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Appreciation Basics - Modern Art Period - MODERN ART - 1800 to present
Modern Art entered around 1800, a
century before Picasso and his buddies made it famous again. While traditional
portrait painting was still being cranked out by the acre, there was a growing
movement of artists who wanted to rebel against the stage-y art that people were
hanging over their living room sofas. What makes a work "modern" is its
purposeful breaking of the traditions of the past; those who broke the rules got
the headlines. Modern art does not necessarily represent concrete objects (be it
real, like a person, or imaginary, like a unicorn), but rather revels in its
weirdness.
What not to say: the
tourists around you are squinting and asking, "What is it?"
What to say: "It is art."
