This brought about new development and approach to art. Pop artworks were produced around the 1950s and 1960s.

The artistes of this genre focused their art on the contemporaneity of life events around them.

Moreover, the style of pop artwork is unique and easily recognizable. For this uniqueness, pop artwork is highly celebrated. Pop artwork is characterized by the use of bold imagery and a bright color palette.

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1492 – Present

Latin American art is that of the Central and South American Latin Cultures, including the Southwestern United States and Spanish speaking Caribbean islands.

The existing Pre-Columbian arts of the indigenous native peoples of these lands coupled with Spanish and Portuguese influence created a rich culture of bold art amongst the peoples that claim heritage from these cultures.

Influences upon the art of the Latin American culture were the arts and religion of the indigenous people blended with European and African cultures. Today, we have the mestizo peoples, arts, and values that sprang from this confluence of cultures.

Latin American Art Origins and Historical Importance:

When the Americas were “discovered” by Columbus in 1492, the lands were already peopled by many civilized nations, but these people as seen through the eyes of the Europeans were heathen. The Spanish and Portuguese explorers quickly tried to establish European values and religions in the New World and imposed their beliefs on these people under threat of violence.

While looking down upon the heathen they somehow also envied them and the riches they possessed or were said to possess. Treasure hunters tried in vain to find the source of the beautiful gold jewelry and other metallic ornaments.

Even so, as the Europeans sought to “civilize” the Americas, they brought with them people from all walks of life to help bring order to the heathen land. Art and sculpture from all periods eventually made their way over, as well as other “possessions” that would influence the art of later Latin Periods – the African slaves.

During the years of colonization, native artistic practices melded with those of monks that had come over to Christianize the Native American peoples. This resulted in Indo-Christian art, an endeavor that was met with enthusiasm by the Indians of an increasingly Christianized land. They put great effort and talent into helping the friars and monks create realistic religious art is divine color.

“Since my subjects have always been my sensations, my states of mind and the profound reactions that life has been producing in me, I have frequently objectified all this in figures of myself, which were the most sincere and real thing that I could do in order to express what I felt inside and outside of myself”. – Frida Kahlo

Also founded during the colonial period was the Cuzco School, the first center of Euro-style painting in the New World. Spanish artists taught religious Renaissance techniques to the Quechan peoples of Western South America.

As Europeans expanded their reach into the furthest reaches of the Spanish and Portuguese claimed lands of the Americas, they found cultures rich with advanced traditions. The Aztecs, Inca, and Mayans had been great sculptors and architects, the people of Peru wove textiles of beautiful colors, the natives in the region of Lake Titicaca created vividly colored clothing, and Andean artists were skilled silversmiths.

The Latin American people had long been great artists and under European rule, influence, and patronage began to create European style art to the taste of the monks and others that taught them. An Incan prince wrote an illustrated letter to King Phillip III in Spain to tell him of abuse by colonial officials.

Although the majority of political and religious influence on Latin American art is in the sphere of the Christian Church, African religions and mythical themes dominate some of the most intriguing styles of art in the Caribbean.

As Latin American countries later gained their independence in the 19th and 20th centuries, the arts began to express the changing political and cultural norms and values through styles and techniques of North American and European art adapted to the style of their local indigenous styles.

While most European influenced nations and former colonies such as the United States or India were adopting the concepts and styles of modern art, Latin American countries held fast against them, with one exception. Brazil founded its Modernismo movement which was celebrated in 1922 at the Modern Art Week in Sao Paulo.

“Errors and exaggerations do not matter. What matters is boldness in thinking with a strong-pitched voice, in speaking out about things as one feels them in the moment of speaking; in having the temerity to proclaim what one believes to be true without fear of the consequences. If one were to await the possession of the absolute truth, one must be either a fool or a mute. If the creative impulse were muted, the world would then have stayed on its march”. – Jose Clemente Orozco

The Constructivist Movement did take hold in early 20th century Latin America when it was brought from Europe to Uruguay by Joaquin Torres Garcia in 1934. He founded the Asociacion de Arte Constructive in Montevideo in 1935 to give his followers a place for exhibition, and later the Taller Torres-Garcia, a school, and workshop.

