Major periods in Western art history Part 1

Art of Emerging Europe

Ancient Greece

The Greeks were known to excel in various fields and aspects of society, like political
ideals eventually became the framework for the democratic form of government in
modern times.  They valued poetry, drama and philosophy which remain interesting
fields of study for the contemporary times.  For those who want to be involved in the
art-painting, sculpture and architecture- one is required to have a certain skill sets and
body of knowledge. The Greeks were known to place prime importance in the use of
reasons.  They were also known to be notably passionate about natural phenomenon
and believed the nature should be in a perfect order.   These principles, belief systems
and ideologies are core of Greek art and architecture. The Origin of theaters and drama
can be traced back during the Greek civilization.

Ancient Rome
The Roman Republic was established around 500 BCE.  This civilization eventually
transformed into one of Western Europe’s mightiest empires.  Since they had expanded
and covered more territories, they interacted within neighboring civilizations, particularly
with Greeks.  In can be said that Roman civilization came of age during the Hellenistic
Period, it was also a period when the Greek culture’s influence has reached its peak in
the Mediterranean world.  The Romans were fond of the Greeks and their achievements
in arts.  The fusion of Greek and Roman cultures can be seen in most Roman artworks. 
Some would argue that the Romans merely copied Greek art.  This eventually made
Romans produce artwork that are often looking stern, harsh and strong. They also
invoked the principles of realism in most of their works, highlighting the features of
human beings.  They are also known to be master of builders which earned their
reputation for grand monuments and architectural infrastructures.The Colosseum is one
of Roman architectural achievement under Emperor Vespasian.

Middle Ages

As the term denotes, it is the period between the decline of the Roman Empire and the
Renaissance.  It was period that is characterized by ignorance and darkness, another
dominant characteristic of the period was that the Church was the central figure ans
authority of the period.  Since the Church is the central figure the most important product
would have to be copied of the Christian Scriptures. Great cathedrals were built.
Renaissance Period

During this period, artist valued the “individual” as a subject of arts.  The influence of
humanism shifted the focus of some artwork to empower the individual, most artwork
emphasized naturalism which was also an influence of humanism since there was a great
emphasis on the proportionality of the human body.

Mannerism

  Italian  Manierismo, (from  maniera,  “manner,” or “style”), artistic style that predominated
in Italy from the end of the  High Renaissance  in the 1520s to the beginnings of the
Baroque style around 1590. The Mannerist style originated in Florence and  Rome  and
spread to northern Italy and, ultimately, to much of central and northern Europe. The term
was first used around the end of the 18th century by the Italian archaeologist  Luigi Lanzi
to define 16th-century artists who were the followers of major Renaissance masters.
-In Parmigianino's Madonna with the Long Neck (1534–1540), Mannerism makes
itself known by elongated proportions, highly stylized poses, and lack of clear
perspective.

Baroque and Rococo

Baroque was at first an undisguised term of abuse, probably derived from the Italian
word barocco, which was a term used by philosophers during the Middle Ages to
describe an obstacle in schematic logic. Subsequently, this became a description for any
contorted idea or involuted process of thought. Another possible source is the
Portuguese word barroco, with its Spanish form  barrueco, used to describe an irregular
or imperfectly shaped pearl; this usage still survives in the jeweler’s term “baroque
pearl.”

The derivation of the word Rococo is equally uncertain, though its source is most
probably to be found in the French word rocaille, used to describe shell and pebble
decorations in the 16th century. In the 18th century, however, the scope of the word was
increased when it came to be used to describe the mainstream of French art of the first
half of the century; Neoclassical artists used it as a derogatory term. Fundamentally a
style of decoration, Rococo is much more a facet of late Baroque art than
an autonomous style, and the relationship between the two presents interesting
parallels to that between High Renaissance and Mannerist art.
(https://www.britannica.com/art/Western-architecture/Baroque-and-Rococo)
 

“The Assumption of the Virgin”. A painting by Tittian located at Venice, Italy. The Biblical
event in the painting shows how the Baroque Period reverted to having religious subjects
in their works.

