ohh the great on-going debate of when did the modern art period begin. I think you could make a case that it all began in the late 1700's with NeoClassicism, which led to the Romantics, which led to the Realists and so on. But that is a whole debate in itself,and I don't feel like writing a marathon response. I guess I agree with Courbet's "Stone Breakers" as the work that is most significant to modern art. They rant and rave about this piece in most art history books and freshmen level art history classes in college, but it really is significant. If it wasn't for this piece, art may have very well stayed in the past. By this I mean, painters before this piece tried to capture history instead of the "now". B/c of this painting, Realsim and Impressionism were born and modern art as we know it began.

me!

I am looking for the letter Cezanne wrote to Manet telling him of his role as the father of the modern movement, but haven't found it yet. Manet vs. Courbet is extremely interesting since both were very iconoclastic, but Courbet's space is still a kind of Renaissance or Greek space, a window where objects appear to be situated in the space we inhabit.

Manet may appear to embrace that same 'rational' space, but if one reads the apoplectic critics of the time they tell much of the story of the invention not of modern art but what is called 'modernism' the historical movement that began with Manet and ended I don't know with Chris Burden maybe?

Manet's mechanism of meaning is utterly different than anything that came before and I'd guess that Le Dejeuner sur L'herbe could qualify not as the first 'modern' work but the first 'modernist' work.

A friend of mine, an astute analytic mind, theorized that the actual mechanism of modernism as distinct from what came before is that the role of viewer and artist are reversed: the viewer becomes the one on whom the role of verifying the 'artness' of the work falls, whereas in the past it was the skill of the artist that would take you for a ride in a narrative, semi-rational world.

Modernism requires the viewer, through the use of visual paradoxes where something is itself and its opposite (flipping between being perceived as one then its opposite in the mind), to be the truly creative force without whom the work does not exist.

-- John

Hm, I would consider Manet to be more of a Naturalist ( a l'Emile Zola) in that he wasn't necessarily attempting to render realistic images with technique, but rather to render realistic subject matter. Which, in my opinion are two very different things.

I think because Manet rests on the cusp of neo-classicism (many allusions to renaissance artworks) and impressionism, and his friendship and ties to the Impressionists he is granted the title of "Grandfather of Impressionism" It isn't so much that he fronted the movement so much as it was that he had a love of the ideals behind Impressionism, and gave much support to the movement itself. I think the same is true of Courbet, although Manet's works tended to illicit more of a response from viewers first out the gate, therefore he is a stronger figure to point to when writing History books.

how do u define MODERN? What is MODERNITY?

Hmm?

Some interesting responses here, thought maybe I can a little nuance that I have gathered, mostly from excursions in literature re "the modern," and that is that what is most characteristic of the modern is the emphasis upon the self as a valuable entity of expression in itself apart -- or, perhaps "broken" or "free" are more appreciable metaphors -- from the dominant worldview of value in the collective as the criteria for artistic expression.

In this light, where the plastic arts are in a bit of a lag in relation to other arts (like literature), where one could be appreciable as an artist without a) having to have a benefactor, b) having or seeking to make a living through it, and c) without having or subscribing to another dominant paradigm (such as classicism, or romanticism, for that matter) in order to express one's creativity, then "modern" art can perhaps be realizable in any artist (known or relatively unknown), depending upon their originality, uniqueness, and modesty with respect to the source of their gifts.

As a "movement," however, I think modern art as a movement is somewhat of an oxymoron, in that as part of "the" movement, one may be caught up in the value of the collective determining one's creativity to the detriment of one's uniqueness.

we cannot have this discussion without defining MODERNITY... what is MODERNITY?

if we cannot define it... we cannot discuss about this...

been there done that... we spent a whole semester in our graduate program mucking around with this topic... complete waste of time... if we had defined MODERNITY in the begining... then it would have been more fruitful

if you consider the aesthetics of MANET to be the father of MODERN Art then... MODERN Art would have started since WANG ShiZhi's time in the 1st Century... SEURAT would have been preceded by Mi Fu during Southern Sung blah blah blah blah blah

Art History is dead and futile... face it and find another job or major... Art History died with Bernard Berenson and Clement Greenberg... the current academia system in AMERICA is nothing but a bunch of weak academics who cannot succeed elsewhere...

find me a good Prof. in Art History and I will galdly conceed... even Prof. Pope is only so so... none can still match Berenson