Modern Art Movements
History of Modernist Styles, Schools, Artist-Groups: 1860-1960: Types & Forms of Visual Arts in Late 19th Century, 20th Century.
Encyclopedia of Irish and World Art - HOMEPAGE
Modern Art - Contemporary Art - Postmodernism - Top 20 Contemporary Artists

Olympia (1863) Edouard Manet. Based
on Goya's portrait 'The Nude Maja'.
Manet is seen as the first Modernist.

Modern Art Movements/Periods

Here is a list of "Modernist" schools, styles and movements which came to the fore during the period 1860 to the mid-1960s. All dates are approximate.
For later styles which emerged during the so-called "Post-Modernist" period, see Contemporary Art Movements.

• Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (1848-55) (Forerunner of Modernism)
• Impressionist Art (Flourished 1860s-1880s)
• Neo-Impressionism (1870s)
• Newlyn School (1880s onwards)
• Art Nouveau Design Style (Late 19th Century - Early 20th Century)

Les Demoiselles D'Avignon (1907)
Picasso's seminal early Cubist work.

• Symbolism (Late 19th Century)
• Post Impressionist Art (c.1880-1900)
• Les Fauves (1898-1908)
• Expressionist Art (1900 onwards)
• Die Brucke (1905-11) (The Bridge)
• Der Blaue Reiter (1911-14) (The Blue Rider)
• Ashcan School, New York (c.1892-1919)
• Cubist Art (1908-1920)
• Orphism (1912-16)
• Purism (Early, mid-1920s)
• Precisionism (1920s, 1930s)
• Collages (1912 onwards)
• Futurism (1909-1914)
• Rayonism (c.1910-20)
• Suprematism (1913-1920s)

Seated Nude (1916) Modigliani
Expressionist painting.

• Constructivism (c.1917-21)
• Vorticism (c.1913-15)
• Dada Movement (Europe, 1915-1924)
• De Stijl (1917-31)
• The Bauhaus School (Germany, 1919-1933)
• Neo-Plasticism (1920-40)
• Art Deco Design Style (1920s, 1930s)
• Ecole de Paris (Paris School)
• Neue Sachlichkeit (Germany, 1920s)
• Surrealist Movement (1924 onwards)
• Magic Realism (1920s)
• Degenerate Art (Entartete Kunst) (1930s, Germany)
• Social Realism (late 1920s, early 1930s)
• Socialist Realism (1929 onwards)
• St Ives School (late 1930s onwards)

Orange And Yellow (1956).
By Mark Rothko, founder
of the 'Colour Field'
Abstract Expressionist style.

• Neo-Romanticism (1930s, 1940s, 1950s)
• Art Brut
• Organic Abstraction (1940s, 1950s)
• Existential Art (1940s and 1950s)
• Abstract Expressionism (mid-1940s, 1950s)
• Art Informel (mid-1940s, 1950s)
• Tachisme (late-1940s, 1950s)
• Arte Nucleare (c.1951-60)
• Kitchen Sink Art (mid-1950s)
• Assemblages (1953 onwards)
• Neo-Dada (1950s, early-1960s)
• Op-Art (Optical Art) (1950s, early-1960s)
• Pop Art (1950s, 1960s)
• New Realism (1960s)
• Post-Painterly Abstraction (Early, mid-1960s)
• Feminist Art (late 1960s onwards)

Moon Head (1964) by Henry Moore
Organic Abstraction style.

Edouard Manet (1832-83)

The "father of modern painting", his works like Dejeuner sur L'Herbe (c.1862), and Olympia (c.1865) broke many established canons and introduced new ways of constructing a picture. Naturally they caused a huge scandal in the Parisian Salon. See Biography of Edouard Manet.

Impressionist Art (Flourished 1860s-1880s)

Named after Impression: Sunrise, by Claude Monet, Impressionism promoted a spontaneous plein-air manner of landscape painting whose goal was the exact representation of light, as exemplified by the works of Alfred Sisley, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro, Frederic Bazille, Edgar Degas, Gustave Caillebotte, and the American Mary Cassatt. Introduced to Britain by Whistler, it was taken up by his pupils Sickert and Steer and promoted by the New English Art Club founded in 1886. Later succeeded by Neo-Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, and in the 1950s by Abstract Impressionism. For more, see Impressionism.

Marilyn (1967) Andy Warhol
Leader of Pop Art Movement.

Neo-Impressionism (1870s)

The term given to work by Georges Seurat, Paul Signac and their followers like Camille and Lucien Pissarro. The style was characterised by the optical technique called Divisionism (Pointillism). Instead of mixing colours before applying them to the canvas, primary-colours were placed directly onto the picture - arranged in groups of tiny dabs or dots - to allow the viewer's eye to do the "mixing". The style was a later influence on Fauvism.

Newlyn School (1880s onwards)

Led by Stanhope Forbes, Frank Bramley and Norman Garstin the Newlyn School was inspired by the naturalist plein-air painting tradition of the French Barbizon School and aimed to reproduce the realities of country life.

MEANING OF ART
For more about the different types,
styles and values of traditional and
contemporary visual art, see:
Definition of Art.

GLOSSARY OF ART STYLES
For a list of art periods, and
styles affecting painting,
sculpture and architecture,
see: Art Movements Glossary.

CONTEMPORARY IRISH ARTISTS
For biographies of contemporary
painters and sculptors in Ireland
see: Contemporary Irish Artists.

EVOLUTION OF FINE ART
For details about the development
of Western painting and sculpture
see: History of Art Timeline.