Major periods in Western art history part 2

Neoclassicism

Neoclassical art, also called Neoclassicism and Classicism, a widespread and influential

movement in painting and the other visual arts that began in the 1760s, reached its
height in the 1780s and ’90s, and lasted until the 1840s and ’50s. In painting it generally
took the form of an emphasis on austere linear design in the depiction of Classical
themes and subject matter, using archaeologically correct settings and clothing.
Neoclassicism in the arts is an aesthetic attitude based on the art
of Greece and Rome in antiquity, which invokes harmony, clarity, restraint, universality,
and idealism. In the context of the tradition, Classicism refers either to the art
produced in antiquity or to later art inspired by that of antiquity, while Neoclassicism
always refers to the art produced later but inspired by antiquity. Classicizing artists tend
to prefer somewhat more specific qualities, which include line over colour, straight lines
over curves, frontality and closed compositions over diagonal compositions into deep
space, and the general over the particular.
(https://www.britannica.com/art/Neoclassicism)

This figure was created by Antonio Canova , “ Paolina Borghese as Venus Vicrix

Romanticism

Romanticism, attitude or intellectual orientation that characterized many works of

literature, painting, music, architecture, criticism, and historiography in Western
civilization over a period from the late 18th to the mid-19th century. Romanticism can
be seen as a rejection of the precepts of order, calm, harmony, balance, idealization,
and rationality that typified Classicism in general and late 18th-
century Neoclassicism in particular. It was also to some extent a reaction against
the Enlightenment and against 18th-century rationalism and physical materialism in
general. Romanticism emphasized the individual, the subjective, the irrational, the
imaginative, the personal, the spontaneous, the emotional, the visionary, and the
transcendental.(https://www.britannica.com/art/Romanticism)
The Raft of the Medusa is one of the great masterpieces painted by Théodore
Géricault.A huge painting which has become the symbols of the struggle of the weakest
against privileges, describing an event that really happened and which had aroused
French public opinion in the first half of the 19th century.

Realism

Realism, in the arts, the accurate, detailed, unembellished depiction of nature or of

contemporary life. Realism rejects imaginative idealization in favour of a close
observation of outward appearances. As such, realism in its broad sense
has comprised many artistic currents in different civilizations. In the visual arts, for
example, realism can be found in ancient Hellenistic Greek sculptures accurately
portraying boxers and decrepit old women. This movement also reexamined existing
belief systems and traditions.

(https://www.britannica.com/art/realism-art)

A Burial at Ornans

Impressionism

The Impressionism movement started in France, a major movement, first

in painting and later in music, that developed chiefly in France during the late 19th and
early 20th centuries. Impressionist painting comprises the work produced between
about 1867 and 1886 by a group of artists who shared a set of related approaches and
techniques. The most conspicuous characteristic of Impressionism in painting was an
attempt to accurately and objectively record visual reality in terms of transient effects of
light and color. In music, it was to convey an idea or affect through a wash of sound
rather than a strict formal structure.

Source: https://www.artble.com/artists/berthe_morisot/paintings/the_harbor_at_lo
rient

Post-Impressionism

Post-Impressionism, in Western painting, movement in France that represented both

an extension of Impressionism and a rejection of that style’s inherent limitations. The
term Post-Impressionism was coined by the English art critic Roger Fry for the work of
such late 19th-century painters as Paul Cézanne, Georges Seurat, Paul
Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and others. All of these
painters except van Gogh were French, and most of them began as Impressionists;
each of them abandoned the style, however, to form his own highly personal art.
Impressionism was based, in its strictest sense, on the objective recording of nature in
terms of the fugitive effects of colour and light. The Post-Impressionists rejected this
limited aim in favour of more ambitious expression, admitting their debt, however, to
the pure, brilliant colours of Impressionism, its freedom from traditional subject matter,
and its technique of defining form with short brushstrokes of broken colour. The work of
these painters formed a basis for several contemporary trends and for early 20th-
century modernism.
 

Neo-Impressionism

Neo-Impressionism, movement in French painting of the late 19th century that reacted

against the empirical realism of Impressionism by relying on systematic calculation
and scientific theory to achieve predetermined visual effects. Whereas the
Impressionist painters spontaneously recorded nature in terms of the fugitive effects of
colour and light, the Neo-Impressionists applied scientific optical principles of light and
colour to create strictly formalized compositions. Neo-Impressionism was led
by Georges Seurat, who was its original theorist and most significant artist, and by Paul
Signac, also an important artist and the movement’s major spokesman. Other Neo-
Impressionist painters were Henri-Edmond Cross, Albert Dubois-Pillet, Maximilien
Luce, Théo Van Rysselberghe, and, for a time, the Impressionist painter Camille
Pissarro. The group founded a Société des Artistes Indépendants in 1884.
Major periods in Western art history Part 3
Art Nouveau

