First, a super brief overview of the development of modern art.
What was Popular Before Modernism Developed?
According to MoMA.org, "the birth of modernism and modern art can be traced to the Industrial Revolution." New forms of technology, norms for work, methods of travel, and standards of living all created a change in the type of art that people wanted to create and view.
Before the 19th century, artists were most often commissioned to make artwork by wealthy patrons or institutions like the church. Much of this art depicted religious or mythological scenes that told stories intended to instruct the viewer.
In the mid-1800s, the French Academy of Fine Art was considered the authority on what was good art (and what wasn't). The Academy supported carefully detailed works that were meticulously planned, posed, and staged. Artists would have models pose in the studio while they made studies (practice sketches and paintings), drew inspiration from old masters, and explored a variety of compositional options, before creating their Neoclassical & Romantic masterpieces, such as these:
During the late 1800s (19th century), artists began to take an interest in creating art that explored everyday life and personal experiences. The development of photography in 1839 also meant that it was no longer up to painters to capture realism, thus setting the stage for art movements that captured the impression and emotions of reality.
Early Modern Art Movements
I have grabbed a headline from MoMA.org for each of the following art movements, included two or three iconic pieces, and provided a bulleted list of key features and artists.
Wanted to capture the subtlety of light, shadow, and color in a scene
Visible brush strokes and dabs of unblended color give a sketchy or blurry look to work
Most Prominent Artists:
Claude Monet
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
This work seems common to us now, but it was a slap in the face to the academy and was CRAZY at the time... one art historian described the development of impressionism as a group of French artists who collectively "dropped their trousers and mooned the Academy."
Post-Impressionism (1885-1910)
Artists working independently in their own distinct styles, unified by their interest in expressing emotional and psychological responses to the world through bold colors and expressive images.
Georges Seurat, Study for "A Sunday on La Grande Jatte," (1884)
Characteristics:
Not one unified style, but several key stylistic developments:
Use of colors and textures to represent emotions or mood rather than realism
Symbolic motifs, unnatural color, obvious and painterly brushstrokes
Most Prominent Artists:
Vincent Van Gogh
Paul Gauguin (flatter textures than his peers)
Georges Seurat (pointillism)
Fauvism (1905-1910)
The "wild beasts" of the early-20th-century art world.
"Fauves" means "wild beasts" in French, and is how one art critic described the artists of this movement after an early exhibition of their work.
Henri Matisse, Portrait of Madame Matisse. The Green Line, (1905)
André Derain, L'Estaque,(1905)
Characteristics:
Arbitrary color -- not realistic, seemingly chosen at random
Obvious brushstrokes and dabs of unblended color
Heavily stylized images -- subjects may be flattened or mildly distorted
Often considered a precursor to cubism and expressionism
Most Prominent Artists:
Henri Matisse
André Derain
Expressionism/German Expressionism (1905-1925)
Amid the destruction of World War I, German and Austrian Expressionists responded to the anxiety of modern life.
Edvard Munch, “The Scream,” 1893
Franz Marc, “Blue Horse I,” 1911
Characteristics:
Goal to depict the world as it felt, not as it looked
Exaggerated angles and flattened forms, distorted views
Vivid and shocking color
Most Prominent Artists:
Edvard Munch
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
Egon Schiele (featured in the TIME article)
Cubism & Abstraction (1907-1914... and later)
Cubist artists shattered conventions of representation and perspective.
Pablo Picasso, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, 1907
Georges Braque. Man with a Guitar. Céret, summer 1911-early 1912
Pablo Picasso, Girl before a Mirror (1932)
Characteristics:
Abstracted, geometric images
"Broken" and distorted shapes and forms
Picasso, Braque, and their contemporaries developed many styles of cubism:
Analytical cubism -- more simple, often monochromatic
Synthetic cubism -- more colorful and energetic
Most Prominent Artists:
Pablo Picasso
Georges Braque
Surrealism (1916-1950)
In a revolution against a society ruled by rational thought, the Surrealists tapped into the “superior reality” of the subconscious.
Salvador Dalí. The Persistence of Memory. 1931
Rene Magritte, Son of Man (1964)
Characteristics:
Artistic, intellectual, and literary movement (art, video, sculpture, writing)
Concerned with human psychology, discovering the "subconscious mind"
Often explored dreams and stream-of-consciousness experimentation
Nonsensical, creepy, dream-like imagery
Most Prominent Artists:
Salvidor Dali
René Magritte
Meret Oppenheim
Artists & Movements Mentioned in the Article
Gustav Klimt (1862-1918)
Austrian symbolist painter
Left: Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I (1907), Middle: The Kiss (1907-08), Right: restored section of Medicine (1900-1907)
Dada
Readymades
“Readymades” are prefabricated, often mass-produced objects isolated from their intended use and elevated to the status of art by the artist choosing and designating them as such.
The Fountain, (1917) commonly attributed to Marcel Duchamp
Marcel Duchamp, Bicycle Wheel, 1951, after lost original version of 1913
Bauhaus
A school (like, an actual college-level school) and movement of art and design