MOVEMENTS, PERIODS, ARTISTS
For more information, see:
History of Art
Old Masters
Famous Artists.

WORLD AUCTION RECORDS
For information about the world's
most highly priced works of art
and record auction prices, see:
Top 10 Most Expensive Paintings
Top 20 Most Expensive Paintings

Art Nouveau (Late 19th Century - Early 20th Century)

Derived from a Parisian shop called "La Maison de l'Art Nouveau", owned by the avant-garde art-collector Siegfried Bing (1838-1905), the Art Nouveau style was rooted in the Arts and Crafts Movement in Britain (notably the designs of William Morris) - being also influenced by Celtic and Japanese designs - and was popularized by the 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris before spreading across Europe and the United States. A highly decorative art style (called Jugenstil in Germany, Sezessionstil in Austria, Stile Liberty in Italy, Modernista in Spain), it was characterized by intricate flowing patterns of sinuous asymetrical lines, based on plant-forms (derived from Hallstatt and La Tene forms of Celtic art). Leaf and tendril motifs are popular Art Nouveau designs, as are female silhouettes and forms. The style appeared in interior design, metalwork, glassware, jewellery, poster-design and illustration, as well as painting and sculpture. It was exemplified by the paintings and illustrations of Gustav Klimt, Arthur Rackham and Aubrey Beardsley. Succeeded by Art Deco. For more details, see: Art Nouveau.

Symbolism (Late 19th Century)

Mythology-inspired and characterized by a mystical and magnified sensitivity with occasional erotic content, Symbolism was a refinement of the Romantic tradition. Chief exponents included Caspar David Friedrich, Henry Fuseli, Gustave Moreau, Puvis de Chavannes, and Odilon Redon. Influenced the Art Nouveau movement and Les Nabis, as well as the Expressionists Edvard Munch and Franz von Stuck.

Post-Impressionist Art (1880s onwards)

An umbrella term incorporating numerous developments of Impressionism, as exemplified by Paul Gauguin, Paul Cezanne, Vincent van Gogh, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Henri Rousseau. Cezanne adopted a rigorous classical approach to plein-air painting; Paul Gauguin used rich colours but preferred indoor studio painting; Van Gogh painted outdoors but more to express his inner emotions than capture nature; Toulouse-Lautrec specialized in indoor genre scenes.

A post-Impressionist offshoot was Intimism, exemplified in the tranquil domestic genre scenes of Edouard Vuillard, Pierre Bonnard and Gwen John. Taken up by Nordic painters, like Wilhelm Hammershoi and Peter Severin Kroyer. In Britain, Post-Impressionism was practised by the Camden Town Group, founded by Walter Richard Sickert in London in 1911, where he painted nudes and interiors. For more, see Post-Impressionsm

Les Fauves (1898-1908)

Rooted in Pointillism and Post-Impressionism, influenced by the colourist Paul Gauguin, and an early form of Expressionism, Fauvism advocated brilliant colours and wild brushwork - hence their nickname Les Fauves (wild beasts) given them by the critic Louis Vauxcelles after their first showing at the Salon d'automne in Paris in 1905. Fauvist artists included Henri Matisse, Andre Derain, Maurice de Vlaminck Albert Marquet and Georges Braque. In Britain, Fauvism was practised by a movement of artists known as the Scottish Colourists. They included JD Fergusson, Samuel John Peploe, Cadell and Hunter. For more, see Fauvism.

Expressionist Art (c.1900 onwards)

Personnified by Vincent Van Gogh, whose hectic brushwork and intense colours reflected his inner state rather than the scenes he painted, Expressionism is a style whose aim is to portray an interpretation of a scene rather than simply replicate its true-life features. Developed in Germany (eg. by the groups Der Blaue Reiter [The Blue Rider], Die Brücke [The Bridge], Die Neue Sachlichkeit [New Objectivity]), the movement spread worldwide, later giving birth to non-representational styles like Abstract Expressionism, Colour Field and Hard Edge Painting in America during the 1940s and 1950s. Influenced by Romanticism, Symbolism, Post-Impressionism, Fauvism, and Cubism, the movement encompassed all genres, including landscape, portraiture, genre painting and still life. Famous Expressionists included Wassily Kandinsky, Franz Marc, George Grosz, Edvard Munch, Amedeo Modigliani, Egon Schiele, Max Beckmann, Oskar Kokoschka, Otto Dix, as well as Pablo Picasso, Henry Moore, and Francis Bacon.

For more, see Expressionism and German Expressionism.

Die Brucke (1905-11) (The Bridge)

German Expressionist group based in Dresden in 1905. Combined elements of traditional German art with African, Post-Impressionist and Fauvist styles. Its leading members were Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Fritz Bleyl, Erich Heckel, and Emil Nolde. Short-lived but influential. Followed by another German Expressionist group, Der Blaue Reiter.

Der Blaue Reiter (1911-14) (The Blue Rider)

Based in Munich, where the Neue Kunstler Vereiningung, (New Artist Association or NKV) was established, it included a number of avant-garde artists, such as Wassily Kandinsky, Franz Marc, August Macke, Gabriele Munter and Paul Klee. A loose association rather than a tight group, it was named after a Kandinsky painting used on the cover of their 1912 Almanac or Manifesto. Cut short by the First World War during which both Macke and Marc were killed.

