I am really falling for the look of modern quilts. So much so, I have done just a bit of research on the modern trend. Recently, I visited the Joan Irvine Museum here in Orange County, California to view their Women Artists of California exhibit (through June 7, 2012) which was just wonderful! As part of the exhibit, the museum had an explanation of different schools of art including Realism, Impressionism and Modernism. I think this discussion gives all artists (and YES we Quiltmakers are artists) something to think about:

“Realism in the visual arts refers to the artist goal of depicting subjects as they are considered to exist in reality, without embellishment or interpretation and as true to natural appearance as possible. As such, artists are very careful to draw the image accurately, be it a figure, a still-life or a landscape, and to situate it in a naturalistic, three dimensional space.
Realism in art flowered in the mid to late 19th century. A finely achieved 19th century Realist work would look very smooth, with no brushstrokes in evidence. Also, it would look like a photograph, except that the colors tend to be muted. Although some Realists painted views of ordinary life, most favored grandiose works with themes from history, epic literature and mythology.
Impressionism follows Realism in the sense that the artist is still trying to paint what they see, but with these important differences. An Impressionist painter used bright, pure colors, applied in a profusion of short, choppy brushstrokes. Moreover, they favored scenes of ordinary people in ordinary settings as their subject matter.
To capture the accurate representation of natural sunlight, the Impressionists insisted on painting directly outdoors, or en plein air, and they portrayed the overall visual effect of a scene instead of details. Even though Impressionists broke the visual image into small bits of color, they nevertheless insisted on an overall natural appearance to color, form and space.
Modernism goes beyond Impressionism by infusing emotional or psychological content to the work of art. To do this, the artist manipulates color, form and space at the expense of natural accuracy. In modernist work, colors are greatly accentuated or simplified, forms are re-shaped and altered, and there is little attention to maintaining a natural, three-dimensional sense of space.
Where a Realist and an Impressionist painting showed a certain amount of natural depth, Modernist paintings often restrict themselves to surface treatment, with little or no sense of depth.”
Pretty interesting, huh?
So, I simplified the Framed design, stripping away some of the blocks, spacing the blocks out a bit more with wider Sashing and removed the color in the border. The result is cleaner lines and an even simpler construction.

Do you need more of a quilting “fix”? There is always a lot going on on this site, like our ongoing Spring Medallion Quilt, our Doll Quilt/Table Topper series, more of the Quilter’s Alphabet Block of the Week and our monthly 8″ swap/scrap quilt patterns. Browse around, there’s even more than that to see. And be sure to look at our Etsy site for even more patterns.

Here is the PDF for the Modern Version of the Framed Quilt…

Mod Framed

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