Modern Art vs. Postmodern Art: 3 Key Differences

In the wake of the Industrial Revolution, new ideas about art and philosophy emerged in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century. Modern artists broke away from traditional approaches by using new techniques to create shapes and color. For example, French Impressionists like Claude Monet and Édouard Manet captured their unique perceptions of nature and everyday subject matter with experimental uses of color.

Modernist artists tended to celebrate clarity, simplicity, and formalism, and they often promoted idealistic views about society. Art movements like Cubism and Futurism explored new worldviews on science and technology. Russian Constructivists used basic geometric shapes to reflect political ideas and promote utopian ideals.

After World War II, postmodern art emerged as a reaction to modernism and critiqued previously held values about high culture and progress, and it dominated the latter half of the twentieth century. Postmodern art is a broad art movement comprising several new forms and artistic styles, including pop art, Neo-Dada, conceptual art, minimalism, Abstract Expressionism, land art, feminist art, and performance art.

Modernism and postmodernism differ from each other in several distinct ways. Learn more about both movements by exploring some of the main differences between them.

• Fine art vs. pop culture: Modernism focused on simplicity and elegance with color, shape, and form. Modernist artists worked toward an idealized version of artistic beauty. By contrast, postmodernism rejects the idea that there is a right way to make art, and it blurs the lines between high art and low art. Postmodern artists use imagery from popular culture, creating art that comments on everyday mass media trends like comic books, advertisements, and television.
• Universal truth vs. relativism: Modernists searched for an abstract truth through their art, philosophy, and worldview. Modernism held logic and reason as central values for seeking universal truth. In reaction to the idea that art should highlight an objective truth, postmodern art focuses on the artist’s unique perspective and subjective reality. Postmodernism posits that individual experience—and the individual’s interpretation of that experience—is more valuable than abstract principles from science, religion, or politics.
• Experimentation vs. deconstruction: Modern artists rejected traditional Victorian approaches to making art. Modernism celebrated experimental styles in several art forms, including painting (as with Impressionism), literature (as with James Joyce’s 1920 novel, Ulysses), and architecture (exemplified by the Catalan modernism style of Antoni Gaudí). Largely inspired by the philosophies of French theorists like Jean-François Lyotard and Jacques Derrida, postmodernism deconstructs art by making a spectacle of existing objects and ideas within the culture. In this way, postmodernism takes a more ironic, humorous, and skeptical approach to making art.

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