Art Nouveau was an artistic movement which peaked in popularity between 1890 and
1905 which was practiced in the fields of art, architecture and applied art. It is a French
term meaning "new art" and is characterized by organic and plant motifs as well as
other highly stylized forms. The organic forms often took the form of sudden violent
curves which were often referenced by the term whiplash. Its short success was a
reaction against the late 19th century academic art and was replaced by the
development of 20th century modernist styles.
          Relative to graphic design it was popular in book production and poster printing,
although it was used by artists for a variety of other types of work including
advertisements, magazines, labels and typography. The typography was so heavily
ornate that it was not desirable for text faces but great for display work.
Fauvism

Fauvism, style of painting that flourished in France around the turn of the 20th century.
Fauve artists used pure, brilliant colour aggressively applied straight from the paint
tubes to create a sense of an explosion on the canvas.
(https://www.britannica.com/art/Fauvism)

Cubism

Cubism, highly influential visual arts style of the 20th century that was created
principally by the artists Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque in Paris between 1907 and
1914. The Cubist style emphasized the flat, two-dimensional surface of the picture plane,
rejecting the traditional techniques of perspective, foreshortening, modeling,
and chiaroscuro and refuting time-honoured theories that art should imitate nature.
Cubist painters were not bound to copying form, texture, colour, and space. Instead,
they presented a new reality in paintings that depicted radically fragmented objects.
(https://www.britannica.com/art/Cubism)

Futurism
Futurism, Italian Futurismo, Russian Futurizm, early 20th-century artistic
movement centred in Italy that emphasized the dynamism, speed, energy, and power
of the machine and the vitality, change, and restlessness of modern life. During the
second decade of the 20th century, the movement’s influence radiated outward across
most of Europe, most significantly to the Russian avant-garde. The most-significant
results of the movement were in the visual arts and poetry.
(https://www.britannica.com/art/Futurism)

Teachers Insight.

“Everything that happens has reasons, and this reason are the cause which led to the
effect” therefore for every change and evolution of movement there are conditions that
led it to happen either

( historical, political, and or social)

Activity 1. Essay

Directions. Answer the following questions below.

1. What are the different historical, political and social context that is prevalent in the
different major movement of art in Europe?

2. What are similarities and differences of the different time periods and movement? 

3. Why is the different time periods and movement important in the development of the
western culture?

Activity 2. Self-reflection.

Directions. Complete the sentences below.

1. Art is important in the development of Culture because…

2. Understanding the prevalent historical, political and social context in a certain period
of movements and time enables me to…

Your answer
Art Movements (Modern to Contemporary Part 1
Optical arts.

Op art is the short form for the art movement known as optical art. Time magazine
described Op art as “Pictures That Attack the Eye” in October 1964; consequently, the
Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan created an exhibition of Op art in 1965 that
boasted 123 paintings and sculptures from 100 artists of 15 nations (Spike, 2008).

The optical art movement has been especially common in American art since the1960s,
but the style really traces back to the year 1839 and one French chemist, Michel-Eugene
Chevreul. He studied the effect of pairing complimentary colors, and his influence
spread importantly to the father of Op art, Georges Seurat, the inventor of pointillism
(Spike, 2008).

Optical art is concerned with creating optical illusions. The style typically favors
abstraction over representation because observers must really focus their eyes and
comprehend what they see. An illusion might suggest one thing at first, but a closer
look reveals something different in the picture. Many Op art pieces are completed in
two colors—black and white. The optical illusion creates different responses in observers
through patterns, flashes, contrasts, movement, and hidden imagery. The observer is
pulled into the picture in the same way that he or she is attacked by the image.

Philip Taaffe (b. 1955) was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and trained at Cooper Union in
New York. He has studied and exhibited internationally, and his works appear in
museums such as Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan. Taaffe demonstrates the
concepts of Op art in works like Eros and Psyche and Pine Columns. Eros and Psyche
(1993-1994) is a vivid abstraction with bold colors of red, white, black, and orange. This
painting reflects a similar style to some Abstract Expressionist works of Jackson Pollock.

he British artist, Bridget Riley, was born in 1931in London. Her art from the second half
of the twentieth century offers many examples of optical illusion. One beautiful work is
done in the traditional black and white—Movement in Squares (1961). In this piece,
Riley shows that a simple geometric pattern of checkerboard squares when arranged in
a compelling way can create motion and illusion. A colorful piece, Shadow Play (1990),
uses many colors to create a geometric pattern that inspires strong emotions in the
observer. For example, the use of bright and warm colors creates a happy feeling. Riley
notably represented her country in the Venice Biennale (1968) and became the first
British contemporary painter and female to garner the Biennale’s International Prize in
painting.

