Contemporary art will help me to modernise our society. Victor Pinchuk
What is contemporary art?
Contemporary art is just a fancy term for present-day art. Contemporary art, we could argue, refers to art from the 20th and 21st centuries that is meant to communicate how people who are living in our modern society perceive the world around them.
While we would like to with utmost certainty state that contemporary art refers to art of exactly the 2oth and 21st centuries, we cannot. Many art institutes around the world also label art from the latter 19th century as falling part of the broad category of art called contemporary art.
Again, there are further debates about whether contemporary art could be seen as being synonymous with modern art. Many people do believe that modern art and contemporary art are one and the same, however, artists themselves tend to argue that contemporary art refers to art that is meant to be a form of cultural dialogue. Contemporary artists tend to express their cultural identity, cultural families, and more of their cultural beliefs in the form of what we call contemporary art.
However, it is very difficult to then find a definition for modern art without seeing it as being somewhat the same as contemporary art. The argument put forward by modern artists is that modern art evolved in 19th to early 20th century and the timeline is the core factor that sets modern art apart from contemporary art.
All About Modern Art
Many people refer to modern art as an Avant Garde art form. However, art that dominated art museums and galleries in the 19th and early 20th century, focused on modernizing viewpoints and rejecting traditional aesthetics. The artists who took to modern art were obsessed with the idea of defying what was known about traditional artistic styles and focused on reinventing art.
Impressionism
It is hard to discuss modern art without delving deeply into the topic of impressionism. 19th century artists especially artists from France wanted to create quite an impression through their art works which caused them to dispel traditional painting guidelines and produce more floaty and feathery types of paintings that almost had a nonchalant look and feel to it.
In fact, Vincent Van Gogh, was one such artist who showed artistic freedom through his paintings. Van Gogh has created artistic works linked to his name that focused entirely on evoking emotion. You could say that artists, like Van Gogh, allowed their paintings to be solely interpreted by the viewer and left much room for the freedom to interpret their paintings according to how the viewer saw fit.
Van Gogh wasn't the only artist to focus on colourful modern paintings, other artists like Paul Gaugin took a similar artistic stance as well.
The thing about impressionists is that they always wanted to get out of their art studios and soak up fresh air. These artists wanted inspiration to come to them almost naturally. Preparation for impressionist artworks was barely required and the whimsical way in which the impressionist painted made the paintings seem as if they were unfinished.
Exploring Impressionist Artists
Edgar Degas
Edgar Degas was one French impressionist artist mainly interested in the various forms of the human body. Degas found much pleasure in capturing the human body in a variety of forms. Degas sought female models to be the subject of his artwork so as to deviate from the traditional types of human body paintings.
Since Degas choose a rather controversial subject for most of his paintings, his work was met with serious criticism. If you were to scan Edgar Degas work, you would almost feel like a spectator from afar.
Some of Degas main works includes:
- The ballet class (1871 - 1874)
- Ballet rehearsal on stage (1874)
- Woman combing her hair (1887 - 1890)
Claude Monet
Claude Monet is another French painter who painted water lilies. The beauty of this painting is that the surface of these paintings appears to be rough, but upon closer inspection, they are rather smooth. This impressionist painter toyed with the idea of the contradiction between always and fleeting. Impressionist painters enjoyed playing with techniques that allow you to look at things in more than one way.
From Impressionism to Fauvism
It's hard to mention modern art without looking at all the artistic movements that came about in the 20th century. Favism was developed by a group of artists who preferred the more unreal tones when painting and yet again allowed their paintings to be subjectively viewed by the recipient of the art.
Expressionists
Towards the 20th century, expressionists sought to create an expression in the art that they presented. As such, the art created by expressionists sought to break conventionally acceptable artist boundaries and in doing so depicted vivid artwork characterised by artificial colours.
If you are eager to find out more about both conventional art and unconventional art, we suggest you start taking art classes near you.
With the help of the right art instructor, you too could be breaking conventional painting techniques and creating quite the masterpiece.
