8.9: Conclusion

Out of the turmoil of a world war came a changing and growing new world economy. The world was also separated into the Western block of nations backed by the United States and the Communist countries supported by the Soviet Union. Propaganda, capitalism and the free market, the nuclear age, and the space race were significant societal influences. Artists also were redefining and reshaping art to reflect the expanding mass cultural imagery to expressing emotions through abstraction. Many artists fled the chaos of Europe and moved to America, shifting the center of art to New York at the time. Movements deviated from the concepts of objects and realism to the process of painting, the liberation of color, lines, and shapes to reflect the new directions of the world.