Industry and Modernity

The start of Modern Art is recorded as starting in the late 18th century, finishing in the 19th century. The origin of modern art can be traced back to such early dates as 1784, but many aspects of the culture at that time contributed to the birth of modern art.

Each of the many aspects that occurred on different dates throughout the 18th century leading up to the birth of modern art, are said to be stepping stones to the creation of modern art, none of the single aspects where significant enough to be called the start of modern art, rather just little advancements.

The French Revolution that happened towards the end of the 17th century, caused uproar among the general public who started to question the legitimacy of institutions and beliefs that had been accepted for hundreds of years before hand without question. This sent the public into political and social debates, an art historian called Ernst Gombrich said that this 'movement' made the people become self conscious, making them, "Select their buildings, like they would their wall paper". This lead to artists becoming more free and experimental with their work, therefore the birth of what we call 'Modern Art'.

The pioneers of modern art were Romantics, Realists and Impressionists.

Impressionism was an art movement developed in the 19th century that came from independent Paris based artists, who put on exhibitions during the 1870's and 80's which gained them respect and prominence among the general public. The term 'Impressionism' has been derived from the title of an artists work, called Claude Monet. His painting which was created in 1872 called 'Impression' is seen as one of the first pieces of real imprestionissm art, this kind of art was created using oil paints on canvas using thin brush strokes and capturing the light using many colours.

Early impressionists took up this style of painting, breaking the previous rules which had been set by other artists, not following the science behind academic art which was to have the correct lines and contours in the image. The impressionists preferred to work outside and capture the scene using these new techniques, rather than the old way of painting in a studio.

After Post-Impressionism emerged during the early 19th century, this style of art kept certain aspects of impressionism art, but did not agree with dis-regarding the important lines and contours and wanted to both vibrant colours and strong brush strokes mixed with the important realism of whatever was being painted by keeping the geometrics correct. They wanted to emphasise these geometrics to give the paintings a sense of structure once again, and make them sort of durable making them popular for along time to come. The emphasis along with sometimes strange colours, conveyed a sort of expressive effect while keeping the structure of the real life object/subject.

Now as technology and the industries were moving forward, came World War 1. WW1 speeded up the advancement in technology, causing art to move forward with it at a rapid pace as well, beginning new movements around the world.