'Family' by Henry Moore - 1935

Henry Moore's work has become in the course of the years increasingly abstract, but that was, as he himself said, "just because I believe that in this way I can represent the human psychological content of my work as directly and as intensely as possible." - source Taschen publication 2007 with Jeremy Lewison

This semi-abstract sculpture in Elmwood made by Henry Moore, depicts a mother with child on her back (H 101,6 cm). Location: The Hennry Moore Foundation, Perry Green.

Moore wrote: 'There are universal shapes to which everybody is subconsciously conditioned and to which they can respond if their conscious control does not shut them off." 

Robert Motherwell - 'Two Figures with Stripe' 1962

“In history of all art, there was never a movement hated as much as Abstract Expressionism.” - Robert Motherwell 

Robert Motherwell (American, 1915–1991) - Two Figures with Stripe, 1962
Acrylic on canvas - 54 × 72 in. (137.16 × 182.88 cm)
Gift of Friends of Art and the Dedalus Foundation, Inc. M1994.375
Photo credit: Zindman/Fremont - © Dedalus Foundation/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

"Banal realism = vulgar imitation of reality" - JM. Atlan 'Abstraction and Adventure in Contemporary Art', Paris 1950.

"Realism reflects reflects the productive intercourse between man and nature which is the basis of life (palaeolithic cave paintings)." - F. Klingender from 'Marxism and Modern Art, London 1943

Jan van Eyck 'Virgin and Child with Canon van der Paele' - 1434/36

“By increasing reality, Jan van Eyck has detached himself from the memetic image and opened the image in a unrelenting realism.”- quote Luc Tuymans (Klara > Pompidou > Americana  by Joost Zwagerman)

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_and_Child_with_Canon_van_der_Paele

http://vlaamseprimitieven.vlaamsekunstcollectie.be/nl/onderzoek/webpublicaties/madonna-met-kanunnik-joris-van-der-paele

 

'The Three dancers' by Picasso - 1925

 

“I love art as the only end of my life. Everything I do connected with it gives me

intense pleasure.”  – Picasso ‘conversation at Boisgeloup’, 1935

Alter- Meta- & Hypermodernism

‘Altermodern’ can essentially be read as an artist working in a hypermodern world or with supermodern ideas or themes. This portmanteau-word defined by Nicolas Bourriaud, is an attempt at contextualizing Art made in today's global context as a reaction against standardisation and commercialism. It is also the title of the Tate Britain's fourth Triennial exhibition curated by Bourriaud.

The ‘Metamodern’ sensibility can be conceived of as a kind of informed naivety, a pragmatic idealism, characteristic of cultural responses to recent global events such as climate change, the financial crisis, political instability, and the digital revolution.
Vermeulen & Van den Akker: "Notes on Metamodernism" Journal of Aesthetics and Culture, 2010

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metamodernism

Hypermodernism is an artform that analyses and synthesises the hyper-modus/state/condition of todays and future society. ‘Hyper-mode’ in the gameworld is a state in which a creature is powered up by injection of extra energy or means to achieve or expand capacity for a better outcome, a higher goal. Sometimes it can change its physical shape drastically.
 
 

Georges Braque's "Woman with easel" - 1936

"I know exactly where I'm going. The goal that I have to accomplish

is to paint art of the highest order.” – George Braque

Georges Braque “Woman with easel”, 1936 Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 130.8 x 162.2 cm - Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA

The entire Braque genius was in this confession he made to Richardson: "I made a great discovery. I don't believe in anything anymore. Objects do not exist for me, except that there is a harmonious relationship among them, and and also between them and myself. When one reaches this harmony, one reaches a sort of intellectual void. This way, everything becomes possible, everything becomes legitimate, and life is a perpetuel revelation. This is true poetry." - Art of our century by J.L. Ferrier, 1988 Longman, Essex UK 

Fernand Léger's "The Woman in Blue" - 1912

“The modern conception of art is not simply a passing abstraction, valid only for a few initiates;

it is the total expression of a new generation whose needs it shares and whose aspirations it answers.”

– Fernand Léger ‘The Origins of Painting and its Representational Value’, Paris, 1913

Fernand Léger (FR, 1881-1955), La Femme en Bleu (Woman in Blue) - 1912,

oil on canvas, 76 x 51 1/8 inches, 193 x 129.9 cm, Artmuseum, Basel.

Lot 16, "Etude Pour 'La Femme en Bleu," by Fernand Léger, oil on canvas, 51 by 38 inches, 1912-13

The Sotheby's catalogue of April 2008 describes "Etude Pour "La Femme en Bleu" as "heroic," adding that "this spectacular image is one of the movement’s most enduring achievements, and a milestone on the path to abstraction."

The first version of this work is the same size and was kept by the artist in his private collection until his death when it was given to the Musée National Fernand Léger in Biot. The second version, which was the largest, was included in the annual Salon in Paris and in the Armory Show in New York in 1913 and eventually wound up in the Basel Kunstmuseum.
(Source: the city review)