Later Europe and Americas, 1750–1980 CE

Artists in this period borrowed from the past, from each other and from other cultures. David's Oath of the Horatii and Jefferson's Monticello revived ancient Rome, Ingres's Grande Odalisque reflects European fantasies about the Middle East, Picasso drew on African and Iberian sculpture in Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, and Wifredo Lam mixed Cubism with Afro-Cuban imagery in The Jungle.

Many artists in this period made art to persuade, protest or provoke. Goya's war prints, Turner's Slave Ship, Kollwitz's woodcut and Rivera's mural took on violence and injustice, Manet's Olympia and Duchamp's Fountain challenged what audiences expected art to be, and Jacob Lawrence's Migration Series told the story of Black Americans moving north.

New technologies changed both art and architecture. Photography grew from Daguerre's one-of-a-kind daguerreotypes to Muybridge's motion studies and Stieglitz's The Steerage; steel frames, reinforced concrete and glass curtain walls shaped Sullivan's Chicago store, Fallingwater and the Seagram Building; and painters tried new methods like Frankenthaler's soak-stain and Warhol's silkscreen.

Some modern works invite many readings. The Two Fridas can be read through Kahlo's divorce from Diego Rivera and her mixed European and Mexican heritage, Kusama's Narcissus Garden questioned the art market when she sold mirror balls at the 1966 Venice Biennale, and Smithson's Spiral Jetty is an earthwork that changes as the Great Salt Lake rises and falls.