modern art
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modern art,
art created from the 19th cent. to the mid-20th cent. by artists who veered away from the traditional concepts and techniques of painting, sculpture, and other fine arts that had been practiced since the Renaissance (see Renaissance art and architectureRenaissance art and architecture,works of art and structures produced in Europe during the Renaissance. Art of the Renaissance
The Italian Renaissance
..... Click the link for more information. ). Nearly every phase of modern art was initially greeted by the public with ridicule, but as the shock wore off, the various movements settled into history, influencing and inspiring new generations of artists.
See also photography, stillphotography, still,
science and art of making permanent images on light-sensitive materials.
See also photographic processing; motion picture photography; motion pictures.
..... Click the link for more information. .
Origins of Modern Art
In the second half of the 19th cent. painters began to revolt against the classic codes of composition, careful execution, harmonious coloring, and heroic subject matter. Patronage by the church and state sharply declined at the same time that artists' views became more independent and subjective. Such artists as CourbetCourbet, Gustave
, 1819–77, French painter, b. Ornans. He moved to Paris in 1839 and studied there, learning chiefly by copying masterpieces in the Louvre. An avowed realist, Courbet was always at odds with vested authority, aesthetic or political.
..... Click the link for more information. , CorotCorot, Jean-Baptiste Camille
, 1796–1875, French landscape painter, b. Paris. Corot was one of the most influential of 19th-century painters. The son of shopkeepers, he worked in textile shops until 1822, when he began to study painting.
..... Click the link for more information. and others of the Barbizon SchoolBarbizon school
, an informal school of French landscape painting that flourished c.1830–1870. Its name derives from the village of Barbizon, a favorite residence of the painters associated with the school.
..... Click the link for more information. , ManetManet, Édouard
, 1832–83, French painter, b. Paris. The son of a magistate, Manet went to sea rather than study law. On his return to Paris in 1850 he studied art with the French academic painter Thomas Couture.
..... Click the link for more information. , DegasDegas, Edgar
(Hilaire Germain Edgar Degas) , 1834–1917, French painter and sculptor, b. Paris; son of a banker. Although prepared for the law, he abandoned it for painting, studying at the École des Beaux-Arts with L.
..... Click the link for more information. , and Toulouse-LautrecToulouse-Lautrec, Henri de
, 1864–1901, French painter and lithographer, b. Albi. Son of a wealthy nobleman, Lautrec fell and broke both legs when he was a child. His permanently stunted growth has traditionally been seen as the result of this accident, but more recently
..... Click the link for more information. chose to paint scenes of ordinary daily and nocturnal life that often offended the sense of decorum of their contemporaries.
Impressionism
MonetMonet, Claude
, 1840–1926, French landscape painter, b. Paris. Monet was a founder of impressionism. He adhered to its principles throughout his long career and is considered the most consistently representative painter of the school as well as one of the foremost painters
..... Click the link for more information. , RenoirRenoir, Pierre Auguste
, 1841–1919, French impressionist painter and sculptor, b. Limoges. Renoir went to work at the age of 13 in Paris as a decorator of factory-made porcelain, copying the works of Boucher. In 1862 he entered M. C.
..... Click the link for more information. , and PissarroPissarro, Camille
, 1830–1903, French impressionist painter, b. St. Thomas, Virgin Islands. In Paris from 1855, he came under the influence of Corot and the Barbizon school.
..... Click the link for more information. , the great masters of impressionismimpressionism,
in painting, late-19th-century French school that was generally characterized by the attempt to depict transitory visual impressions, often painted directly from nature, and by the use of pure, broken color to achieve brilliance and luminosity.
