Modern art

Modern art includes artistic work produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the style and philosophy of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the traditions of the past have been thrown aside in a spirit of experimentation. Modern artists experimented with new ways of seeing and with fresh ideas about the nature of materials and functions of art. A tendency away from the narrative, which was characteristic for the traditional arts, toward abstraction is characteristic of much modern art. More recent artistic production is often called contemporary art or postmodern art.

Modern art begins with the heritage of painters like Vincent van Gogh, Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, Georges Seurat and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec all of whom were essential for the development of modern art. At the beginning of the 20th century Henri Matisse and several other young artists including the pre-cubists Georges Braque, André Derain, Raoul Dufy, Jean Metzinger and Maurice de Vlaminck revolutionized the Paris art world with "wild", multi-colored, expressive landscapes and figure paintings that the critics called Fauvism. Henri Matisse's two versions of The Dance signified a key point in his career and in the development of modern painting. It reflected Matisse's incipient fascination with primitive art: the intense warm color of the figures against the cool blue-green background and the rhythmical succession of the dancing nudes convey the feelings of emotional liberation and hedonism.

History of Modern

History of Modern is the eleventh studio album by British synthpop band Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD). It is their first since 1996, and also the first to feature the classic 4-piece OMD line-up since 1986's The Pacific Age. The record was released in the UK on 20 September 2010, peaking at #28. It was a considerable hit in Germany, reaching #5 – the group's highest chart placing for an LP in that country. The album was released in the US on Bright Antenna on 28 September 2010.

The artwork for History of Modern was conceived by Peter Saville and designed by Four23. The title was thought of by lead singer Andy McCluskey after he took his daughter to an art exhibition called 'The History of Modernism'.

A free download demo track taken from the album called "Sister Marie Says" was released on 25 November 2009. Elements of the song were originally composed in 1981 and a reworked version of the track was due to appear on the 1996 album Universal but got shelved because it sounded too much like early OMD and was out of step with the more reflective tone of Universal. The second track to be played from the album was "History of Modern pt.2". It was played on 31 May 2010 on BBC 6 Music; the title of the song was revealed on the shows web page a week before the broadcast. In an interview during the show the band confirmed the album would have two tracks named "History of Modern" on it and plans to change the name of one of the songs to "The Big Bang Theory" had apparently been scrapped. The first single from the album, "If You Want It", was released on 6 September 2010.

Art

Art is a diverse range of human activities in creating visual, auditory or performing artifacts – artworks, expressing the author's imaginative or technical skill, intended to be appreciated for their beauty or emotional power. In their most general form these activities include the production of works of art, the criticism of art, the study of the history of art, and the aesthetic dissemination of art.

The oldest form of art are visual arts, which include creation of images or objects in fields including painting, sculpture, printmaking, photography, and other visual media. Architecture is often included as one of the visual arts; however, like the decorative arts, it involves the creation of objects where the practical considerations of use are essential—in a way that they usually are not in a painting, for example. Music, theatre, film, dance, and other performing arts, as well as literature and other media such as interactive media, are included in a broader definition of art or the arts. Until the 17th century, art referred to any skill or mastery and was not differentiated from crafts or sciences. In modern usage after the 17th century, where aesthetic considerations are paramount, the fine arts are separated and distinguished from acquired skills in general, such as the decorative or applied arts.

Modern

Modern may refer to:

Geography

Fonts

Contemporary art

Contemporary art is art produced at the present period in time. Contemporary art includes, and develops from, postmodern art, which is itself a successor to modern art. In vernacular English, "modern" and "contemporary" are synonyms, resulting in some conflation of the terms "modern art" and "contemporary art" by non-specialists.

Scope

Some define contemporary art as art produced within "our lifetime," recognizing that lifetimes and life spans vary. However, there is a recognition that this generic definition is subject to specialized limitations.

The classification of "contemporary art" as a special type of art, rather than a general adjectival phrase, goes back to the beginnings of Modernism in the English-speaking world. In London, the Contemporary Art Society was founded in 1910 by the critic Roger Fry and others, as a private society for buying works of art to place in public museums. A number of other institutions using the term were founded in the 1930s, such as in 1938 the Contemporary Art Society of Adelaide, Australia, and an increasing number after 1945. Many, like the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston changed their names from ones using "Modern art" in this period, as Modernism became defined as a historical art movement, and much "modern" art ceased to be "contemporary". The definition of what is contemporary is naturally always on the move, anchored in the present with a start date that moves forward, and the works the Contemporary Art Society bought in 1910 could no longer be described as contemporary.