Modern art

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec,At the Moulin Rouge: Two Women Waltzing,1892

Vincent van Gogh,Country road in Provence by Night1889

Paul Cézanne,The Large Bathers1898–1905

Paul Gauguin,The Spirit of the Dead keeps watch,1892

Georges Seurat,The Models1888

Modern artrefers toartisticworks produced from the 1860s to about the 1970s. It refers to thestyleandphilosophyof the art produced during that era.^p102The period coincides with theinventionof mechanical means of recording images:photographyandfilm.

The termmodern artis usually associated with art in which the traditions of the past have been thrown aside in a spirit of experimentation.^p419Modern artists experimented with new ways of seeing and with fresh ideas about the nature of materials and functions of art. A tendency towardabstractionis characteristic of much modern art, includingminimalism.More recent artistic production is often calledContemporary artorPostmodern art.

History

Modern art begins with the heritage of painters likeVincent van Gogh,Paul Cézanne,Paul Gauguin,Georges SeuratandHenri de Toulouse-Lautrecall of whom were essential for the development of modern art. At the beginning of the 20th centuryHenri Matisseand several other young artists including the pre-cubistGeorges Braque,André Derain,Raoul DufyandMaurice de Vlaminckrevolutionized the Paris art world with 'wild', multi-colored, expressive, landscapes and figure paintings that the critics calledFauvism.

Henri Matisse's two versions ofThe Dancemarked a key point in his career and in the development of modern painting.It reflected Matisse's fascination withprimitive art:the intense warm color of the figures against the cool blue-green background and the rhythmical succession of the dancing nudes convey the feelings ofemotionalliberation andhedonism.

Pablo Picassomade his firstcubistpaintings based on Cézanne's idea that all depiction of nature can be reduced to three solids:cube,sphereandcone.With the paintingLes Demoiselles d'Avignon1907, Picasso dramatically created a new and radical picture depicting a raw and primitive brothel scene with five prostitutes, violently painted women, reminiscent ofAfrican tribal masksand his own newCubistinventions.

Analytic cubismwas jointly developed by Pablo Picasso andGeorges Braque,exemplified byViolin and Candlestick, Paris,from about 1908 through 1912. Analytic cubism, the first clear manifestation of cubism, was followed bySynthetic cubism,practised by Braque, Picasso,Fernand Léger,Juan Gris,Albert Gleizes,Marcel Duchampand several other artists into the 1920s.Synthetic cubismis characterized by the introduction of different textures, surfaces,collageelements,papier colléand a large variety of merged subject matter.

Typical expressionist work by Dossena.

The notion of modern art is closely related toModernism.

"One way of understanding the relation of the terms 'modern,' 'modernity,' and 'modernism' is that... modernist art is scarcely thinkable outside the context of the modernized society of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Social modernity is the home of modernist art, even where that art rebels against it".^p13

Modern art was introduced to the United States in 1913 and through European artists who moved to the U.S. during World War I. It was only after World War II, however, that the U.S. became the focal point of new artistic movements. The 1950s and 1960s saw the emergence ofAbstract Expressionism,one of the most important of the later modernist art movements.

Auction prices

Modern art andImpressionismdominate the world art markets. Of the 20 top art prices, only one is a work of classical art. The world's highest price for a work of art isJackson Pollock'sNo. 5, 1948privately sold bySotheby'sfor (price adjusted) $151.2 million dollars. The modern paintings overtook the old masters in 1987.

Related pages

• Art Nouveau
• Avant-garde
• Modernism

Vincent van Gogh,Courtesan(1887)

Vincent van Gogh,The Blooming Plumtree (afterHiroshige)(1887)

Vincent van Gogh,Portrait of Père Tanguy(1887)