..... Click the link for more information. , painted café and city life, as well as landscapes, working most often directly from nature and using new modes of representation. While art had always been to a certain extent abstract in that formal considerations had frequently been of primary importance, painters, beginning with the impressionists in the 1870s, took new delight in freedom of brushwork. They made random spots of color and encrusted the canvas with strokes that did not always correspond to the object that they were depicting but that formed coherent internal relationships. Thus began a definite separation of the image and the subject. The impressionists exploited the range of the color spectrum, directly applying strokes of pure pigment to the canvas rather than mixing colors on the palette. In sculpture, dynamic forms and variations of impressionism were created by RodinRodin, Auguste
, 1840–1917, French sculptor, b. Paris. He began his art study at 14 in the Petite École and in the school of Antoine Barye, earning his living by working for an ornament maker. In 1863 he went to work for the architectural sculptor A. E.
..... Click the link for more information. , Renoir, Degas, and the Italian Medardo RossoRosso, Medardo
, 1858–1928, Italian sculptor. A painter until 1883, he turned to sculpture and worked periodically in Paris but lived mainly in Milan. He was a friend of Degas and Rodin, but he quarreled with the latter in 1898 about which of them had introduced
..... Click the link for more information. .
Nineteenth-Century Painting after Impressionism
In the 1880s, SeuratSeurat, Georges
, 1859–91, French neoimpressionist painter. He devised the pointillist technique of painting in tiny dots of pure color. His method, called divisionism, was a systematic refinement of the broken color of the impressionists.
..... Click the link for more information. and SignacSignac, Paul
, 1863–1935, French neoimpressionist painter. First influenced by Monet, he was later associated with Seurat in developing the divisionist technique. Interested in the science of color, he painted with a greater intensity and with broader strokes than Seurat.
..... Click the link for more information. developed the more detailed and systematic approach of neoimpressionism, while Van GoghVan Gogh, Vincent
, 1853–90, postimpressionist painter, b. the Netherlands. Van Gogh's works are perhaps better known generally than those of any other painter. His brief, turbulent, and tragic life is thought to epitomize the mad genius legend.
..... Click the link for more information. and GauguinGauguin, Paul
, 1848–1903, French painter and woodcut artist, b. Paris; son of a journalist and a French-Peruvian mother. Early Life
Gauguin spent the first six years of his life with his family in Lima Peru; as an adolescent he was a sailor in the French
..... Click the link for more information. , using bold masses, gave to color an unprecedented excitement and emotional intensity (see postimpressionismpostimpressionism,
term coined by Roger Fry to refer to the work of a number of French painters active at the end of the 19th cent. who, although they developed their varied styles quite independently, were united in their rejection of impressionism.
..... Click the link for more information. ). At the same time, CézanneCézanne, Paul
, 1839–1906, French painter, b. Aix-en-Provence. Cézanne was the leading figure in the revolution toward abstraction in modern painting.
..... Click the link for more information. painted subtler nuances of tone and sought to achieve greater structural clarity. Flouting the laws of perspective, he extracted geometrical forms from nature and created radically new spatial patterns in his landscapes and still lifes. Other important innovations of the late 19th cent. can be seen in the starkly expressionistic paintings of the Norwegian Edvard MunchMunch, Edvard
, 1863–1944, Norwegian painter and graphic artist. He studied in Oslo and under Bonnat in Paris, traveled in Europe, and lived in Berlin from 1892 to 1908.
..... Click the link for more information. and the vivid fantasies of the Belgian James EnsorEnsor, James Ensor, Baron
, 1860–1949, Belgian painter and etcher. Ensor's imagery reflected one of the most bizarre and powerful visions of his era. He left his native Ostend to study painting (1877–80) at the Académie de Bruxelles.
..... Click the link for more information. . In the 1890s the NabisNabis
[Heb.,=prophets], a group of artists in France active during the 1890s. Paul Sérusier and Maurice Denis were the principal theorists of the group. Outstanding members were Édouard Vuillard, Pierre Bonnard, Aristide Maillol, Félix Vallotton, and the
..... Click the link for more information. developed pictorial ideas from Gauguin, while sinuous linear decorations were produced throughout Europe by the designers of art nouveauart nouveau
, decorative-art movement centered in Western Europe. It began in the 1880s as a reaction against the historical emphasis of mid-19th-century art, but did not survive World War I.
