Modern art is often abstract.
Modern art, as a period, goes back as far as the early 19th century for some, but in general it means art that's much nearer, since around 1900. There have been many movements in modern art, each with its own signature stylistic characteristics. If you are looking to paint a canvas in a modern art style, you have a wealth of choices, each with graphic qualities that are easy to define.
Cubism
Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque developed Cubism in the early 1900s. They combined the fractured brushstrokes of Paul Cezanne with the innovative African sculptures on display in Paris at the time. It is called Cubism because it reduces elements to angled shards, often showing simultaneously different aspects of the same subject, whether it be a person sitting for a portrait or a still life. A painting done in Cubist mode should eliminate curved lines and reduce color to neutral tones such as brown and gray.
Fauvism
Henri Matisse was the most important Fauvist. The term comes from the French word for "wild beast," and was so named because of the intense colors used by the fauvist painters. It was developed around the same time as Cubism. A Fauvist painting will be softer in line than a Cubist painting, but totally infused with wildly contrasting colors, such as chartreuse and magenta. Every element of the painting should be rich with highly saturated colors. Fauvists generally painted either landscapes or portraits, as well as still life paintings.
Abstract Expressionism
Abstract Expressionism developed in the New York in the years following World War II. The signature painters (Willem de Kooning, Barnett Newman, Mark Rothko and others) each adopted their own methods of applying paint, but the best known is Jackson Pollock. Pollock used liquid paint that was poured onto a flat canvas or applied in drip fashion with a tool like a stick or brush. The results were unlike any painting that had come before it. By putting a canvas on the ground and working with many colors of liquid paint, you can create a painting that will be recognizable as the Abstract Expressionist style.
De Stijl
De Stijl is a Dutch term meaning simply "The Style." It was created primarily by Piet Mondrian, and is easily recognizable by its straight black lines and primary colors. The idea of De Stijl is to limit the painting to the very simplest elements. To do a painting in the manner of De Stijl, begin with a white ground, paint in black lines in vertical or horizontal fashion only. From there, you can fill in sections of the resulting rectangles using only red, yellow and blue.
