When people come to think about modern art it can often be one form that is somewhat difficult to define. The art world is full of different definitions for styles of art or paintings that are from a particular era. People who are not familiar with the art world can sometimes find it difficult to get to grips with one form of art from another. From the outside it can seem that people who are involved in the art world or who have a keen interest in art can almost be speaking in a different language when it comes to talking about different pieces of art. This explains why many people find it difficult to fully understand or be able to acknowledge if a particular piece of art is from a certain era or has been painted by a particular artist.

In any other form of the English language the words modern and contemporary can be pretty much swapped freely or at will. However, the art world is different and in artistic terms modern art and contemporary art are two different things. Again, this only leads people who are not that familiar with the world of art to be somewhat confused regarding the definitions of different artistic styles or pieces of artwork.

For anyone who is not too sure about the differences of modern and contemporary art or is unsure about what is classed as modern and what is classed as contemporary, then a good rule to follow is that modern art is from the impressionists and originates from approximately 1880 right through to the 1960’s and 1970’s. Contemporary art is regarded to be all art from around the 1960’s or 1970’s, right through to the present day and including all art that is being created right this minute.

It is general considered to be the case that modern art starts for many people just as the Impressionists were starting to wind down. Whilst many art experts agree with this, plenty of others make strong arguments that modern art may actually have begun on a variety of different dates.

Depending on which train of thought or opinion they share, many experts claim that modern art could well have started on a number of different dates, including the Romanticism era of the early 1800’s, the realism era of the 1830’s or during Daguerre’s announcement that he had created a method for making a direct and positive image, which is said to have occurred in 1839. Some experts even claim that is what during none of these times mentioned and actually occurred during the following years of 1846, 1874 or the 1880’s.

The truth is that none of these dates are incorrect but none of them are right either. None one can definitely be sure when the modern art period started exactly but it is safe to say that it began sometime around the 19^th century and ran right the way up to the 1960’s and 1970’s, where contemporary art took over.