With the exception of mature abstraction, all the arts alive today were invented in the second half of the nineteenth century. In four decades the art has come a longer way, than during the previous four centuries.
The first time he fully realized that he is an artist, and that the object of art can be not only the world around him, but also what is happening in his mind and his soul.
This awareness has led to a major division of the whole of contemporary art at the realism, symbolism and expressionism.
Everything of value in contemporary art can be easily classified into one of these currents. There is nothing surprising in this because there is simply no other option.
The twentieth century added a stream of new, original and winning a growing number of supporters - the need and ability to produce minimal effort and expense items that can be sold for money and the greatest possible ability to convince the public that they are masterpieces of art. But that's another story ...
And speaking seriously - this section includes topics that are seemingly contradictory, but only superficially. Manet, the Impressionists, Neo-Impressionists and Cezanne were reliable realists, Munch and Van Gogh were expressionists and symbolists and in Gauguin painting, which inspired Fauvists expressionism, expressionism - in today's meaning - is not an ounce. There is more symbolism in his paintings than in the paintings of many painters generally regarded as the Symbolists.
The second half of the nineteenth century was a cauldron full of boiling tar ...