What is Meant by the Term Modern Art

Asking What is modern art? is a very good (and very common)  question. While its a bit complicated, the single most important thing anyone needs to know about Modern Art is that its different from Contemporary Art. That said, no one should be  sneered at for not knowing that the art world has its own separate definitions for both contemporary and modern times. In any other instance, the English language pretty much allows for modern and contemporary to be swapped at will. Modern Art Versus Contemporary Art A good rule of thumb is: Modern Art: Art from the Impressionists (say, around 1880) up until the 1960s or 70s, including modern styles of realism art.Contemporary Art: Art from the 1960s or 70s up until this very minute. You could say that Modern Art began just as the Impressionists were winding down. While this is an acceptable classification, strong arguments can be (and have been) made that Modern Art began at a variety of different dates. Depending on which survey course a person takes, Modern Art is said to have begun with either: Romanticism, in the early 1800s,Realism, in the 1830s,Daguerres announcement, in 1839, that he had invented a method for making a direct positive image,The writer Baudelaire who, in 1846, called upon artists to be of their time,The first Impressionist show in 1874 orThe -isms of the 1880s (Tonal-, Symbol-, Post-Impression- and Neo-Impression-) But which one is right? Its important to know that none of them are wrong. (Here, it was simply a case of 1880 working out well, for me, in terms of organization.) For simplicitys sake, lets just say that Modern Art began in the 19th-century, and ran through a whole slew of -isms up until the end of the 1960s. Regardless of chosen starting date, the crucial factor is that Modern Art means: The point at which artists (1) felt free to trust their inner visions, (2) express those visions in their work, (3) use real life (social issues and images from modern life) as a source of subject matter and (4) experiment and innovate as often as possible.