Modern Art

    Modern Art or Modernism is the loose term given to the succession of styles and movements in art and architecture which dominated Western culture from 19th Century up until the 1960's. Movements associated with Modern art include Impressionism, Cubism, Bauhaus, Surrealism, Futurism, Pop Art and Op Art.

    The birth of modernism and modern art can be traced back to the Industrial Revolution, a period that lasted from the 18th to the 19th century, in which rapid changes in manufacturing, transportation, and technology profoundly affected the social, economic, and cultural conditions of life in Western Europe, North America, and eventually the world. New forms of transportation, including the railroad, the steam engine, and the subway changed the way people lived, worked, and traveled, both at home and abroad, expanding their worldview and access to new ideas. As urban centers prospered, workers flocked to cities for industrial jobs, and urban populations boomed.

    There is no precise definition of the term "Modern Art", although it usually refers to works produced during the approximate period 1870-1970. Typically, modern artists rejected previous Renaissance-based traditions, in favour of new forms of artistic experimentation. They used new materials, new techniques of painting, and developed new theories about how art should reflect the perceived world, and what their functions as artists should be. In addition, entirely new types of art were developed during the period.

    According to most art critics, Modernism in painting first started with the Frenchman Edouard Manet (1832-83) and the French Impressionists. However, we have decided to include the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood as an early forerunner of modernism, for its rejection of traditional academic art forms of the 18th and early 19th century.

    The century between 1860 and 1960 encompassed so many differing styles (from realistic portraiture to whimsical Dada and Pop-Art) that it is difficult to think of any unifying theme which defined the era. But if there is anything that separates Modern artists from both the earlier traditionalists and later postmodernists, it is their self-belief that art mattered: it had real value.

    In comparison, their precedessors simply "assumed" that art had value. They didn't even think about it. After all they lived in an era governed by religious meaning. Thus they simply "followed the rules." Those who came after the Modern period (mid-60s onwards), the so-called "postmodernists", largely rejected the idea that art (or life) had any intrinsic value. This is not a defining characteristic of modern art: merely a difference between the periods.