Muralism is probably one of the most famous Latin American art movements as it was practiced by Diego Rivera and his wife Frida Kahlo. Muralistic works display narratives of important concepts valued by the artist, social changes, political conflicts, and other concerns of the people. It was not only confined to traditional Latin American nations but also spread into the Latin American cultures of some of the United States’ largest cities.

“The fascists in most Latin American countries tell the people that the reason their wages will not buy as much in the way of goods is because of Yankee imperialism. The fascists in Latin America learn to speak and act like natives”. – Henry A. Wallace

Latin American Art Key Highlights:

• Young artists coming up in the wake of the Muralismo movement wanted greater freedom and expression and established the Generacion de la Ruptura (Rupture Generation). Their style was indeed full of expression.
• Latin American religious art in Mexico evokes varying forms of the Blessed Virgin and the Christ usually seen in tears, with roses, or other variants that display the reverence the Mexican people have for the Mother Mary, especially Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Latin American Art Top Works:

• Mural: Omniciencia – Jose Clemente Orozco
• La Muerte de Girardot en Barbula – Cristobal Rojas
• La Pascua de Maria – 1698
• God the Father – 18th-century painting of God fashioning an image of the Virgin of Guadalupe
• Self Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird – Frida Kahlo

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After World War II, the term was used to define the art movement.

Critics described it as an era where ‘modern art’ was no longer contemporary enough to have a positive effect on the younger generations.

Throughout history, the term contemporary can also be traced back to the time of Modernism, but it was a special type of art that did not describe a specific period.

Instead, it was only based on current matters like social, economic, and political issues.

Characteristics of Contemporary Art

The era of Contemporary works of art produced experimental works that affect a wider range of social, economic, and political issues.

This idea reflected the issues that affect the world today, which are in the form of racism, globalization, oppression, poverty, feminism among many others. Over the last 30 years, we have witnessed a growing list of artworks that bring about awareness of the most important and urgent matters. They were all highlighted by video art, salons, object designs, graphical arts, and social media.

Contemporary art also looks like tackling and exposing more issues that will occur in the future. This is one of the most striking differences between Modern and Contemporary art.

For one who will love to explore both modern and contemporary art, there are many places in the world to see and experience it all. Take, for example, New York, which is one of the largest cities in the USA, is home to some of the richest museums with countless breathtaking works.

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The art of the peoples of South Africa is the oldest known art in the world, dating back over 100,000 years. The archeological discoveries there help scholars to date the evolution of cognition and intelligent progression.

South African art in the modern era is influenced and molded by the trials of the South African people under apartheid and the years of European involvement in the area expressed in the found art of Africans making sense of modern traditions, and the Dutch influence on both white and black artists.

With the many tribes, languages, cultures, and races of South Africa, there is a very diverse and eclectic art scene in historical and contemporary South Africa.

South African Art Origins and Historical Importance:

Paleolithic South African Art:

The very beginnings of art, not just for South Africa, but for the world, were found at the Blombos cave. This ancient art studio contained paint pots in the form of shells that were used to store mixed paints from disparate sources. This proved to archeologists that early man may have been more sophisticated than previously thought. Whatever it was that they painted, be it clothing, faces, or the walls of the caves, the South African climate, particular in this sea cave is not conducive to the permanent survival of art.

What has been found of ancient South African art are the cave paintings of the Khoisan, San, and Bushman tribes dating to 10,000 BC. Other cave painters left behind scenes of hunting and domestic life, and also of spiritual and magical art. The colors used are derived from nature and are therefore mostly in earth tones such as black, yellow, red, orange, white, and gray.

