Modern art has already been going for more than a century, but even now, many people have serious doubts about it. To address this reputation problem is the first task of this lecture. The second task is to define style in art, in relation to the intention of the artist.

Although modern art first appeared at the beginning of the 20th century, the first seed of it, relativity, started growing in the 15th century, and the second seed, self-sufficiency, in the 19th century. The lecture will explain why modern art would not be possible without these important conceptual changes.

In the multitude of different artistic styles through history there are two main types, which indicate two modalities for viewing, and depicting, the world: the absolute and the relative. An absolutist artwork depicts the world as, according to the artist or the artist’s society, it ‘is’, while a relativist artwork depicts the world as it seems, or appears. A variation of a relativist artwork depicts the world as it ‘feels’ – or, to put it another way, such an artwork depicts the emotional experience of a personal encounter with the world. A second important seed of modern art is the attempt to break the tie between art and the real world, so that artworks stand by themselves. This seed, self-sufficiency, enables abstract (or non-figurative) art.