Modernism: The Genre Explained in 5 Facts and 14 Artworks

SUMMARY

• Diverse Styles: Modernism encompasses a variety of styles rather than a single one. It includes movements like Impressionism, Expressionism, Cubism, and Fauvism, which all emerged during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
• Rejection of Traditional Values: Modernist artists often challenged and rejected classical art principles, focusing instead on subjective expression. This shift is evident in works like Edvard Munch’s The Scream, which prioritizes emotional intensity over realistic representation.
• Focus on Innovation: The period was marked by significant experimentation with forms, colors, and techniques. Artists like Pablo Picasso and Hilma af Klint pushed boundaries with new approaches, leading to groundbreaking developments like abstract art.
• Material and Process Emphasis: Modernist art highlighted the importance of material, color, and technique. This is seen in works by artists like Piet Mondrian and Yves Klein, where the focus on the art’s physical aspects became central to the visual experience.

Like any other description of an art epoch, ‘modernism’ and ‘modern art’ are difficult to define precisely. This is because artistic categories are subjective and thus inherently controversial. When we use the term ‘modernism,’ we typically refer to a global movement that emerged socially and culturally at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. In fine art, ‘modernism’ signified a break from previous artistic traditions and represented a quest for new modes of expression.

Enclosed with great social, cultural, and political upheavals, ‘modernism’ is considered a period of innovation and experimentation. Roughly speaking, the term ‘modernism’ in art ranges from the realism of artists like Gustave Courbet to the abstraction of the 1960s. Here, the term ‘modernism’ is explained in more detail through 5 facts and 14 works of art.

In this section, you can see one work from each of the artists Claude Monet and George Braque. On the surface, these works of art could not be more different. The technique as well as the colors and motifs are fundamentally different. However, the two works have more in common than you might suspect in the beginning. Both paintings were created during the modernist period in art. What still unites them will be shown in the following explanations.

2. Modernist Artists Questioned or Even Rejected Conservative Values

The era of modernism in art was heralded when more and more artists rejected classical principles of art and increasingly repudiated traditional ideas about art. Artists such as Claude Monet refrained from depicting the world as realistically as possible in their paintings, as it was taught in the Renaissance before. Instead, like many other artists, he was concerned with a subjective expression of perception. This also meant that artists like Monet questioned seeing as such. An objective idea of seeing was put to the test and was increasingly replaced by a subjective idea of seeing.

Let us take a look at Edvard Munch‘s famous painting The Scream (1893). With this artwork, Edvard Munch shows how sudden excitement changes all our sensory impressions. All lines in the painting lead to the screaming head in the center of the painting. The wild mixture of bright colors and organic lines intensifies the impression of the outburst of emotion. In this painting by the Norwegian artist, something becomes very clear: Painting in ‘modernism’ is neither about truths of nature nor about the presentation of ideal beauty. What counts is the pure expression of emotion, even if this means distorting a figure to the point of ugliness.

Modern art was strongly influenced by the social and political events of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The turn of the century represents one of the greatest historical upheavals for Western societies. Industrialization took off during this period, capitalism took hold more and more, and there were inventions such as the railway and the First World War. All of this confronted people with the unforeseen. This awakening and upheaval could also be felt in art. There were many innovations and people experimented with shapes, colors, lines, and motifs as they had done never before.

A good example of this development is Pablo Picasso’s artwork Les Demoiselles D’Avignon (1907). Looking at this painting today, it almost seems as if Picasso created it to revolutionize Western painting from the ground up. Here, the artist plays with the shape of the female body by combining it with geometric forms, and the faces of the women were inspired by African art. Both can be seen as elements of a pictorial revolution.

Abstraction also found its way into art at the time of modernism. The Swedish artist Hilma af Klint is considered a pioneer of abstract art together with artists like Wassily Kandinsky. In her art, she went through a pictorial development from naturalistic art to abstract art. Hilma af Klint painted her first abstract pictures already around 1906.

4. The Focus Was Often on Material, Color, Technique, and Process

Whether the brushstrokes of Claude Monet, the areas of color on a work by Piet Mondrian, or splashes of paint on an action painting by Jackson Pollock – in the age of modernism, material, color, technique, and painterly procedure pushed themselves into the foreground in the works of many artists. Yet, the paintings need not be overloaded in any way. Often it is even the total reduction that creates a special focus. Some good examples of this are the monochrome works of the French artist, Yves Klein.

Yves Klein is considered an artist of the avant-garde. His monochrome picture compositions, which he created in an ultramarine blue he developed, have become particularly famous. The color bears the official name International Klein Blue. In such a blue picture, the color becomes the only motif and immediately attracts the attention of the viewer.

One name that is worth knowing in connection with modern art is Clement Greenberg. The art critic Clement Greenberg is something like the head of late modern painting. Greenberg was convinced that art had to be reduced to its most basic elements: the surface and its color. Thus, the American theorist primarily propagated Abstract Expressionism and color surface painting.

Artists such as Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Barnett Newman owe their fame and international recognition to the influence and support of Clement Greenberg. One of Clement Greenberg’s most famous writings is Towards A Newer Laocoon (1940). As the title already reveals, with his writing, Greenberg refers to a famous text by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. Like Lessing, Greenberg wanted to separate the arts into their disciplines. He declared the visual arts to be the highest art. The strength of painting, he explains in his essay, only becomes visible when it renounces all narrative. This is precisely what the avant-garde has set itself in its painting.

Modernism is the term for artwork from the time at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. Major social and cultural changes contributed to the fact that art was about to change. Modern art can by no means be reduced to only a few similar characteristics. There are some characteristics by which modern art can generally be defined. Throughout modernism, there was a spirit of new beginnings in art and the courage to experiment. During the modernist era, artists questioned conservative values and traditional notions of art. They expressed themselves with color, forms, lines, and techniques, thus paving the way to abstraction. An important theoretician figure in the development of modern art is the American art critic Clement Greenberg. His writings provide decisive answers to the question of what modern art should look like.

Originally published: November 2, 2020. Last update: July 31, 2024 by Elizabeth Berry