“The drawings don’t start with ‘a beautiful mark’. It has to be a mark of something out there in the world. It doesn’t have to be an accurate drawing, but it has to stand for an observation, not something that is abstract, like an emotion”. – William Kentridge

Cave scenes portray battles and hunts, animals, dancing, and later, white hunters on horseback. The figures are shown in long forms in action and some figures that are either dancing or participating in the shamanic rituals are costumed in clothing in unusual patterns and prints and are often wearing masks. It is unknown if these are people drawn from life, or if these represent symbolic characters. The symbols, themes, and subjects of the South African cave paintings are similar to what is seen in cave and rock paintings all over the world.

European Influence:

The Boers, better known as the Dutch, and the English came to South Africa in the mid-19th century and the art of the Europeans that remained and the traditional art of the indigenous tribal people began to mix. The end of the 19th century spurred some artists to move away from this mixed art and begin studying art in realism, creating a unique art free from both European and native influences.

Under European colonization, the native people suffered under racial segregation and prejudice. The English established museums, universities, art schools, and other education opportunities, but they were not ones open to the indigenous. However, white intellectuals and artists seeking inspiration from the art and culture of the African people sought them out and some artistic instruction was imparted by collaboration.

As the tide of the world was changing to strive for respect of all peoples, the artists of South Africa, both white and black began to protest against apartheid, and against the cultural boycott on South Africa. Their success led to South African artists stepping up to a level global playing field.

“I don’t know how one actually would define obscenity. I’m sure the definition is different according to the age one is living in”. – Jane Alexander

South African Art Key Highlights:

• South Africa is home to the Thupelo Workshop, an annual workshop that brings artists from all over the world to share the diversity of artistic style, technique, and motivation with the global community of artists.
• The San culture are hunter-gatherers that are still in existence, but as their culture fades and there are fewer San artists, galleries are stepping in to help keep their art and culture alive.
• The lack of galleries on the Cape has given artists in that area freedom of expression without the restriction of pleasing the intellectual middle classes.
• The Ndebele tribe is known for its graphics geometric paintings on houses. The paints used were traditionally made from natural sources, but the Ndebele are now sometimes being supplied with commercial paints.
• Because of the rampant poverty in South Africa, poor artists use found media to create art. The talent and vision of the South African people is evident in the beauty they are able to create from these materials. For instance, baskets spiraling in vivid bright colors look to be made from highly died natural materials but are, in fact, made from telephone wires.

South African Art Top Works:

• San Bushmen Rock Paintings – Drakensberg Mountains
• Elephants Charging over Quartos Country – Thomas Baines
• An Extensive View of Farmlands – JH Pierneef
• Pretoria Mural – Walter Battiss
• Song of the Pick – Gerard Sekoto
• The Rice Lady – Vladimir Tretchikoff
• The Conservationists Ball – William Kentridge
• The Butcher Boys – Jane Alexander
• Ndebele Beadwork
• Zulu Baskets

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Although a large number of European artists fled to America to avoid Hitler’s rampage on “degenerate artists” that resulted in the internment of artists at concentration camps, there were artists that remained behind. Influenced by the ravages of war on their homelands, their work in expressionist modern styles showed the inner turmoil of processing the tragedies of the Second World War – which resulted in Postwar European Art

Postwar European Art Origins and Historical Importance:

In the wake of the war, intellectuals, writers, artists, and others had become cynical about the nature and purpose of humanity and questioned the existence of God. Existentialism and atheism took root and people turned to the writings of Kierkegaard, a Danish philosophical theologian and Jean-Paul Sartre, a French author. These men wrote of the existential and Sartre attempted to explore the question of man’s path in a world without God. This angst fostered pessimism in an already depressed era. The art of the period reflects the anguish of the artists mind and soul against the backdrop of a world going through hardship and change.

Most Post War conversations about art weigh heavily on discussing the movements happening in the United States, and it is tempting to think that the Europeans and Americans residing in New York should be credited with all Post War innovation. However, artists remained in Britain and were little exposed to the emerging artists of the US. Even though the New York School started to hit stride following the war, England didn’t hear of any of it until the late 1950s. Yet, England had its own piece to say and ingenuity and new forms of expression were found by its native artists.

