Modern art

The term Modern Art is used for all artistic creation from the start of the 19th century till the 1970’s proceeding the age of contemporary or post-modern art.
The modern invasion defied the need to project objects realistically, breaking away into abstraction through bold experimentation in terms of perception, philosophy and art material.

The invention of photography was hugely responsible for liberating art from its domestic shackles of accuracy and idealism in depicting beauty. This change went beyond art to effect the socio–economic rhythm of the times, creating resistance in the public mind. People of an orthodox mind sent called Modern Art non – art.

It took a while for the usher’s (impressionists) of the modern period in art to gain acceptance. They claimed that they were aligning with the wider universe and its reality by producing art which was natural. This was seen in their attempt to paint outside the studio and experiment with the effect of natural light on various objects. Landscape and routine life scenes became the subject of artists like Degas, Monet and Renoir.

Movements like Impressionism, Fauvism, Cubism, ex-pressionism and Futurism led the modern period in art in the first decade of the 20th Century. The First World War steered this phase towards the anti-art movements like Dada and surrealism. Groups of artists like De Stilji and Bahous became instrumental in initiating new ideas in the field of design and art education.

In United States Modern Art showed its face in the Armory show (1913) with the infiltration of modern artists in World War 1. The Second World War made the US the peak area of their artistic activities. The fifties and sixties brought  movements like ex-pressionism, optical arts. Minimal art, pop art, photorealism, abstract, land art, performance art and conceptual art which became the trend of the next two decades till new architects and artists started breaking away from the modern to the post-modern period in creativity.