modern art

modern art

Exploring the Evolution and Impact of Modern Art

1. Introduction to Modern Art

All these works are the result of one of the avant-gardes of the 20th Century, also called the Modern Art period. They were realized mostly between 1870 and 1960 in all branches of the visual arts, pieces of music, films, animated pieces and dance, as the result of the desire to extend the limits of the previous era combined with the construction of new canons. This ambition can also be apparent in the rest of humanity’s activities at the time. When facing the quick development of science and technology, the Modern Art period wanted to put an end to an eclecticism as the last 19th Century knew, generally borrowed from the past. In an international atmosphere, they wanted an end to copying, broadening the senses to human production.

When someone enters a museum of contemporary art, they are likely to be astounded by the thousands of different objects that are presented to them. There are an infinite variety of ‘inventions’ that are out of the ordinary due to their use of special materials, their design, dispositions or their function. Generally, the creator of these works presents his or her own unique form of language that is particular to them. This tremendous diversity can even take over the museum and render it impossible to place elements which are too eccentric.

2. Key Movements and Styles in Modern Art

Dada movement designed to shock, dash to pieces while insisting on its philosophical honesty, really does look like something new under the sun. The artists of the Dada moment subjected old technique to mockery, mathematically dissecting satire, and the tongue in check. Surrealism awoke new interest in the functioning subconscious, expressing its intemperance through the medium of dreaming eyes and form. Man Ray, who during a long career was to film damn near every part of the orgiastic underground, was to catch the right girl for the cover photo. Salvador Dali, a sexy, bearded little imp, kicked through the inscrutable surface of reality with a grin and blow of the candelabra. True surrealist, Dali works surely were riddles, brightly painted, deadpan, but more humorous than fact. More so, they embodied the absurd, a dictator of tight economy, a way of creating human insecurity, in the faces and limbs of his peers usually depended on.

Cubism, committed to the rejection of appearance and classical perspective, insisted on a plane surface, believed that every point on that surface applied is a form of a function of an object seen an infinite number of ways, its shape available by shattering the concept of single view, it revealed the essence of the real object they were beneath the flames of its appearance. Although drawing on the saints of westernism, Cubists held that their movement was a cube, a new space with its own rules and equations. The inventor of cubism, the Spanish painter Picasso, explained that he was looking for the unknown, and defining as he went. Futurism’s ambition was more narrowly (but just as cheerfully) Franco-Italian. Boccioni and Marinetti possessed all their predecessors’ loathing for customary Italian habits, but possessing it they appeared to kick their sisters, grab their grandmothers, and shoot each other for absurd reasons, such as “sparkling elegance.”

Modernism is that rather slippery thing, a reaction to the many, supremely fixed and clear rules of the high nineteenth century. Some say this reaction started in France after the 1848 revolution, so chaotic that the bourgeoisie were afraid to tackle another, and ended with the wars of 1914-18, which underlined not just the Europeans’ inability to live up to the potential of the race, but the Europeans’ determination to kill and maim each other in huge, highly organized, and almost industrial quantities. The resultant loss of confidence in Western culture rattled artists, making them ranged against the established values and succeeding neoclassicism. Paul Cezanne introduced, in 1870, a form of Impressionism called structural, aimed at giving substance to realms of sensation which Impressionists had revealed as a shimmering union of dots, separating, apparently only to reassemble, in the brain of the beholder. The dots gave substance and material, and separated, apparently only to reassemble, in the brain of the beholder. The dots gave substance and material, and distance into the fare of the real.

There have been many different styles and movements within modern art, just as each of the time periods in the art history book has its own idiosyncrasies. Some of these will be discussed below, along with the leading genre artist responsible for starting them, what they were aiming to express, and what popular art works are associated with the movement.

