Postmodernism, as a trend of thought, has a profound influence on modern art. By tracing back to traditionalism, modernism and postmodernism and taking them as the contents and strategies of living art, the author thinks that the art of living is the trend of modern art. Finally, the author constructs an art education model of life and puts forward corresponding implementation strategies. By tracing back to traditionalism, modernism and postmodernism and taking them as the contents and strategies of living art, The author thinks that the art of life is the trend of modern art. Finally, the author constructs the art education mode of life and puts forward the corresponding implementation strategies. When human society enters the stage of capitalist development, modern industrial civilization has changed the relationship between people, changed the traditional way of life and accelerated the pace of life. As a commodity, art enters the market, which brings fierce competition to the development of art. The development of modern science and technology has changed the relationship between man and nature, and human eyes have extended to the macro and micro worlds. Therefore, modern artists must create and choose new artistic language to express the new world they know. Modern philosophy has a direct impact on modern art creation. Schopenhauer's solipsism and voluntarism lead to intuitive cognition, which sublimates the artist's genius and inspiration into the foundation of artistic creation. Later, Nietzsche and Freud made a comprehensive analysis and revelation of human spiritual field, which became the source of modern artistic creation. Bergson's "irrational philosophy" is a complete denial and betrayal of the negative and traditional values brought by modern industrial civilization. From then on, art is no longer a reflection of the objective world, but a manifestation of the subjective world. The emergence and development of modern art runs along the inevitable law. Western art has paid attention to practical and material reproduction since ancient times, and has experienced development and perfection in different times, reaching its peak in the European Renaissance. When photography was invented, the reappeared realistic painting was partially replaced by photography, and painting must choose another way, from reappearance to expression, from writing the form of objective matter to expressing the painter's inner spirit. Since the painting was produced, it thought that serving others was the purpose, and the primitive society was practical. Later, it served God, people's life and political struggle. Western artists claim that they no longer serve anyone, and art exists independently to improve itself. Therefore, the values of art have broken away from tradition. All this is slowly changing from quantitative to qualitative with the development of society and the evolution of ideological trend. The origin of modern art began with impressionism. The appearance of impressionism is an epoch-making milestone in western art. In order to express the rich and fleeting changes of light and color in nature, it ignored or denied the internal essence of objective things, and even destroyed or abandoned the rigorous modeling that had been perfected in the West for thousands of years, which led to a series of rebel painters and painting schools. Cezanne was the first to break away from tradition. He wanted to create an absolute painting, which was no longer an imitation of objective things, but an eternal form and solid structure injected into the painter's subjective interpretation. At the same time, there is also a painter Gauguin, who, from a strong subjective point of view, analyzes and synthesizes the impressions and feelings obtained by objective things and creates a symbolic painting that breaks through the constraints of time and space. Van Gogh, a Dutchman, used bright colors and vibrant lines to convey blazing ideas, and together they initiated the western modern art. Many modern schools have been derived from their theories. Some painters who followed Cezanne confirmed that the management structure of the picture is the painter's ability and right, and the painter is the creator of the picture, so he should arrange the picture at will like God, forming a cubist represented by Picasso. It is believed that painting should not be the slave of natural objects, nor should it be just the elaborate structure of pictures, but must show the painter's mood and will, and must be the external image of the painter's inner feelings, thus giving birth to the French Fauvism and German expressionism. After a survey of this painting change, Russian Kandinsky realized that painting was not supported by objects, but dominated the whole picture by colors, lines and shapes. These painting elements endowed the picture with life and beauty, and he was the first to create abstract painting. The above-mentioned schools are all exploration performances after thinking about art. When artists think about society and modern material civilization, they come to the conclusion that tradition is outdated, and modernity is incomplete and unhealthy, resulting in Dadaism, which destroys everything and knocks everything down. They hope to establish a new civilization on the basis of pure blank. When artists face life, people's consciousness has been decorated with too many concepts, and only the subconscious field is the most real field, which has never been shown. The painter is interested