Ashcan School, New York (c.1892-1919)

Following the great American figurative realist painter and portraitist from Philadephia, Thomas Eakins, came a progressive group of early twentieth-century American painters and illustrators (sometimes called the New York Realists) who portrayed the harsh realities of New York City life, in a gritty spontaneous unpolished style. The Ashcan movement included Arthur B. Davies, William Glackens, Robert Henri, George Luks, Everett Shinn and John Sloan. Others whose work is considered to reflect the Ashcan school include: George Wesley Bellows, Guy Pène Du Bois, the celebrated Edward Hopper, and Alfred Maurer.

Cubist Art (Europe, 1908-1920)

Cubism was invented and formulated between about 1908 and 1912 in a partnership between Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso, who were strongly influenced by the grid-like landscapes of Paul Cezanne and (in Picasso's case by African imagery: witness his stunning Les Demoiselles D'Avignon). In part a reaction against the pretty pictures of Impressionism, a style which held no intellectual interest for Picasso, Cubism refocused attention on the essential 2-D nature of the flat canvas, overturning conventional systems of perspective and ways of perceiving form, in the process. The movement developed in three stages: Protocubism (Picasso's & Braque's early phase, containing the only 'cubes' to be seen); Analytical Cubism, an austere style which disassembled 3-D views into a series of overlapping planes; finally, Synthetic Cubism, a lighter more colourful style which 'built-up' images sometimes using various 'found' materials. Other important Cubist artists included Juan Gris and Fernand Leger. Although relatively short-lived, the movement Revolutionized art in the 20th century, and instigated a new tradition of abstract art. For more, see Cubism.

Orphism (1912-16)

Paris-based abstract art movement sometimes referred to as Orphic Cubism, whose style featured loosely painted patches of rainbow colours. The name (Orpheus was a mythological poet and musician of ancient Greece) was coined by French art critic Guillaume Apollinaire when describing the 'musical' effect of the abstract paintings by the Cubist Robert Delaunay (which comprised overlapping planes of contrasting or complementary colours) in order to distinguish them from Cubism generally. Delaunay himself preferred the term Simultanism to characterize his work. Another exponent of Orphism was the French-Czech painter and anarchist Frank Kupka, one of the first to create genuine abstract art, characterized by solid geometric blocks of colour.

Purism (Early, mid-1920s)

Fashionable 1920s Parisian Movement founded by Edouard Jeanneret (aka Le Corbusier) and Amédée Ozenfant, based on theories outlined in their 1918 book Après le Cubisme (After Cubism). Disagreeing with Cubist fragmentation, they produced figurative art (mostly still lifes) basic forms stripped of detail and supposedly pure in colour, form and design. Other artists loosely associated with the movement which peaked at the International Exposition of Decorative and Industrial Arts in Paris in 1925, were Fernand Leger, Juan Gris and the Lithuanian sculptor Jacques Lipchitz.

Precisionism (1920s, 1930s)

An important influence on modern art painting in the United States, Precisionism was an American movement (also referred to as Cubist Realism) whose focus was modern industry and urban landscapes, characterized by the realistic depiction of objects but in a manner which also highlighted their geometric form. An idealized, almost Romantic style, it was exemplified in works by Charles Demuth and Charles Sheeler, while the urban pictures of Georgia O'Keeffe also fall into the Precisionist genre. Influenced later Abstract Expressionism.

Collage (1912 onwards)

Also known as papier collés or découpage, collage was first introduced into modern fine art by the Cubist Georges Braque in 1912, when he attached three pieces of wallpaper to his Synthetic Cubist drawing Fruit Dish and Glass. Collage involves the use of objets trouvés, like bits of paper, photographs, newspaper cuttings, fabric and other 'found' items, even 3-D objects, which are fixed to the canvas to create a mixed-media effect. Other artists noted for their works of collage include Picasso, Aleksandr Rodchenko and the extraordinary loner Kurt Schwitters, noted for his small-scale Merzbilder collages. The techniques of collage were a strong influence on later forms of Assemblage. For more, see Collage Art.

Futurism (1909-1914)

Launched in 1909 by the Italian poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti Futurism via his Manifesto of Futurism which appeared on the front page of the Paris newspaper Le Figaro, the movement rejected all traditional art, celebrating instead the modern world of industry with works combining elements of Neo-Impressionism and Cubism. Other leading members included Umberto Boccioni, Giacomo Balla, Carlo Carrà, and Gino Severini.

Rayonism (c.1910-20)

Russian avant-garde quasi-Cubist-style art movement led by Mikhail Larionov and his partner Natalya Goncharova, both of whom later settled in Paris. The subject of Rayonism (aka Rayism), was abstract landscape comprising light or rays of light depicted by patterns of linear forms.

Suprematism (1913-1920s)

A purely abstract Russian art movement, founded by the nihilist Kasimir Malevich (1878-1935) who was regarded as the most important avant-garde painter in Russia. Founded on Utopian ideals, the Suprematist style expressed limitless confidence in the ability of engineers to create a new Soviet world. The first Suprematist exhibition (Zero-Ten) took place in St Petersburg, in December 1915, and featured thirty-five abstract works by Malevich, including his famous Black Square hung like an icon high up across a corner, as well as a host of other rectangles, triangles and circles, many in vivid colours. The show later toured to Moscow and Vitebsk. In 1918, Malevich was appointed to the Commissariat of Enlightenment and taught at the Vitebsk art academy set up by Marc Chagall. Suprematism was a key art movement in Russia, being closely linked with the Revolution. Other famous Suprematist artists included Lazar Lissitsky, Ivan Vasilievich Kliun and Laszlo Moholy-Nagy. Disillusioned in later life, by 1935 he was painting realist pictures.

