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Is it a concept, a movement, a period, and how long will it last? No one seems to know because Modernism alters with our perceptions of ourselves in relation to the past. Modern art, a dynamic and transformative movement within the broader landscape of art history, has continuously challenged and reshaped the boundaries of artistic expression. Modern art is a term that refers to the artistic movements that emerged between the late 19th and mid-20th centuries. Modern art encompasses artistic work produced during the period extending from the late 19th century to the mid-20th century, characterized by a deliberate departure from tradition and a quest for new forms of expression.
Bernard Smith wants to end the phantasmagoria by calling out a name: the Formalesque. Smith, of course, is neither a magus nor an exorcist; he is the preeminent art historian in Australia. His works, voluminous, compelling, erudite, from Place, Taste and Tradition (1945) to Modernism's History (1998), have defined the shape of Antipodean art history for half a century now. But the significance of The Formalesque overreaches the eminence of its author. Paradoxically, The Formalesque gains cogency by renouncing the more sweeping claims of Smith's earlier magisterial work Modernism's History.
The term Formalesque, he now says in a candidly self-critical aside, applies only to the visual arts; let others decide how closely it describes the literature, philosophy, music, theatre of the same period. The period is roughly 1890 to 1970, the Formalesque its dominant style. Of course, the word Modernism itself, as Smith reminds us, goes back to Suger (1081-1151), Vasari (1511-1574), and Shakespeare (1564-1616), in the sense of new, current, even common. That loose usage will persist because it does not refer to a specific theoretical model, a constellation of aesthetic features embedded in a particular historical moment. But we need another term, says Smith, the Formalesque, to designate the character of art in the twentieth century.
The primary issue is empiric: how much of the art of the period between 1890 and 1970 can be reduced to varieties of formalism? Here Smith makes a persuasive case for the visual arts. Decorative designs; primitivism; the stripped-down architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, Gropius, Le Corbusier; and, above all, abstraction in art fuse variously to create, beyond 'flatness', the immanent aesthetic of the Formalesque. Decorative designs, primitivism, and abstraction combine with architectural clarity to form a recurrent aesthetic.
Smith attempts to order this motley crowd of genius: "The Formalesque style may be divided conveniently into three phases: an avant-garde phase (from c.1890 to c.1917); a high institutionalising and globalising phase (from c.1918 until c.1945); and a late phase (from c.1945 until c.1970). Of course these dates should not be taken precisely." In all phases, however, Smith insists that artists and critics, like the founders of art history itself, never ignored their cultural milieu; formalism was never as narrow as ideological revisionists later claimed. And local traditions, for instance, Islamic nonfigural art, interacted with Western formalism in culturally interesting ways.
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From the 1860s to the 1960s, modern art developed through a succession of bold movements. Below is a chronological and comprehensive overview of key movements that shaped modern art and later fed into contemporary practices.
| Period / Movement | Approx. dates | Core idea / characteristics | Key artists |
|---|---|---|---|
| Salon des Refusés & early breaks | 1860s-1870s | Rejection of academic norms; new subjects and perception | Édouard Manet |
| Impressionism | ca. 1870s-1890s | Light, atmosphere, en plein air, loose brushwork | Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Pierre-Auguste Renoir |
| Post-Impressionism | ca. 1880s-1905 | Symbolism, structure, expressive color, primitivism | Van Gogh, Cézanne, Gauguin, Seurat |
| Fauvism | ca. 1905-1910 | Wild color, expressive palette | Henri Matisse |
| Cubism | ca. 1907-1914 | Multiple perspectives, fragmentation, geometry | Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque |
| Expressionism | ca. 1905-1920s | Emotional intensity, distortion, vivid color | Edvard Munch, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner |
| Dada & Surrealism | ca. 1916-1940s | Anti-art, chance, unconscious imagery | Marcel Duchamp, Salvador Dalí, René Magritte |
| Suprematism / Constructivism / De Stijl | ca. 1915-1930s | Pure abstraction, geometric reduction, utilitarian design | Malevich, Tatlin, Mondrian |
| Abstract Expressionism | ca. 1940s-1960s | Gesture, color fields, subconscious expression | Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Franz Kline |
| Post-War and transition to Contemporary | ca. 1945-1970s | Institutionalization, pluralism, rise of new disciplines | Many international artists |
Impressionism emerged in France during the late 19th century with artists such as Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Post-Impressionism extended Impressionism’s focus on color and light but moved towards more symbolic, structural, and expressive approaches. Cubism, pioneered in Paris by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque in the early 20th century, fundamentally transformed how artists represented reality. Futurism originated in Italy, celebrating technology, speed and industrial progress. Expressionism emphasized raw emotion and subjective interpretation. Dadaism was an anti-art movement born out of the devastation following World War I, embracing absurdity and chance. Suprematism was the first major movement focusing on pure abstraction and basic geometric forms. Constructivism sought to merge art and life, emphasizing functional design and industrial materials. De Stijl sought universal harmony through geometric abstraction and primary colors. Surrealism aimed to unlock the unconscious mind. Abstract Expressionism, with Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and Franz Kline, was the first major American art movement to gain international recognition.
