Modern Art - A History From Impressionism to Today

by Hans Werner Holzwarth (Editor), Laszlo Taschen (Editor)

Modern matters: A blow-by-blow account of groundbreaking modernism. Most art historians agree that the modern art adventure first developed in the 1860s in Paris. A circle of painters, whom we now know as Impressionists, began painting pictures with rapid, loose brushwork. They turned to everyday street life for subjects, instead of overblown heroic scenes, and they escaped the power of the Salon by organizing their own independent exhibitions. After this first assault on the artistic establishment, there was no holding back. In a constant desire to challenge, innovate, and inspire, one modernist style supplanted the next: Symbolism, Expressionism, Futurism, Dada, Abstract Art, renewed Realism, Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism, Pop, Minimal and conceptual practice. This indispensable overview traces the restless energy of modern art with a year-by-year succession of the groundbreaking artworks that shook standards, and broke down barriers. Introductory essays outline the most significant and influential movements alongside explanatory texts for each major work and its artist. About the series: Bibliotheca Universalis Compact cultural companions celebrating the eclectic TASCHEN universe at an unbeatable, democratic price! Since we started our work as cultural archaeologists in 1980, the name TASCHEN has become synonymous with accessible, open-minded publishing. Bibliotheca Universalis brings together nearly 100 of our all-time favorite titles in a neat new format so you can curate your own affordable library of art, anthropology, and aphrodisia. Bookworm s delight never bore, always excite!"

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, Art History

693 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2011

About the author

Hans Werner Holzwarth is a book designer and editor of numerous publications, mainly on contemporary art and photography.

Reviews

[Castles · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is much more than a coffee table book, and it’s full of great articles detailing art movements and works of art, one for each spread.

It’s perfect for slow reading, perhaps one work a day, I took a long time to finish it, coming back to it every once in a while.

It’s a great book to introduce artists you perhaps didn’t know, but also refreshing for people already deep into modern art.

[Alexander Dunford | Writer | Artist · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love to study art. And this book indulged me. For a month, I called it my coffee book. Every morning, with coffee in hand, I read twenty to thirty pages. Why? Because books like this are set up to enjoy slowly. One ends up spending every day thinking on average about ten paintings, theories, etcetera. Of course, you can read this book in a couple of sittings too. It depends on you. I let the art seep in. Otherwise, I would suffer sensory overload.

I recommend this book to both the novice and experienced art history enthusiast. Enrich yourself; read this.

[Diane C. · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellently organized and thorough book without being dry. If you want to know more about modern art, or simply have a reference book at hand, this is the one. I'll buy this one, it's amazing. Paperback by Taschen.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

1) Love the format. I'd like to have some more of these Taschens.

2) This book really lit a fire under my ass. I need to have a better grasp of 20th century art, for reasons, and this did the trick. It's a nice sampler that doesn't spend much time telling you how to feel about the work (I see you, Sister Wendy). It introduced or re-introduced me to some artists I wasn't familiar with. It woke up High School Michael a little.

[Xander Mitchell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book for reference, and also great to read cover-to-cover.

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great book for anyone who doesn’t know much yet. It covers all the main artists, no fuss.

[Tim Pendry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Published in 2011, Taschen's review of 'modern art' (essentially Western art from around 1870 to the end of the last century) can be praised as one of the best basic introductions to the subject. Its full page illustrations of representative works is truly excellent.

The approach is to produce an in-depth introductory essay on twelve 'schools' from impressionism to post-modernism and then to follow this up with a single page analysis of a key work by a representative artist. I did not count them up but we are talking about roughly 240 of them.

The authors do not give us in-depth biographies but something far more useful - accounts of how the schools developed and functioned in a market and networking context and of the individual works as clues to what individual artists were trying to do or say.

This partly de-romanticises Western art which is useful but also shows us how Western art should be considered as a series of connected developments in time with a generally solid intellectual base that becomes less and less comprehensible to the ordinary person over time.

The overwhelming impression is of an artistic tradition that shifts from speaking to a middle class market and is centred on attracting attention through novelty and 'exhibitionism' to one that speaks largely to itself and the wealthy patron and subsidised gallery system.

There is barely an artist here for whom one will not gain increased respect as a result of the text surrounding their work but there is also a sense of intellectual introversion over time and the post-bourgeois market creating some absurdity that sends us in the direction of Emperor's New Clothes.