..... Click the link for more information. .
The Isms of Early Twentieth-Century Art
From the early 20th cent. color reigned supreme and invaded the contours of recognizable objects with the brilliant patterns of fauvismfauvism
[Fr. fauve=wild beast], name derisively hurled at and cheerfully adopted by a group of French painters, including Matisse, Rouault, Derain, Vlaminck, Friesz, Marquet, van Dongen, Braque, and Dufy.
..... Click the link for more information. (1905–8), dominated by MatisseMatisse, Henri
, 1869–1954, French painter, sculptor, and lithographer. Along with Picasso, Matisse is considered one of the two foremost artists of the modern period. His contribution to 20th-century art is inestimably great.
..... Click the link for more information. and RouaultRouault, Georges
, 1871–1958, French expressionist artist. First apprenticed to a stained-glass maker, Rouault studied after 1891 under Gustave Moreau. He exhibited several paintings with the fauves (see fauvism) in 1905.
..... Click the link for more information. in France, the orphismorphism,
a short-lived movement in art founded in 1912 by Robert Delaunay, Frank Kupka, the Duchamp brothers, and Roger de la Fresnaye. Apollinaire coined the term orphism
..... Click the link for more information. of Robert DelaunayDelaunay, Robert
, 1885–1941, French painter; husband of Sonia Delaunay-Terk. By 1909, Delaunay had progressed from a neoimpressionist phase to cubism, applying cubist principles to the exploration of color.
..... Click the link for more information. and Frank KupkaKupka, Frank or František
, 1871–1957, Czech painter, etcher, and illustrator. Kupka illustrated works by Reclus and Leconte de Lisle and an edition of Aristophanes' Lysistrata.
..... Click the link for more information. , and the explosive hues of the German group Die BrückeBrücke, Die
[Ger.,=the bridge], German expressionist art movement, lasting from 1905 to 1913. Influenced by the art of Jugendstil (the German equivalent of art nouveau), Van Gogh, and the primitive sculpture of Africa and the South Seas, the Brücke
..... Click the link for more information. , which included such practitioners of expressionismexpressionism,
term used to describe works of art and literature in which the representation of reality is distorted to communicate an inner vision. The expressionist transforms nature rather than imitates it.
..... Click the link for more information. as KirchnerKirchner, Ernst Ludwig
, 1880–1938, German expressionist painter and graphic artist. He studied art in Munich and was greatly impressed by the neoimpressionists. Kirchner studied Oceanic and other primitive sculpture at the Dresden Museum of Ethnology in 1904.
..... Click the link for more information. and NoldeNolde, Emil
, 1867–1956, German expressionist painter and graphic artist. His original name was Emil Hansen. After teaching in Switzerland (1892–98), Nolde traveled through Europe and in 1906 joined the Brücke group of German expressionists.
..... Click the link for more information. . KandinskyKandinsky, Wassily or Vasily
, 1866–1944, Russian abstract painter and theorist. Usually regarded as the originator of abstract art, Kandinsky abandoned a legal career for painting at 30 when he moved to Munich.
..... Click the link for more information. transformed (c.1910) color into a completely abstract art absolutely divorced from subject matter. The fauvists and expressionists shared an appreciation of the pure and simplified shapes of various examples of primitive art, an enthusiasm that was generated by Gauguin and extended to PicassoPicasso, Pablo
(Pablo Ruiz y Picasso) , 1881–1973, Spanish painter, sculptor, graphic artist, and ceramist, who worked in France. He is generally considered in his technical virtuosity, enormous versatility, and incredible originality and prolificity to have been the
..... Click the link for more information. , BrancusiBrancusi, Constantin
, 1876–1957, Romanian sculptor. Brancusi is considered one of the foremost of modern artists. In 1904 he went to Paris, where he worked under Mercié. He declined Rodin's invitation to work in his studio.
