The Rise of Modern Art

When you read the history of Western art at the turn of the twentieth century, you get the feeling the rise of modern art was inevitable.  So many people, in different places and for different reasons, broke with tradition and began producing radically new kinds of art—and all at the same time.  The names of the artists, where they lived and worked, what they were going for—these seem almost incidental.  It was going to happen anyway.  Sometimes the new art (and the theory behind it) seems to have nothing to do with what came before (e.g., Cubism).  Other times it seems to be a corollary of art history to that point (e.g., Expressionism).  Always it seems to be a paver in a road that art history was destined to travel.  

Georges Braque, Violin and Candlestick, 1910

 

Emil Nolde, The Prophet, 1912