Contemporary Art

          Contemporary art refers to art made and produced by artists living today. Today's artists work in and respond to a global environment that is culturally diverse, technologically advancing, and multifaceted. Working in a wide range of mediums, contemporary artists often reflect and comment on modern-day society. When engaging with contemporary art, viewers are challenged to set aside questions such as, "Is a work of art good?" or "Is the work aesthetically pleasing?" Instead, viewers consider whether art is "challenging" or "interesting." Contemporary artists may question traditional ideas of how art is defined, what constitutes art, and how art is made, while creating a dialogue with—and in some cases rejecting—the styles and movements that came before them.

          Since the early 20th century, some artists have turned away from realistic representation and the depiction of the human figure, and have moved increasingly towards abstraction. In New York City after World War II, the art world coined the term "abstract expressionism" to characterize an art movement that was neither completely abstract, nor expressionistic. Nevertheless, the movement challenged artists to place more emphasis on the process of making art rather than the final product. Artists like Jackson Pollock brought art making to choreographic heights by dripping paint in grand yet spontaneous gestures. As one critic noted, the canvas was an arena in which to act what was going on in the canvas was not a picture but an event. This notion of art as an event emerged out of the movement called abstract expressionism, which greatly influenced the art movements that followed, and continues to inspire artists living today.

          Contemporary artists working within the postmodern movement reject the concept of mainstream art and embrace the notion of artistic pluralism, the acceptance of a variety of artistic intentions and styles. Whether influenced by or grounded in performance art, pop art, Minimalism, conceptual art, or video, contemporary artists pull from an infinite variety of materials, sources, and styles to create art. For this reason, it is difficult to briefly summarize and accurately reflect the complexity of concepts and materials used by contemporary artists. This overview highlights a few of the contemporary artists whose work is on view at the Getty Museum and the concepts they explore in their work.

The 20th Century: The Early Years

It could be said that the art world has been in a state of perpetual turmoil for the last hundred years. All of the important movements that were born during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century are met with the hostile, antiseptic gloves of critical disdain. When Courbet’s paintings were rejected by the 1855 Salon, he set up his own Pavilion of Realism and pushed the Realist movement on its way. Just eight years later, rejection by the Salon jury prompted the origin of the Salon des Réfusés, an exhibition of works including those of Manet. These ornery French artists went on to found the influential Impressionist movement. The very name—Impressionism—was coined by a hostile critic who degraded their work as mere “impressions,” sort of quick and easy sketches of the painter’s view of the world. Impressionism ran counter to the preferred illusionistic realism of Academic painting.

20th-century art and what it became as — modern art — began with modernism in the late 19th century. Nineteenth-century movements of Post-Impressionism (Les Nabis), Art Nouveau and Symbolism led to the first twentieth-century art movements of Fauvism in France and Die Brücke ("The Bridge") in Germany. Fauvism in Paris introduced heightened non-representational colour into figurative painting. Die Brücke strove for emotional Expressionism. Another German group was Der Blaue Reiter ("The Blue Rider"), led by Kandinsky in Munich, who associated the blue rider image with a spiritual non-figurative mystical art of the future. Kandinsky, Kupka, R. Delaunay and Picabia were pioneers of abstract (or non-representational) art. Cubism, generated by Picasso, Braque, Metzinger, Gleizes and others rejected the plastic norms of the Renaissance by introducing multiple perspectives into a two-dimensional image. Futurism incorporated the depiction of movement and machine age imagery. Dadaism, with its most notable exponents, Marcel Duchamp, who rejected conventional art styles altogether by exhibiting found objects, notably a urinal, and too Francis Picabia, with his Portraits Mécaniques. Parallel movements in Russia were Suprematism, where Kasimir Malevich also created non-representational work, notably a black canvas. The Jack of Diamonds group with Mikhail Larionov was expressionist in nature.

The 20th century opened new vistas and possibilities that expanded everyday human experience and greatly influenced the world of art and original painting. From the earliest years of the turn of the century, artists were beginning to experiment with subject matter, creating realities reflective more of their own inner visions than what lay before them in nature. Concurrent with this was a search for new techniques, materials, and approaches to support these forays into new terrains. As a result, 20th century painting movements and trends inspired artists to set out in many divergent directions, resulting in a broad range of styles and forms. They tended to break with tradition. They preferred to look forward instead of backward and experiment with new artistic choices rather than relying on old methods. Art in the 20th century was all about progress. Artists wanted to contribute to the development of their viewers and their society. They highly valued free expression. They refused to conform to standard practices and instead painted what they thought, felt, and envisioned, even if no one else appreciated or understood it. The subject matter was less important than the way that subject matter was communicated to the viewer.

MODERN ART

Modern art includes artistic works 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. They chose new subjects, materials, techniques that signaled a radical change from a medieval past. Their development of one-point linear perspective altered the face of painting completely. , modern art begins with the changes in the representation of space as introduced by artists of the late 18th century. And most of their art styles were neoclassicism, romanticism, realism, impressionism, post-impressionism, expressionism, and art nouveau (new art).

