Modern art encompasses a wide range of styles and genres, but the overriding element is a rejection of the representational model of traditional art that preceded it. There is also a concern with pure form and color for their own sake within much modern art, as well a commentary on the influence of pop culture in later modern art schools of the latter half of the twentieth century.
Time Frame
The turn of the twentieth century is generally considered the beginning of the modern art period. Although the movement away from traditional representation and perspective had begun with the Neo-Impressionists, modern art typically is placed into the evolution of art as a twentieth century contribution.
Identification
Modern art differs from the artwork before it by virtue of being a movement toward the nonrepresentational and the abstract. Artists began to break away from the real world around them that could be seen and touched and gravitated to the idea of creating art from the more nebulous arena of experience.
German Expressionism
The first really successful school of modern art was German Expressionism. Expressionist paintings is concerned with psychological symbolism and social expression. These works tend to be dark hued and feature very intense subjects. The brush strokes may be considered almost crude, but this is an attempt to express the pain of existence. German Expressionism is far more accessible than other later modern art because it still retains a semblance of representational expectations.
Cubism
Cubism is one of schools that many people immediately think of when they think of modern art. Pablo Picasso is the foremost Cubist artist and his paintings of two-dimensional figures made up of clearly defined geometrical shapes are the keystone of this genre. The mask-like appearances of the figures is Cubist art often gives it a nightmarish effect.
Surrealism
Surrealism is one of the more accessible schools of modern art and is typified by artists like Salvador Dali, Rene Magritte and Georgio deChirico. Surrealism is concerned with creating art that gives the feeling of being lost in a dream. Dream imagery is combined with Freudian psychological theory to plumb the subconscious desires of the mind and dress them in often bizarre imagery to hide their true meaning.
Abstract Expressionism
The school of modern art that is most often savaged by critics is abstract expressionism. With abstract expressionism modern art moved entirely away from the representational and into the world of the totally abstract. Those masterpieces that look like splattered paint or just a few wide strips of paint against an otherwise bare background are examples of abstract expressionism. While the joke is that any kid could paint in the style of abstract expressionism, actually the masters of this style like Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning and Franz Kline represent some of the most disciplined artists of the era.
Pop Art
Pop Art is a school of modern art that transforms pop culture into high art. Andy Warhol's paintings of Campbell's soup cans is an attempt to reveal the marriage between art and commercial in the twentieth century, while Roy Lichtenstein looked to the Sunday comics and comic strips to create giant canvases that turned this most disposable of commercial art forms into esteemed works of art.