Exploring Expressionism Artists
It was the expressionists who wanted to drift away from all that had been traditionally taught in terms of paintings. Expressionists used thick brushstrokes to express themselves on a canvas.
Kandinsky
Wassily Kandinsky was a Russian-born talented artist who blossomed in his thirties when he became an expressionist artist. Kandinsky was known for amalgamating form and colour in order to stir up emotions.
Kandinsky was the one person who could create music and poetic sounds through his paintings. Some of his most memorable paintings are:
- The Blue Rider (1903)
- The blue mountain (1908/9)
- Composition IV (1911)
Vincent Van Gogh
An impressionist as well as expressionist painter who made quite the mark with one of his renowned paintings painted in the South of France is Vincent Van Gogh. The expressionist painting that allowed him to express himself was the series of 5 images of sunflowers in a vase. For the painting, 3 shades of yellow was used to paint the entire painting.
Through this painting, Van Gogh wished to communicate happiness and hope while simultaneously choosing an array of shades of yellow to depict the idea that paintings fade like flowers. The image has started fading over time and losing some of the initial vibrancy that was noted when the painting was first painted.
Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa
Situated at the V & A Waterfront in Cape Town, the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa is one of the largest contemporary art museums in the world. The museum is open from Tuesday to Sunday and bookings are essential should you wish to visit this museum.
The idea behind this museum is to bring the love of art to children and to support the development of contemporary art throughout the African diaspora. The museum takes a keen interest in educational initiatives and programmes.
At this museum, the work of solo artists is showcased so that a strong depiction can be placed on artists who focus on self-representation. Upon visiting the museum, you will notice that every artist who chooses to display his or her artwork showcases something unique and unlike anything that has ever been seen before.
Representation of all African artists is one of the core values of this museum and as such, the museum focuses on exhibitions like the When We See Us: A Century of Black Figuration in Painting. This particular exhibition looks at how African artists have asserted their experience through art.
You may find something you least expect to find at the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa such as a painting of soup cans.
Should you want to know what type of art can be classified as contemporary art, reach out to a Superprof art instructor today.
Famous Contemporary Art
Did you know that one of the most famous contemporary art works to date is Andy Warhol? Andy Warhol's painting of Campbell Soup cans in 1962 is still famous to date. This illustration of soup cans really gave a whole new meaning to pop artists of the 20th century art who drew and painted pictures of the times in which they were living in. The soup can picture was this contemporary artist's way of showing the mass media and consumerist culture that people found themselves living in.
When famous contemporary art made its mark, everything from soup cans to Hollywood celebrities were captured in paintings. The lack of brush work that was featured in these contemporary art pieces made people question whether contemporary art was actually art or not.
Famous South African Contemporary Artists
The following South African contemporary artists have been making their mark one brush stroke at a time:
- William Kentridge whose painting is called Felix in Exile goes for about 2.5 million
- Blessings Ngobeni who painted Oppressed and Shall Rise worth 1 million
Consider taking up some of the best art classes near you should you want to create famous contemporary art work too.
What Makes Art Contemporary?
Any good art instructor will tell you that a few aspects make art contemporary art. Here are a few qualities that contemporary art does possess:
- Contemporary art is guided by the time period in which the art is created.
- By viewing contemporary are, we can reflect upon society.
- Contemporary art goes far beyond the boarder of traditional art forms.
Still finding it impossible to distinguish between modern art and contemporary art, ask an art tutor near you to explain this difference.
Modern Art Painters
As for those modern art painters, there are many modern art painters still existing in South Africa. All these artists want to do is to connect their experiences to the art that they create.
Modern art painters have found a way to pour out their emotions on a blank canvas. If you search for modern art painters, the array of vivid paintings that you will find will tell you that modern art is surely bright.
Bright like the futures of artists such as Penny Siopis who created a form of layered oil painting called Cake which is worth R800 000.
Needless to say, if you wish to be a modern art painter in South Africa, your future does surely look bright.
In nature, light creates the colour. In the picture, colour creates the light. Hans Hoffman
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