Untitled Quiz

Modern and Contemporary Art

• Modern Art, a term with varying meanings, traditionally refers to works created roughly between 1870 and 1970.
• This period followed the dominance of Renaissance-inspired academic art promoted by European academies.
• Modernism evolved into a style increasingly considered old-fashioned, leading to contemporary art or postmodernism.
• Postmodernism and Contemporary Art prioritize medium and style over subject matter.

Historical Background of Modern Art (1870-1970)

• The 19th century experienced significant changes due to the Industrial Revolution (c.1760-1860).
• Manufacturing, transportation, and technology profoundly impacted daily life, work, and travel across Europe and America.
• Urban centers flourished as people migrated from rural areas to industrial cities, creating demand for urban architecture, design, and art.
• A new class of wealthy entrepreneurs became art patrons.

Characteristics of Modern Art

• Expressive Use of Colour: Artistic movements like Impressionism, Fauvism, and Expressionism used color expressively to exploit color in a major way, innovating this aspect of painting.
• New Techniques: Modern artists developed new methods and styles.
• Use of New Materials: Artists began incorporating unconventional elements onto their canvases, like newspaper fragments, as well as sculptors using "found objects".

Impressionism

• Monet, Renoir, and Degas were prominent Impressionist artists, making it one of the most popular art styles.
• Its success stemmed from expressive use of brushstrokes and bright, vivid colors that made paintings come alive.
• The term "Impressionism" originally was an insult, as it was viewed as unfinished or a result of laziness by artists. The use of brushstrokes resembled an action shot or photographic image.
• Impressionists focused on capturing the fleeting qualities of life (impressions, glances, gestures) and focused on the interplay of color and light.

Cubism

• Artists like Picasso and Braque created the concept of collage.
• They created works resembling compositions integrating diverse materials and elements.
• Cubism challenged traditional art by showcasing multiple views of a subject simultaneously, in contrast to earlier depiction of one single perspective on an object.
• This innovative approach challenged the traditional understanding of realism and truth, as art is viewed through a variety of perspectives
• Viewers assemble the pieces and reconstruct their vision regarding the artwork's subject in their imagination.

Pablo Picasso's "The Guitar"

• Pablo Picasso's work was one of the dominant artistic figures of the twentieth century because he kept pace with progress.
• In this artwork, he used cut-and-pasted materials like newspaper, wallpaper, paper, ink, chalk, charcoal, and pencil to create a semi-representational image.

Readymades

• Marcel Duchamp's "readymades" involved ordinary, manufactured objects, selected and modified by the artist.
• These works challenged traditional art with a profound and provocative approach for it being seen as an aggressive protest against traditional art, where ordinary objects were transformed into art by the will of the artist, rather than produced with the craft or skill of the artist.
• By repositioning or joining objects, assigning titles, and displaying them (signing and dating), ordinary objects became art pieces.

Kinetic Art

• Kinetic art refers to art from any medium that has perceivable movement by the viewer or art that depends on motion for its effect.
• Duchamp's Bicycle Wheel is an example.

Postmodern Art (1970-present)

• Postmodernism emerged in the late 1960s and 1970s as artists questioned Modernism's authenticity and originality.
• Postmodern artists often expressed doubts about progress, industrial capitalism, and large-scale artistic movements.
• The works of artists like Gerhard Richter are usually personal and introspective.

Installation Art

• Installations are environments that viewers interact with; they are often set in galleries or public spaces.
• They contain a variety of interactive elements such as video, sounds, sculptures, paintings, commercial objects, as well as anything the artist decides to incorporate.

Wrapped Buildings: Christo and Jeanne-Claude

• Christo, a Bulgarian-born artist, and his wife, Jeanne-Claude, used large-scale installations that wrapped objects or buildings.
• The concept sought to showcase aesthetic qualities of their wrapped subjects, by masking their normal function and emphasizing an aesthetic response to the art.