20th Century Art

20th-century art and what it became as modern art began with modernism in the late 19th century. Nineteenth-century movements of Post-Impressionism (Les Nabis), Art Nouveau and Symbolism led to the first twentieth-century art movements of Fauvism in France and Die Brücke ("The Bridge") in Germany.

Artists explored extreme and varying themes in the years before and after World War I, and those same themes were revisited in the aftermath of World War II, creating an interesting parallel. This article is divided into two sections: 1900-1945 and 1945-2000 and focuses on art themes that captured the talents and ideas of some of the most well known artists around the world.

This movement is most well known for capturing the creations of such famous artists as Henri Matisse. The Fauvism movement eventually faded into the calmer, more thoughtful expressionistic art as Fauvism- which came from the word Fauves meaning wild beasts- lost popularity. The short movement characterized the years between 1904 and 1908, but engaged much of the first decade of the 1900's.