Modern art

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Dejeuner sur l'Herbe by Pablo Picasso
Dejeuner sur l'Herbe by Pablo Picasso
At the Moulin Rouge: Two Women Waltzing by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, 1892
At the Moulin Rouge: Two Women Waltzing by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, 1892
I and the Village by Marc Chagall, 1911
I and the Village by Marc Chagall, 1911
Fountain by Marcel Duchamp, 1917
Fountain by Marcel Duchamp, 1917
Campbell's Soup Cans 1962 Synthetic polymer paint on thirty-two canvases, Each canvas 20 x 16" (50.8 x 40.6 cm), by Andy Warhol, Museum of Modern Art, New York
Campbell's Soup Cans 1962 Synthetic polymer paint on thirty-two canvases, Each canvas 20 x 16" (50.8 x 40.6 cm), by Andy Warhol, Museum of Modern Art, New York

Modern art is a general term that can be used to embrace most of the artistic work produced from the early 17th century onward,[1] while some historians favor a later starting date, sometime in the middle of the nineteenth century.[2] (Recent art production is often called Contemporary art or Postmodern art). Modern artists experimented with new ways of seeing, and with fresh ideas about the nature of materials and functions of art. A tendency toward abstraction is characteristic of much modern art.

The notion of modern art is closely related to Modernism.

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By the late 19th century, several movements which were to be influential in modern art had begun to emerge: Impressionism and post-Impressionism, as well as Symbolism.

Influences upon these movements were varied: from exposure to Eastern decorative arts, particularly Japanese printmaking, to the colouristic innovations of Turner and Delacroix, to a search for more realism in the depiction of common life, as found in the work of painters such as Jean-François Millet. The advocates of realism stood against the idealism of the tradition-bound academic art that enjoyed public and official favor.[3] The most successful painters of the day worked either through commissions, or through large public exhibitions of their own work. There were official, government-sponsored painters' unions, while governments regularly held public exhibitions of new fine and decorative arts.

The Impressionists argued that people do not see objects, but only the light which they reflect, and therefore painters should paint in natural light rather than in studios, and should capture the effects of light in their work.[4]

Impressionist artists formed a group, Société Anonyme Coopérative des Artistes Peintres, Sculpteurs, Graveurs ("Association of Painters, Sculptors, and Engravers") which, despite internal tensions, mounted a series of independent exhibitions.[5] The style was adopted by artists in different nations, in preference to a "national" style. These factors established the view that it was a "movement". These traits — establishment of a working method integral to the art, establishment of a movement or visible active core of support, and international adoption — would be repeated by artistic movements in the Modern period in art.

Among the movements which flowered in the first decade of the 20th century were Fauvism, Cubism, Expressionism, and Futurism.

World War I brought an end to this phase, but indicated the beginning of a number of anti-art movements, such as Dada and the work of Marcel Duchamp, and of Surrealism. Artist groups like de Stijl and Bauhaus developed new ideas about the interrelation of the arts, architecture, design and art education.

Modern art was introduced to the United States with the Armory Show in 1913, and through European artists who moved to the U.S. during World War I.

It was only after World War II, though, that the U.S. became the focal point of new artistic movements.[citation needed] The 1950s and 1960s saw the emergence of Abstract Expressionism, Color field painting, Pop art, Op art, Hard-edge painting, Minimal art, Lyrical Abstraction, Postminimalism, Photorealism and various other movements. In the late 1960s and the 1970s, Land art, Performance art, Conceptual art, and other new art forms had attracted the attention of curators and critics, at the expense of more traditional media.[6] Larger installations and performances became widespread.

Around that period, a number of artists and architects started rejecting the idea of "the modern" and created typically Postmodern works.[citation needed]

By the end of the 1970s, when cultural critics began speaking of "The End of Painting" (the title of a provocative essay written in 1981 by Douglas Crimp), new media art has become a category in itself, with a growing number of artists experimenting with technological means such as video art.[7] Painting assumed renewed importance in the 1980s and 1990s, as evidenced by the rise of neo-expressionism and the revival of figurative painting.[8]

(Roughly chronological with representative artists listed.)

