This companion volume to the author's Learning to Look at Paintings addresses some of the questions most commonly asked about modern art: why does it appear so different from the art of the past? Why is it so difficult to understand? How should we approach it?

Mary Acton suggests that the best way to understand modern art is to look closely at it, and to consider the different elements that make up each art work - composition, space and form, light and color and subject matter. Her engaging and beautifully-written guide to art of the modern and postmodern period covers key art movements including Expressionism, Constructivism, the Bauhaus, Surrealism, Pop Art, Conceptual Art and Young British Art, and artistic forms such as architecture and design, sculpture and installation as well as works on canvas. The book is richly illustrated with color and black and white images by the artists, designers and architects discussed, ranging from Picasso and Matisse to Le Corbusier, Andy Warhol and Rachel Whiteread.