in this spiritual world and has created surrealist paintings, which show a little-known subconscious world with a combination of objects and images that express counter-logic and common sense. After the Second World War, the post-modern art center turned from Paris to new york, USA, and started a new exploration and creation, which was more characterized by paying attention to the change of ideas. Abstract expressionism emerged in the 195s, and behavioral painting, which only focused on the process of painting and ignored the results of pictures, reflected the vitality of American free creation. When people are not satisfied with accidental venting and subjective wanton behavior in painting, they advocate letting the picture display its full potential by itself, so there are large color gamut painting, minimalism painting, hard-edged painting and so on. These arts mostly decorate the picture with cool and simple large color blocks without any emotional expression. Pop art first became popular in the United States in the 196s, which made art and modern civilization penetrate each other and made art a more popular means of communication, which was closely related to the survival of modern people. Since the 197s, modern art has completely entered a diversified pattern, and artists have explored art and artistic expression on a broader level. Since then, there has been no school of style to be found, which can be described as one person and one school, with innovative designs and endless streams. Since then, western art has entered an endless world far from the world of common sense. Modern art comes first. "Modern art" is the dominant art form in the west since the 2th century. Since the beginning of the 2th century, with the western society entering the modern period, modern art, which is different from classical art and modern art, has emerged. Its outstanding feature is that realistic style is no longer the main artistic form, but the concept and formal language that embodies the artist's personality, and many artistic schools have been formed, one of which is dominant at a time. Such as cubism, futurism, surrealism, abstraction, pop art, photographic realism and so on. Of course, no matter what kind of art form, it reflects and shows the social and psychological characteristics brought about by modern social changes, and it is also the artist's exploration of artistic expression forms. The positive results enrich people's aesthetic experience and open up the visual expression space of art; One of the problems is that because of the lack of artistic standards and excessive personalization, there are both good and bad in art, and some are divorced from the public and go to extremes. Second, in the process of modernization in all countries, there are "modern arts" with their own cultural connotations related to their own social development characteristics, which reflect the process of social modernization in content and reflect the modern spirit in artistic form. Due to the advance of the western developed countries in the modernization process, the western "modern art" has a considerable influence on the world, but this does not mean that the art of various countries is a copy of the West. China's art has its own distinctive cultural "modernity" in the century-long development of the 2th century. "Contemporary art" refers to today's art in time, and mainly refers to art with modern spirit and modern language in connotation. The reason why contemporary art is commonly used in current exhibitions is that the term "modern art" is easily confused with the existing "modernist art". At the same time, "contemporary art" embodies not only "modernity" but also the "modernity" that artists feel based on today's social life. Artists are exposed to today's cultural environment and face today's reality, so their works will inevitably reflect today's characteristics of the times. Postmodernism is the most fashionable topic in China art circles since 199s. However, no academic term originated from the West has been endowed with such rich ambiguity and ambiguity as postmodernism. Looking at many related articles in newspapers and magazines and all kinds of artistic creations with this signboard, I find that postmodernism is almost regarded as an all-encompassing grocery store. In many young artists in China, postmodernism is interpreted as cynicism, the loss of social responsibility and the dissolution of lofty spirit. It is often a simple patchwork of Coca-Cola trademarks and portraits of Peking Opera costumes. Although mankind has entered the information age, there is still little introduction of western post-modern art in China, and most people in China are not familiar with its true colors. There is no doubt that this is the result of the understanding and interpretation of post-modernism. The reason for the case. Happily, at the turn of the century, we unexpectedly got an opportunity to witness the western postmodern art. Hosted by China Exhibition and Exchange Center, From October 1999 to January 2, the "Outside World-American Contemporary Art Exhibition" (originally named "Out of the Border: American Art on the Eve of the 21st Century"/Out Ward Bound: American Art at the brink of the Twenty-first Century) co-organized by American Meridian International Center and Mobil Foundation was exhibited in Shanghai and Beijing for a long time, which enabled us to correct mistakes and gain a correct understanding of the true face and significance of western postmodern art.