What is Modern Art what does Modern Art look like what are some examples of Modern Art what started Modern Art?

Answer 1

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There appears to be a general move in art in the direction of abstraction. The idea is of catching the essence of the thing depicted. One place to look for this tendency is in architecture, where elements of one age -- classical columns, porticos, and so on become more stylised in succeeding buildings so that a Roman arch becomes a mere stroke in a modern building. It is that it is no longer necessary to depict the thing exactly and art no longer needs to represent something recognisable in nature.

Trying to portray the essence, the quiddity, the life of a thing comes down more and more to trying to get across an pure idea rather than a resemblance. This trend is general across the range of the arts, in dance, sculpture, music and the rest and in its purist form has always been extremely controversial. Tom Wolfe wrote an article entitles "The Painted Word" that encapsulates the problem: sometimes the communication of the artist is so subtle and abstract that you need to read the theory behind it, which in some galleries is helpfully placed next to the work.

While this goes on in all the arts, it is the visual arts which cause the most backlash. The artist Jackson Pollock was famous for his "drip" paintings which he created largely by flinging paint on a canvas lying on the floor. In the opinion of many people, including famous critics, this has gone too far. "Where," they ask, "is the knowledge, the skill, the reflection by the artist in such a work?"

In Art Historical terms Modern Art refers to a period from about 1880 to 1970. The French artists Gustave Courbet and Edouard Manet are credited with beginning the movement. Mainly Modern Art is characterized by a radically new attitude towards the past and the present. Modern art can look like the flat, color field paintings of the 1950's, or pictorial like the work of Manet and Courbet, or like the paintings of Pollock.