For centuries, artists continued to paint humanistic iconography based on the works of the Classical Greco-Roman artists; from the medieval perspective, the 15th and the 18th centuries focused on depicting images that were derived from various sources such as mythology and religious scenes. Some patrons occasionally commission artists to paint portraits that reflect their actual faces. However, by the late 19th century up to the early phase of the 20th century, the Modern period spearheaded the development of new avant-garde styles and the rejection of humanism in visual arts by reducing the subjects into something that is defined only by minimal lines, scientific application of proper geometry, and the simple colors. The modern interpretation of form is different from mere decoration or ornamentation because it gives the artists the actual framework of the human body and how its form should be drawn in order to comply with the aesthetic of science. According to Schapiro’s essay titled Modern Art, the trend 20th century was a period of transition from the rigid boundaries governed by hierarchy and religiousness, the art styles of the Modern period favored secularism and explored varieties of styles through examining other cultures and borrowing the designs and incorporate them in art to make it unique from the other artworks of the era.
“painters admitted to their canvasesthe world of dreamsfor more intense expression corresponded to new values of forthrightness, simplicity, and openness, to a joyous vitality in everyday life.” (Schapiro 148).
The form became the artists’ freedom and eventually subjected to different styles using a combined mathematical and scientific approach which attempts to explain images in a rational way to the audience. Schapiro further explained that Impressionism and the Modern Art are related to each other because Impressionism popularized the use of artistic ‘impressions’ or simplified versions of images through combined sketches and flat colors. In this genre, the manner of depicting subjects relies on how their forms were manipulated by light. The artists used rough sketches or ‘impressions’ and the style appealed more to the common people’s tastes due to its simplified lines and the state of its incompleteness contributes to its pleasing display of stage by stage presentation of the image based from the artist’s own experiences. In this genre, the Impressionism and Modernism shares the preference to a systematic way of depicting pictures based on how the artists perceived them, not as a mere representation of the real world but only a copy of what that world looked from the point of view of the audience/artist. Impressionism became the forerunner of the Modern art movement known as ‘abstract’ with its foundations were based not on aesthetic depictions but on the symmetrical appearance whether the image are “subjective” to with traits follow the light reflection on its surface, formless, scattered, and rough textured in a sense that Impressionist painters do not clearly elaborate the figures through implied lines but rather they used the implied lines to distort the image further but still left traces of impressions so that the audience will figure out the type of style used in the work. (Schapiro 144). Among the materials used in the modern period transitioned from the neat marble statues to rough and unfinished statues. Paintings became energetic and freedom of artists became the indicator of the Modern period. The materials used for art were wheat paste as an adhesive to join the art to the wall. When the Armory show began in the 1913, several artists also made their own styles that were less realistic to isolate themselves from the previous artistic styles of the paintings. In other words, what Schapiro explains was the Armory Show became the place where avant-garde artists of the 20th century exhibited their works indicating the sense of freedom since these works were created by using simple feet and ingenuity towards crafts.
WORKS CITED
Schapiro, Meyer. “Modern Art.” N.p: n.p., n.d. PDF File.
