Emergence of Modernism
The Emergence of Modernism
As we move into the twentieth century, we see artists
who were continually striving to discover new ways
of presenting their ideas. Furthering the attempts the
Post-Impressionists had made to extend the boundaries
of color, a group of artists led by Henri Matisse (1869–
1954) used colors so intense that they violated the
sensibilities of critics and the public alike. Taking their
cue from van Gogh, these artists no longer thought
their use of color needed to replicate color as seen
in the real world. Their wild use of arbitrary color
earned them the name of fauves, or “wild beasts.”
Natural form was to be attacked with equal fervor,
as can be seen in developments in Paris around 1908.
Pablo Picasso (1881–1973), in close collaboration with
Georges Braque (1882–1963), was at work developing
a whole new system of art. Picasso and Braque broke
down and analyzed form in new ways in the style
that came to be known as Cubism. Psychologists had
explained that human experience is much richer than
can be gathered from a traditional painting that shows
a single view from a fixed vantage point. When we
look at any given scene, we remember the scene as
an overlay of visual impressions seen from different
angles and moments in time. Picasso and Braque were
familiar with these theories, as indicated by their
habit of breaking figures up into multiple overlapping
perspectives. The Cubists were also influenced by
African art, which they imagined to be more intuitive
and closer to nature than intellectualized European
art. Cubist works reacted against the naturalistic, often
sentimental, artworks that were popular in the late
nineteenth and early twentieth century. The Cubists
favored abstract forms over lifelike figures.
In Germany, an art developed that emphasized
emotional responses. A group of artists calling
themselves Die Brücke, which included Ernst Ludwig
Kirchner (1880–1938) and Emil Nolde (1867–1956),
took the brilliant arbitrary colors of the Fauvists
and combined them with the intense feelings found
in the work of the Norwegian artist Edvard Munch
(1863–1944). This highly charged attempt to make
the inner workings of the mind visible in art is known
as Expressionism. Another Expressionist group in
Germany, Der Blaue Reiter, was led by the Russian
artist Vasily Kandinsky (1866–1944), who around 1913
began to paint totally abstract pictures without any
pictorial subject. Other pioneers of total abstraction
were the Russian painter Kazimir Malevich (1878–
1935) and the Dutch artist Piet Mondrian (1872–1944),
whose De Stijl canvases, consisting of flat fields of
primary color, have become a hallmark of modern art.
The next events in our story of the history of art
are important because they mark the beginnings
of modern art in the United States. It was these
beginnings, coupled with the effects of the First World
War, that were partly responsible for the eventual shift
of the center of the art world from Paris to New York.
While the movements of modern art were sweeping
Paris, the American scene remained largely unaffected
until 1913. The Armory Show, arranged by the Barnes
Foundation and held from February 17 through March
15, 1913, was the first major showing of modern art
in the U.S., and it caused a sensation. Artworks that
were to become landmarks of various European art
movements were a part of the Armory Show, and they
had a profound and lasting effect on American art.
Marcel Duchamp’s (1887–1968) Nude Descending
a Staircase (1912) and Picasso’s Les Demoiselles
d’ Avignon (1907) both shocked viewers with their
challenging approaches to the figure and space.
Brancusi’s (1876–1957) The Kiss, with its abstracted,
block-like figures, and Kandinsky’s non-objective
paintings added to the outrage.
While the effects of the European works in the Armory
Show rippled through the American art world, there was
also a quintessentially American movement underway.
During the 1920s, Harlem became a center for African-
American creativity. Fueled by the popularity of jazz,
writers and artists joined musicians in a flowering of the
arts that is called the Harlem Renaissance. Though the
movement lasted only a decade, it was an inspiration
to many artists, including Jacob Lawrence, Romare
Bearden, and other well-known artists of the next
generation.
During World War I and its aftermath, another
movement arose that challenged established ideas about
art. This movement, called Dada, originated among a
group of disaffected intellectuals living in Zurich and
grew out of the angst of artists who were disillusioned
with the war. Dada was an art that aimed to protest
against everything in society and to lampoon and
ridicule accepted values and norms. Marcel Duchamp
created two works that have come to represent this
amusing and irreverent view of the world. He added a
mustache to a reproduction of the Mona Lisa and gave it
an insulting title (LHOOQ, 1919), and he also exhibited
a common porcelain urinal (Fountain, 1917).
