ABSTRACT
Modern art was constituted in the early seventeenth century in close temporal proximity to modern science, to be followed by modern politics half a century or so later. All these developments of modernity were founded on representationalist principles. Post-Modernism simply means the heterogeneous mixtures of styles of art that have ensued in the aftermath of Modernism, like the weeds of all varieties that sprout in the wake of the felling of a once mighty forest. It is largely a high-fashion or luxury-line adjunct to the more ordinary marketing grades of artistic production. There are aesthetics based on qualities such as beauty and sublimity, on expression and expressivity, on moral or political values, on utility of one kind or another, and on sheer pleasure and enjoyment. Late Modernism in paintings is the plethora of styles and techniques, such as Abstract Expressionism, Action painting, Brutalism, and tachism which followed on the heels of a defunct Surrealism.
