Cars Inspirations

Psychology of Modern Art

The era of modern art has been marked with an unprecedented pluralism in styles and movements. Beginning at the time of the French and American revolutions, this period has witnessed myriad attempts to create a new visual language in keeping with the complex political, technological and social changes that have taken place in the last hundred years.

Modern art both reflects change and attempts to influence the speed and direction of change. Responding to a world in a state of perpetual flux, contemporary art renews itself by delving deeply into the most hidden and the most sublime aspects of life.

The political changes wrought by the democratic revolutions in the second half of the nineteenth century resulted in a new class of citizens who could enjoy the luxuries of life which had been long reserved for the nobility. Art itself became more democratic as the bourgeoisie commissioned works which only royalty had been able to afford in earlier times.

The age of the gallery soon followed and the opportunity for artists to pursue their own inclinations rather that those of their patrons infinitely expanded the realm of potential subjects. As this process unfolded, the definition of art was brought into question time and time again.

Although various movements continued to serve as the theoretical and philosophical moorings for groups of artists, individual artists also experienced greater freedom to forge into uncharted territories as their imaginations and skills allowed. The advent of the machine was a further influence that shifted the perceptions of artists about life, artistic vision and man’s place in the world and universe.

The euphoria created by the power and potential of the machine was in stark contrast with the static, fixed and predictable world of the Renaissance. Reality was no longer finite and measurable. The single, rational perspective of the formerly earthbound artist was multiplied and altered forever by the views experienced in cars, trains, and airplanes. Even stationary towers and skyscrapers revealed vertical vistas of unprecedented vastness.

Artists quickly endeavored to fully exploit the visual possibilities of this changing reality. Cubism, Dadaism, Surrealism, Pop Art, Expressionism and Impressionism are just a few of the multitude of art movements beginning in the twentieth century. The themes which separate modern art from that of the classical era help to unify these diverse movements.

All forms of modern art accomplish the following: they challenge the traditional definition of art based on easel paintings striving for literal realism and illusion; they touch on or are affected by some aspect of the changing technological, political and social boundaries in which the artists work; they seek to create a new visual language for the modern world; and they remind the viewer in one or more ways of both the hidden and transitory nature of reality.