Duchamp, in fact, invented a new category of artworks
that he referred to as ready-mades. By taking an
ordinary object and giving it a new context, Duchamp
would create a work of art. In this way, Duchamp
challenged traditional ideas about the way the artist
functions—rather than physically making a work of
art, an object became a work of art merely through
the artist’s choice. Picasso created several works that
may also be considered ready-mades. For example, in a
famous work Picasso took an ordinary object—bicycle
handlebars—and made them appear as bull horns
when coupled with a bicycle seat (Bull’s Head, 1943).
Some artists, influenced by the theories of Sigmund
Freud, attempted to portray the inner workings of the
mind in their artworks. This group of artists became
known as the Surrealists and included artists such as
Salvador Dalí (1904–89), René Magritte (1898–1967),
and Joan Miró (1893–1983).
One of the most influential events in the history of art
took place in Germany between the first and second
world wars. A school of design called the Bauhaus—a
name that would become a byword of modern design—
established standards for architecture and design that
would have a profound influence on the world of art.
The Bauhaus made a bold attempt to reconcile industrial
mass-manufacture with aesthetic form. Taking the
view that form should follow function and should be
true to the materials used, the faculty at the Bauhaus
designed a curriculum that continues to influence many
contemporary schools of art. After the school was closed
by the Nazis in 1933, many of the Bauhaus’ faculty,
including Josef Albers (1888–1976), a well-known
painter, graphic artist, and designer, came to the United
States and continued to teach. We can still recognize the
Bauhaus influence in our contemporary society with its
streamlined furnishings and buildings.
Abstraction
During World War II, organized movements in art
came to a virtual standstill. Art was produced, but
attention was really on the war. Many artists did in
fact serve in the military, and often art was designed
to serve as propaganda in support of the war effort.
When the war was over and Europe was recovering,
a new center for the international art world emerged.
The action had shifted to New York, and it would be
decades before the artistic centers in England, France,
Italy, and Germany would regain something that
approximated the prominence of New York.
During the 1950s, the art scene in New York was
dominated by the ideas and writings of critics such
as Harold Rosenberg and Clement Greenberg. These
critics had a tremendous influence on the development
of art styles. Greenberg chose to promote a particular
view of art and was an advocate for artists who
were further developing abstraction. Beginning in
the 1940s, Abstract Expressionist artists followed
Kandinsky’s dictum that art, like music, could be
free from the limitations of pictorial subject matter.
These artists aimed at the direct presentation of feeling
with an emphasis on dramatic colors and sweeping
brushstrokes. The Abstract Expressionist movement,
which included the artists Willem de Kooning (1904–
97), Lee Krasner (1908–84), and Franz Kline (1910–
62), reached its pinnacle with the work of Jackson
Pollock (1912–56). Pollock eventually abandoned even
the use of his paintbrush and instead dripped his paint
directly onto the canvas.
Abstract Expressionist works tended to fall into two
types: Action Painting, which employed dramatic
brushstrokes or Pollock’s innovative dripping technique,
or Color Field paintings, which featured broad areas of
color and simple, often geometric forms. Mark Rothko
and Josef Albers are two well-known color field artists.
In response to the non-objective style of Abstract
Expressionism, other artists began to return to
naturalism, producing works that, though they
may appear in some ways similar to those of the
abstractionists, focused on ordinary consumer objects.
Jasper Johns (b. 1930) created a series of works that
featured common things such as flags, numbers, maps,
and letters. Robert Rauschenberg (1925–2008) created
sculptures from the cast-off objects he found around
him to create what he called “combines.” He hung his
own bedclothes on the wall like a canvas and painted
them [Bed (1955)], and one of his most famous works,
Monogram (1959), consists of numerous “found” items,
including a stuffed goat, a tire, a police barrier, the heel
of a shoe, a tennis ball, and paint. This use of everyday
objects in artistic works had a decided influence on the
next big movement in art—Pop Art.
Pop Art, Minimalism, and Photorealism
1960s Pop Art, with its incorporation of images of
mass culture, violated the traditional unspoken rules
regarding what was appropriate subject matter for art.
Andy Warhol (1928–87), the icon of pop art, achieved
the kind of popularity usually reserved for rock stars.
His soup cans, Brillo boxes, and images of movie stars
were created with a factory-like silkscreen approach
that he used to mock the art world. Roy Lichtenstein
(1923–97), another pop artist, adopted the imagery of
comic books and recreated them on such a large scale
that the pattern of dots used to print them was made
massive. Robert Indiana (1928–2018) used stencils that
had been originally used to produce commercial signs
to create his own artistic messages.
