Modern Art Movements - 20th century Art History

The term Op Art arose in the early 1960s from an article that appeared in Time magazine which was written in 1964 about a new wave of painting. Time magazine referred to the new wave as Op art and how it manipulated the eye. Time magazine gave the term 'Op Art' to paintings that focused on manipulation of the eye. Op Art became very popular with intellectuals and throughout social circles and became a symbol of the 1960s...

Dadaism was born out of a rebellion from artists and poets. In its prime from the period of 1916 to 1920. Dadaism was about anti art in the sense of rebelling against the former traditional ideals of art. The Dada artists, musicians, poets and performers, many of them world war 1 veterans had become cynical of humanity after witnessing the extent of what man can inflict upon one another and had become disillusioned by art...

Conceptual Art was about embracing the ideas and concepts of art and about free thinking. An example of conceptual art from the height of the movement is Joseph Kosuth's 'One and Three Chairs'. The exhibit includes a picture of a chair, enlarged dictionary definition of the word 'chair' and a real chair. The picture of the chair is the same size as the real chair. The concept behind the exhibit is the relationship between...

Cubism and the Cubists existed for
approximately eighteen years.
Cubism was a breakthrough in art
the concept and ideas that artists
and viewers approached when painting
or viewing art. Cubism inspired a whole
new thought process which lead to
new styles and depth in meaning.
Cubism morphed from Analytical Cubism
from the period of 1910 – 1912 to
Synthetic Cubism which continued...

Post impressionism started in the late 19th century and marked the decline of the impressionism period. Post impressionism was an evolution from impressionism. Post impressionism attempted to reject impressionism's inherent limitations and improve upon the base that had been constructed. Impressionism was based on recording effects of colours, light and emulating what is captured when one glances at an object along with the mood and feeling associated with the object or situation...

Pop Art was hugely successful and became an icon of the 1960s. The hight of it's popularity was during the 1960s in which the pioneers of pop art used commercial printing processes to create art. The champions of Pop Art were Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol and Tom Wesselmann. It is widely thought that Pop Art was a reaction to abstract expressionism or it was an evolutionary move from abstract expressionism. The concept of Pop Art was parallel to the ideas of...

Futurism was a radical new style of art which was Italian and founded in 1909. It started to diminish in 1918 just as World War 1 was starting. The aim of Futurism was to object to traditional conventionalism and to wage war against the art of the 19th Century. The 20th Centaury was a new time when people were starting to prosper, health and hygiene was getting more sophisticated and people were...

The Highlighting factor of
De Stijl was the fact that art was
being used to design architecture and
furniture. The founders of De Stijl
were Piet Mondrian, Van Doesburg and
Bart Van Der Leck. De Stijl translates
into English as 'The Style'. There
were three periods of De Stijl: The
Immature period which lasted from 1916
to 1921, the mature period which
lasted from 1921 to 1925 and the...

Surrealism, now a household name due to the likes of Salvador Dali was amongst the most recognisable styles. Formed in the mid 1920s, Surrealism has been described as a way of expressing the true function of thought, defying all logic and lies outside any normal or moral interpretations of life. For instance the interpretation of life itself as seen in Salvador Dali's paintings is that of the unknown...

Fauvism started in 1898. The emphasis was a rejection of the third dimension and instead replacing with colour Fauvism was pioneered by artists such as Henri Matisse, Maurice de Vlaminck, Othon Friesz and Andre Dérain. Other artists linked to the Fauvist modern art movement included Georges Rouault, Henri Manguin, Charles Camoin, Jean Puy, Gustave Moreau, Paul Gauguin and Paul Sérusier...

Abstract Expressionism was fuelled by the idea of the subconscious, to paint without thought was in full flow by 1946. The pioneers of Abstract Expressionism were Jackson Pollock and his partner Lee Krasner, Mark Rothko, Willem de Kooning, Clyfford Still, Franz Kline, Arshile Gorky, Robert Motherwell, Barnett Newman and Philip Guston. These artists formed the New York School. The modern art/contemporary art...

In the early 1900s artists wanted the freedom to express emotion through their art. They wanted to paint their emotional response to objects and not just confirm to the traditions of art by painting what they saw. The idea behind Expressionism was that it would be the vehicle for artists to freely paint what they felt as opposed to what is actually there. You could say it was the start of a shift towards styles such as Abstract Expressionism...

Minimalism was a style associated with geometry, architecture and the future. It became largely popular during the 1960s as NASA was sending men into space people started to think the future had arrived. Minimalism was a style which could be easily translated into architecture and furnishing and it was. The idea resulted in a fresh and simplistic article with the emphasis being on the audience being able to view...

Impressionism was in motion in 1867. The idea behind the style of Impressionism was that the artist would convey, through their artwork, an effect of communicating to the viewer in a manner that would make the viewer see an object in the way that someone would see that object if they were to glance at it and recall that image in their head. That stored memory would be what an impressionist painter would try to...

Pointillism succeeded Impressionism. Pointillism was a natural progression from Impressionism as it was an extension of the idea that the artist could create a painting which represented an object image as if you were viewing it at a glance or trying to recall it from memory. Pointillism attempted to take the idea a step further and into a new dimension through careful placement of dots. It was coined 'Pointillism' in...

Abstract art started in the early 20th century. The style crosses many boundaries and plays on the idea of abstracting elements from natural or man made form. Abstract art attempts to shift the focus to one or more of those elements so the viewer can witness those elements in a new and unusual way that the viewer hasn't witnessed before. Abstract art aims to be inspiring and thought provoking...