“On occasion I have drawn as a release from painting. The economy in using paper, pencil, charcoal and crayon can help towards a greater gamble and higher rewards. I also find that drawing can generate ideas more rapidly than painting”. – William Scott

William Scott was interested in abstraction but he broke ground with taking a simplistic and harmonious approach to it rather than the chaotic tension happening elsewhere and he went against convention by letting figures appear so clearly. His goal was to explore the color and shape and his subject matter was secondary. The objects of his painting were often pots and pans and his paintings are somewhat comforting, and possibly even amusing in feel. With these simplistic arrangements and treatment of colors, Scott brings an abstract still life that is soothing to look at and instills a sense of calm, something unusual for abstract art to that time.

Photography played an important role in art during the Post War period, and with as the accessibility and portability of cameras and their equipment became more convenient and less expensive, more artists were able to create in this way. The public’s need to see and to understand what had happened and what was happening led to an uptick in the need for printed news that could capture information visually, leading to the proliferation of picture magazines.

With this new need for photographs came a need for the photojournalist, an artistic type not discussed or contemplated on a large scale thus far. Of course, brilliant photographers had existed, but not on such a large scale. They didn’t need just any photographer, they needed one that understood the spoils and the tragedies of war and that understood the human condition through the lens of experience.

“The creative act lasts but a brief moment, a lightning instant of give-and-take, just long enough for you to level the camera and to trap the fleeting prey in your little box”. – Henri Cartier-Bresson

Four photographers, including the famous Cartier-Bresson, formed a company under this demand and their business plan allowed for an art form to emerge that was economically and artistically under the control of the artist rather than the school, patron, or critic. The photography agency they created was called Magnum Inc. and they ran in it such a way that they retained all copyrights to their photos, and that they could grant permission to print a single photograph or that a publication could only print a photograph along with its entire photo essay. Each photographer was assigned a different part of the world, trading back and forth as they were moved to do so. The structure of this agency allowed them to maintain their artistic integrity, values, and styles while reporting world events.

European photography outside of photojournalism was helped along by Otto Steinert when he founded the movement, Subjektive Fotografie, which encouraged the photographer to explore techniques both in the field and in the darkroom to create effects through lighting, depth, focus, and shadow that would imbue meaning in the photograph beyond the realistic recording of the subject at hand.

“I would say that the war correspondent gets more drinks, more girls, better pay, and greater freedom than the soldier, but at this stage of the game, having the freedom to choose his spot and being allowed to be a coward and not be executed for it is his torture”. Robert Capa

Postwar European Art Key Highlights:

• Henri Cartier-Bresson, the father of photojournalism, was an early student of modern art painting. He studied Cubism under Andre Lohte whom he credited as having taught him “photography without a camera.”
• England’s Alan Davies was an extremely famous artist in the 1960s and 70s with an almost rock star like following, but was largely forgotten until recently. He was known for his bright and vivid colors and patterns within abstract objects. His influence can be seen in the graphic art and fashion of the time in England.

Postwar European Art Top Works:

• Still Life with Candlestick – William Scott
• Detail from Emerald – William Scott
• Delicious Doge – Alan Davie
• The Berlin Wall 1963 – Henri Cartier-Bresson
• Workers at the Renault Factory – Robert Capa

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Modern Art was an international art movement, but it had its role to play in the development of art in 20th Century America. Prior to the Armory show of 1913 in New York, Americans had not seen any of the European developments, including even Impressionism.

As travel to and from Europe increased inconvenience and over the first two World Wars, European modern ideals spread to the United States and American artists became involved in the newer art movements while they were still developing.

Modern American Art Origins and Historical Importance:

The modern art movement in the US took hold only after World War II, nearly 30 years after the Armory show. Before that time, “real artists” were trained in Europe, and secondly, no American Gallery or exhibition would consider modern art as a “real art”. American artists that could not afford to go to Europe for apprenticeship, learning, or exposure, created art for themselves stateside and created groups to encourage and critique each other. They developed their own styles and philosophies on an individual level in reaction to the public’s rejection of them, which they despised. The focus was on introspection and developing themselves inwardly through education of the writings of modernist philosophers in Europe such as Andre Breton and Wassily Kandinsky. These modern Americans especially gelled with the ideas of Surrealism.