Constructivism (c.1917-21)

Austere but very important Russian abstract architectural art movement established by Vladimir Tatlin (1885-1953), joined later by Aleksandr Rodchenko (1891-1956) and brothers Antoine Pevsner (1886-1962) and Naum Gabo (1890-1977). Concerned with abstraction, space, new materials and 3-D form, Constructivist artists developed architectural art in a direct attempt to reflect the modern industrial world. Vladimir Tatlin himself was strongly influenced by Picasso's 3-D constructions, some of which he saw first-hand in Picasso's Parisian studio in 1913. In 1923 the movement outlined its ideas in a manifesto, expressing the view that artists should focus on organizing materials and constructing works, as if they were manufacturing a car. Later suppressed by Stalin, the ideas of Constructivism reached the West through Naum Gabo and Antoine Pevsner, and were a strong influence on modern sculptors like Barbara Hepworth and Ben Nicholson. In Britain, around 1950, the movement was recast as Constructionism, in the geometrical paintings of Victor Pasmore and others.

Vorticism (c.1913-15)

The British counterpart to Italian Futurism, Vorticism was an avant-garde art movement, influenced by Cubism and Futurism, founded in London by the painter, illustrator and war artist Wyndham Lewis. The only Vorticist exhibition was held in London in 1915. Claiming to produce "a New Living Abstraction", Vorticist works combine Cubist fragmentation with hard-edged iconography reflecting technology and the urban environment. Other members included Cuthbert Hamilton, William Roberts, Lawrence Atkinson, Jessica Dismorr, Helen Saunders, Edward Wadsworth, as well as the sculptors Jacob Epstein and Henri Gaudier-Brzeska. The group foundered after the exhibition, although Wyndham Lewis essayed a brief revival of its ideas with Group X, in 1920.

Dada (Europe, 1915-1924)

Founded in Zurich during the First World War, Dada was the first of the modern anti-art movements, whose members were revolted by the butchery of the 1914 World War and devoted themselves to an artistic style that set out to deliberately challenge all the traditional values of a society that could have allowed such barbarity to occur. Dada-ists employed shock-tactics and absurdity to produce totally irrational or meaningless artworks and "performances", including sculpture and early installations which they often constructed using various objets trouvés (found objects). Dada developed into an international movement and its themes eventually formed an important part of Surrealism in Paris after the war. Leading members of Dada included Jean Arp, Marcel Duchamp, Francis Picabia and Kurt Schwitters. Duchamp's questioning of the fundamentals of Western art had a profound subsequent influence. For an in-depth analysis of Dadaist ideas, Dada: History, Styles.

De Stijl (1917-31)

De Stijl (Dutch for "the style,") was the name of a group of artists (and the art, design and aesthetics journal they published, which was one of the most influential avant-garde magazines of the 1920s). Founded in the Netherlands during World War I, by Theo van Doesburg, the concrete artist Piet Mondrian, architect Gerrit Rietveld, and Bart Van der Leck, it advocated a geometrical type of abstract art, based on universal laws of harmony that would be equally applicable to life and art. The movement had its greatest impact on architecture. Although Piet Mondrian seceded from the group in 1923, he remained faithful to its themes until the end of his life by which time he had become one of the most famous of all abstract painters. By comparison, the more restless Van Doesburg abandoned one of the basic tenets of De Stijl in 1924 when he substituted diagonals for verticals and horizontals in search of greater dynamism.

The Bauhaus School (Germany, 1919-1933)

Founded in 1919 by the innovative modern architect Walter Gropius at Weimar in Germany, the Bauhaus School was a revolutionary school of art upon which so many others have been modelled. Its name, derived from the two German words "bau" for building and "haus" for house, together with its artist-community system, hints at the the idea of a fraternity working on the construction of a new society. Highly influential in both architecture and design, its teachers included Josef Albers, Lyonel Feininger, Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, Oskar Schlemmer, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Anni Albers and Johannes Itten. Its stated goal was to bring art into contact with everyday life, hence design was accorded as much weight as fine art. Among the leading principles taught at The Bauhaus were the virtues of simple, clean design; abstraction; massproduction; the ethical and practical advantages of a well-designed environment, as well as democracy and worker participation. In 1925, The Bauhaus moved into a new building in Dessau in 1925-6, and in 1932 relocated to Berlin where it was eventually closed by the Nazis in 1933. Its teachers then dispersed, with several moving to America: Moholy-Nagy went to Chicago where he established the New Bauhaus in 1937, while Albers took Bauhaus methods with him to Black Mountain College in North Carolina and later to Yale University. For details, see: Bauhaus Design School.

Neo-Plasticism (1920-40)

Term used by geometrical-style artist Piet Mondrian in its Dutch form "Nieuwe Beelding" in his articles in De Stijl magazine during 1917-19, and in the French version "Néo-Plasticisme" from 1921 onwards to describe his own type of abstract art. Essentially it means "new art", since sculpture and certain types of painting are considered 'plastic arts'. However the German version "Neue Gestaltung" (new forming) captures Mondrian's meaning best. He used the name to advocate a 'new forming' in the widest sense, as well as his own ideas and images. In his long essay "Neo-Plasticism in Pictorial Art", Mondrian wrote: "The new plastic idea ... should find its expression in the abstraction of form and colour, that is to say, in the straight line and the clearly defined primary colour". Thus in a sense Neo-Plasticism was an ideal form of painting, which used only pure colour, line and form. In addition to insisting only on primary colours (or non-colours), it advocated solely squares, rectangles, and straight horizontal or vertical lines. Mondrian's theories exercised had a huge impact on later painting, and he is now regarded as one of the greatest of all modern artists.

