modern art.

I have many friends who are artists (unsurprising seeing as I’m one myself) and these friends, as well as many other people less knowledgeable about/involved in art, frequently and loudly defame modern art as the bane of all.

“You see that canvas there? that some douche bag painted blue,” they’ll say of an image  which was subsequently put on a museum wall after being sold for millions, “this is why modern art is stupid.” “I could do that!” “A five year old could do that!” “Heh heh. Hey guys, you see that picture, it uh, it really speaks to me, like I can just feel the torment this artist must have been going through when he painted it.”

I am not refuting these criticisms. They’re right. It IS a blue fucking canvas. A five year old COULD have painted it. What they’re wrong about is this:

It is NOT Modern Art.

Modern Art includes a vast array of styles and artists spanning nearly a hundred years and while people can debate about when specifically the modern period began (For instance, I generally do not include impressionism and post-impressionism although others do) the one thing that it most certainly is not is childish, uninspired, or unskilled.

Modern Art has to it’s name masters the likes of Braque, Chagall, Dali, Escher, Gauguin, Hopper, Kirchner, Kandinsky, Klimt, de Kooning, Matisse, Munch, Picasso, Pollock, Rivera, Rodin, Seruat, Toulouse-Lautrec, and Van Gogh (if you include post-impressionism). I could keep going but you get the point. And while you may not LIKE any or all of these artists (that is your prerogative as an art viewer), you would be sorely mistaken if you were to suggest that any one of them was not indeed a great and innovative artist.

Which brings me back to the above distinction. That all-blue canvas up there that cynics love to make a pariah, THAT is Post-Modern (or Contemporary, depending on who is talking) Art and while I can’t speak to Post-Modern Art’s legitimacy, the perpetuation of the “Modern Art is Crap” Myth is misinformed bullshit.

This is a call to arms. The next time someone starts talking about how stupid or bad or unworthy Modern Art is, explain to them their mistake. Enlighten them to the incredible resume of paintings and pedigree of artists the style has to boast. Show them images like Picasso’s “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon”

Or Escher’s “Drawing Hands”

Or Van Gogh’s “Starry Night”

And help prove the legitimacy of fine art of the twentieth century.