Explain modernism and abstraction. Refer to one example to illustrate your explanation.

Abstraction (or
abstract art) is usually based on objects from the real
world but the final result has little or no relation to the literal depiction. The work
is reshaped from its natural origins into the artist's own expressive interpretation.
Such abstraction often utilized recent advances in the scientific
world, psychoanalytical theories and geometric designs. Kazimir Malevich's
Black Square (1913) is such an
example.

Modernism (or modern
art) is generally defined as any kind of modern interpretation of an object, and the
movement was a revolt against the more conservative realist forms. Most modernists
questioned or even rejected the existence of God and of the Enlightenment (or other past
movements) and drew upon their own self-consciousness. Experimentation with form was
also a preoccupation. Edvard Munch's The Scream (1893) is one of
modern art's most famous paintings.