Modern Times
While working on this issue of American Fine Art Magazine, an art scholar I was interviewing said, “After all, you can’t collect what you don’t know.”we were talking about how American art history is so much richer and more layered than the way we tend to think about the past. The human mind is inclined to compartmentalize, to break things down sequentially, into movements with linear timelines, to chop up history into manageable bites that are easier for the intellect to digest. But the past—and present—is much more fluid, and fueled by cross-pollination, overlap and evolution.visual artists from different backgrounds, regions and generations interacted and influenced each other, while immersed in equally vibrant music, architecture, philosophy and literature that reflected the times as well.
These creatives experienced life simultaneously but filtered what they saw and felt through their own lenses. Sure, there were groups of artists who coalesced around more clear commonalities, but the filaments of connectivity are everywhere—if you look for them.
Think about the groundbreaking 1913 Armory Show, where American art was revolutionized by exposure to the European avant-garde; or the impact of industrialization, the Great Depression and world wars that sent shockwaves rippling through the entire nation.the shared, and the distinct, is precisely what makes art history so compelling.
This issue especially, with its focus on that gloriously nebulous term “modernism,” is full of content that illustrates this point.
After all, our aim here is to celebrate the historic artists who are household names by now; while bringing lesser-known but equally relevant artists into the light.to look at periods of an artist’s oeuvre that lie outside the years of creative output for which they are best known.to provide the context that opens your eyes and minds to appreciate what you did not know before.after all you can’t collect what you don’t know—and you can’t appreciate what you don’t know, without the context out of which it came.