With so many artists 'on show' there is no profit in talking of favourites but I sense the death of meaning in Art emerging with conceptualism and with some artists who 'find an angle' and flog it to death to make a buck. At times, towards the end, I became nostalgic for socialist realism.

For a British reader, there is some pleasure in being given access to the German artistic tradition rather than the usual suspects from the Tate with which we are all familiar. The Americans, of course, get the lion's share after 1945 as befits the new but now declining imperium.

An excellent book, it does raise the question of whether the creative almost philosophical incursion into culture of Duchamp has now exhausted itself and whether the purchasing power of the super-rich is not creating a fundamentally trivial culture of market-friendly assets rather than Art.

Today there are far too many people calling themselves artists with minimal innovation rather than novelty and who are using 'conceptualism' to evade the hard work of creation with materials to hand and 'post-modernism' to make jokes and offer political rants of incredible naivete.

Instead of giving us insights into the human condition or exposing the ambiguities of what it is to be human in the world or even simply exploring the qualities of their medium, we get a world of pretty eco-posturing and identity expression that is comfort food for the dim.

The weakening of the Western tradition's radical period of experimentation that began in the last third of the nineteenth century and seems to have exhausted itself in the last quarter of the twentieth may prove to be yet another sign of the relative decline of the West.

In fact, I am not so sure of this yet. Clearly the rest of the globe is still regionalising and appropriating Western forms for its own use. There is still life for the Western experimental tradition in that sense but the time may be ripe for the sort of internal revolt that the West is so good at.

The idea of the 'West' is, of course, a completely ridiculous reified invention of neurotic Atlanticist intellectuals so perhaps that is where the revolt starts ... and in the return to an interest in materials, a rediscovery of aesthetics, a return to the social and a rejection of the oligarchical turn of mind.

Perhaps Western Art needs a panicked crash in the value of the rich people's possessions hidden in vaults and of the parasitical gallery, museum and auction house community that buttresses a market largely invented by the few to possess and appropriate Art and 'trickle it down' to us.

Perhaps much of late twentieth and early twenty first century art will be seen as we see the Victorian academicism and chocolate box material that was once the marker of bourgeois sophistication in its day but which was essentially hollow, albeit that the modernist reaction may have gone too far.

I can see that a combination of socio-economic change, a revolution in taste, the further development of digitalisation (honestly, it takes a real fool to spend money on an NFT except within the economy of fake assets) and populist democratisation may give us very different Art within a couple of decades.

Having said all that, the achievements of the great experimental tradition have been enormous. The bulk of Modern Art (as expressed in this book) will continue to have historical resonance and offer inspiration to future generations as much as the Renaissance has done.

From that perspective, this book, even with its impressionistic approach, provides excellent grounding in what may be viewed one day as the 'Great Western Tradition'. It is solid, unromantic, honest and informative and it often makes you think about the very nature of Art itself.

[Days]

only took me a year and a half lol

[Iulia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very informative. Not sure this is the most compelling storytelling but the book is solid.

[Juan Jacobo Bernal · Rating 4 out of 5]

A thoroughly enjoyable journey! I am in love with the impressionists and Holzwarth’s account contributed greatly to my understanding of this movement. I really appreciated all the details concerning further developments of Dadaism in Germany. I had no clue that this country was so central throughout the early stages of the 20th century modern art. At the end, though, I have a natural antagonism towards expressions that are too conceptual and, when the author, focused on that era… I kind of lost my focus. Through and through, though, this is a gorgeous and insightful tome!

[Albert Vroomen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is expertly organized and comprehensive without being dull. It's the perfect resource for those looking to learn more about modern art or as a reference guide. I highly recommend it, and I plan to purchase it myself. The paperback edition by Taschen is excellent.

[cote · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is amazing, I'm sad to end it. i learned a lot ! Was a beautiful travel across history and painting and how this lenguaje was being built until today. I bought really cheap and it's totally worth it and more !! I will revisit it and read it again sure

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Incredibly well organized so you see the influence of past on future. Yet not as approachable as it could be because the language is overly complicated and indulgent (e.g. using caesura instead of pause or break).

[Lucas · Rating 4 out of 5]

8.25 / 10

[jon hanson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not enough history and too much subjective and pretentious theory.

[Juan Pedro PS · Rating 1 out of 5]

Tachen books are a certificate of quality if you want an illustrated landscape of any topic and this is no exception. I read a couple of artists per night and follow through with YouTube videos on the specific painting or the artist´s life. Some are 5 min long and some full hour-long documentaries. But what a treat! It is a great index to explore the world of Modern Art in depth.