Modern art

For a comprehensive list see Museums of modern art.

  1. ^ Arnason 1998, 17–18; Cahoone 2003, 9; Childs 2000, 18; Kolocotroni, Goldman, and Taxidou 1998; Frascina and Harrison 1982; Hunter, Jacobus, and Wheeler 2004, 9.
  2. ^ "[Rubens] had a great following for hundreds of years before the rise of what we of today call modern art" (Pach 1948, 40). "When the moderns discovered El Greco his audacity amazed them ... El Greco's influence on modern painting is considerable. But he was a forerunner by accident" (Ozenfant 1952, 58).
  3. ^ Corinth, Schuster, Brauner, Vitali, and Butts 1996, 25.
  4. ^ Cogniat 1975, 61.
  5. ^ Cogniat 1975, 43–49.
  6. ^ Mullins, 2006, p. 14.
  7. ^ Mullins, 2006, p. 9.
  8. ^ Mullins, 2006, pp. 14–15.

  • Arnason, H. Harvard. 1998. History of Modern Art: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, Photography. Fourth Edition, rev. by Marla F. Prather, after the third edition, revised by Daniel Wheeler. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc. ISBN 0-8109-3439-6; Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall. ISBN 0131833138; London: Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0500237573 [Fifth edition, revised by Peter Kalb, Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall; London: Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2004. ISBN 013184069X]
  • Cahoone, Lawrence E. 2003. From Modernism to Postmodernism: An Anthology. Second edition. Blackwell Philosophy Anthologies 2. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, Ltd.
  • Childs, Peter. 2000. Modernism. London and New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-19647-7 (cloth) ISBN 0-415-19648-5 (pbk)
  • Cogniat, Raymond. 1975. Pissarro. New York: Crown. ISBN 0517524775.
  • Corinth, Lovis, Peter-Klaus Schuster, Lothar Brauner, Christoph Vitali, and Barbara Butts. 1996. Lovis Corinth. Munich and New York: Prestel. ISBN 3791316826 (German edition, ISBN 3791316451)
  • Crouch, Christopher. 2000. Modernism in Art Design and Architecture. New York: St. Martins Press. ISBN 0312218303 (cloth) ISBN 031221832X (pbk)
  • Dempsey, Amy. 2002. Art in the Modern Era: A Guide to Schools and Movements. New York: Harry A. Abrams. ISBN 0810941724
  • Frascina, Francis, and Charles Harrison (eds.) 1982. Modern Art and Modernism: A Critical Anthology. Published in association with The Open University. London: Harper and Row, Ltd. Reprinted, London: Paul Chapman Publishing, Ltd.
  • Hunter, Sam, John Jacobus, and Daniel Wheeler. 2004. Modern Art. Revised and Updated 3rd Edition. New York: The Vendome Press [Pearson/Prentice Hall]. ISBN 0-13-189565-6 (cloth) 0-13-150519-X (pbk)
  • Kolocotroni, Vassiliki, Jane Goldman, and Olga Taxidou (eds.). 1998. Modernism: An Anthology of Sources and Documents. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-45073-2 (cloth) ISBN 0-226-45074-0 (pbk)
  • Mueller-Yao, Marguerite. 1985. Der Einfluss der Kunst der chinesischen Kalligraphie auf die westliche informelle Malerei, Koeln, Koenig, ISBN 3-88375-051-4 (pbk)
  • Mullins, Charlotte. 2006. Painting People: Figure Painting Today. New York: D.A.P. ISBN 978-1-933045-38-2
  • Ozenfant, Amédée. 1952. Foundations of Modern Art. New York: Dover Publications. OCLC 536109
  • Pach, Walter. 1948. "The Past Lives On". American Artist 12 (November): p.40.

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