..... Click the link for more information. , ModiglianiModigliani, Amedeo
, 1884–1920, Italian painter, b. Livorno. In Paris after 1906, Modigliani first worked as a sculptor and was influenced by the works of Constantin Brancusi, cubism, and African art.
..... Click the link for more information. , DerainDerain, André
, 1880–1954, French painter. He studied for a short time under Carrière. Derain's friendship with Vlaminck and Matisse led to his association c.1905 with the fauves.
..... Click the link for more information. , and others.
Cubism
About 1909 the implications of Cézanne's highly organized yet revolutionary spatial structures were expanded by Picasso and BraqueBraque, Georges
, 1882–1963, French painter. He joined the artists involved in developing fauvism in 1905, and at l'Estaque c.1909 he was profoundly influenced by Cézanne.
..... Click the link for more information. , who invented an abstract art of still lifes converted into shifting volumes and planes. Cubismcubism,
art movement, primarily in painting, originating in Paris c.1907. Cubist Theory
Cubism began as an intellectual revolt against the artistic expression of previous eras.
..... Click the link for more information. , developed by the artists of the school of Parisschool of Paris.
The center of international art until after World War II, Paris was a mecca for artists who flocked there to participate in the most advanced aesthetic currents of their time. The school of Paris is not one style; the term describes many styles and movements.
..... Click the link for more information. , went through several stages and had an enormous influence on European and American painting and sculpture. In sculpture its notable exponents included Picasso, Duchamp-VillonDuchamp-Villon, Raymond
, 1876–1918, French sculptor; brother of the artists Marcel Duchamp and Jacques Villon. From the tradition of Rodin he turned to cubism in 1912. He began to assemble machinelike forms with more than a touch of fantasy.
..... Click the link for more information. , LipchitzLipchitz, Jacques
, 1891–1973, French sculptor, b. Lithuania as Chaim Jacob Lipchitz. From 1909, Lipchitz studied in Paris, where he became a member of the Esprit Nouveau group.
..... Click the link for more information. , GonzálezGonzález, Julio
, 1876–1942, Spanish sculptor. The son of a goldsmith and sculptor, González went to Paris in 1900. There he met Picasso and taught him techniques of iron welding and was in turn influenced by certain of Picasso's cubist ideas.
..... Click the link for more information. , and ArchipenkoArchipenko, Alexander
, 1887–1964, Ukrainian-American sculptor, b. Kiev. He moved to Moscow in 1906 and to Paris in 1908. There he began to adapt cubist technique to sculpture.
..... Click the link for more information. , who began to realize the possibilities of convex and concave volumes. Cubism was absorbed in Italy by the exponents of futurismfuturism,
Italian school of painting, sculpture, and literature that flourished from 1909, when Filippo Tommaso Marinetti's first manifesto of futurism appeared, until the end of World War I.
..... Click the link for more information. (c.1909–c.1915) and in Germany by the Blaue ReiterBlaue Reiter, der
[Ger.,=the blue rider], German expressionist art movement, lasting from 1911 to 1914. It took its name from a painting by Kandinsky, Le cavalier bleu.
..... Click the link for more information. group (1911–14); both these movements were cut short by the advent of World War I. Fauvism and cubism were introduced by members of the EightEight, the,
group of American artists in New York City, formed in 1908 to exhibit paintings. They were men of widely different tendencies, held together mainly by their common opposition to academism.
..... Click the link for more information. to a generally shocked American audience in the Armory ShowArmory Show,
international exhibition of modern art held in 1913 at the 69th-regiment armory in New York City. It was a sensational introduction of modern art into the United States. The estimated 1,600 works included paintings representing avant-garde movements in Europe.
..... Click the link for more information. of 1913, and from then on Americans began to participate significantly in the development of modern art (see American artAmerican art,
the art of the North American colonies and of the United States. There are separate articles on American architecture, North American Native art, pre-Columbian art and architecture, Mexican art and architecture, Spanish colonial art and architecture, and Canadian
..... Click the link for more information. ).
