MODERN ART

In all of human history, art has mirrored life

in the community, society, and the world in
all its colors, lines, shapes, and forms. The
same has been true in the last two
centuries, with world events and global
trends being reflected in the art
movements.
 MODERN ART
The decades from 1900 to the present have
seen the human race living in an
evershrinkingplanet.The20th century saw a
boom in the interchange of ideas, beliefs,
values, and lifestyles that continues to bring
the citizens of the world closer together.
 MODERN ART
Technological breakthroughs
From the Industrial Revolution of the late 1800s, the world
zoomed into the Electronic Age in the mid-1900s, then
into the present Cyberspace Age. In just over 100 years,
humans went from hand-cranked telephones to hands-free
mobile phones, from the first automobiles to inter-
planetary space vehicles, from local radio broadcasting to
international news coverage via satellite, from
vaccinations against polio and smallpox to laser surgery.
 MODERN ART
Social, political, and environmental changes
There has been migration across the globe, allowing different
cultures, languages, skills, and even physical characteristics of
different races to intermingle like never before. The 20th century
also suffered through two World Wars, and several regional wars
in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. There was the Great
Depression of the 1930s, and the Asian economic crisis of the
1990s. Considered the modern-day plague, AIDS has afflicted
millions the world over, while millions more continue to live in
hunger, disease, and poverty. Environmental destruction has also
become a major concern.
 MODERN ART
Effects on the world of art
The art movements of the late 19th century to the 20th
century captured and expressed all these and more.
Specifically, these were the movements known as
impressionism and expressionism. While earlier periods of
art had a quite set conventions as to the style, technique,
and treatment of their subjects, impressionists and
expressionists conveyed their ideas and feelings in bold,
innovative ways. These were the exciting precursors of the
modern art of the 21st century.
 IMPRESSIONISM (Origins of the
 was an art movement that emerged in the second half of the
Movement)
19th century among a group of Paris-based artists. The
duration of the impressionist movement itself was quite
short, less than 20 years from 1872 to the mid-1880s. But it
had a tremendous impact and influence on the painting styles
that followed, such as neo-impressionism, post-
impressionism, fauvism, and cubism—and even the artistic
styles and movements of today.
 The name impressionism was coined from the title of a work
by French painter Claude Monet, Impression, soleil levant (in
English, Impression, Sunrise).
 IMPRESSIONISM
The term precisely captured what this group
of artists sought to represent in their works:
the viewer’s momentary “impression” of an
image. It was not intended to be clear or
precise, but more like a fleeting fragment of
reality caught on canvas, sometimes in mid-
motion, at other times awkwardly positioned
—just as it would be in real life.
Impression, Sunrise Claude Monet, 1872 Oil on canvas
 The Influence of Delacroix
As with all emerging art movements, impressionism owed
its inspiration to earlier masters. One major influence was
the work of French painter Eugène Delacroix. Delacroix
was greatly admired and emulated by the early
impressionists—specifically for his use of expressive
brushstrokes, his emphasis on movement rather than on
clarity of form, and most of all his study of the optical
effects of color.
The painting is loosely based on a fictional scene from
Dante’s Inferno, showing Dante and the poet Virgil crossing
hell’s River Styx, while tormented souls struggle to climb
The Barque of Dante Eugène Delacroix, 1822 Oil on canvas
 In particular, Delacroix’s painting, The Barque of Dante, contained a then
revolutionary technique that would profoundly influence the coming impressionist
movement. And it involved something as simple as droplets of water.
 Impressionism: A Break from Past Painting Traditions
 Here were several areas in which impressionist artists moved away from
the established practices of art at that time. These involved their use of
color, choice of subject matter and setting, and technique for
capturing light and conveying movement.
Color and Light
 The painting conventions and techniques of earlier art periods were very
much concerned with line, form, and composition. In contrast, the
impressionists painted with freely brushed colors that conveyed more of a
visual effect than a detailed rendering of the subject. They used short
“broken” strokes that were intentionally made visible to the viewer. They
also often placed pure unmixed colors side by side, rather than blended
smoothly or shaded. The result was a feeling of energy and intensity, as
the colors appeared to shift and move—again, just as they do in reality.
“Everyday” Subjects
Impressionists also began to break away from the creation
of formally posed portraits and grandiose depictions of
mythical, literary, historical, or religious subjects. They
ventured into capturing scenes of life around them,
household objects, landscapes and seascapes, houses,
cafes, and buildings. They presented ordinary people
seemingly caught off-guard doing everyday tasks, at work or
at leisure, or doing nothing at all. And they were not made
to look beautiful or lifelike, as body parts could be distorted
and facial features merely suggested by a few strokes of the
brush.
