If you have a background in art, you can skip this newbie post. If you are engaged with art but otherwise inexperienced, continue on.
I’m taking a course called Modern Art and Ideas from the Museum of Modern Art on Coursera. Two years ago, I completed their course In the Studio: Postwar Abstract Painting and I have a lot of paintings to show for it. One of the things I loved about the course is that each week focused on a different postwar abstract artist and then we would paint our own painting in that painter’s style. If you want to remember art and artists, this is an outstanding learning method.
Something that occurred to me is a common misunderstanding about modern art. You have probably heard someone say: “I just don’t understand modern art!”
But modern art isn’t solely abstract or surrealist paintings. It’s really a post-industrial shift in how and why art was created. Modern art includes the work of Vincent Van Gogh and Claude Monet, Andrew Wyeth and Edward Hopper.
Both Modern Art and Ideas and In the Studio: Postwar Abstract Painting are free to take on Coursera. Let me know if you enroll! And of course, I want to see your paintings!