Geometric Abstraction
At roughly the same time as cubism was developing, Russia made extraordinary contributions to the current of nonfigurative art. The sculptors Naum GaboGabo, Naum
, 1890–1977, Russian sculptor, architect, theorist, and teacher, brother of Antoine Pevsner. Gabo lived in Munich and Norway until the end of the revolution, when he returned to Russia.
..... Click the link for more information. and Antoine PevsnerPevsner, Antoine
, 1886–1962, Russian sculptor and painter. He was influenced by cubism while in Paris in 1911 and 1913. During World War I he was in Norway with his brother Naum Gabo. They returned to Moscow after the Russian Revolution.
..... Click the link for more information. joined the movement known as constructivismconstructivism,
Russian art movement founded c.1913 by Vladimir Tatlin, related to the movement known as suprematism. After 1916 the brothers Naum Gabo and Antoine Pevsner gave new impetus to Tatlin's art of purely abstract (although politically intended) constructions.
..... Click the link for more information. (c.1913–c.1921), and the painter Casimir MalevichMalevich, Casimir or Kasimir
, 1878–1935, Russian painter. Moving to Moscow in 1906, he became involved in avant-garde artistic circles.
..... Click the link for more information. founded suprematismsuprematism,
Russian art movement founded (1913) by Casimir Malevich in Moscow, parallel to constructivism. Malevich drew Aleksandr Rodchenko and El Lissitzky to his revolutionary, nonobjective art.
..... Click the link for more information. (1913). In Holland members of the StijlStijl, de
[Du.,=the style], Dutch nonfigurative art movement, also called neoplasticism. In 1917 a group of artists, architects, and poets was organized under the name de Stijl, and a journal of the same name was initiated.
..... Click the link for more information. group (1917–31), including MondrianMondrian, Piet
, 1872–1944, Dutch painter. He studied at the academy in Amsterdam and passed through an early naturalistic phase. In 1910 he went to Paris, where the influence of cubism stimulated the development of his geometric, nonobjective style, which he called
..... Click the link for more information. and Theo van DoesburgDoesburg, Theo van
, 1883–1931, Dutch painter, teacher, and writer. Together with Mondrian he founded the magazine De Stijl and successfully proselytized in Europe for the new aesthetic of abstraction, simplicity, clarity, and harmony.
..... Click the link for more information. , created a disciplined, nonobjective art. These Russian and Dutch developments in the second decade of the 20th cent. were applicable to many varieties of art and industrial design, and their principles converged in the teachings of the BauhausBauhaus
, artists' collective and school of art and architecture in Germany (1919–33). The Bauhaus revolutionized art training by combining the teaching of classic arts with the study of crafts.
..... Click the link for more information. in the 1920s. Kandinsky, the highly imaginative Paul KleeKlee, Paul
, 1879–1940, Swiss painter, graphic artist, and art theorist, b. near Bern. Klee's enormous production (more than 10,000 paintings, drawings, and etchings) is unique in that it represents the successful combination of his sophisticated theories of art with a
..... Click the link for more information. , and the American Lyonel FeiningerFeininger, Lyonel
, 1871–1956, American painter and illustrator, b. New York City. Feininger studied painting in Berlin, Hamburg, and Paris. He was an illustrator and caricaturist for several periodicals in Paris and in Germany and had a weekly comic page (1906–7) in
..... Click the link for more information. were among the celebrated exponents of the Bauhaus.
Other Modes of Modern Art
A more fanciful sort of modern art was created by Jean ArpArp, Jean or Hans,
1887–1966, French sculptor and painter. Arp was connected with the Blaue Reiter in Munich, various avant-garde groups in Paris, including the surrealists, and the Dadaists in Zürich.
