modern art

American  

noun

1. art that was produced in the late 1860s through the 1970s and that rejected traditionally accepted forms and emphasized individual experimentation and sensibility.

---

Etymology

Origin of modern art

First recorded in 1800–10, for an earlier sense

Example Sentences

The album is experimental, merging modern art with Romanticism.

From Salon • Jun. 5, 2026

Hofmann personally experienced the early modern art movements of Fauvism and Cubism in Paris, which gave his teaching a present-at-the-creation credibility.

From The Wall Street Journal • May 23, 2026

Many modern art historians, such as Dr Bendor Grosvenor, accept the label on this drawing is correct and that it is a surviving contemporary likeness of her.

From BBC • May 1, 2026

He lives in a company-owned apartment full of dark, polished surfaces and bad modern art; she lives in a rundown apartment furnished with termites.

From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 18, 2026

They look like a mixture of both, like they could be on the wall of some modern art museum.

From "P.S. I Miss You" by Jen Petro-Roy