists had before them but with bold, strong colors creating an expressive reaction to their subjects.

They formally held their first exhibited in Paris in 1905, shocking visitors to the annual Salon d'Automne. One of these visitors was the critic Louis Vauxcelles, who dubbed the painters "Les Fauves" or "Wild Beasts" due to the violent nature of their works.

Fauvism was for most artists of the day, a transitional, learning stage. They never formed a movement in the strict sense of the word, but for years they would nurse a shared ambition, before each went his separate, personal way, returning to a revived interest in the vision of order and structure that would eventually lead to Cubism.