..... Click the link for more information. , Marcel DuchampDuchamp, Marcel
, 1887–1968, French painter, brother of Raymond Duchamp-Villon and half-brother of Jacques Villon. Duchamp is noted for his cubist-futurist painting Nude Descending a Staircase,
..... Click the link for more information. , and Kurt SchwittersSchwitters, Kurt
, 1887–1948, German artist, b. Hannover. Influenced by Kandinsky, by Picasso's reliefs, and by Dada constructions, he invented Merz [trash] constructions—arrangements of diverse materials and objects.
..... Click the link for more information. in the irreverent manifestations of the DadaDada
or Dadaism
, international nihilistic movement among European artists and writers that lasted from 1916 to 1922. Born of the widespread disillusionment engendered by World War I, it originated in Zürich with a 1916 party at the Cabaret Voltaire and the
..... Click the link for more information. movement. Dada artists devised "ready-mades" and collagecollage
[Fr.,=pasting], technique in art consisting of cutting and pasting natural or manufactured materials to a painted or unpainted surface—hence, a work of art in this medium.
..... Click the link for more information. objects from diverse bits of material. The movement was linked with Freudianism in the 1920s, producing the wild imagery of surrealismsurrealism
, literary and art movement influenced by Freudianism and dedicated to the expression of imagination as revealed in dreams, free of the conscious control of reason and free of convention.
..... Click the link for more information. and verismverism
, artistic style in which photographic realism is combined with hallucinatory or ironic images. Its practitioners, including Salvador Dalí and Yves Tanguy, often make use of Renaissance concepts of perspective and various academic conventions.
..... Click the link for more information. , as seen in the paintings of Salvador DalíDalí, Salvador
, 1904–89, Spanish painter. At first influenced by futurism, in 1924 Dalí came under the influence of the Italian painter de Chirico and by 1929 he had become a leader of surrealism.
..... Click the link for more information. , Yves TanguyTanguy, Yves
, 1900–1955, French surrealist painter. At first a merchant seaman, he saw a picture by Chirico in 1923 and instantly decided to take up painting. He created vast imaginary dream landscapes, in which float strange, often amorphous, objects and
..... Click the link for more information. , Max ErnstErnst, Max
1891–1976, German painter. After World War I, Ernst joined the Dada movement in Paris and then became a founder of surrealism. Apart from the medium of collage, for which he is well known, Ernst developed other devices to express his fantastic vision.
..... Click the link for more information. , and Joan MiróMiró, Joan
, 1893–1983, Spanish surrealist painter. After studying in Barcelona, Miró went to Paris in 1919. In the 1920s he came into contact with cubism and surrealism.
..... Click the link for more information. . The 1920s also saw the beginning of an art of social protest by exponents of new objectivitynew objectivity
(Ger. Neue Sachlichkeit), German art movement of the 1920s. The chief painters of the movement were George Grosz and Otto Dix, who were sometimes called verists.
..... Click the link for more information. , among them George GroszGrosz, George
, 1893–1959, German-American caricaturist, draughtsman, and painter, b. Berlin. Before and during World War I he contributed drawings on proletarian themes to Illustration and other German periodicals. He was associated with the Dada group at that time.
..... Click the link for more information. , Otto DixDix, Otto,
1891–1969, German painter and draftsman. Dix fought in World War I and returned to Düsseldorf haunted by the horrors he had witnessed. In 1924 he published War, a series of 50 etchings, horrifying visions of war's victims executed with great clarity.
..... Click the link for more information. , and Max BeckmannBeckmann, Max
, 1884–1950, German painter. A member of the Berlin secession from 1908 to 1911, he was impressionistic in his early style. A subsequent expressionistic phase was altered c.1917 by the savage new objectivity of George Grosz.
