Curated playlist
Modern art
- Abstract artFor roughly four centuries, Western art aimed to copy visible reality, until painters pulled away from it.
- Abstract expressionismAbstract expressionism moved the center of the Western art world from Paris to New York.
- CubismCubism got its name when a critic called Braque's paintings cubic oddities. The label stuck.
- Constructivism (art)Tatlin's Tower was meant to top the Eiffel Tower but was never built. Lack of money after the revolution stopped it.
- ModernismPicasso's 1907 painting Les Demoiselles d'Avignon refuses to show its subjects from a single point of view.
- Art DecoArt Deco had no agreed name until 1966, decades after its peak. Before that it wore dozens of labels, like Jazz Moderne.
- Pop artThe word "pop" first appeared in a 1947 collage, floating in smoke from a revolver. Pop art grew from it.
- FuturismFuturist composers scored a piece for airplane propellers and sixteen player pianos.
- Avant-gardeAvant-garde began as a French army term for scouts sent ahead of the main force. Later it described artists.
- PrimitivismPicasso painted Les Demoiselles d'Avignon in 1907 after studying African masks and sculpture.
- Russian avant-gardeIn 1932, the Soviet state moved against the Russian avant-garde. Socialist Realism replaced abstract, experimental art.