Kianna Dorino

Professor C

Art and Women

April 4, 2017

20^th Century Art and Women

What is modernism? Modernism in art refers to the broad movement in Western arts and literature. “[...] appeared one after another: impressionism, postimpressionism, fauvism, cubism, futurism, constructivism, dadaism, surrealism, expressionism, abstract expressionism, etc.” (Guerilla Girls 59). Modernism began in the late 19^th century and emerged greatly in the 20^th century. Unlike art from the 19^th century where artist would take ideas from ancient art from places like Rome and Greece, modernism did not demonstrate work from the past. Modernism was a whole new spectrum of art that dealt with much experimentation. Modernism art did not deal with conservative values or realistically depicting an object or subject. Most modernism art was driven by various social and political agendas. Modernism also dealt with new forms, techniques, materials, strokes and patterns and it was nothing anyone had ever seen before.

Modernism

      Women in Europe were one of the very first to begin modernism art. One woman by the name of Georgia O’Keeffe played a pivotal role in the development of American modernism. O’Keeffe focused her work of over seven decades to capture the emotion and power through abstracting the natural world. O’Keeffe incorporated the techniques of other artists in her work but especially the work of Paul Strand’s in which she used the work of copping in her art. Through O’Keeffe’s passionate observation of nature, experimentation with scale, and her shading and difference with lines and color, O’Keeffe demonstrated proper representation of the objects in nature she depicted while also pushing the art world’s norms at the time.

Petunia no. 2

Abstraction