..... Click the link for more information. . With the rise of fascismfascism
, totalitarian philosophy of government that glorifies the state and nation and assigns to the state control over every aspect of national life. The name was first used by the party started by Benito Mussolini, who ruled Italy from 1922 until the Italian defeat in World
..... Click the link for more information. and the Great DepressionGreat Depression,
in U.S. history, the severe economic crisis generally considered to have been precipitated by the U.S. stock-market crash of 1929. Although it shared the basic characteristics of other such crises (see depression), the Great Depression was unprecedented in its
..... Click the link for more information. of the 1930s, the protest increased in intensity. The Mexicans OrozcoOrozco, José Clemente
, 1883–1949, Mexican muralist, genre painter, and lithographer, grad. Mexican National Agricultural School. He became an architectural draftsman and in 1908 turned to painting. With Diego Rivera he led the renaissance of modern Mexican art.
..... Click the link for more information. , RiveraRivera, Diego
, 1886–1957, Mexican mural painter, studied as a youth with Posada and other Mexican painters; husband of Frida Kahlo. The native sculpture of Mexico deeply impressed him.
..... Click the link for more information. , and SiqueirosSiqueiros, David Alfaro
, 1896–1974, Mexican painter, b. Chihuahua. Siqueiros was among Mexico's most original and eminent painters. His career as an artist was always related to his vigorous socialist revolutionary activities.
..... Click the link for more information. painted murals in which the human figure was made monumental and heroic (see Mexican art and architectureMexican art and architecture,
works of art and structures produced in the area that is now the country of Mexico. Such arts were already highly developed in the ancient civilizations flourishing before the conquest of Cortés.
..... Click the link for more information. ).
Postwar Modern Art and the Rejection of Modernism
The development of a new American art movement was held in abeyance until after World War II, when the United States took the lead in the formation of a vigorous new art known as abstract expressionismabstract expressionism,
movement of abstract painting that emerged in New York City during the mid-1940s and attained singular prominence in American art in the following decade; also called action painting and the New York school.
..... Click the link for more information. with the impetus of such artists as Arshile GorkyGorky, Arshile
, c.1900–48, American painter, b. Armenia as Vosdanig Adoian. He escaped the Turkish slaughter of Armenians, emigrated to the United States in 1920, studied at Boston's New School of Design, and moved to New York City in 1925.
..... Click the link for more information. , Jackson PollockPollock, Jackson,
1912–56, American painter, b. Cody, Wyo. He studied (1929–31) in New York City, mainly under Thomas Hart Benton, but he was more strongly influenced by A. P. Ryder and the Mexican muralists, especially Siqueiros.
..... Click the link for more information. , and Willem de Kooningde Kooning, Willem
, 1904–97, American painter, b. Netherlands; studied Rotterdam Academy of Fine Arts and Techniques. De Kooning immigrated to the United States, arriving as a stowaway in 1926 and settling in New York City, where he worked on the Federal Arts Project
..... Click the link for more information. . Action painting, as the movement was also known, made its impact felt throughout the world in the 1950s. A number of notable developments were led by artists associated with these and other New York school artists. As the influence of abstract expressionism waned in the 1960s, artists came to question the very philosophy underlying modernism. A vast variety of new movements and styles came to dominate the art world that, in the aggregate, can now be seen to mark the beginnings of artistic postmodernismpostmodernism,
term used to designate a multitude of trends—in the arts, philosophy, religion, technology, and many other areas—that come after and deviate from the many 20th-cent. movements that constituted modernism.
..... Click the link for more information. and the post-midcentury shift from modern to contemporary artcontemporary art,
the art of the late 20th cent. and early 21st cent., both an outgrowth and a rejection of modern art. As the force and vigor of abstract expressionism diminished, new artistic movements and styles arose during the 1960s and 70s to challenge and displace
..... Click the link for more information. .
Modern Sculpture
In sculpture the explorations of Julio González led to abstract configurations of welded metal that can be seen in the works of Americans such as David SmithSmith, David,
1906–65, American sculptor, b. Decatur, Ind. He arrived in New York City in 1926 and studied painting at the Art Students League. In the 1930s he began experimenting with sculpture and after 1935 he worked primarily in this medium.
..... Click the link for more information. , Theodore Roszack, Seymour LiptonLipton, Seymour,
1903–86, American sculptor, b. New York City. Self-taught as a sculptor, Lipton worked directly in sheet metals and molten alloys, creating organically twisting forms with richly brazed textural effects.
