1905 ­ Matisse began to attract attention with his emphasis on color, exhibiting the "Joie de vivre" (The Joy of Living) at the Salon d’Automne and founding the school of the Fauves.

1907 ­ A retrospective on Cézanne, in Paris, sparks a shift toward a constructive approach in French art. Picasso’s "Les Demoiselles d’Avignon" (The Young Ladies of Avignon) represents the theoretical formulation of Cubism.
In the meantime, Expressionism, a style of painting using violent colors, emerges in Germany; Kirchner is the founder of the school.

1909 ­ Marinetti publishes the “Manifesto of Futurism” in "Le Figaro" in Paris; an Italian movement opposed to academicism, Futurism glorifies modern technology. Other exponents of Futurism are Boccioni and Balla.

1911 ­ Kandinsky writes "Concerning the Spiritual in Art," a theoretical essay on expressionistic abstraction.

1920 ­ Le Corbusier’s magazine 
"L’Esprit Nouveau" (The New Spirit) commences publication. It is a purist declaration of opposition to Expressionism.

1924 ­ André Breton publishes the "Manifesto of Surrealism."
Max Ernst paints the "Elephant célèbes" (The Elephant of Celebes) one of the most celebrated paintings of this movement, whose other exponents include Dalí and Magritte.

1937 ­ Picasso exhibits "Guernica" in Paris.
F.L. Wright builds “Falling Water,” the Kaufmann house.
 
1945 ­ Pollock’s “action painting” is promoted by the Guggenheim gallery in New York.
Non-representational art comes to the fore in the fifties with Dubuffet and Wols in France, Burri in Italy and Hartung in Germany, as well as Tàpies and Motherwell.

1959/60 ­ “Pop art” emerges in the United States with Warhol, Oldenburg, and the gigantic comic strips of Lichtenstein.
The current of "Nouveau Réalisme" (New Realism) is promoted by the critic Pierre Restany in France.

1964 ­ Marc Chagall’s decoration of the ceiling of the Opéra is unveiled.

1970/80 ca. ­ The modern neo-figurative tendency spreads in the seventies and eighties. Art in Great Britain is dominated by the singular and idiosyncratically poetic work of David Hockney.