A New Role for Artists in the Modern Era

Modernist artist strive to seize the aesthetic images and perception of their time. Modernism seeks to draw interest to art. The two significant modernist art movements were Realism and Impressionism. I believe these roles still persist today because there are new artistic techniques and materials being introduced, and the boundaries of art have been redefined. Since art is no longer primarily funded by religious or political institutions, the artist is free to express their own agenda. Modern artist are rebellious and seek to shock their audience. Marcel Duchamp did this by displaying a bicycle wheel and a urinal as works of art. Modern art is fascinated with technology such as photography. Modern art wants to engage with pop culture. Roy Lichtenstein did this with his style and subject of comic strip paintings and Andy Warhol made paintings of Campbell’s soup cans. Edouard Manet and Claude Monet were impressionist that painted scenes of everyday life including bar scenes. They explored new artistic techniques of loose, broken brush strokes and intensified colors. Their works had to be done so quickly as to capture the lighting that they produced these as finished paintings. The public had to reconsider sketches as an end result. Computer software is now used to create art. Robert Rauschenberg brought out Realism in his work Retroactive. He used images of current events from magazines and newspapers. He combined the modernity of the parachuting astronaut and images of Kennedy. The painting mixes present and past.