Minimalism sought to reduce art to its barest essentials,
emphasizing simplification of form and often featuring
monochromatic palettes. The invention of acrylic paint
and the airbrush enabled Minimalist painters to achieve
very precise outlines, which resulted in the term “hard-
edge painting.” The artist who is best known for these
large, entirely non-objective paintings is Frank Stella (b.
1936). The sculptors David Smith (1906–65), who used
stainless steel, and Dan Flavin (1933–96), who used
neon tubing, also created large pieces that reflected this
abstract minimalist sensibility.
A Pop-inspired group of artists began to produce
works that aimed to create a kind of super-realism or
what came to be called Photorealism. In these works,
a hyper-real quality results from the depiction of the
subject matter in sharp focus, as in a photograph.
This technique offered a clear contrast to the use of
sfumato, developed in the Renaissance, which had
added a haziness to the contour of painted objects.
Photorealist artists Chuck Close (1940–2021), with his
portraits, and Duane Hanson (1925–1996), with his
witty sculptures of ordinary people, hearkened back to
the Realism promoted by Gustave Courbet.
Earthworks, Installations, and
Performance
One intriguing development in the contemporary art
world since the 1970s is that art is no longer limited to
gallery or museum spaces, and many important works
of art are departures from traditional formats. Some
artists have taken their work to a new scale and have
developed their artworks in new venues, often out of
doors. In this way, artists also challenge conventional
ideas about art and its function. An artist known by the
single name Christo (1935–2020), working together with
his partner Jeanne-Claude (1935–2009), is responsible
for creating much interest in these kinds of Earthworks.
Beginning in Europe, Christo startled the world with
the idea that landscape or architecture is something
that can be packaged. He wrapped several well-known
monuments in fabric, built a twenty-four-mile-long cloth
fence in California, surrounded eleven Florida islands
with pink plastic, and set up orange fabric gates on
pathways throughout Central Park. These works, which
require years and even decades of preparation, are as
much about the process as they are about the finished
product, and it is for this reason that Christo’s partner,
Jeanne-Claude, played such an important role. While
Christo designs the projects, Jeanne-Claude handled
many of the logistical details that must be addressed to
carry out the work. Their partnership raises important
questions about the concept of the individual genius
of the artist and how he or she works. Other artists
associated with Earthworks are Michael Heizer (b.
1944) and Robert Smithson (1938–73).
The growth of performance art is another development
that allows artistic expression to transcend traditional
boundaries. Some artists work in conventional media
such as photography and painting, as well as in
performance art. Performance art is a combination of
theater and art in which the artists themselves become
the work. Such works exist in time, like music or
theater, and are fleeting and transitory in nature. The
point is to create a real event in which the audience can
participate, but that does not result in a fixed, marketable
artwork for a museum or living room wall. Sometimes
performance art is socially conscious in its intent. An
example is the Guerrilla Girls, a group of New York-
based artists who began to work together in 1985. The
individual identities of the artists in this all-female
group are kept anonymous at all times. The artists
even wear gorilla masks when they appear in public to
conceal their identities. The artists use guerrilla-warfare
tactics, such as pasting up posters and flyers, as well as
giving public speeches, to challenge what they see as an
art world dominated by white men.
Postmodernist art arose in reaction to the modernist
styles, and not surprisingly, it takes many forms
across a variety of media. Postmodern works tend
to reintroduce traditional elements or to exaggerate
modernist techniques by using them to the extreme.
Postmodern works often return to earlier styles,
periods, and references and often question the mores
and beliefs of contemporary society. A leading
proponent of Postmodernism in architecture is
Philip Johnson (1906–2005), who at one time was
known as one of the leading modern architects of
the International Style. For decades, architecture had
largely been dominated by the Bauhaus idea of form
following function, and sleek towers of steel sheathed
in glass were the standard for large buildings. But,
in 1970, Johnson suggested the radical idea that one
of the functions of art was decoration, and with the
AT&T Building (1984; now 550 Madison Avenue), he
added a finial to the top of the standard office tower.
Today, artists around the world work in an endless
variety of media and styles. One can no longer say
that any particular city, country, or even continent
is the “center” of the art world. The next section of
this guide provides a brief overview of “nonwestern”
art, but we should note that the categories of Western
and nonwestern in the world of contemporary art are
becoming obsolete with the emergence of transnational
artists in an increasingly mobile and interconnected
world.