The Difference Between Contemporary Art and Modern Art

It's normal to wonder about the difference between contemporary art and modern art. Of course, contemporary and modern paintings have their own particular characteristics.

At Aura Galleries, you'll find the work of contemporary Mexican and international artists, showcasing their best pieces. We have 40 years of experience in the art market.
Modern Art

Some disagree on the exact date of the beginning of modern art, but most agree that it began in France in the mid-19th century. This was when styles like Impressionism emerged and broke with the academic lines that had prevailed until then. Painters like Gustave Courbet and Édouard Manet are representative of this era.

Paintings like Manet's "Déjeuner sur l'herbe" (Luncheon on the Grass) broke with classical and mythological traditions. This particular painting depicts a nude woman with two men, a work that art critics at the time failed to appreciate.

This paved the way for the Post-Impressionist movement, which emphasized rejecting a collective way of seeing things. The colors, lines, and themes they used brought about a shift in common perception.

Somewhat removed from contemporary Mexican art, but undoubtedly, the entire history of art and its various schools have a certain influence on artists from different eras and countries.

Furthermore, within modern art, Wassily Kandinsky was one of the first to break with convention and began painting in a completely non-objective way. Thus, some of his paintings display colors, lines, and movements without an apparent starting point or recognizable subjects.

We can say that modern art arose from the need to take a stance, a response to modernity. Society was undergoing significant changes: the Industrial Revolution and the rise of capitalism in the economy.

This is why artists questioned the representational role of paintings. Alongside this, it's not surprising that artistic movements emerged, such as the avant-garde, Impressionism, and Post-Impressionism, among others.
Contemporary Art

The art world reached a turning point: the late 1970s. Most consider that anything created after this period is contemporary art. These creations include contemporary Mexican art, but also conceptual art, performance art, Minimalism, and Pop Art.

It was at this time that the most important aspect of a work shifted from its artistic characteristics to its concept. During these years, the artistic process also gained more importance than the final work. Performance art was also born.

Likewise, artists were questioning the meaning and cultural value of art itself. Their aim was to challenge representational art. Furthermore, a trend emerged in which the idea, or rather the concept, of the work was prioritized over the objective itself, the final product.

Contemporary art is distinguished by its many approaches and styles. Furthermore, contemporary works are committed to questioning current society and its ways, proposing a different way of seeing and experiencing the era in which we live.

Therefore, the first way we can distinguish between modern and contemporary art is that they represent distinct periods. While modern art encompasses the late 19th and early 20th centuries, its end being considered the 1960s, it focuses on a past time.

Contemporary art, on the other hand, places society in a central role, focusing on the present and future, emphasizing the concept, and questioning the importance of the artwork's meaning in and of itself. Each has its own specific and precise characteristics, its own era, and its own key artists.

At Aura Galerías, we offer contemporary paintings as well as services such as museography, framing, virtual installation, professional packing, and appraisals of contemporary Mexican and Latin American artists.

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