The birth of modernism and contemporary art can be traced to the Industrial Revolution. This period of rapid changes in manufacturing, transportation, and technology began around the mid-18th century and continued through the 19th century affecting the social, economic, and cultural conditions of life in North America, Western Europe, and eventually the world. New forms of transportation, including the railroad, the steam engine, and the https://www.virtosuart.com/blog/modern-art-in-uk-and-usa subway, changed the way people lived, worked, and traveled, expanding access and their worldview to new ideas. As centers prospered, workers flocked to urban populations boomed and cities for jobs.
Before the 19th century, artists were commissioned to make art by institutions or sponsors such as the church. Much of the art depicted religious or mythological scenes which told stories intended to instruct the viewer. Many artists started to make art based in their own, personal experiences and about topics that they chose. With the publication of psychologist Sigmund Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams (1899) and the popularization of the concept of a subconscious mind, many artists began exploring dreams, symbolism, and personal iconography as paths for the depiction of the subjective experiences. Challenging the notion that art must depict the planet, some artists experimented with the expressive use of colour, unconventional materials, and new techniques and mediums. Was photography, whose invention in 1839 offered radical possibilities for depicting and interpreting the world.
MoMA collects work made after 1880, when the air was ripe for daring artists to take their work.
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