ESSAY

Traditional art aimed to represent reality or realism through narrative. Whereas, modern art aimed to

throw aside the tradition of the past and experiment with new ways of seeing and with fresh ideas
about the nature of materials and functions of art. This type of art played and experimented with more
bold and abstract ideas. This period of art included a number of styles or movements, including,
Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Fauvism, Cubism, Expressionism, Dadism, Surrealism, Pop Art, and
many more. These movements were influenced by a variety of factors such as light, african art, asian art,
and artist that were known as 'Modernist Masters', for example, Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Henri
Matisse, Raoul Dufy and many more. Contemporary art is much more focussed on social/society
focussed. They usually reflect or comment on modern society using new techniques and materials, such
as videos/technology. Contemporary art can be completely new or influenced by past artworks/artists.
An example of contemporary artworks that were influence by previous artists/artworks are
appropriation artworks, which use old images/subjects to create a new artwork that portrays a new
perspective. Some examples of contemporary artists are Damien Hirst, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Marina
Abramovic, Dan Christensen and Ronald Davis.