Art Deco (1920s, 1930s)

A popular and fashionable style of decorative art, design and architecture in the inter-war years (much beloved by cinema and hotel architects), Art Deco designs also extended to furniture, ceramics, textile fabrics, jewellery, and glass. Showcased in 1925 at the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts held in Paris, Art Deco was essentially a reaction against Art Nouveau: replacing the latter's flowing curvilinear shapes with Cubist and Precisionist-inspired geometric forms. Classic examples of Art Deco include the New York Chrysler Building and the Empire State Building. Art Deco also drew inspiration from the modern architectural designs of The Bauhaus. Famous artists associated with Art Deco include Tamara de Lempicka, glass artist Rene Lalique and graphic designer Adolphe Mouron. For details, see Art Deco.

Ecole de Paris (Paris School)

For almost a century (1840-1940) Paris remained the centre of world art, culminating in the dazzling works of Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Fauvism, Cubism and Surrealism. The Paris School is a term used by art historians to denote the community of artists, both French and foreign, working in the city during the first half of the 20th century, rather than a strictly defined style, school or movement. For many reasons, Paris was exceptionally attractive to artists. It was free of political repression, it was home to numerous masters of modern art (eg. Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Georges Rouault, Henri Matisse, Fernand Leger, Amedeo Modigliani, Piet Mondrian, Marc Chagall, Chaïm Soutine, Mikhail Larionov, Wassily Kandinsky, Constantin Brancusi, to name but a few), and it boasted a booming art world with galleries, collectors and critics to support artists with talent. The twin leaders (chefs d'école) were Picasso and Matisse.

Neue Sachlichkeit (Germany, 1920s)

A German term, meaning "New Objectivity", this was the name given to a group of Expressionist artists in Germany during the 1920s, derived from their 1923 Neue Sachlichkeit show in Mannheim. It was the third of the German Expressionist movements after Die Brucke (The Bridge) and Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider). Key members included Otto Dix, George Grosz, Christian Schad and to a lesser extent Georg Schrimpf and Max Beckmann. Although the exhibition curator, GF Hartlaub, described its paintings as "new realism bearing a socialist flavour", the style was vividly expressionist in its satirical portrayal of corruption and decadence in post-World War I Weimar Germany, and in its commentary on the human condition generally.

Surrealism (1924 onwards)

Rooted in the works of Giorgio de Chirico, the revolutionary painterly ideas of Cubism, the subversive art of Dada and the psychoanalysis ideas of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, Surrealism was the most influential avant-garde art movement of the inter-war years. Its goal, according to its founding father, the French poet André Breton - in his 1924 Manifesto of Surrealism - was to fuse the unconscious (the part of the human mind where memories and instincts are stored) with the conscious, to create a new "super-reality" - a surréalisme. A broad intellectual movement, Surrealism encompassed a diverse range of styles from abstraction to expressionism and full-blown realism, characteristically punctuated with weird, hallucinatory or fundamentally 'unreal' imagery. Leading Surrealists included Salvador Dali (1904-89), Max Ernst (1891-1976), Rene Magritte (1898-1967), André Masson (1896-1987), Yves Tanguy (1900-55), Joan Miro (1893-1983), Giorgio de Chirico (1888-1978), Jean Arp (1886-1966), and Man Ray (1890-1976). Their immediate impact was seen in Germany in the Magic Realism of Franz Roh, and later in Britain, where British Surrealism was founded in 1936 by the writer Herbert Read, together with the artists David Gascoyne, Paul Nash, and Roland Penrose. The First International Surrealist Exhibition opened in London in 1936 and sparked enormous interest, not least because of the talk given by the flamboyant self-publicist Salvador Dalí from inside a deep-sea diving suit. Surrealism had a huge influence on Europe, and few European artists of the 1930s were unaffected by the movement. It continues to have a significant influence on art, literature and cinematography. For an in-depth explanation of surrealist ideas, see Surrealism: History, Styles.

Magic Realism (1920s)

Although influenced by Surrealism, Magic Realism was actually part of the 'return to order' trend which occured in post-World War I Europe in the 1920s. The name derives from a 1925 book by German art historian and critic Franz Roh called "Nach Expressionismus: Magischer Realismus" (After Expressionism: Magic Realism). Members included Giorgio de Chirico, Alberto Savinio, Alexander Kanoldt and Adolf Ziegler.

Degenerate Art (Entartete Kunst) (1930s, Germany)

Coined by Adolf Hitler, the term "Entartete Kunst" meaning degenerate art, expresses the Nazi idea that any art which did not conform to the ideal of well-crafted figurative images depicting heroic acts or comfortable day-to-day living, was the product of degenerate people. Not surprisingly most modern art was labelled degenerate, which meant that most modern artists in Germany (from 1933 onwards) could not show or sell their works. In 1937, the Nazis removed all modern works from German art museums. A selection was then exhibited in Munich to demonstrate how repulsive they were, but the plan backfired and introduced modern art to huge crowds.

Social Realism (1850 onwards to early 1930s)

The term describes works of art which portray the unvarnished reality (usually harsh) of everyday life, as opposed to the 'ideal' or romantic settings employed by artists up until the 19th century. Typically expressing a message of social reform, the social realist style first appeared in Britain in works by William Hogarth, in France, in the urban drawings of Honore Daumier and the rural genre paintings of Jean-Francois Millet, before spreading across Europe to Russia in the genre-paintings of Ilya Repin. Aimed to highlight the gritty reality of post-Industrial Revolution urban life.

