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Start here

  • Looking at art
    • Browse this content
    • Why art matters
      • Why art matters (why look at art?)
      • Must art be beautiful? Picasso’s Old Guitarist
      • How art can help you analyze
      • The Power to Look
      • Alejandro Cesarco, What does looking mean?
      • What work of art inspired you?
      • How to enjoy art: Ben Street
    • Elements of Art
      • Line
      • Shape and Form
      • Color
      • Space
      • Texture
      • Surface and Depth
      • Light and shadow
    • Principles of composition
      • Balance, symmetry, and emphasis
      • Movement
      • Proportion and scale
      • Pattern, repetition and rhythm, variety and unity
    • Describing what you see
      • Introduction to art historical analysis
      • How to do visual (formal) analysis
      • Art historical analysis with Goya’s Third of May, 1808
      • Describing what you see: sculpture
  • Approaches to art history
    • Browse this content
    • An introduction to art history
      • Browse this content
      • What is art history and where is it going?
      • Art history and world art history
      • Ever wondered… why people become art historians?
      • Ever wondered…why study art of the past?
      • Art and empathy
      • A brief history of the representation of the body in Western painting
      • A brief history of the representation of the body in Western sculpture
    • The language of art history
      • Browse this content
      • Naturalism, realism, abstraction and idealization
      • Contrapposto explained
      • Foreshortening explained
      • Chiaroscuro explained
      • Linear perspective explained
      • Atmospheric perspective explained
      • Classic, classical, and classicism explained
      • Classical orders of architecture explained
      • What is genre painting?
    • Methods of art history
      • An introduction to iconography and iconographic analysis
    • Brief histories of art and culture
      • Browse this content
      • Common questions about dates
      • What maps tell us
      • A brief history of the cultures of Asia
      • A brief history of Western culture
      • About chronological periods in the Islamic world
      • Africa historical overview: to 1600
      • Africa historical overview: from the 1600s to the present
    • Questions in art history
      • Browse this content
      • What is cultural heritage?
      • Where are the women artists?
      • Why are there so few female artists?
      • Must art be beautiful?
      • Is there a difference between art and craft?
      • What’s the point of realism?
      • What made art valuable: then and now?
      • What does it mean to be an “old master” and to make a “masterpiece”?
    • Current issues in art history
      • Browse this content
      • Why you don’t like art history
      • Cultural heritage “in crisis”
      • How Climate Changes Art
      • The $150,000 Banana
      • Art about Migration
      • What does art tell us about gender?
      • Should Art Be Publicly Funded?
      • Why Do Corporations Buy Art?
      • What does resistance look like?
      • The Art Market and taxes
      • The Case for Copying
      • The case for nudity
      • Trending artists
      • Behind the Banksy Stunt
      • Art, Pride, and the Rainbow Flag
  • Tools for understanding museums
    • Browse this content
    • The case for museums
    • A brief history of the art museum
    • Museums and politics: the Louvre, Paris
    • Art Museums and (Art) Objects
    • Artists in and against the Museum
    • The changing social functions of art museums
    • Looking at Art Museums
    • Local art appropriation in France—a study of the loot in the Louvre Museum
    • Remake the Met
    • How museums shape meaning
    • An interview with Fred Wilson about the conventions of museums and race
  • Tools for understanding religion in art
    • Browse this content
    • Beginner’s guide
      • The five major world religions
      • A brief history of religion in art
    • Christianity
      • Browse this content
      • Christianity, an introduction
      • The Christian Bible
      • A new pictorial language: the image in Early Medieval art
      • The life of Christ in medieval and Renaissance art
      • The lives of Christ and the Virgin in Byzantine art
      • How to recognize the Four Evangelists
      • How to recognize saints
      • Architecture and liturgy
      • The audacity of Christian art
        • Browse this content
        • The problem with Christ
        • Christ is not like a snail: Signs and symbols
        • Putting God in his place: here, everywhere, and nowhere
        • Time and eternity: Yesterday, today, and always
        • This world and the next: Christ on earth; Christ in heaven
        • So near and yet so far: visions and thresholds
        • Unspeakable images: when words fail
    • Islam
      • Browse this content
      • Introduction to Islam
      • The Qur’an
      • The Five Pillars of Islam
      • Islamic pilgrimages and sacred spaces
      • Hajj
      • The Kaaba
      • Stories of the modern pilgrimage
      • The complex geometry of Islamic design
      • Introduction to mosque architecture
    • Hinduism
      • Browse this content
      • Hinduism and Buddhism, an introduction
      • Discovering Sacred Texts: Hinduism
      • Sacred texts in Hinduism
      • Hindu deities
      • Beliefs made visible: Hindu art in South Asia
      • Hindu temples
      • Varanasi: sacred city
    • Buddhism
      • Browse this content
      • Introduction to Buddhism
      • The historical Buddha
      • How to recognize the Buddha
      • How to recognize a bodhisattva
      • The Buddha and Buddhist sacred texts
      • The stupa
      • Images of Enlightenment: Aniconic vs. Iconic Depictions of the Buddha in India
      • Four Buddhas at the American Museum of Natural History
      • Buddhist meditation and chant
      • Bodh Gaya: center of the Buddhist world
      • Bodh Gaya: The Site of the Buddha’s Enlightenment
      • Mudras in Buddhist art
      • Beliefs made visible: Buddhist art in South Asia
      • Bodhisattvas, an introduction
      • Buddhist Monasteries
    • Judaism
      • Judaism, an introduction
      • Jewish history to the middle ages
      • Jewish history 1750 to WW II
      • Jewish history in the post-war period
      • The Torah and its adornment
      • Jewish ceremonial art
  • For the very beginner
    • Browse this content
    • Ancient Near Eastern and ancient Egyptian art
    • Ancient Greek and Roman art
    • Medieval and Byzantine art
    • Renaissance art
    • Baroque and Rococo
    • Nineteenth-century art
    • Introduction to Twentieth-Century Art
    • Introduction to Contemporary Art

Introduction to Twentieth-Century Art

by Utah System of Higher Education

Video from the Utah System of Higher Education (with special thanks to Dr. Nancy Ross). Video created by Ydraw.

Cite this page as: Utah System of Higher Education, "Introduction to Twentieth-Century Art," in Smarthistory, January 23, 2016, accessed September 30, 2023, https://smarthistory.org/introduction-to-twentieth-century-art/.
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