Painting Outdoors
 The location in which the impressionists painted was also different.
Previously, still lifes, portraits, and landscapes were usually painted inside a
studio. However, the impressionists found that they could best capture the
ever-changing effects of light on color by painting outdoors in natural light.
This gave their works a freshness and immediacy that was quite a change
from the stiffer, heavier, more planned paintings of earlier masters.
Open Composition
 Impressionistpainting also moved away from the formal,
structured approach to placing and positioning their subjects.
They experimented with unusual visual angles, sizes of objects
that appeared out of proportion, off-center placement, and
empty spaces on the canvas.
By the 1870s, the stage was set for the
emergence of the next major art
movement in Europe, impressionism. It
started with a group of French painters—
that included Edouard Manet, Claude
Monet, Auguste Renoir—and eventually
spread to other countries, such as Italy,
Germany, and The Netherlands.
 Edouard Manet (1832-1883)
was one of the first 19th century artists
to depict modern-life subjects. He was
a key figure in the transition from
realism to impressionism, with a
number of his works considered as
marking the birth of modern art.
 Claude Monet (1840-1926)
was one of the founders of the impressionist
movement along with his friends Auguste
Renoir, Alfred Sisley, and Frédéric Bazille. He
was the most prominent of the group; and is
considered the most influential figure in the
movement. Monet is best known for his
landscape paintings, particularly those
depicting his beloved flower gardens and water
lily ponds at his home in Giverny.
 Auguste Renoir (1841-1919)
was one of the central figures of the
impressionist movement. His early works
were snapshots of real life, full of
sparkling color and light. By the mid-1880s,
however, Renoir broke away from the
impressionist movement to apply a more
disciplined, formal technique to portraits
of actual people and figure paintings.
 POST-IMPRESSIONISM
After the brief yet highly influential period of
impressionism, an outgrowth movement known as post-
impressionism emerged. The European artists who were at
the forefront of this movement continued using the basic
qualities of the impressionists before them—the vivid colors,
heavy brush strokes, and true-to-life subjects. However,
they expanded and experimented with these in bold new
ways, like using a geometric approach, fragmenting objects
and distorting people’s faces and body parts, and applying
colors that were not necessarily realistic or natural.
 Paul Cézanne (1839–1906)
was a French artist and post-impressionist
painter. His work exemplified the
transition from late 19th-century
impressionism to a new and radically
different world of art in the 20th century—
paving the way for the next revolutionary
art movement known as expressionism.
 Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890)
was a post-impressionist painter from The
Netherlands. His works were remarkable for
their strong, heavy brush strokes, intense
emotions, and colors that appeared to almost
pulsate with energy. Van Gogh’s striking style
was to have a far-reaching influence on 20th
century art, with his works becoming among the
most recognized in the world.
Expressionism: A Bold New Movement
 In the early 1900s, there arose in the Western art world a
movement that came to be known as expressionism.
Expressionist artists created works with more emotional
force, rather than with realistic or natural images. To
achieve this, they distorted outlines, applied strong colors,
and exaggerated forms. They worked more with their
imagination and feelings, rather than with what their eyes
saw in the physical world.
 Among the various styles that arose within the expressionist
art movements were:  neoprimitivism  fauvism 
dadaism  surrealism  social realism
 1.)Neoprimitivism
was an art style that incorporated elements from
the native arts of the South Sea Islanders and the
wood carvings of African tribes which suddenly
became popular at that time. Among the Western
artists who adapted these elements was Amedeo
Modigliani, who used the oval faces and elongated
shapes of African art in both his sculptures and
paintings.
 2.)Fauvism
was a style that used bold, vibrant
colors and visual distortions. Its name
was derived from les fauves (“wild
beasts”), referring to the group of
French expressionist painters who
painted in this style. Perhaps the most
known among them was Henri Matisse.
 3.)Dadaism
 was a style characterized by dream fantasies, memory
images, and visual tricks and surprises—as in the paintings of
Marc Chagall and Giorgio de Chirico below. Although the
works appeared playful, the movement arose from the pain
that a group of European artists felt after the suffering
brought by World War I. Wishing to protest against the
civilization that had brought on such horrors, these artists
rebelled against established norms and authorities, and
against the traditional styles in art. They chose the child’s
term for hobbyhorse, dada, to refer to their new “non-
style.”
 4.)Surrealism
was a style that depicted an illogical,
subconscious dream world beyond the
logical, conscious, physical one. Its name
came from the term “super realism,” with
its artworks clearly expressing a departure
from reality—as though the artists were
dreaming, seeing illusions, or experiencing
an altered mental state.