The conclusion of modern art is generally placed between 1945 and 1960 and coincides with the ideological and cultural shifts following the Second World War, the atomic bomb, the Cold War, and globalization. The dogmatic belief in progress, innovation, and reason of Modernism makes way for doubt, questioning, and eclecticism of Postmodernism, characterized by its rejection of rigid definitions and its embrace of diverse approaches, blurring the boundaries between high art and popular culture.
Modern art isn’t just history. It is the foundation of everything that came after. While often conflated, modern art and contemporary art represent distinct periods and approaches within art history. Modern art spans from the late 19th century to the mid-20th century, characterized by movements like Impressionism, Cubism, and Surrealism. In contrast, contemporary art refers to art produced from the latter half of the 20th century to the present day, encompassing a diverse array of styles and mediums.
With the arrival of postmodernism, that dogmatic belief in progress and innovation was being questioned, redefining what art is or could be and resulting in new art forms. Conceptual Art emerged as a movement prioritizing ideas and concepts over traditional aesthetic or material concerns. Minimal Art emphasized simplicity, geometric forms, and the materiality of the artwork itself. New artistic disciplines-Performance Art, Land Art, Video Art, Digital Art-further complicated period labels because disciplines both became historical movements and persistent practices.
Art historiography aims to present large tendencies throughout history understandable by placing them in a box, with a specific time period, characteristics, and a set of key artists. The main benefit of this approach is that we can easily understand the broad tendencies. The downside is that it can often be too arbitrary and lacks nuance. Therefore, remember that these definitions, time periods, and characteristics are never absolute. In reality, they are fluid. Art movements are not boxes with a clear beginning, content, and end.
Art history can also be too focused on the West and Europe in particular-as it was invented in Europe and later predominantly practiced in Europe and the States. So please note that some meanders and streams are often forgotten or not mentioned, as art history can never be absolute from a global perspective-which is why the North-American Ashcan School and American Regionalism are often not mentioned, as is the case with Latin American Muralism, or Japanese Mono-Ha in Asia, and many more.
Our cicerone is consistent. In the first chapter, On Words, Smith defines all his terms, from Abstraction to Zeitgeist. In the second chapter, On Style, he conducts a blitz history of art, from Lascaux to the present. The third chapter, On Form, contains the heart of the matter, the exemplars of the Formalesque in its international glory. Here are all the renowned artists and familiar movements, in France, Russia, Germany, England, America, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, North Africa.
That brings us to the final chapter On Meaning. Some may welcome the reaction as due politicisation of art and criticism; others may perceive it as a continual search for new meanings. Surrealism, we know, had already prefigured this quest, as did Dadaism, which Smith barely mentions, in its anarchic way. Smith's epilogue is succinct and pre-ordained. What comes after the Formalesque? Just call it contemporary: we have neither the hindsight nor the foresight to call it anything else.
The Formalesque and modernism more broadly clarified the achievements of painters who have shaped our vision to this day: Cézanne, Van Gogh, Picasso, Kandinsky, Mondrian, Pollock, Duchamp. Modern art includes painting, sculpture, printmaking, collage, and mixed media. It’s not defined by a single style but by a shared commitment to innovation. Marcel Duchamp challenged the very definition of art with his ready-mades. Andy Warhol used repetition and commercial imagery to question fame and mass production. Jean-Michel Basquiat layered text and symbols into raw paintings that tackled identity and history. Yayoi Kusama explored repetition and immersive installations to process the inner world.
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If you also get lost in art history, especially from the mid-20th century and onwards, you are not alone. The main benefit of periodization is clarity; the main risk is oversimplification. Use movement labels as guides, not cages. Visit museums that present modern and contemporary lineages-seeing works in person reveals relations that lists cannot convey. Curious to explore modern art up close? Moco Museum Amsterdam features a dedicated Modern Masters exhibition showcasing the work of Warhol, Haring, Basquiat, and Kusama.
Modern art began in the late 19th century and extended into the mid-20th century, driven by sweeping societal change: industrialisation, war, new scientific discoveries, and philosophical shifts that prioritized individual experience and the search for truth beyond tradition. Rather than capturing the world as it appeared, modern artists explored how it felt. They experimented with form, colour, and technique. Modern art is the foundation of everything that came after.
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