I recently suggested to Mary that a painting could be developed in two ways: conservative-traditional or modern. Mary then asked: “Wonder about how one would develop in a more conservative tone. Also what modernist tone would mean.”
A pretty wide set of groupings I’ll grant you, and the world of art is mad with exceptions. The body of painting fundamentally shifted following the development of photography in the 1800’s. Freed from the obligation to describe something – the camera made that imperative obsolete – painters then searched for something new and so – aided by other innovations – Impressionism took shape, as the first iteration of modern ways of seeing and painting. Whereas traditional painting took colours and forms from nature, applying them with some realism, modernists increasingly took colours primarily from imagination, simplifying and modifying form. The transition can clearly be seen in the Monets above, painted only 32 years apart!
I could perhaps add the lead on to abstraction, totally freeing painting from any association with reality and perhaps this will be the subject of a future post!
Break-a-Brush!
David