“Painters have always needed a sort of veil upon which they can focus their attention. It’s as though the more fully the consciousness is absorbed, the greater the freedom of the spirit behind”. – Bridget Riley

In Europe leading up to and during United States involvement, artists were fleeing Nazi-controlled areas of Europe as Hitler had an especial dislike of what he considered to be “degenerate artists”, namely those involved in modern art. Their influence on the artists of the US-led to America’s first true movement, Abstract Expressionism.

While Abstract Expressionism is a defining term for one style, it is only a style in that sense. The entire point was that it looked inward toward the artist’s own meaning of mind and dream and then expressed itself outwardly in art. Artists further developed their minds and therefore their work by studying primitive arts, anthropology, archeology, and mythology.

Much of this took place in New York were groups of artists and intellectuals were already forming bonds. Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollack formed the New York School, a collection of abstract expressionists such as Lee Radner, Rothko, and more.

Abstract Expressionism dominated the modern art movement in the 1940s and into the early 1950s when other forms of uniquely American modern art were born.

Pop Art, like that of Andy Warhol, came into being in the late 1950s. This art form uses ubiquitous images from advertising and mass media that inundate every American household, to make a statement. These images are shown often in repetition in overlaid color, or are modified to send a different message than intended by its original creator. Examples include the comic book style of Roy Lichtenstein, the oversized objects of Claes Oldenburg, and the soup cans or Marilyn Monroe series of Andy Warhol.

“I’m for mechanical art. When I took up silk screening, it was to more fully exploit the preconceived image through the commercial techniques of multiple reproductions”. – Andy Warhol

Op art and Minimalism break down the aesthetic enjoyment of image into shape and color appreciable in their own right. Op art often does this with very few colors to create objects out of the distortion of line, in sort of an optical illusion effect. Minimalists use a singular object or set of objects to convey a mood, such as a single tree on an otherwise flat plain shown in silhouette.

Do you know the difference between modern and contemporary art?

Conceptual art grew out of the ideals of Dadaism, which were “anti-art” in the sense that the physical form of the art is not as important as the experience of the art. This art form very naturally led to performance art and to temporary installations. Sometimes performance art and installation art are combined, as in the case of scenes that are created with a human or animal inside the within a gallery.

Environmental art is that which includes temporary or permanent installations in the outdoors. Many of these works use the earth itself or natural materials to create things as monumental as earthworks, or as simple as domes of living branches. Some artists put unnatural objects into an environmental space that plays at what might be in nature, such as the butterfly-like expressed movement of the colored triangles of Edith Meusinier’s Artefact in the woods of Quebec.

“A vacant white room with lights is still a submission to the neutral. Works of art seen in such spaces seem to be going through a kind of esthetic convalescence”. – Robert Smithson

Modern American Art Key Highlights:

• Some of the artists of the New York school were able to study under European artists such as Picasso. They had a great admiration for Cubism.
• In the digital age, Minimalism has had a major influence on graphic design and has led to new design techniques in that field such as “flat design”.
• Op Art was initially only successful in the love the common public had for it as it was greatly rejected by critics as trompe-l’oeil. Because the public admired it so much, it was financially successful in commercial applications and later was given its due by critics.

Modern American Art Top Works:

• Movement in Squares – Briget Riley
• Spiral Jetty – Robert Smithson
• No. 5, 1948 – Jackson Pollock
• Rothko Chapel – Rothko
• Campbell’s Soup I , 1968 – Andy Warhol

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Abstract Art is the umbrella term for a myriad of art movements that share in common a departure from realistic depiction. Each of the movements falls somewhere on a scale between semi-abstraction and wholly abstract.