More specifically, Social Realism denotes the urban American scene painters of the Depression era, such as Ben Shahn, Reginald Marsh, Moses Soyer, Raphael Soyer, William Gropper, Jack Levine, Jacob Lawrence and Isabel Bishop. They took their inspiration from the traditions of the earlier New York Ashcan School, as well as from the work of Mexican Muralists Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro. Comparisons can be made between the American Social Realists and their contemporaries in Europe such as George Grosz and Otto Dix of Neue Sachlichkeit.

Socialist Realism (1929 onwards)

A form of political propaganda employed by dictator Joseph Stalin in Russia, from 1929 onwards, to buttress his program of accelerated industrial development. Formally announced by his artistic stooge Maxim Gorky, at the Soviet Writers Congress of 1934, the style or direction involved the creation of bold optimistic imagery to evangelize the achievements of the Soviet State and inspire workers to Stakhanovite feats of labour. The most ubiquitous media used by Socialist Realist artists was the poster, although painting and sculpture was also produced, typically on a monumental scale, showing fearless individuals and groups in idealistic and heroic poses.

St Ives School (late 1930s onwards)

A British art movement based in the Cornish fishing town of St Ives, it was associated with the abstract artist Ben Nicholson and his wife, the great sculptor Barbara Hepworth, who settled near the town in 1939, to be joined shortly afterwards (until 1946) by the Russian Constructivist sculptor Naum Gabo. Another major artist, who had been living in St Ives since 1923, when he founded a pottery studio with fellow ceramicist Shoji Hamada, was the British ceramics artist Bernard Howell Leach. After 1945, as other artists arrived, St Ives developed into a centre for modern and abstract art, much of it derived from the local landscape. The main members of the St Ives School included Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, Paul Feiler, Terry Frost, Patrick Heron, Roger Hilton, Peter Lanyon, Karl Weschke and Bryan Wynter. In 1993, Tate St Ives, a purpose built art gallery was opened on Porthmeor Beach to display the Tate collection of St Ives School art. Also, nearby, is the Barbara Hepworth Museum and Sculpture Garden, which was established in 1980.

Neo-Romanticism (1930s, 1940s, 1950s)

Term denoting the intense, poetic, figurative and semi-abstract British landscape paintings of Paul Nash, Graham Sutherland and others in the late 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, that gave a modern interpretation to the romantic, visionary works of the 18th century William Blake and the 19th century Samuel Palmer. Early works were generally sombre, reflecting the anxieties of approaching war. Other British Neo-Romantics included Michael Ayrton, John Craxton, Ivon Hitchens, John Minton, John Piper, Keith Vaughan and the wartime drawings of Henry Moore. A lesser known group, also sometimes referred to as Neo-Romantics, were the Paris-based artists Eugène Berman, Leonid Berman and Pavel Tchelitchew: all noted for their brooding, nostalgic works.

Art Brut

Term coined by Jean Dubuffet (1901-85), denoting art produced by people outside the established art world, such as solitary artists, the maladjusted, patients in psychiatric institutions, and fringe-dwellers of all kinds - typically not for display or profit. In English, the term "Outsider Art" (a phrase coined by Roger Cardinal in 1972) is sometimes used to describe this kind of work. In Dubuffet's view, this type of culturally detached art possessed a unique originality, unstifled by education. Dubuffet's collection of Art Brut, eventually numbering over 5,000 items, was presented to the city of Lausanne in 1972 and in 1976 was opened to the public.

Organic Abstraction (1940s, 1950s)

A term denoting a style of art which employs rounded abstract forms based on those found in nature. It is also known as Biomorphic Abstraction. It did not constitute an art movement as such, but rather a style which appeared in the work of many different artists, such as Wassily Kandinsky, Constantin Brancusi and the artists of the Art Nouveau movement. That said, it is most usually applied to 1940s and 1950s works by artists like the Surrealists Jean Arp, Joan Miro and Yves Tanguy, as well as the British sculptors Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore. The shapes used by Arp, Miro and Moore resembled pebbles, shells and bones. Moore himself stated that "there are univsal shapes to which everyone is subconsciously conditioned and to which they can respond if their conscious control does not shut them off." The appeal of Organic Abstraction extended to Alexander Calder, Isamu Noguchi, and the Abstract Expressionists, as well as legions of Scandinavian and American furniture designers. The style has endured beyond the 1950s, being visible in the work of modern 3-D artists such as the designers Ron Arad, Verner Panton and Oscar Tusquets, as well as the sculptors Linda Benglis, Richard Deacon, Eva Hesse, Anish Kapoor, Ursula von Rydingsvard and Bill Woodrow.

Existential Art (1940s and 1950s)

Existentialism was a popular philosophy which grew up around the writings of Frenchmen Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, during the 1940s and 1950s. It had a significant effect on the visual arts, where its themes of alienation, as well as angst in the face of the human condition, can be seen in works by the American Abstract Expressionists, the Informel and "CoBrA" movements, the French Homme-Temoin (Man as a Witness) group, the British Kitchen Sink art group, and the American Beats - all of whom from time to time are labelled Existential. So, too, are many individual painters and sculptors: like the French artists Jean Fautrier, Germaine Richier, and Francis Gruber; the Swiss sculptor Alberto Giacometti; as well as Francis Bacon and Lucien Freud.