·         * Neoclassicism – art refers to the predominant Western movement that originated in Rome in the 18^th century; it is characterized mainly as a reaction against the excessive grandiose of the Baroque era and the ornateness of the late Rococo school. The movement coincided with the 18^th century Age of Enlightenment, and continued into the early 19^th century, latterly competing with Romanticism.

·        *  Romanticism- is an artistic style and movement in the 18th and 19th centuries that spread across Europe and later to the United States. It is characterized chiefly as a reaction against the order and restraint of the Neoclassicism.

·        * Realism- the arts refers to the mid-19th century Realist movement which started in France and initially began as a reaction against Romanticism in which subjects were treated idealistically, the Realists tended to discard theatrical drama and classical forms of art to depict commonplace or realistic themes, they wanted to represent the subject matter truthfully, without artificiality and avoiding artistic conventions, implausible, exotic and supernatural elements.

·        * Impressionism- is an artistic movement and style originating in France in the 19th century with a group of Paris-based artists. It is characterized by a concern with depicting the visual impression of the moment, especially in terms of the shifting effect of light and color.

·       * Post-Impressionism- refers to the artistic movement that emerged in France in the late 19th century to the early 20th century. The movement represented both an extension of Impressionism and a rejection of that style’s inherent limitations. Though most of them began as Impressionists, each of them abandoned the style; however, to form his/her own highly personal art.

·       * Expressionism- is a style and movement which first surfaced in art in the early 20th century. It refers to the style that attempts to depict not the objective reality but rather the subjective emotions and responses that objects and events arouse in the artist. Expressionism is one of the main currents of art in the 20th century, and its qualities of highly subjective, personal, and spontaneous self-expression are typical of a wide range of modern artists and art movements.

·        * ART NOUVEAU- Art Nouveau is an artistic style and movement prominent in western Europe and the US from about 1890 until the World War I. It is considered as a total art style embracing architecture, graphic art, interior design, and most of the decorative arts including jewelry, furniture, textile, household silver and other utensils and lighting, as well as fine arts. It is characterized by intricate linear designs and flowing curves based on natural forms, and is also considered as a reaction against the French academic art of the 19th century.

 

Art Beyond the West

Western culture and the Western tradition in art that which solidified in ancient Greece and developed in Western Europe and, later, the United States may be more familiar to most of us than the art of other cultures and traditions that lie “beyond the West”. But those non-Western perspectives are rich and varied and represent other ways of seeing and knowing that enable us to expand your understanding of ourselves in relation to the world. The art beyond the west during their era is more on rock paintings and engravings. 'Beyond the West' subject matter is religious tribes, religion, shrines and people. And most of their art styles were symbolism, naturalism, abstractionism and realism. It consists of different kinds of Art: African Art, Oceanic Art, Native Art, Islamic Art, Indian Art, Chinese Art and Japanese Art. Their art were influenced by the other countries from their famous artworks in history.

African art

-          Is as varied as the cultures that have populated that continent. The earliest African art, like the earliest art of Europe and North America, consists of rock paintings and engravings that date to the Neolithic period. In tropical Africa—the central portion of the continent—the lost-wax technique was developed. It is a process by which a duplicate metal sculpture (often silver, gold, brass or bronze) is cast from an original sculpture. The kingdom of Benin, which during the fourteenth through nineteenth centuries occupied what is now Nigeria, was rich in sculptures of many mediums, including iron, bronze, wood, ivory, and terra-cotta.

Oceanic art

-          The peoples and art of Oceania are also varied. They span millions of square miles of ocean ranging from the continent of Australia and large islands of New Guinea and New Zealand to small islands such as the Gilberts, Tahiti, and Easter Island. They are divided into the cultures of Polynesia, Melanesia, and Micronesia. Polynesia they are known for massiveness and compactness. Melanesia is a wood carvings and ritual masks, the best studied of Melanesian artifacts, are brilliantly colored.

Native art

-          The art of the Americas was rich and varied before the arrival of European culture.

Islamic art

-          Islamic Art is a modern concept, created by art historians in the nineteenth century to categorize and study the material first produced under the Islamic peoples that emerged from Arabia in the seventh century.

Indian art

-          consists of a variety of art forms, including pottery and sculpture ,  cave paintings , and woven silk . Geographically, it spans the entire Indian subcontinent, including what is now India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. A strong sense of design is characteristic of Indian art and can be observed in its modern and traditional forms.

Chinese art

-          Confucianism ascended as the major Chinese way of life during the second century BCE. It is based on the Moral principles of Confucius, which argue that social behavior must be derived from sympathy for one’s fellows. Paintings and reliefs of this period show the conceptual space of Egyptian painting and create the illusion of depth by means of overlapping.

Japanese art

-         Japan’s sculpture tradition has focused on clay modeling and bronze casting, and its structures have been built from wood. In Japanese art, as in Western art, we find a developing technology, the effect of native materials, indigenous and foreign influences, a mix of religious traditions, and disagreement as to what art is intended to portray.