Styles such as Impressionism and Expressionism planted the roots of modern art many years ago by redefining what is beautiful and what is art. The new age artists did this by abstaining from the restrictions of École des Beaux-Arts. Examples of modern art begin with the heritage painters like Vincent van Gogh, Paul Cézanne, Georges Seurat and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec all of whom were imperative for the development of modern art itself.
INTRODUCTION TO MODERN ART
At the beginning of the 20th century, Henri Matisse and several other young artists including the pre-cubists Georges Braque, André Derain, Jean Metzinger and Maurice de Vlaminck revolutionized the Paris art world with “wild”, multi-colored, expressive landscapes and figure paintings that the critics called Fauvism (the style ofles Fauves or “the wild beasts“).
La Danse (I)
Henri Matisse (1909)
Oil on canvas Museum of Modern Art, New York
Some critics cite 1784 the year Jacques-Louis David completed his painting The Oath of the Horatii, as the beginning of modern art. However, in the words of art historian H. Harvard Arnason: “Each date has significance for the development of modern art, but none categorically mark a completely new beginning …. A gradual metamorphosis took place in the course of a hundred years.” The genre evolved acceleratingly during the last half of the 19th century and the first quarter of the 20th century, with many iconic pieces taking the art world by storm.
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 of Abstract Expressionism, Color field painting, Pop art and various other movements. Andy Warhol created his iconic Marylin Monroe and Richard Hamilton began experimenting with collages.
After the grand end of the “modern” era, postmodernism and conceptualism took their place as reigning reincarnations of examples of modern art, although conceptualism had been borne by Marcel Duchamp with his revolutionary Fountain. The latter genre has been equally praised and lauded for its vulgarity and explicit nature, combining the abstract with the practical.
EXAMPLES OF MODERN ART
Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol was an American artist who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. After a successful career as a commercial illustrator, Warhol became a renowned and sometimes controversial artist. His studio, The Factory, was a well-known gathering place that brought together distinguished intellectuals, drag queens, playwrights, Bohemian street people, Hollywood celebrities, and wealthy patrons. Warhol coined the widely used expression “15 minutes of fame“. Many of his creations are very collectible and highly valuable.
Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster) (above on the left) and Eight Elvises (below on the left) have been dubbed as some of the most expensive paintings ever sold. Rob Snowemulates his perception of Andy Warhol with a dash of realism and subtle, creamy colours.
Henri Matisse
Henri-Émile-Benoît Matisse was a French artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. Matisse is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso and Marcel Duchamp, as one of the three artists who helped to define the revolutionary developments in the plastic arts in the opening decades of the twentieth century, responsible for significant developments in painting and sculpture.
Although he was initially labelled a Fauve (wild beast), by the 1920s he was increasingly hailed as an upholder of the classical tradition in French painting. His mastery of the expressive language of colour and drawing, displayed in a body of work spanning over a half-century, won him recognition as a leading figure in modern art.
Henri Matisse, The Snail (on the left) 1953, Gouache on paper
Diagnosed with abdominal cancer in 1941, Matisse underwent surgery that left him chair and bed bound. Painting and sculpture had become physical challenges, so he turned to a new type of medium. With the help of his assistants, he began creating cut paper collages, or decoupage.
The same imagination medium is seen in Annisa Tiara Mutami’s artwork Rock Paper Scissors. The Matisse-esque artwork print will give any interior a more modern and contemporary look without sacrificing your inner playful-self. Here at Creame, we have tons of modernism and postmodernism influenced designs made for anyone and everyone who enjoys art.
Pablo Piccaso
Pablo Picasso was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, etc. Regarded as one of the greatest and most influential artists of the 20th century, he is known for co-founding the Cubist movement, the invention of constructed sculpture, the co-invention of collage, and for the wide variety of styles that he helped develop and explore.
Picasso, Henri Matisse and Marcel Duchamp are regarded as the three artists who most defined the revolutionary developments in the plastic arts in the opening decades of the 20th century, responsible for significant developments in painting, sculpture, printmaking and ceramics.
Among Picasso’s most famous examples of modern art the proto-Cubist Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907), and Guernica (1937) (shown above), a portrayal of the Bombing of Guernica by the German and Italian airforces at the behest of the Spanish nationalist government during the Spanish Civil War.
The Taiwanese artist Dailing Su shows some resemblance to Picasso’s Guernica withEarth Chaos, but in a unique graphic style that emulates emotions of affliction and dystopian equilibrium. Both works have in common the effect on the viewer — they both induce a state of distress and anxiety, wanting the viewer to dig deeper in their self-conscious and find negative emotions of their own past and learn how to deal with them.
Here at Creame, we have tons of examples of modern art, created by truly talented artists. So take a look at our own Factory, and discover what world class art we behold.
