Abstract Modern art-the dominant art form in the present world-reflects people's psychological distinctiveness in a changing social environment. The art's evolution as well as its method and range of proliferation are influenced by politics, economics, culture, and social tradition and exhibit geographical characteristics. This article explores the development of modern art from a geographic perspective starting with an overview of the evolutionary process and its division into three periods of advancement-a European-centered Period before World War II, an American-centered period after World War II, and a diversified development period that started in the late 1970s. Then the article analyzes the geographic nature of modern art from the perspective of locality, spatial distribution, evolution, and proliferation. The article uncovers that modern art is related to its surrounding social environment and is influenced by the local culture, politics, and economics. From the aspect of quantity, global influence, and maturity of art policy, the US is the primary center of modern art while Western Europe occupies the secondary center and the former Eastern Europe, Latin America, and China hold the fringe positions. During each period of modern art's development, there were significant changes in the central theme and the number of genres. The article also summarizes the three important instances of modern art dissemination in the past. The first instance is the spread of abstract art as it migrated from Russia to Western Europe before eventually reaching America and Asia. The second instance occurred during the Second World War when the conflict caused a group of influential modern artists to emigrate from Europe to the United States, triggering a transfer of the art center. The third instance is the proliferation of American art-the post-war stream of artistic ideas from the United States to the entire world. Before concluding, this article analyzes the time and geographic distribution of modern art development in our country, showing that Chinese modern art is centered within the large, eastern coastal cities with an uneven distribution and a low eminence in the international art community. The article also highlights the importance-and possible methods-of encouraging artistic participation and of improving the standing of Chinese culture and art in the world.
2005, Vol. 20 
