How contemporary art emerged

How contemporary art emerged: a history of the avant-garde

The adjective contemporary functions as a broad umbrella under which everything that happened during the 20th century has a place. And, in the case of art, the same thing happens. We refer to contemporary art when we talk about the artistic trends and styles that gained special prominence in the different decades of the last century. And whose imprint continues to be felt today.

Because the avant-garde, pop art, postmodernism and a long etcetera were configuring, with their schemes, the principles of current art, which Cervezas Alhambra passionately supports through its create/without/hurry platform, as well as in all types of artistic initiatives at the national level.

Art at the forefront
How contemporary art emerged

The first glimpses of contemporary art date back to the last decades of the 19th century, when artists began to question established principles. And that accelerated with the entry of the turbulent 20th century. The instability characteristic of the beginning of the last century led to the First World War and, in the interwar period, a fruitful time for art and science.

It was then that the different artistic avant-garde began to emerge, in the heat of a period of optimism and creativity, the so-called 'roaring 20s', whose atmosphere and spirit are so well portrayed by films such as 'Midnight in Paris', by filmmaker Woody Allen.

Those first avant-garde, also called historical avant-garde, were the so-called 'isms', which gave European culture a bath of creativity, novelty and change.

Because, although the different avant-garde movements were characterized by different principles and starting points, they did share something: the break with the different models of beauty and artistic value established until then.