The Significance of Art Yesterday and Today
In this paper I will first be addressing how art was understood, appreciated and shared historically both by artists and the general public. I will do this by writing on the differences in views of the artists’ and the general public and the reactions to the understanding of historical art. I will also write about the artists’ own appreciation of their art and how they shared their art in the early 1900’s. I will also address how advances in technology has changed the discovery and the appreciation of art by comparing the appreciation of art and artists from the early 20th century and today and how differently it is shared today. Lastly, I will be identifying and addressing how social and political happenings have influenced artists today through research on articles and media.
Originally in the early 20th century the most recent form of art in the U.S. was impressionism. Art was precise, conservative and strict in nature. Before “modernism in art” art was the imitation and representation of recognizable objects from nature and held the meaning of beauty. “In the first decade of the twentieth century, revolutionary new techniques in art were introduced in Paris, and the followers of Henri Matisse created the movement called Fauvism. The artists known as the Fauves, or the “wild beasts,” reduced nature to a mere starting point in a picture. In 1905, Paul Cézanne began to show his paintings in Paris; his preoccupation with sculptured form was to mark another great development, which, in turn, would outweigh the new primitivism of Paul Gauguin and the new expressionism of Vincent van Gogh. In 1907, when Pablo Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon was shown in Paris, another important modern movement, cubism, was introduced.” These artists and these movements are referred to as “Modern Art.” During this “Modern Art” movement the artists shared their art by creating and carrying out the idea of an art show, known as “The Armory Show.” The artists created their art work through “nonrepresentational subjects or unrecognizable objects instead of what had previously been used.” The show attracted the general public and critics, around 75,000 people. The general public, unlike the artists views on their artwork, were shocked and appalled by the modern artwork that was being shown. Most of the public ridiculed the artwork. Especially Pablo Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon.
Now that we have gone over the historical background of a few different aspects of historical art, including...