Abstract Expressionist Art (mid-1940s, 1950s)

A major movement, or series of associated movements, in American art, which came to the fore in the 1940s and 1950s. Largely based around artists in New York, it is sometimes referred to as the New York School. As the name implies, the general style was abstract, but, instead of following the Cubist geometrical idiom, it followed an expressive or emotional course. Abstract Expressionism encompassed all-over "action-painting" (Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, Willem de Kooning), "Colour Field" (Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman, Clyfford Still), and "Hard-Edge" (Frank Stella), most executed on a monumental scale. Another major contribution was made by the ex-Bauhaus painter Josef Albers with his "Homage to the Square" series. For more, see Abstract Expressionism.

Art Informel (mid-1940s, 1950s)

The French term "Art Informel", meaning art without form, denotes a type of gestural abstract painting which dominated the art world from roughly 1946 until the late 1950s. Coined by the French sculptor and writer Michel Tapié in his 1952 book "Un Art Autre," it was one of several buzzwords used by critics (the others being "Lyrical Abstraction", "Tachism" and "Matter Painting") to define the formless abstract expressionist style which arose during this period, both in America and Europe. The subject works varied in style to a degree, but were typically characterized by the absence of compositional structure, which represented (at least in Tapié's mind) a fundamental break with artistic tradition. Leading Art Informel artists included Maria Helena Vieira da Silva, Jean Fautrier, Wols (Alfred Otto Wolfgang Schulze), Nicolas de Stael, to name but a few.

Tachisme (late-1940s, 1950s)

A term derived from the French word "tache" meaning "spot", it denotes a type of abstract painting popular in the late 1940s and 1950s characterized by the use of irregular dabs or splotches of colour. Given wide currency in Michel Tapie's book "Un autre art", Tachisme initially developed independently of the American Abstract Expressionist movement, and continued to be essentially a French phenomenon, although it is commonly used as a generic label for European Abstract Expressionism. Leading exponents included Jean Fautrier, Georges Mathieu and the German-born but Paris-based artist Alfred Otto Wolfgang Schulze, known as Wols.

Somewhat confusingly, the term Tachisme was used differently in the 1880s by the critic Félix Fénéon to describe the painting technique of Impressionists, and again in the 1900s by the artist Maurice Denis referring to the Italian Macchiaioli artists and the Parisian Fauve painters.

Arte Nucleare (c.1951-60)

The Italian Movimento d'Arte Nucleare, launched in 1951 by the Italian artist Enrico Baj, was a politically conscious arts movement that produced paintings and collages 'for the nuclear era.' Avoided geometric abstract works in favour of more fluid forms, characteristic of the Art Informel style. Baj's works included images reminiscent of atomic mushroom clouds and devastated urbanscapes. Other members of the movement included the painters Sergio Dangelo, Gianni Bertini, and Gianni Dova. Several Arte Nucleare shows were held in venues across Italy, but the movement foundered by the end of the decade.

Kitchen Sink Art (mid-1950s)

A term coined by the critic David Sylvester, which first appeared in the December 1954 issue of the journal Encounter, in a description of the work of four British artists (John Bratby, Derrick Greaves, Edward Middleditch and Jack Smith) known as the Beaux Arts Quartet. It pointed to the everyday subject matter (furniture, babies nappies, kitchen utensils, toilets) of the foursome, whose celebration of the banal in the lives of ordinary people was their attempt to make art more relevant and accessible, while making a clear social comment. The Kitchen Sink 'movement' reached a highpoint in 1956, when the members of the Beaux Arts Quartet were selected to be the British representatives at the Venice Biennale.

Assemblage (1953 onwards)

A term coined by Jean Dubuffet in 1953 to denote a type of work constructed from fragments of natural, preformed or 'found' objects such as household debris, urban detritus, stuffed animals - indeed any (usually recognizable) materials, large or small. Typically, the items are selected and combined for their visual (sculptural) properties, as well as their expressive attributes. Although popularly thought of as the three-dimensional counterpart of collage, Assemblage in fact encompasses both 2-D collages and photomontages, as well as 3-D sculpture and entire-room environments. The art form gained wide currency following an exhibition called "The Art of Assemblage" held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York (1961), where one of the most unusual works, by Cesar Baldaccini, was made from compressed automobiles. A master exponent of this genre was the New York artist Robert Rauschenberg, whose innovative assemblages of the 1950s and the 1960s contributed immensely to the genre. For more, see Assemblage Art.

Neo-Dada (1950s, early-1960s)

A term synonymous with early American Pop-Art, especially the Dada-style collage and assemblage work of Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns in New York in the late 1950s. Pop-Art also shared Dada's subversive approach, by deliberately inflating the aesthetic significance of low-brow objects and imagery, much to the consternation of many "serious" critics and curators. The production-line methods of Andy Warhol's Factory, together with his iconoclastic showmanship and notoriety echoed the antics and shock tactics of Dada artist Marcel Duchamp, 40 years previously.

Op-Art (Optical Art) (1950s, early-1960s)

A refinement of Hard Edge Painting, a form of Abstract Expressionism, Optical Art was a type of abstract art which employed black and white geometric patterns to create a variety of optical effects on the viewer's physiology and psychology of perception. For example, by bombarding the eyes in this manner, the paintings cause them to "see" colours or shapes that are not actually there, or to confuse background with foreground and so on. Despite its strange, sometimes disturbing, effects, Op-Art was fully in line with traditional canons of fine art. Remember, all traditional painting is based upon the "illusion" of depth and perspective. Op-Art simply extended the illusionary nature of art by interfering with the rules governing optical perception. Famous abstract Op-artists included Bridget Riley, Victor Vasarely, Richard Anuszkiewicz, François Morellet and Jesús-Rafael Soto. Josef Albers' Homage to the Square series was also a type of Optical art, as were the illusionary drawings of M.C. Escher. See also British Contemporary Painting (1960-2000).