Op art offers something in post-Modern and contemporary art for people who love
powerful use of concepts like geometry, line, color, and pattern.

Kinetic arts.

Kinetic art is art that features motion or relies on movement for effect. Kinetic artwork is
frequently multi-dimensional and may feature natural movement or movement that
relies on automation of some form. The art movement was popular during the 1950s
but many of its concepts can be traced back to far earlier in the century and even to the
1800s. Impressionists and some sculptors like Auguste Rodin were interested in the
concept of artistic movement and tried to capture movement in their works; however, it
wasn’t until the surreal art period of the early twentieth century that more pronounced
interest and theories began to take shape.

During the Surreal and Dada periods, artists and sculptors wanted to create visual
experiences that could even be described as interactive in nature. In many ways, the
mechanical advances of the era informed the development of the Kinetic Art concept. As
an art form, Kinetic Art is typically divided into two forms: virtual movement and actual
movement. Virtual movement gives the impression of movement but artworks and their
individual components don’t actually move. Many Kinetic artists were concerned with
the appearance of how things look when movement is added. Sculptures and mobiles
were popularly used mediums for Kinetic artists that wanted to explore natural and
automated movement.
Kinetic Art hit its stride in 1955 at the Paris exhibition called “Le Mouvement.” At this
point Kinetic Art became internationally regarded as a movement in its own right. Since
earlier Kinetic works such as those achieved by Marcel Duchamp were simply associated
with Surreal Art or Dada, works from the 1950s and 1960s were viewed under the label
of Kinetic Art. Artists who created Kinetic artworks include Marcel Duchamp, Alexander
Calder, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, and Vladimir Tatlin. Later Kinetic artists include David
Madalla, Yaacov Agam, Heinz Mac, and Abraham Palatnik.

Although Kinetic Art was more or less abandoned by 1970 in favor of more digital art
forms, some artists still experiment with artworks featuring movement. In fact, the MIT
Museum recently (2013) hosted an exhibition of Kinetic artworks called “5000 Moving
Parts.” Some works that are viewed as precursors to modern Kinetic Art include Le Ballet
Espagnol (1862) by Edouard Manet, At the Races (1877-1880) by Edgar Desgas, and
Atelier sur Seine (1876) by Claude Monet. Celebrated modern works of Kinetic Art
include Red Mobile (1956) by Alexander Calder, Four Squares in Square Arrangement
(1969) by George Rickey, and Standing Wave (1919-1920) by Naum Gabo.

Gutia Art.

This Japanese movement represented a radical and energetic approach to artmaking

that encompassed performance, painting, installation, and theatrical events, taking
advantage of the freedoms available in their newly democratic homeland. They sought
and achieved an extraordinary level of international recognition, collaborated with and
strongly influenced conceptual and performance artists that came after them, and are
now considered to mark one of the most important moments in post-war Japanese
culture.

Individualism was a central concern for Gutai artists. During the Second World War,
Japan's totalitarian regime had promoted the notion of a national body and stifled any
hints of individual expression. Members of the group unashamedly rebelled against this
attitude in their writings and artworks, encouraging the public, children, and other artists
to "do what no one has done before!"

The word 'gutai' translates as 'concreteness', and it articulates one of the Gutai group's
most distinctive traits - their desire to physically engage with an extraordinary range of
materials. The name also anticipated their investigations into the reciprocal connection
between matter (paint, chemicals, tar, mud, water) and physical action (breaking,
exploding, tearing, dripping). They wanted to create a new kind of art that explored the
relationship between the human spirit and material, works that luxuriated in "the scream
of matter."

Gutai artists were exceptional international networkers who used the media to spread
their ideas across the globe. They also collaborated with other artists' groups in Europe
and America, including Allan Kaprow's Happenings, the Art Informel group, and the
Dutch Nul collective. This drive was not only essential to the movement's long term
success, but it also represented their rejection of Japanese isolation during World War II
and their desire to be a part of a new, liberal-minded Japan.

Gutai firmly believed in concept over form, thoroughly rejecting representative art. They
wanted to move away from the art object towards the invisible world of ideas, and to
leave plenty of room for viewers to come up with potential meanings on their own. Two
Gutai practices that articulated these ideas were the pared-down, interactive works of
Atsuko Tanaka and Saburõ Murakami's pieces that aimed to separate art from content
with a strong dose of wit.

