A Modern Take on Modern Art
Squarespace Stock Image
Many more than one time have I heard the statement “modern art isn’t real art”. And until recently, I agreed. But now, I can’t help but criticize that statement. Some believe that true art lies in the galleries that hold Van Gough and Da Vinci, while others think that Pollock and Kandinsky are the most brilliant of their time. But before we deconstruct each argument, we need to define art. You could go on Webster or Oxford Languages and find an array of definitions, but the most reputable people to ask are artists themselves. Leonardo Di Vinci, a renaissance artist says that “Art is the Queen of all sciences communicating knowledge to all the generations of the world.” El Greco, a Spanish painter claims that “Art is everywhere you look for it; hail the twinkling stars for they are God’s careless splatters.” By defining art so metaphorically, they’ve proven that art has no true literal definition. No criteria or meaning beyond how it’s interpreted. Art is all about how it’s received. Everyone feels something different when they look at one piece, painting, or sculpture. One could easily pass off Andy Warhol’s modern pop art as meaningless collages of nothing important. But if you have the eye or mind for it, you could look deeper and see each statement he made about American culture. Just as someone could look at Ilya Repin’s emotional, skillful paintings and feel no connection. Art isn’t about talent. A third-grader could paint a flower and their parents think it the most beautiful thing they’d ever seen. Talent is irrelevant in this case, but how the receiver feels is what makes it true art.
The two opinions that typically follow modern art are “I could do that” or “Older art is better”. Well one, if you can do that, then do it. And two, so what? We aren’t living in the time of the Renaissance or Middle Ages, we’re living in the time of technology and logical structure. In an interview with William Wright in 1950, Jackson Pollack says “The modern artist is living in a mechanical age and we have a mechanical means of representing objects in nature...” This still rings true today. Artists create what they observe or feel around them. So if they feel that the world around them is spattered paint on a canvas, then that’s their art. And so, so many people could relate to that. Art from so long ago was so different because the time period was different. People felt and experienced the world differently. So obviously their art, poetry, philosophy, literature is all going to be different. But are you going to say that poetry written after Shakespeare isn’t real poetry because it isn’t written in his structure or style? Even if one puts less skill or effort into a literary piece than someone who wrote similar pieces hundreds of years ago, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t validate the work of today.
If you disregarded that entire argument of the non-needing of skill or subject in art, then let’s go back to feeling. If you’re someone who gets angry or confused when looking at modern art, then you’ve made it art. Yes, you. By allowing the art to evoke an emotion, even though it’s annoyance or disgust, you still felt something. Feeling is what makes art.
Really, art is whatever we say it is. A baby’s scream, a white canvas, a precisely detailed oil painting. As long as it made you think.
