The so-called Western modern art refers to certain schools of modern art developed in Western countries since the early 20th century - Fauvism, Cubism, Futurism, Dada, Expressionism, Super Realism, abstraction, pop art. The term "modernism" is associated with some new, non-traditional artistic thought that is different from the past; modernist art is neither different from the traditional art in the past, nor does it include various modern realist schools. It is not the same concept as modern Western art, it only occupies a place in it.
The emergence of Western modern art has its political, economic, cultural and philosophical historical origins, and is closely connected with the process of modern Western society. New technological revolution, social structure and changes in people's thoughts, consciousness values, relationships between people, etc., the increasing maturity of photography technology, the introduction of oriental art represented by Japanese prints and African art, Kant, The influence of the philosophical thoughts of Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and others, as well as the influence of Freudian psychology, as well as the various contradictions and shortcomings of Western real society, all promoted the formation of modern art.
From the perspective of the entire history of European art, the modern art trend began around the time of Impressionism. To be precise, the origins are with the French post-impressionist painters Cézanne, Gauguin and the Dutch painter Van Gogh.
In 1905, Fauvism, headed by Matisse and with Vlaminck and others as its backbone, was born in Paris. They were inspired by the works of Cézanne and deeply influenced by Gauguin and Van Gogh in their art form. They used strong colors, unrestrained and rough lines, and distorted and exaggerated shapes to express their subjective feelings about the objective world. At the same time, German Expressionism came into being. They denied the objectivity of the real world and also blindly pursued the subjective feelings of the artist. However, they did not focus on the exploration of pure form, but regarded the language of painting as a rebellion against society. A means of venting dissatisfaction.
Two years later, Cubism, led by Picasso and Braque, appeared in Paris. It first destroys and dismembers all objects, decomposes natural shapes into various geometric sections, and then subjectively combines them, and even develops to combine several different aspects of the same object on the same picture to express the four-dimensional space.
Since Cubism, various new theories and concepts have poured in in Europe. As a result, Futurism appeared in Italy in 1909 with an avant-garde attitude. They rejected the sentiment and expected interest as painting methods in the past, praised original forms, and also denied the old-fashioned things in terms of themes. They believed that the important thing should be to depict modern urban life, such as steel, speed, violent sports, etc. .
After Futurism, the Metaphysical School appeared in Italy. In metaphysical paintings, the hands of the clock and the small flag on the tower are in a stagnant state. Everything is still and shrouded in mysterious silence. The purpose is to separate things from daily ethics. Metaphysical painting has elements of surrealism.
The First World War left extremely painful trauma to European countries. A group of young artists issued the "Dada Manifesto" out of strong dissatisfaction with society. Because the Dadaists were disgusted with everything that existed in human beings, they wanted to deny everything and destroy everything. In art, it attempts to get rid of all ancient traditional culture and art, negate the modeling concepts and modeling rules of all traditional arts, and express things that are difficult to understand with a grotesque and absurd image.
In 1924, Breton, a French doctor and poet and the original backbone of the Dada movement, came forward to organize and establish the Surrealist School. They rely on the so-called automatic description method, use pictorial symbols, modeling metaphors, changing environments and other techniques to express absurd and chaotic feelings and images, and construct many strange worlds of deformation, fantasy and magic.
About 1901, after several years of exploration by the Russian painter Kandinsky, the Dutch painter Mondrian and others who had lived in Germany for many years, abstractionism finally took shape. Artists break away from the tradition of reproducing visual feelings in plastic arts, and regard points, lines and surfaces as independent expressive elements, turning them into symbols with symbolic meaning, thereby conveying the artist's emotions to the audience. After World War II, Pollock, the founder of the American Action Painting School, began to turn to abstract expressionism. He does not use strokes, but sprinkles paint randomly on the canvas; there is no specific image or life content in the picture, only spots like things spread out, thus transcending the narrow scope of framed paintings, and the picture has an infinite space. Feel.
In the 1960s, abstract expressionism became more formalized, so some artists went in the opposite direction, switching from "extreme abstraction" to "very concrete" - turning to real objects in life. This is Pop Art (also known as Pop Art), which began in England and then became popular in the United States.
How should we view Western modernist art in the twentieth century? There are indeed a considerable number of works that are blurry, deformed, even absurd and unbelievable, expressing the idealist artistic taste and decadent thoughts of some schools; but more modern artists embody their rebellious character and emphasize their own value through creation. , expresses the artist's subjective mind, and also creates many artistic expression methods and new materials worthy of our reference.