Challenge To The Mud (1955)

Artist: Kazuo Shiraga

Kazuo Shiraga's seminal 'performance painting' featured the artist flinging himself, half
naked, into a pile of clay, where he writhed and slipped around in the material while
sculpting shapes from it - thus creating a picture using his whole body. Challenge To
The Mud explored the place where physical action (represented by Shiraga wrestling in
the clay) and 'matter' (the clay itself) collide. The pile of mud was left in situ after the
performance for the show's duration, and presented as an artwork in its own right.
Shiraga initially conceived the work as an expanded painting, and it predated his related
'rope hanging' performances in which he created exuberant canvases by dipping his feet
in paint while suspended above or walking directly on them
Laceration of Paper (1956)

Artist: Saburõ Murakami

Saburõ Murakami's Laceration of Paper involved the artist hurling himself through a
series of enormous kraft paper screens. The tautly stretched paper produced loud,
explosive sounds as Murakami punched his way through each sheet as quickly as
possible, releasing and reveling in its material properties. This piece embodies the Gutai
artists' desire to go far beyond the limits of the canvas to produce encounters between
the human spirit and the substance of matter itself. Murakami restaged Laceration of
Paper several times with the last performance in 1994, two years before his death.

Please Draw Freely (1956)

Artist: Jirõ Yoshihara

In Please Draw Freely, Gutai founder Jirõ Yoshihara invited visitors to the Outdoor Gutai
Art Exhibition to create a collective artwork on a large, blank board. A sign by the work
encouraged the public to express themselves without inhibition, and markers and pens
were provided. The exhibition took place in the main park in the Japanese city of Ashiya,
and was conceived as a totally democratic art event that would appeal to a general
audience. With Please Draw Freely, Yoshihara wanted to reject passive spectatorship and
quiet contemplation of artworks, and instead invite people of all ages to engage with art
directly and experience being part of the creative process themselves - to make
spectators into producers.

Art Movements Modern to Contemporary part 2

Minimalism.

Minimalism emerged in New York in the early 1960s among artists who were self-
consciously renouncing recent art they thought had become stale and academic. A wave
of new influences and rediscovered styles led younger artists to question conventional
boundaries between various media. The new art favored the cool over the "dramatic":
their sculptures were frequently fabricated from industrial materials and emphasized
anonymity over the expressive excess of Abstract Expressionism. Painters and sculptors
avoided overt symbolism and emotional content, but instead called attention to the
materiality of the works. By the end of the 1970s, Minimalism had triumphed in America
and Europe through a combination of forces including museum curators, art dealers,
and publications, plus new systems of private and government patronage. And
members of a new movement, Post-Minimalism, were already challenging its authority
and were thus a testament to how important Minimalism itself became.

Minimalists distanced themselves from the Abstract Expressionists by removing

suggestions of biography from their art or, indeed, metaphors of any kind. This denial of
expression coupled with an interest in making objects that avoided the appearance of
fine art led to the creation of sleek, geometric works that purposefully and radically
eschew conventional aesthetic appeal.

The post-Sputnik era revived active interest in Russian Constructivism. The Constructivist
approach led to the use of modular fabrication and industrial materials in preference to
the craft techniques of traditional sculpture. The ready mades of Marcel Duchamp were
also inspirational examples of the employment of prefabricated materials. Based on
these sources, Minimalists created works that resembled factory-built commodities and
upended traditional definitions of art whose meaning was tied to a narrative or to the
artist.

The use of prefabricated industrial materials and simple, often repeated geometric
forms together with the emphasis placed on the physical space occupied by the artwork
led to some works that forced the viewer to confront the arrangement and scale of the
forms. Viewers also were led to experience qualities of weight, height, gravity, agility or
even the appearance of light as a material presence. They were often faced with
artworks that demanded a physical as well as a visual response.

Minimalists sought to break down traditional notions of sculpture and to erase

distinctions between painting and sculpture. In particular, they rejected the formalist
dogma espoused by the critic Clement Greenberg that placed limitations on the art of
painting and privileged artists who seemed to paint under his direction. The Minimalists'
more democratic point of view was set out in writings as well as exhibitions by their
leaders Sol LeWitt, Donald Judd, and Robert Morris.

