Modern matters: A blow-by-blow account of groundbreaking modernism The modern art adventure began roughly 150 years ago in Paris. A circle of painters, whom we now know as Impressionists, began painting pictures with rapid, often impasto, strokes. They turned to everyday street life for subjects, instead of overblown heroic scenes, and they escaped the power of the establishment salon by organizing their own independent exhibitions. After this first assault on standard academic practice, there was no holding back. In a constant desire to challenge, innovate, and inspire, one modernist style supplanted the next: Symbolism, Expressionism, Futurism, Dada, Abstract Art, renewed Realism, Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism, Pop, Minimal and Conceptual Art. This indispensable overview traces the restless energy of modern art with a year-by-year succession of the groundbreaking artworks that shook standards, and broke down barriers. Each of these stand-out pieces is accompanied by a text profiling the artist and discussing the importance of their work. Introductory essays, meanwhile, explain the most significant modernist movements.