What is meant by Impressionism, Abstraction, Modern, Postmodern?

The second half of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century, France emerged a large number of Impressionist art masters, they created a large number of classic masterpieces that are still familiar today. Among their representative works, Manet's Lunch on the Grass, Monet's Sunrise - Impressions, and Van Gogh's Sunflowers are even more famous.

Abstraction is the relative concept of "abstraction", which is the abstraction of a variety of things and synthesizing them into a new concept, which is called "abstraction". "Abstract Painting" (AbstractPainting) refers to the 20th century painting style that wants to get rid of the "imitation of nature", and it includes many schools of thought, but is not the name of a particular school: its formation is the result of a long and continuous evolution. However, regardless of the school of thought, all of them share the same quality of trying to break away from the traditional notion that painting must imitate nature, and in the 1930s and after the Second World War, the various forms derived from the concept of abstraction became the most popular and distinctive art styles of the twentieth century.

Abstract painting takes intuition and imagination as the starting point for its creation, and rejects any symbolic, literary, or descriptive means of expression, and only synthesizes and organizes shapes and colors on the screen. Therefore, abstract paintings present pure forms and colors, which are similar to music.

The development trend of abstract painting can be broadly categorized into: (1) geometric abstraction (or cold abstraction). This is the starting point of Cézanne's theory, through Cubism, Constructivism, Neo-Constructivism .... It was developed by Cubism, Compositionism and Neo-Constructivism. It is characterized by a geometric tendency. This school of painting can be represented by Mondrian. (ii) Lyrical abstraction (or hot abstraction). This is the starting point of Gauguin's artistic concept, developed by Fauvism and Expressionism, with a romantic tendency. This school of painting can be represented by Kandinsky.

The so-called modernist art in the West refers to certain schools of modern art developed in Western countries since the beginning of the twentieth century - Fauvism, Cubism, Futurism, Dadaism, Expressionism, Surrealism, Abstraction, Pop Art and so on. The emergence of modern art in the West has its political, economic, cultural and philosophical historical origins, and is closely linked to the process of modern Western society. After the bourgeois industrial revolution in England in the seventeenth century, a series of changes caused by the new technological revolution led to corresponding changes in the social structure, as well as in people's thoughts, consciousness, values, and relationships between people. Reflected in the field of fine arts, the newly developed modern science, with its practical efficacy and achievements, prompted people to gradually adopt a more open attitude towards artistic innovation; the increasing maturity of photographic technology seriously shook the faith of painting, which had always regarded the imitation of nature as the whole purpose of painting; the importation of Oriental and African arts represented by Japanese prints greatly stimulated the development of Western fine arts in the unitary development; and the changes in the Kantian, Hegelian, Schopenhauerian, and Nietzschean art forms were also reflected in the new technological revolution, Under the influence of Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and other philosophical ideas and Freudian psychology, a group of painters opposed the suppression of rationality and the constraints of tradition, emphasized intuition and subconscious activities, and were not satisfied with the reproduction of objective things in art, but focused on inner "self-expression"; the contradictions and shortcomings of the Western reality also produced direct or direct effects in the works of the painters. All the contradictions and shortcomings of the western real society were reflected directly or refracted in the works of the painters, so the modernist art was the inevitable product of the development of the western modern society. Since the emergence of the dazzling and colorful Western modernist art, not only in China, but also in the West, there have been mixed reviews and opinions. Whether art is traditional or modernist, the key is its content: what does it express? What does it reflect? On the other hand, as the creative method and genre of fine art are not fixed. We should conduct in-depth research and historicist and sociological analysis of artists and works, and it is unscientific and incomplete to affirm or deny in general, or simply equate modernist art with bourgeois decadent art.

PostmodernismThe post-World War II modernism is called "postmodernism" or "postmodernism". Because of the heavy casualties of the Second World War, many cities in Europe were in ruins, and Europe and the United States were economically depressed. The whole capitalist world was full of contradictions, and people could not see the light, could not see the way out, and felt that there was darkness all around and the future was uncertain, so they were depressed and had pessimistic and despairing thoughts. Under such circumstances, existentialist philosophical ideas proliferated in society, and new modernist literary genres appeared in the literary world in all shapes and sizes. These schools are called "post-modernism". In France, the "post-modernists" include the existentialist literature represented by Sartre and Camus, the absurdist theater represented by Unescue and Beckett, and the new novelists represented by Alain Robbe-Grillet. These schools of thought have had an impact all over the world. In the United States, the "post-modernists" are powerful and have many schools of thought. There are not only dystopian theater; there are also dystopian novels. In addition, there are black humor novels, Beat Generation, existentialist novels, new novels, new "new novels", super novels, abstract novels, surrealist novels and so on. Black humor is the most popular and influential in the United States. "Post-modernist writers are generally influenced by existentialist philosophy, and their thoughts are negative and decadent. Existentialist philosophy belongs to the category of subjective idealism, which believes that only the existence felt by the self is the real existence. This philosophy is self-centered and puts the individual above everything else. It takes a contemptuous and negative attitude towards society and the masses, believing that the world is absurd and life is painful. People live in a world where they cannot understand each other and can only hate each other's roots. People's greatest fear is the fear of death. People's existence is to wait for death. Plays like Beckett's "Ah, Good Moon! is a play that proclaims that although people are alive, they are moving step by step towards death. The play opens with an old woman on the stage, half of her body already in the earth. But she doesn't seem to realize that she is moving towards death, and she still combs her hair, washes her face, brushes her teeth according to her daily habit, and praises, "Ah, beautiful days!" While exposing all the dark phenomena in the real society, American black humor novels show the negative emotions of the authors who feel powerless against the unscrupulous evil forces. They are angry, agonized, and desperate, and they use laughter to cover their tears and express tragedy in the form of comedy. Their thoughts of impending catastrophe and uncertainty of future are connected with the philosophy of existentialism. In terms of artistic techniques, the "post-modernists" inherited the symbols, streams of consciousness, dreams and other techniques of the pre-World War II modernists, and developed them in a new way. For example, the absurdist theater used new techniques of stage expression: broken stage images, caricatured exaggeration, emphasis on the role of props, etc. The new novelists also continued to develop their techniques. The New School of Fiction was also constantly differentiating itself in terms of its techniques. For example, the British Johnson wrote the novel "the unfortunate", the work is divided into a part of a part, not bound, placed in a box, in addition to the first part and the last part, the other parts can be reversed, the reader can arrange the order.