Die Fahne Hoch! (1959)

Artist: Frank Stella

Unquestionably a key monument in modern art, this work, one of the series of Black
Paintings done by Frank Stella, is a bold counter-movement against the eminent
Abstract Expressionist painters. It is a monochrome rectangular painting on a heavy
chassis projecting from the wall into surrounding space as if urging the viewer to move
back. Magnetized, the viewer is drawn closer seeking to read the pattern of pinstripes
on the surface. These stripes are in fact the raw canvas revealed between broad black
stripes painted with few visible brushstrokes. The painting is an unframed, flat
abstraction and would appear to be meaningless except for its title: Die Fahne Hoch!
(Raise High the Flag!), the opening words of the Nazi anthem. Stella has denied any
political connection, and one could possibly see the title as a wave to Jasper Johns,
whose American flag paintings of 1954-55 were met with praise by his critics, but also a
general public bewilderment.

Stella challenged the traditional dichotomy between painting and sculpture that was
championed by Clement Greenberg and other modernists, particularly those associated
with Abstract Expressionism. In particular, Greenberg felt that each medium and, indeed,
each art form should be pure with no overlap with other media, an idea that is directly
disputed by Stella's canvas/object and most Minimalists.

Scholars have read the title as an example of Minimalists' often-in-your-face aesthetics

and their refusal to make works that are visually appealing, instead forcing the viewer to
confront works on a physical level as a way of disputing the conventional relationship
between the viewer and the work of art in which the viewer simply appreciates or
admires the visual appeal of a work.

Die (1962)

Artist: Tony Smith

The artist's specifications for the sculpture were as follows: "a six-foot cube of quarter-
inch hot-rolled steel with diagonal internal bracing." The dimensions were determined,
according to Tony Smith, by the proportions of the human body. Smith explained that a
larger scale would have endowed Die with the stature of a "monument," while a smaller
one would have reduced it to a mere "object." Weighing approximately 500 pounds and
resting on the museum floor, the sculpture invites us to walk around it and experience it
sequentially, one or two sides at a time. Like other examples of Minimalism, its
unreadable surface and frank lack of visual appeal come across as almost hostile in its
undermining of traditional understandings of art as something aesthetically or
emotionally appealing, showing the artist's rejection of Abstraction Expressionism's
hands-on approach to art making.

The sculpture's deceptively simple title invites multiple associations: it alludes to die
casting, to one of a pair of dice, and, ultimately, to death. As Smith remarked, "Six feet
has a suggestion of being cooked. Six foot box. Six foot under." Rationality, evoked by
Die's purely geometric configuration, is countered by the sculpture's brooding presence.
Meaning becomes relative rather than absolute, something generated through the
interplay of word and object. Weaving together strains of architecture, industrial
manufacture, and the found object, Smith radically transformed the way sculpture could
look, how it could be made, and, ultimately, how it could be understood.

Lever (1966)

Artist: Carl Andre

Carl Andre's Lever was the most audacious entry at the 1966 Primary Structures
exhibition that introduced the public to Minimalism. This row of 137 firebricks aligned to
project out from the wall and straight across the floor was likened by Andre to a fallen
column. Lever startled gallery visitors, interrupted their movement and, in its simplicity,
was annoying. Made from easily available building materials ("anyone could do it: where
was the art?"), Lever demanded respect from thoughtful viewers while undermining
traditional artistic values. Such provocations became routine for Andre: "my ambition as
an artist is to be the 'Turner of matter.' As Turner severed color from depiction, so I
attempt to sever matter from depiction." He went on to describe wood as the "mother
of matter" and praised bricklayers as "people of fine craft."

In this way, Andre's Lever along with many Minimalist works challenged how art was
situated in the gallery and how viewers interacted with it. Art no longer was hung
discreetly on the wall or placed on a pedestal in the corner as something to enjoy in a
purely visual way. It now required a more complex and thoughtful interaction from the
viewer. This piece is made of nontraditional materials that call to mind industrial or
building materials that require no manipulation from the hand of the artist. While the
work is nonrepresentational, the title is suggestive of manual labor.

Pop Art (1960s onwards)

Pop Art was both modernist and contemporary. It started out by depicting a more up-
to-date reality, using images of film-stars and other celebrities, as well as mass-made
consumer goods. But this was rapidly eclipsed by an increasing post-modern focus on
impact and style.Also, commonplace objects (such as comic strips, soup cans, road
signs, and hamburgers) were used as subject matter and were often physically
incorporated into the work.