Pop Art (1950s, 1960s)

The term "Pop-Art" describes a style of art - emerging simultaneously in both America and Britain - that derived its inspiration, creative techniques and philosophy from popular and commercial culture. These populist or consumerist sources encompassed film, advertising, product-packaging, pop music and comic strips. The British movement differed from its American counterpart by being less brash, more romantic and more nostalgic. A Continental version of Pop, Nouveau Réalisme (New Realism), also appeared, although this had stronger links to the anti-art Dada movement. Pop art started in the mid-1950s and peaked in the mid-1960s under the influence of Andy Warhol and others. Inspired in America by the pioneering work of Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns, Pop also had affinities with early 20th century movements like Surrealism. In part, it was a revolt against the closed artistic purism of Abstract Expressionism, from which Pop artists sought to distance themselves by using simple, easily recognized imagery, as well as modern printmaking technology like screen printing. Famous Pop artists in the USA included: Jim Dine (b.1935), Robert Indiana (aka John Clark) (b.1928), Jasper Johns (b.1930), Alex Katz (b.1927), Roy Lichtenstein (1923-97), Claes Oldenburg (b.1929), Edward Ruscha (b.1937), Robert Rauschenberg (1925-2008), James Rosenquist (b.1933), Andy Warhol (1928-87) and Tom Wesselmann (b.1931). Famous British Pop artists included: Sir Peter Blake (b.1932), Patrick Caulfield (1936-2006), Richard Hamilton (b.1922), David Hockney (b.1937), Allen Jones (b.1937), RB Kitaj (b.1932), Sir Eduardo Paolozzi (1924-2005). For a full explanation of the history and works of the movement, see: Guide to Pop-Art.

New Realism (1960s)

A French counterpart of American Pop Art, New Realism (Nouveau Réalisme) was a movement launched in 1960, whose manifesto, "Constitutive Declaration of New Realism," stated its aim to be "creating new ways of perceiving the real." Founding members included Pierre Restany, Yves Klein, Martial Raysse, Daniel Spoerri, Jean Tinguely, Francois Dufrêne, Raymond Hains, and Jacques de la Villeglé. Later members were Mimmo Rotella, Niki de Saint Phalle and Gérard Deschamps. The group lost momentum after the death of Yves Klein in 1962, who personally favoured the name "today's realism" (réalisme d'aujourd'hui).

Nouveau Réaliste works were often characterized by collage, décollage and assemblage, using real-life objects. In this manner, New Realism reveals its links with Dada in general and the readymades of Marcel Duchamp in particular. Another important influence was American Pop-Art, as exemplified by the movement's use of mass-produced commercial objects and iconography. In general, one can say that Nouveau Réalistes turned their backs on abstraction and emotionalism in favour of a cooler approach and a return of the figure.

Post-Painterly Abstraction (Early, mid-1960s)

A term coined by art critic Clement Greenberg (his title for an exhibition he curated for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1964) to describe a calmer, more restrained type of 1960s Abstract Expressionism. Essentially, the term describes a rejection of expressive or gestural brushwork in favour of broad areas of unmodulated colour (as in "Colour Field" and "Hard Edge Painting"). Prominent exponents of 1960s Post Painterly Abstraction include: Helen Frankenthaler, Al Held, Ellsworth Kelly, Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland, Jules Olitski and Frank Stella. The term (and style) were gradually overtaken and replaced by the new school of Minimalism.

Feminist Art (mid-to-late 1960s onwards)

Feminist Art - art made by women about women's issues - emerged towards the end of the 1960s and explored what it was to be a woman AND an artist in a male dominated world. It first appeared in America and Britain, where various feminist art groups were inspired by the women's liberation movement, before spreading across Europe. In comparison with the elitist formal and impersonal subject matter pursued by male avant-garde artists, work by women artists offered emotion, and real-life experience. British and US feminist artists employed inherently female symbolic forms, raising the status of so-called "female" materials and practices. They addressed fundamental gender-based issues, such as giving birth, motherhood, and rape, as well as wider concerns such as racism, sexuality and working conditions. A specific style of Female art, the Pattern and Decoration movement, sprang up in California during the 1970s, being composed largely of women artists. They reacted against the severe austerity of Minimalizm by juxtaposing identical or similiar patterns, and producing intense fusions of colour and texture using traditional craft techniques, like weaving, paper cut-outs and patchwork. Their beautiful use of colour was inspired by the French Fauves movement of 1900s Paris, while their geometrical and floral motifs were drawn from Islamic, Far Eastern, Celtic and Persian Art. Prominent feminist artists include the Americans Nancy Spero, Eleanor Antin, Joan Jonas, Judy Chicago. Mary Kelly, Mary Yates and Miriam Schapiro, the Swedish artist Monica Sjoo, the English artist Margaret Harrison, to name but a handful.

• For more contemporary art in Ireland, see: Irish Visual Arts.
• For information about painters and sculptors, see: Famous Irish Artists.
• For information about modern artists, see: 20th Century Irish Artists.

• NOTE: To update this review of Modern Art Movements, click here.