When one goes in to the modern art exhibit at the local museum, expressions of puzzlement and confusion may be seen on the faces of curious onlookers, and they rarely fail to ask "is this art"." However, the question is not whether art and its role in society have changed over the past century or so, it is why? Anyone can see that modern art has indeed been taken at a different approach than in the past, the Renaissance for instance, but why the extreme change? Well this could be indirectly caused by these two factors: commercialism and the absence of religion. These two issues constantly challenge artists today and the results are the abstract pieces we know as modern art.

Before the Impressionists, aspiring artists were trained at an art academy, who then developed a career upon completing training many tedious years later. Yet when artists began...