Andy Warhol: Campbell's Soup Cans paintingsCampbell's Soup Cans, polymer paint on

canvas by Andy Warhol, 1962; a selection of five on display in the Museumsquartier,
Vienna.

Neo-pop art.

In the 1980s there was a renewed interest in the Pop Art of Andy Warhol and

contemporaries. Warhol died in 1987, but he had long before inspired a while
generation of new artists. It should be noted that Neo-Pop Art is not really a new art
movement, but rather an evolution of the old Pop Art movement.

Neo-Pop Art consists of a revised form of Pop Art adapted from its forefathers, a rebirth
of recognizable objects and celebrities from popular culture with icons and symbols of
the present times. Excellent examples are Katharina Fritsch's 1993 sculpture "Rat-King"
and Jeff Koon's 1988 sculpture: "Michael Jackson and Bubbles
The Evolution of Pop Art
This type of Pop Art often relies heavily on broadening the idea of ready-mades and
using pre-existing items to create a final product, first developed by Dadaist Marcel
Duchamp, and also borrowing heavily from cultural icons (such as Michael Jackson,
Madonna, Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, etc). Neo-Pop Art relies heavily on the mass
media both for influence/inspiration but also for promoting their work (Daniel
Edwards for example gets a lot media attention for his controversial nude sculptures of
celebrities).

Neo-Pop Art tends to criticize and evaluate Western Culture, values, relationships, and
interactions, frequently poking fun at celebrities and openly embraces ideas that are
provocative and controversial.

What we call Neo-Pop Art is certainly not a movement but a convenient way of
classifying this new list of diverse artists. The work of these artists also draws inspiration
from Minimalism, Conceptual Art, Photorealism, Installation/Performance Art and more.
The original Pop Art movement was boundary breaking and avant garde whereas Neo-
Pop Art is not a new style, but a dramatic and controversial evolution of the previous
generation. It could also be called "Shock Pop Art".
Neo-Pop Animals
During the early years of Neo-Pop Art a common theme was the use of animals in their
art, especially in the work of Jeff Koons, Katharina Fritsch, Keith Haring and Damien
Hirst. Their obsession with portraying or even using members of the animal kingdom
into their work comes out in Keith Haring's cartoon dogs, Jeff Koons' inflatable plastic
rabbits and carved dogs, Katharina Fritsch's giant menacing rats, or Damien Hirst's
formaldehyde dissections.

Another characteristic of this second generation is the psychological evaluations often

embedded within the work. Charles Ray and Jeff Koons succeed at disguising their
intentions, Damien Hirst and Katharina Fritsch proclaim their intentions. Hirst uses
disturbing subject matter and pessimistic titles, while Fritsch uses anxiety and fear
provoking sculptures. Old Pop Art was not very thought provoking and embraced
nihilism, capitalism and consumer culture and Neo-Pop Art has evolved with an almost
sinister tone that strongly criticizes our fears and our obsessions.

Photo realism.

In contemporary art, the term "photorealism", "photo-realism" or "photographic

realism", describes a style of highly detailed 20th century realist painting in which the
artist attempts to replicate an image from a photograph in all its microscopic exactness.
As a movement, photorealism, sometimes also referred to
as Superrealism or Hyperrealism, came to prominence in the United States during the
late 1960s and early 1970s, largely as a result of paintings by Chuck Close (b.1940)
and Richard Estes (b.1936), and the extraordinarily life-like sculpture of John De
Andrea (b.1941), Duane Hanson (1925-96) and Carole Feuerman (b.1945). Being
wholly representational, photorealist art is a natural counter to contemporary
abstraction.

Conceptualism.       
 Featured image: Elaine Sturtevant

Conceptual art movement is probably the most radical and the most controversial plane
in modern and contemporary art. Some artists, experts and art historians even dismiss it
as art. Conceptual art is based on the notion that the essence of art is an idea, or
concept, and may exist distinct from and in the absence of an object as its
representation. Many examples of conceptual art (well-known works or statements)
question the notion of art itself.

Some conceptual artists believe that art is created by the viewer, not by the artist or the
artwork itself. Since ideas and concepts are the main feature of art, aesthetics and
material concerns have a secondary role in conceptual art. Conceptual artists recognize
that all art is essentially conceptual. In order to emphasize these terms, they reduce the
material presence of the work to an absolute minimum - a tendency that some have
referred to as the dematerialization of art – which is one of the main characteristics of
conceptual art. As many conceptual art examples show, the conceptual art movement
itself emerged as a reaction against the tenets of formalism. Formalism considers that
the formal qualities of a work - such as line, shape, and color - are self-sufficient for its
appreciation, and all other considerations - such as representational, ethical or social
aspects - are secondary or redundant.

