Contemporary Art Paintings

Painting is one of those integral parts of humanity that has been developing along with it for many centuries. All this this period from ancient times to these days can be divided into different styles and movements. Thus, talking about these days art we should use such term as contemporary art which means art from the 1960's or 70's up until this very minute. The 1960's or 70's were the time when Postmodernism started as well as the period of artists that mostly work in "movements" that cannot be classified.

Technological development has greatly influenced contemporary art paintings, the art has become more socially conscious. Exploring the subject matter of contemporary art paintings one can see it is closely connected with feminism, multiculturalism, globalization and other issues of actual importance. Although it is hard to classify the movements of contemporary art there are artists inclined to follow the techniques of 19th and 20th centuries styles. Nowadays galleries exhibit contemporary art paintings and among those works we can see abstraction, surrealism, expressionism.

Fine Art Impressionist Paintings. Plein Air

Impressionism in painting started in the late 19th century and it's characteristic features were the depiction of transitory visual impressions, often painted directly from nature (plein air). This was achieved by the use of pure, broken color. Monet, Renoir, Sisley, Bazille, Cézanne, Pissarro, Morisot and some other figures were the painters that rejected academic standards and reacted against the romantics' emphasis on emotion as subject matter. The observed nature, everyday subjects rejecting the role of imagination.

Such attitude was greatly attacked by critics, however, in the long run the movement produced aesthetic revolution. By the 1930s impressionism painting had a large cult following. The influence of Impressionism spread beyond France and beyond painting. Such media as sculpture, architecture, music, photography, film, literature became influenced by Impressionism. The popularity of the movement throughout the next decades is proved by the major highly visited exhibitions of Monet and Van Gogh at the Metropolitan Museum in New York in the 1980s. Impressionism painting, Renoir's «Au Moulin de la Galette» was sold at Sotheby's for $78.1 million, and Van Gogh's «Portrait du Dr. Gachet» for $82.5 million at Christie's.

Impressionism influenced contemporary painting as well, there are a lot of contemporary artists exhibiting their Impressionism painting at various galleries. Visiting www.klinkov.com you will find surrealism, expressionism, abstract, impressionism painting created by contemporary Ukrainian painter.