3. Influential Modern Artists and Their Works

Fountain. The consternation caused by Fountain was considerable. The fact that the urinal was placed upside down did not escape notice. One observer asked: “What are we to believe if this is art?” Another wanted to know why the urinal was unsigned and presented as art, to which Duchamp replied that “R Mutt” did not need to sign it because he had purchased the urinal and presented it as art. Numerous critics have interpreted the work with delight, writing extensively on both the shock and profound effect of a 90-degree turn, and those creating three-dimensional art of a subject that was inspired from the Duchamp’s original work. For all that, Duchamp could never elicit the required more than 23 consecutive winning moves in ping-pong from his critics. If bare essence were the underlying criteria, an artist, who needed more than a month to create that kind of artwork, knew he was in trouble.

The influence of Marcel Duchamp. Marcel Duchamp led the way for Surrealism, Dadaism, and post-modern art. It was Duchamp who submitted for exhibition a urinal which he named “Fountain.” The avant-garde idea behind this art piece was that something was art if an artist said so. Thus, art was subjective and no longer had to represent any coherent image or meaning. Every object, no matter how banal or mundane, could be turned into art. Duchamp believed that in the art piece, the artist died and all his influence ends according to his decease. Because of multiple influences his work holds, he felt that the piece was completed only when it is viewed by the public. He was widely read as a philosopher and, in at least one instance, engaged in a long critical discussion about art and philosophy with Bertrand Russell. However, he was a modest man. “I am just an artist and have nothing to teach,” was his standard response when he was asked to expound on his work or his philosophy.

4. The Role of Technology and Globalization in Shaping Modern Art

Technology and mass communication are transforming the concept of the audience, so key in understanding the dialogue between artists and their wider context. Art is becoming less elitist, attracting a larger and more diverse following. For centuries, art has reflected immense power – from the seductive piety of religious iconography to the political authority implicit in majestic portraits. Museums therefore have power: the power to disseminate art, the power to criticize it, and the power to elaborate its perhaps multiple interpretations. The budding of new museums in the final decade of the 20th century suggests an ever-increasing role for museums in the life of concerned, participative communities: intriguing new art forms and the galloping revolution in communication technology render art ever more important in the making of our world, and also make museums, as they safeguard and present the work of today’s artists, increasingly significant.

At the outset of the 21st century, advances in technology and globalization have not only transformed the world, they have revolutionized art as well. The 20th and 21st centuries encompass one of the most breathtaking periods of change in the history of art. Art has always been a reflection of the society in which it is created and, in turn, has often mirrored the cultural changes within that society. New art forms have emerged that come at our senses and sensibilities in novel ways. Art no longer merely “imitates life” – it increasingly becomes life. Not only are new styles and techniques changing the face of art, but new ways of disseminating art – including television, film, video cassettes, and computer-generated art – are extending art from major galleries to living rooms around the world.

5. Controversies and Criticisms Surrounding Modern Art

Modern art is often also characterized by its abstract or non-figurative representation of things, people, and the environment, and is also referred to as non-representational or non-figurative. This means that if an art piece is properly understood, it should depict something meaningful only to the author of the art and not by the viewer. That is, the art form involves a secret code that only the author knows, similar to the use of a solitary, secret code in a chess game. Indeed, in most modern art pieces, there is truly an unusual way of communicating a very private message between the artist and their audience. The message is known only by the author, a conclusion also outlined earlier. To establish a valid analogy, we must elaborate on how oil paintings or sculptures can ‘transmit’ the hidden message of the artist. Some may agree that it is a precious class of agreement, drawn without the oral word, devoid of verbal meaning. Influencing the viewer of an art piece is one of the best ‘courts of appeal’ for the author’s aim.

Modern art has often been characterized by its rejection of conventional, representational styles and its revolutionary use of new techniques and instruments by artists to develop novel styles and approaches. Given the radically different perspective contemporary artists take towards their art, this also invariably leads to intense debates surrounding the originality and validity of any new work and the emergence of many controversies about both the methods of modern artists and of the art itself, with much of the debate often being characterized as a battle between innovation and tradition. By exploring how some modern artists, such as Pablo Picasso and Max Ernst, choose to express and depict their messages and concepts with the use of an imaginary artistic language, using somewhat strange forms and symbols, new artists can learn different ideas about what modern art can do. Such learning opportunities become even more important in the current digital age.