What is the difference between contemporary and modern art?

Contemporary new. New. Historic and contemporary. Sometimes these are synonymous words. There is a gap between them, therefore? If so, why? Why?

One answer is straightforward: time. Prior to conceptual art, industrial art came. The beginning of Modern Art in the West, about 1860, was rendered by the most art historians and critics until the 1960's. Modern art, on the other hand , means contemporary art. But what the 'present day' actually means can be difficult to describe. Is this art created by artists who live? Art made in our lives? Or are artists doing work that applies to or is interested in popular culture? Maybe also works of art that describe what is "present day?" Thus, perhaps paradoxically, the beginning date of contemporary art was mostly set in the 1960's and 1970's.

But there are other variations in process, medium and approach as well as time differences. We we also speak about a number of early we contemporary art movements, from Post-Impressionism to Dada, Pop Art and Art of Installation. Let's look at modern art first. It's hard to imagine how revolutionary and surprising this type of art was during its day, if you see Monet written on tea towels and Cézanne on the cover of biscuit tin. New art and "modernism" is a radical departure from the kind of art that was before; it was especially revolutionary to challenge conventional viewpoints and subjects.

Many art historians claim that Édouard Manet was the first "modern" artist – his 1863 painting Luncheon on the Grass in particular. This is because the piece did not attempt to depict the scene in a "real" and three-dimensional way. The figures of Manet look like they sit on each other's heads; the woman who bath in a river almost seems to float above the other characters as if she could slip off her perch at all times and land in their laps. Manet was criticized also for not shading the light and dark areas of the photograph and for the "lowly" subject of his work.

A mini-turning point was the movement called 'abstract expressionism' in the transition between modern and contemporary art, which led to a shift far removed from the contents of the image and towards the emphasis on the art making itself. Take Jackson Pollock, his works focused on dropping paint and waving around the canvas as much as on finishing products themselves, a cigarette in the mouth. This movement was a little step on the road to what we now consider to be contemporary art.