Learning
Outcomes
• Define and discuss the beginnings
of modern art
• Familiarize with the modern art
movements and artists
• Critique chosen modern artworks
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1. Introducing Modern Art
What is Modern Art?
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What is
Modern Art?
□ The industrial revolution paved the way
for the beginnings of modernism and
modern art.
□ The birth of industrial societies affected
the social, economic, and cultural
conditions of life in U.S., Europe, and the
world.
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□ Artists began
creating art based
on their personal
experiences or
about topics they
choose, far from
what artist do back
then which is much
about creating art
for wealthy patrons
or institutions like
the church.
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“
With the publication of psychologist
Sigmund Freud’s The Interpretation of
Dreams (1899) and the popularization
of the idea of a subconscious mind,
many artists began exploring dreams,
symbolism, and personal iconography
as avenues for the depiction of their
subjective experiences.
6 Source: [Link]
Sigmund
Freud
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Modern art artists creatively represented their
experience of the newness of modern life in
various innovative styles.
□ Some applied expressive colors, new techniques, innovative
medium, and non-traditional materials.
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2. Modern Art Movements
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Modern Art
Movements
□ Classifying historically related or like-
minded artists into movements or schools is
common in the discipline of art history.
□ This applies to the movements of
Impressionism, Futurism, Surrealism, and
Post-impressionism, among others.
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Impressionism
Claude Monet
His 1873 work
“Impression, Sunrise”
was the critics’ basis to
name a distinct group of
artists as Impressionists,
those whose works seemed
more like sketches than
finished paintings.
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Impression, Sunrise
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Other
impressionists
Edouard Manet
“Luncheon on
the Grass”
(1863)
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Other
impressionists
Alfred Sisley
“Fog, Voisins”
(1874)
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Futurism
□ Swept away from traditional
art and glorified the machine
age
□ Focused on modernity and
progress
□ It was founded and was
predominantly based from the
artist Filippo Tommaso
Marinetti (1876-1944)
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Futurism
Marinetti
Manifesto del Futurismo
□ Written in 1909
expressing his artistic
philosophy of futurism. It
is central on admiring
machinery, speed,
violence, and industry.
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Other Futurists
□ Gino Severini
□ Umberto Boccioni
□ Carlo Carra
□ Giacomo Balla
18 Dynamism of a dog on a leash, 1912
Post-Impressionism
□ Founded by Paul Cezanne.
□ Its key artists were Vincent Van Gogh, Paul
Gauguin, and Georges Seurat.
□ These artists were grouped here for their
deviation from the impressionist motifs and for
their concentration on the subjective vision of
the artist.
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Post-Impressionism
□ The movement emerged as a reaction
against Impressionism and its concern for the naturalistic
depiction of light and color.
□ Post-Impressionists both extended Impressionism while
rejecting its limitations: the artists continued using vivid
colors, a thick application of paint and real-life subject
matter, but were more inclined to emphasize geometric
forms, distort forms for an expressive effect and use
unnatural and seemingly random colors.
Excerpt from: [Link]
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Paul Cezanne
“The Large Bathers” (1898)
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Surrealism
□ To unlock the power of the
unconscious and the
imagination was the focus
of the surrealists.
□ They were influenced by
psychoanalysis and by
Marx, with the hope that
psyche power may spur
revolution.
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Andre Breton
□ Example of photographic
collage popularized by
Breton.
□ He was said to be the
founder of surrealism and
affected other movements
with his work entitled
Surrealist Manifesto in
1924, and declared that
surrealism is a “pure
psychic automatism”.
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“Egg in the Church or The Snake”
Max Ernst
“Celebes”
1921
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Salvador Dali
25 “The Persistence of Memory” (1931)
Abstract
Expressionism
□ Influenced by Surrealism’s focus on the unconscious. It
encouraged their interest in myth and archetypal
symbols and it shaped their understanding of painting
itself as a struggle between self-expression and the chaos
of the subconscious.
□ Key artists: Clyfford Still, Jackson Pollock, Willem
Kooning, Barnett Newman, among others.
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“
It was somehow meant to encompass
not only the work of painters who
filled their canvases with fields of
color and abstract forms, but also
those who attacked their canvases
with a vigorous gestural
expressionism.
Source: [Link]
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Jackson Pollock
“Autumn Rhythm (Number 30)” (1950)
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Sources
MoMA Learning.
[Link]
modern-art/
My Modern Met. [Link]
paintings/
The Art Story . [Link]
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Any questions?
?
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