This movement embodies the idea that the visual elements of the painting are important in their own right. For instance, the colors of paint, or the line of a drawing, or the texture of the media are as important as the realistic portrayal of an object in a realistic artwork. These elements are beautiful on their own without having to be representational of anything. These elements can be used to create beauty, moods, feelings, or sensations.

Abstract Art Origins and Historical Importance

It is argued that abstract art has existed since the beginning of time in the designs on pottery, the exaggeration of features in ancient sculpture, and in patterns on textiles.

The Abstract Art movement as we know it today evolved out of art movements in the late 19th century that were moving away from the previous masters of realism, such as the Impressionist moved into Cubism and Expressionist movements moved into Fauvism.

The movement hit its stride in 1940s New York City. A group of artists that were mostly known to each other created the “New York School”, a group of abstract artists engaged in abstract expressionism that included greats like Jackson Pollack, Lee Krasner, and Willem de Kooning. They valued movement, expression, and spontaneity.

Abstract artists were exploring the processes and meanings of creation for their own reasons. It is a misnomer that these were artists that painted this way because they couldn’t paint realism. Their early works do show that they had mastered realism and were looking for something original and new.

“Abstract painting is abstract. It confronts you. There was a reviewer a while back who wrote that my pictures didn’t have any beginning or any end. He didn’t mean it as a compliment, but it was. – Jackson Pollock

With the interest of art collectors like Peggy Guggenheim and art critics, this movement gained popularity.

What is Abstract Expressionism?

The Abstract Art movement encourages both artists and the public to think in new ways and to reflect on both the expansive and the minimal and to seek new perspectives.

Abstract Art Key Highlights

• Kandinsky – Wassily Kandinsky was a Russian painter in the Expressionist movement that was one of the earliest painters to break out the abstract movement. He founded the German Expressionist movement, Der Blaue Reiter. His book, “On the Spiritual in Art” inspired and became a cornerstone of the Abstract movement.
• Cubism – Primarily led by Picasso and Braque, Cubism was practiced in the early careers of the most famous abstract artists. Cubism sought to take the natural shape things and to reimagine them on a 2D canvas with 3D aspects, or sometimes to reimagine a thing reconstructed altogether.

• • Abstract Expressionism – The works of Pollack, Krasner, and the rest of the New York school are often what comes to mind when a person hears the term “Abstract Art”. This time period valued exploring the psyche and feelings of the artist in the process of making the work.

“My own image of my work is that I no sooner settle into something than a break occurs. These breaks are always painful and depressing but despite them, I see that there’s a consistency that holds out, but is hard to define. – Lee Krasner

• Russian Suprematism – Kasimir Malevich founded this movement and named it. The movement believes in the supremacy of sensation in art. This work is characterized most often by simple shapes of color on a single color (often white) canvas.
• De Stijl – created by Theo van Doesburg, this abstract movement was a collection of Dutch artists with their own journal and included both painters and sculptors. One of the most famous members was Piet Mondrian, who was known for his compositions of clean lines and blocks in three to four primary colors.
• There are many subdivided layers of Abstract art and a single piece can be included in many of them. Therefore it is often difficult to categorize an artist into just one part. Pollack, for instance, is an Abstract Expressionist that uses both Emotional/Institutional Abstract art principles as well as Gestural and Action Painting.
• The Abstract movement also includes sculptors such as: Constatin Brancusi, Pablo Picasso, and Vladimir Tatlin. Abstract sculptors also believed that things could be represented by form rather than detailed realism.
• The highest price paid for an abstract painting was $186 million for Rothko’s No. 6 (Violet, Green, and Red). The sale took place in August of 2014.

Abstract Art Top Works

• Jackson Pollock – Convergence
• Lee Krasner – Milkweed
• Willem de Kooning – Villa Borghese
• Adolph Gottleib –  Mist
• Franz Kline – Painting No. 7
• Karel Appel – Two Heads (Deaux tètes)
• Robert Motherwell – Elegy to the Spanish Republic, 70
• Wassily Kandinsky –  Harmony Squares with Concentric Rings
• Kasimir Malevich – Black Circle
• Natalia Goncharova – The Cyclist

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