Influences of Modern Art

Modern art can be described as just that…modern. It was a style of art that pushed itself away from traditional forms and motifs. In general Modern art can be looked at through the numerous styles that were discovered during the period. These new techniques and styles evolved from the radical social, political, and cultural change that occurred during the first two decades of the twentieth century. Cubism, Futurism, Dada, Surrealism, and Expressionism all are new styles that are discovered and make up this period of art. Cubism steps away from traditional art and pushed for more geometric planes to be used. Pablo Picasso is known as the founder of this style. Picasso had a huge fascination with objects from African tribal art because of this use of geometric forms. Cubism can also be described as being a depiction of an object that is drawn simultaneously from all angles, creating the unique distortion of reality that gave cubism it’s fame. Futurism was meant to capture the mood of speed and noise. The influence for this style came from war, the age of machines, speed, and anything involving modern life. Artist that pursued this style would use typography to help capture emotion, for example they would use italics to emphasize speed and bold face type to symbolize power and violence. Dadaism is another one of these modern art forms that broke through during the early 20^th century. It was a reaction towards what happened in WWI and sought complete freedom from traditional art or any guidelines. Mainly used to protest war, Dadaist would often use collages and photomontages to portray the artist’s ideals. Also Dadaism brought this concept of using type as characters, creatively using letters to tell a visual story. Surrealism developed around the unconscious mind, and dreams. Anything that goes against realism can be seen as surrealism. The last important style to emerge out of this time period is expressionism. Expressionism is meant to capture emotion. This was done by using contrasting colors and using loose, expressive lines to create an image/feeling. Overall this period of art pushed for artist’s to be more creative and to think outside the box.

My one question about this period is whether or not these artists ever got immediate attention, or if the modern art was seen as garbage during the early stages?