 5.)Social Realism
 The movement known as social realism expressed the artist’s role
in social reform. Here, artists used their works to protest against
the injustices, inequalities, immorality, and ugliness of the
human condition. In different periods of history, social realists
have addressed different issues: war, poverty, corruption,
industrial and environmental hazards, and more—in the hope of
raising people’s awareness and pushing society to seek reforms.
 Ben Shahn’s Miners’ Wives, for example, spoke out against the
hazardous conditions faced by coal miners, after a tragic accident
killed 111 workers in Illinois in 1947, leaving their wives and
children in mourning.
Created in the mid-1900s, Guernica
combined artistic elements developed in
the earlier decades with those still to
come. It made use of the exaggeration,
distortion, and shock technique of
expressionism. At the same time, it had
elements of the emerging style that
would later be known as cubism.
 Abstractionism
 Another group of artistic styles emerged at the same time as the
expressionist movement. It had the same spirit of freedom of
expression and openness that characterized life in the 20th
century, but it differed from expressionism in certain ways. This
group of styles was known as abstractionism.
 The abstractionist movement arose from the intellectual points of
view in the 20th century. In the world of science, physicists were
formulating a new view of the universe, which resulted in the
concepts of space-time and relativity. This intellectualism was
reflected even in art. While expressionism was emotional,
abstractionism was logical and rational. It involved analyzing,
detaching, selecting, and simplifying.
 Abstractionism
In previous centuries, works of art were a reflection,
in one way or another, of the outside world. In 20th
century abstractionism, natural appearances became
unimportant. Artists reduced a scene into geometrical
shapes, patterns, lines, angles, textures and swirls of
color. The resulting works ranged from
representational abstractionism, depicting
stillrecognizable subjects (as in the artwork on the
left), to pure abstractionism, where no recognizable
subject could bediscerned.
 Abstractionism
Grouped under abstractionism are the
following art styles:
 cubism
 futurism
 mechanical style
 non objectivism
 1.)Cubism
 The cubist style derived its name from the cube, a three
dimensional geometric figure composed of strictly measured
lines, planes, and angles. Cubist artworks were, therefore, a
play of planes and angles on a flat surface. Foremost among
the cubists was Spanish painter/sculptor Pablo Picasso (right).
 In earlier styles, subjects were depicted in a three-
dimensional manner, formed by light and shadow. In contrast,
the cubists analyzed their subjects’ basic geometrical forms,
and broke them up into a series of planes. Then they re-
assembled these planes, tilting and interlocking them in
different ways.
 2.)Futurism
The movement known as futurism began in Italy
in the early 1900s. As the name implies, the
futurists created art for a fast-paced, machine-
propelled age. They admired the motion, force,
speed, and strength of mechanical forms. Thus,
their works depicted the dynamic sensation of
all these—as can be seen in the works of Italian
painter Gino Severini.
 3.)Mechanical Style
 As a result of the futurist movement, what became known
as the mechanical style emerged. In this style, basic forms
such as planes, cones, spheres, and cylinders all fit
together precisely and neat lyin their appointed places.
 This can be seen in the works of Fernand Léger. Mechanical
parts such as crankshafts, cylinder blocks, and pistons are
brightened only by the use of primary colors. Otherwise,
they are lifeless. Even human figures are mere outlines,
rendered purposely without expression.
 4.)Non Objectivism
The logical geometrical conclusion of abstractionism came in
the style known as non objectivism. From the very term
“non-object,” works in this style did not make use of figures
or even representations of figures. They did not refer to
recognizable objects or forms in the outside world.
Lines, shapes, and colors were used in a cool, impersonal
approach that aimed for balance, unity, and stability. Colors
were mainly black, white, and the primaries (red, yellow,
and blue). Foremost among the nonobjectivists was Dutch
painter Piet Mondrian.
 Abstract Expressionism
The result was the establishment of what
came to be known as “The New York School”—
as opposed to “The School of Paris” that had
been very influential in Europe. The daring
young artists in this movement succeeded in
creating their own synthesis of Europe’s cubist
and surrealist styles. Their style came to be
known as abstract expressionism.
 1.)Action Painting
One form of abstract expressionism was seen in the
works of Jackson Pollock. These were created through
what came to be known as “action painting.”
Pollock worked on huge canvases spread on the floor,
splattering, squirting, and dribbling paint with
(seemingly) no pre-planned pattern or design in mind.
The total effect is one of vitality, creativity, “energy
made visible.” Pollock’s first one-man show in New York
in 1943 focused worldwide attention on abstract
expressionism for the first time.
 2.)Color Field Painting
In contrast to the vigorous gestures of the
action painters, another group of artists who
came to be known as “color field painters”
used different color saturations (purity,
vividness, intensity) to create their desired
effects. Some of their works were huge
fields of vibrant color—as in the paintings of
Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman.