..... Click the link for more information. , and Herbert FerberFerber, Herbert,
1906–91, American sculptor, b. New York City, grad. Columbia (D.D.S., 1930). His original name was Herbert Ferber Silvers. Turning from early massive figures in wood and stone, he developed large, spatially inventive abstractions in brazed metal called
..... Click the link for more information. . This tradition has been a lasting one, and contemporary examples of large abstract compositions of welded metal can be found in the work of many later sculptors, including Mark di Suverodi Suvero, Mark
, 1933–, American sculptor, b. Shanghai. Di Suvero's major works are constructions of massize pieces of steel, huge weathered timbers, tires, chains, and rope.
..... Click the link for more information. and Beverly Pepper.
Alexander CalderCalder, Alexander
, 1898–1976, American sculptor, b. Philadelphia; son of Alexander Stirling Calder and grandson of Alexander Mine Calder, prominent sculptors. Among the most innovative of modern sculptors, he trained as a mechanical engineer and studied at New York's Art
..... Click the link for more information. largely stood apart from other modernist sculptors with his brightly colored mobilesmobile
, a type of moving sculptural artwork developed by Alexander Calder in 1932 and named by Marcel Duchamp. Often constructed of colored metal pieces connected by wires or rods, the mobile has moving parts that are sensitive to a breeze or light touch; it can be designed to
..... Click the link for more information. and stabilesstabile
, an abstract construction that is completely stationary. The form was pioneered by Alexander Calder, and examples were termed stabiles to distinguish them from mobiles, their moving counterparts, also invented by Calder.
..... Click the link for more information. , which have since been widely influential, as in the large, brightly colored sculpture of Albert Paley. Meanwhile, the early-20th-century tradition of Brancusi's organic abstract forms was inventively exploited in midcentury by Henry MooreMoore, Henry,
1898–1986, English sculptor. Moore's early sculpture was angular and rough, strongly influenced by pre-Columbian art. About 1928 he evolved a more personal style which has gained him an international reputation.
..... Click the link for more information. and Barbara HepworthHepworth, Dame Barbara,
1903–75, English sculptor. Hepworth's smooth, usually nonfigurative sculptures recall those of Jean Arp. Working in Cornwall, she consistently sought perfection of form and surface texture. She worked primarily in stone, in bronze.
..... Click the link for more information. in England and by Jean Arp in France, while the Swiss Alberto GiacomettiGiacometti, Alberto
, 1901–66, Swiss sculptor and painter; son of the impressionist painter Giovannia Giacometti; b. Stampa. He settled in Paris in 1922, studying with Bourdelle and becoming associated first with the cubists and then the surrealists (see cubism;
..... Click the link for more information. and the Italians Giacomo Manzù and Marino MariniMarini, Marino
, 1901–66, Italian sculptor. Marini is best known for his many vigorous sculptures of horses and horsemen (e.g., Horse and Rider, 1949–50), although he has created notable portrait busts, group statues, and paintings and drawings.
..... Click the link for more information. each achieved a distinctive sculptural style. Later 20th-century sculpture has followed the patterns of the various postmodern art movements and is described in the article on contemporary artcontemporary art,
the art of the late 20th cent. and early 21st cent., both an outgrowth and a rejection of modern art. As the force and vigor of abstract expressionism diminished, new artistic movements and styles arose during the 1960s and 70s to challenge and displace
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Bibliography
See A. H. Barr, Jr., ed., Masters of Modern Art (1954); R. Rosenblum, Cubism and Twentieth-Century Art (1967); H. H. Arnason, History of Modern Art (1968); W. Haftmann et al., Art since Mid-Century (2 vol., tr. 1972); D. Hall and P. Wykes, Anecdotes of Modern Art (1989); G. Hughes and P. Blom, Nothing but the Clouds Unchanged: Artists in World War I (2014).