Defining the difference between Modern Art and Contemporary Art and the Fine Line in Between
The terms Modern Art and Contemporary Art have a tendency to be used interchangeably.
While the terms ‘modern’ and ‘contemporary’ are essentially synonyms used to describe the present moment, when used in the context of art, the two words can mean completely different things. To understand what is the difference between modern art and contemporary we will investigate the period of time, influences, and role of each movement and observe examples from each style.
What is Modern Art?
Modern Art refers to primarily visual art produced roughly between the years 1860 and 1970 and originally emerged alongside the broader societal developments of Modernism. As a product of the Industrial Revolution during the early nineteenth century, urbanism fostered the gathering of intellectual communities while the harsh working conditions of factories inspired sympathies for the working class. The combination brought about a spirit of revolt against old ways both philosophically and artistically.
New technologies also opened new doors for creative exploration. Namely, the proliferation of the camera provided the ability to document people, places, and events, thereby transforming the function of art and painting.
Examples of Modern Art
Preceding the emergence of modern art, movements such as Neoclassicalsim, focussed on achieving beauty and perfection through realism. Through this aim for perfection, artists used depictions of classical scenes and mythological figures to express the ideals of virtue and morality.
But with the rise of Modernism and the availability of photographic depictions of a scene, Modern Art sought to depart from classical convention and progress towards greater abstractions in detail and form. Seeking to portray what a camera couldn’t reproduce, emphasis was placed on the individual emotions and impressions of the artist.
Impressionism
The first ‘-ism’ of Modern Art was Impressionism, prominent until the 1880s. Here, rather than aiming for life-like accuracy and detail, the thick and pronounced brush strokes of the artist took center stage in the paintings. Rather than what was perceived, attention was given to how something was perceived, and the perceptual experiences of artists were relayed through their works, often focussing on anomalies of color and light. Two of the most recognized Impressionists from this time were the French painters Edouard Manet and Claude Monet.
Expressionism
Expressionism followed at the beginning of the 20th century. In contrast to the perceptual experience of real-world scenes, artists began to use painting as a medium of emotional expression, capturing the inner state of the artist or subject in a painting. In Expressionism, themes like loneliness and anxiety are explored through loose, painterly swirls and abstract compositions.
Dadaism
Other Modern Art movements that followed were Cubism and Dadaism. Both these movements abstracted form and composition even further to explore not only inner mental states but also the nature of reality itself and its multidimensional potential.
At the same time, the subconscious of a person began to be tackled through Dadaism and Surrealism inspired by the psychoanalytical writings of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. Here the rational world was challenged and fantasy and irony became major themes. In addition, these modernist ideas were also becoming adopted in music and theater.
Pop Art
Finally, the development of Pop Art, with its clearly defined aesthetics of bright, bold, eye-catching imagery, created a bridge to what we now call the era of Contemporary Art. Taking us into the 1960’s Pop Art borrowed from the cynism of Dadaism and applied humor, irony, and influences of popular culture and commercial advertisement to provide social commentary.
What is Contemporary Art?
The rise of Modern Art reflected the cracks in society during the two world wars, but after the second world war, the world was in a state of rebuilding anew from the ashes. The world became disillusioned with the pretenses of white picket fences and were demanding an end to wars and the expansion of civil rights. Other influences at the end of the 1960s included increased access to travel, media, and education which expanded political and social consciousness.
While Contemporary Art generally refers to art created in one’s own lifetime, the period of Contemporary art is largely determined to have started in the 1970s and continues to this day.
Examples of Contemporary Art
Experimentation with new mediums is a defining aspect of the contemporary movement. During this time innovations in Installation Art, Performance art, and Video Art made waves throughout the art world. In the 1970’s video art first came on the scene with artists like Vito Acconci and Peter Campus.
Photorealism
In defining Contemporary Art as a new wave of artistic exploration, Modern Art painting techniques that rejected the realism of the Classical period too was rejected and replaced with a trend of hyper-adherence to detail. In Photorealism, photography as the definitive medium of visual documentation is challenged as works in Photorealism strive to go beyond the technological limitations of a camera, offering hyper-real detail and sharpness.
Minimalism
In a similar vein, in trying to reinvent modernism, contemporary practices also challenged modernist abstraction with the doubling down of Minimalism. Here, forms are reduced to only the most basic geometric shapes and elements, applying the principle ‘Less is More.’ This reduction of all details to the bare bones allows works to breathe and makes space for only the essential aspects of the work to be contemplated with greater intensity.
Conceptual Art
Under the umbrella of Conceptual Art, literally anything, an idea, an object, or an event, made with the intention of being art and presented in the context of the art world can be considered a work of art. With Conceptual Art the idea behind the work becomes the work, and the rest is implementation and presentation.
For me, Conceptual Art epitomizes our presence in the current artistic time, letting ideas and concepts reign rather than aesthetics. In this case, the medium of choice is one’s own thoughts, and how it comes across is a matter of translation.
What is the Difference between Modern Art and Contemporary Art?
Aside from timelines, when looking at what is the difference between Modern Art and Contemporary Art it is critical to explore the role art takes during these periods.
Modern Art had a way of packaging its movement with defined aesthetics, themes, and styles. These movements became vehicles that pushed certain artists to the forefront, becoming spokesmen of the movement. This created a cyclical win-win, where artists propagated a movement and that movement promoted artists.
Contemporary Art, on the other hand, sees artists working in a fashion which was continually rejecting and reinventing the past. To be part of a movement restricted an artist’s individuality and originality and became a form of safe convention.
The result is that contemporary artists were continually reinventing the wheel as opposed to Modern Art’s nack for going along for the ride. And in the case of Contemporary Art, the wheel itself kept changing, offering up each time a new understanding of wheelness.
Another important difference between Modern Art and Contemporary Art was the exploration of different mediums. As mentioned earlier in the article, Modern Art focussed primarily on Painting though sometimes branching over into Sculpture, whereas Contemporary Art pushed the boundaries on new art forms such as Video, Photography, Installation, and Performance.
The last major difference between Modern Art and Contemporary Art is the focus of the artist from the personal to societal.
While Modern art used the visual arts to express and deconstruct emotional, perceptual, and mental states, a lot of art created today uses visual mediums to investigate social and political issues. With globalization, the world has become smaller and our political awareness has become heightened. Art in the contemporary era allows us to address, understand, and discover nuances about our social and political realities.
“All art is political. In tense, fractious times—like our current moment—all art is political. But even during those times when politics and the future of our country itself are not the source of constant worry and anxiety, art is still political.”
Playwright, Lin-Manuel Miranda
This sentiment, that all art is political, reflects both the current role of art, and the obligation of the artist to take ownership of what, how, and why they produce what they produce. Postmodern art, which overlaps with the emergence of contemporary art in the mid-to-late 20th century, is a kind of offshoot of contemporary‘s art concern with the political. However, it could be argued that all postmodern art is contemporary but not all contemporary art, thankfully, is postmodern, as postmodernism is particularly marked by a self-conscious skepticism towards grand theories and ideologies, and a focus on the role of ideology in understanding and interpreting art, often incorporating pastiche, parody, and intertextuality.
Artists living and producing work today, myself included, are commonly referred to as ultra-contemporary. Ultra-contemporary art, while not a term universally accepted or defined, may be understood as an even more immediate subset of contemporary art. It’s about the very latest, up-to-the-minute responses to society and culture, frequently engaging directly with current events, new technologies, or the latest trends and conversations in the art world.
In sum, while Modernism doesn’t sound too far off in it’s chronology, there are stark differences in its style and expression from today’s Contemporary work. As for the next art-ism to come… only time will tell where we go next.