Others took the more intimate “pictograph” approach, filling the canvas with repeating picture
fragments or symbols—as in the works of Adolph Gottlieb and Lee Krasner.
 Neodadaism, Pop Art, Op Art
 Like the dadaist movement that arose after World War I, the neodadaism of the
1960s wanted to make reforms in traditional values. It also made use of
commonplace, trivial, even nonsensical objects. But unlike the angry, serious
tone of the original dadaists, the neodadaists seemed to enjoy nonsense for its
own sake and simply wanted to laugh at the world.
 Their works ranged from paintings, to posters, to collages, to three-dimensional
“assemblages” and installations. These made use of easily recognizable objects
and images from the emerging consumer society—as in the prints of Andy Warhol.
Their inspirations were the celebrities, advertisements, billboards, and comic
strips that were becoming commonplace at that time. Hence the term pop (from
“popular”) art emerged.
 Roy Lichtenstein (1923-1997) was an American pop artist. During the 1960s, along
with Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, and James Rosenquist among others, he became
a leading figure in this new art movement.
 Conceptual Art
 Asthe term implies, conceptual art was that which arose in the mind
of the artist, took concrete form for a time, and then disappeared
(unless it was captured in photo or film documentation).
Conceptualists questioned the idea of art as objects to be bought and
sold. Instead, they brought their artistic ideas to life temporarily,
using such unusual materials as grease, blocks of ice, food, even just
plain dirt.
A key difference between a conceptual artwork and a traditional
painting or sculpture is that the conceptualist’s work often requires
little or no physical craftsmanship. Much of the artist’s time and effort
goes into the concept or idea behind the work, with the actual
execution then being relatively quick and simple. An example is this
conceptual art piece by Kosuth.
 Op Art
 Another movement that emerged in the 1960s was optical art
or “op art.” This was yet another experiment in visual
experience—a form of “action painting,” with the action taking
place in the viewer’s eye. In op art, lines, spaces, and colors
were precisely planned and positioned to give the illusion of
movement.
 As the eye moved over different segments of the image,
perfectly stable components appeared to shift back and forth,
sometimes faster, sometimes slower as the brain responded to
the optical data. Viewers experienced sensations varying from
discomfort to disorientation to giddiness.
 Contemporary Arts Forms:
Installation Art and Performance Art
The 20th century also saw the rise of new art forms
aside from the traditional ones of painting and
sculpture. Among these were installation art and
performance art. Installation art makes use of space
and materials in truly innovative ways, while
performance art makes use of the human body,
facial expressions, gestures, and sounds. Both speak
powerfully about contemporary issues, challenging
their viewers to respond.
 Installation Art
is a contemporary art form that uses sculptural
materials and other media to modify the way the
viewer experiences a particular space. Usually life
Contemporary Arts Forms: Installation Art and
Performance Art
installation art is not necessarily confined to gallery
spaces. It can be constructed or positioned in
everyday public or private spaces, both indoor and
outdoor.
 Materials used in today’s installation art range from everyday items and
natural materials to new media such as video, sound, performance, and
computers.
 It may be said that primitive forms of this art have existed since prehistoric
times. However, this genre was not regarded as a distinct category until
the mid-20th century and only came to prominence in the 1970s. The
installation artist’s manipulation of space and materials has also been
called “environmental art,” “project art,” and “temporary art.”
 Essentially, installation art creates an entire sensory experience for the
viewer. Many installations are of a size and structure that the viewer can
actually walk through them, and experience varying facets of the work in
stages. Some works allow the viewer to touch or feel, hear, and smell
elements that the artist has incorporated in the installation. Thus, there is
a strong parallel between installation art and theater. Both play to an
“audience” that is expected to interact with and be affected by the
sensory experience that surrounds them.
 Performance Art
is a form of modern art in which the actions of an
individual or a group at a particular place and in a
particular time constitute the work. It can happen
anywhere, at any time, or for any length of time. It
can be any situation that involves four basic
elements:  time  space  the performer’s body  a
relationship between performer and audience.
In performance art, the performer himself or herself
is the artist.
 Performance Art
 Performance art does include such activities as theater, dance, music,
mime, juggling, and gymnastics. However, the term is usually reserved
for more unexpected, avant garde, and unorthodox activities intended
to capture the audience’s attention. The performer himself or herself is
the artist, rather than an actor playing a character as in a stage play.
 The performance venue may range from an art gallery or museum to a
theater, café, bar, or street corner. The performance itself rarely
follows a traditional storyline or plot. It might be a series of intimate
gestures, a grand theatrical act, or the performer remaining totally still.
It may last for just a few minutes or extend for several hours. It may be
based on a written script or spontaneously improvised as the
performance unfolds.