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Contemporary paintings developed after World War II in response to the internationally changing economic and political scenario. Contemporary painting is a revolt against the attempt to institutionalize Modern art forms like Cubism and Impressionism, as well as a logical development from those very forms. Breaking the well established boundaries between art and non-art is one of the major agendas of contemporary painting.
Contemporary art, including painting, is usually at loggerheads with art academies. The traditional accusation against contemporary painting is largely two fold. First, the contemporary artist does not work from within situational sense in art history, and works necessarily as an outsider. This takes away the historical sense from the art work. The second accusation is that, contemporary art has broken down the well established norms of aesthetic considerations, thus making critical appreciation of art impossibility.
The waves within contemporary painting are so varied that it is futile to enumerate them. Unlike the modernists, the contemporary or postmodern artists do not work as a group, they avoid adhering themselves to views of a particular group or school of thought. Contemporary artists foreground a play of plurality in their works. For the contemporary artist, there are infinite ways of looking at life and the world; each painting may come up with a different perspective, or there can be multiple perspectives within the same painting.
Both abstraction and figuration play an important role in Contemporary painting. It has, moreover, taken different forms in different parts of the world, and generally has the artist looking at the roots and at the same time transcending them. Fractured representation and breaks in a logical flow of narrative are common devices in contemporary painting. There is also a return towards utility painting, and blending of art and traditional craft with the obfuscation of the artistic identity in contemporary art.
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