Conceptual Art and Political and Social Issues

The so-called father of conceptual art movement is Marcel Duchamp. His best-known
work is Fountain (1917), a work that had rattled the very definition of the work of art.
Like Duchamp before, and as many conceptual art examples show, this direction of art
abandoned beauty, rarity, and skill as measures. With this work, Duchamp severed the
traditional link between the labor of artists and the merit of the work. Questions of
appropriation had been raised in art. Particularly during 1960s and 1970s, conceptual
artists focused on language, structure and representation. John Baldessari has created
thousands of works that demonstrate—and, in many cases, combine—the narrative
potential of images and the associative power of language within the boundaries of the
work of art. He is best known for works that blend photographic materials (such as film
stills), take them out of their original context and rearrange their form, often including
the addition of words or sentences. Elaine Sturtevant is a conceptual artist who
questions the notions of representation and appropriation. In 1965, she began to
manually reproduce paintings and objects created by her contemporaries with results
that can immediately be identified with the original. She turned the concept of
originality around. All of her works are copies of the works of other artists; none of them
is an original. Sturtevant was particularly focused on works by Roy Lichtenstein and
Andy Warhol. These examples show how much conceptual art insists on self-conscious
or self-referential.

Installation  art

An art installation is a three-dimensional visual artwork, often created for a specific

place  and designed to change the perception of space.The term “installation”, which
appeared in the 1970’s, generally applies to works created for interior spaces (ie. gallery,
museum); outdoor works are more often referred to as public art, land art, or, to put it
roughly, humans intervening on an environment and putting their “stamp” on it.That
said, an outdoor piece can most certainly be considered an “installation” of sorts, but,
typically, installation art is most often found within an indoor space, as some artists
would prefer to contain their creative statement to the context of a room, which is
simple enough for a viewer to comprehend.
Earth Art

A form of contemporary art, known also as Earthworks, or Earth Art, this artistic
movement emerged in America during the 1960s when a number of sculptors and
painters - such as Robert Smithson (1938-73) - determined to heighten public
awareness of Man's relationship with the natural world by intervening in the landscape
in a series of thought-provoking constructions. These (frequently massive) land-based
interventions or artworks took a variety of forms, from large-scale land artworks like
man-made curtains reaching across vast stretches of landscape, the encirclement of
whole islands in colored fabric, and reshaped waterways and volcanoes, to simple lines
of footprints in the earth. Although the precise meaning of each construction varied, the
underlying aim of this novel type of visual art was to create artistic imagery using earth,
rocks, soil and other natural material, with a view to increasing our sensibility towards
our environment.

Street art.
Graffiti art or Street art

Graffiti, form of visual communication, usually illegal, involving the unauthorized

marking of public space by an individual or group. Although the common image of
graffiti is a stylistic symbol or phrase spray-painted on a wall by a member of a
street gang, some graffiti is not gang-related. Graffiti can be understood as antisocial
behaviour performed in order to gain attention or as a form of thrill seeking, but it also
can be understood as an expressive art form.

Performance art

Performance art, a time-based art form that typically features a live presentation to an
audience or to onlookers (as on a street) and draws on such arts
as acting, poetry, music, dance, and painting. It is generally an event rather than
an artifact, by nature ephemeral, though it is often recorded on video and by means of
still photography.

Caught in Between: Modern and Contemporary Art

          The term “contemporary” seems simple and straightforward enough to define.
The complexity of defining the term is attributed to the fact that people have dissenting
views on the interpretation of the “present” of “today”, or what the “now” means these
are often ideas that follow the word contemporary. Reaping the benefits and drawbacks
of the dramatic changes that occurred at the beginning of the twentieth century, the
social, political and cultural context continued to provoke the artist to create.

          Contemporary art was heavily driven by ideas and theories and the even blurring
of notions of what is and can be considered as “art” One of the main developments
during this time was the turn from the traditional notions of what art is.: from paintings
and sculptures to the more experimental formats.  These also included film,
photography, video, and performance, installations, leading to interesting and dynamic
and otherwise “unheard of” combinations of concepts, subjects, materials, techniques
and methods of creation, experience and even analysis.

Teachers Insight.

“Change is the only things that does not change” Just like any other things Art from the
pre-historic times had developed to the extent where the nature, characteristic of the
modern society is embedded.