Transcript MODERNISM: - Flagstaff Arts and Leadership Academy

MODERNISM
A Visual Retrospective
What is Modernism?
• A revolutionary and sweeping social,
intellectual, artistic phenomenon …
• In response to trends, events, and
perceptions at the end of the 19th Century…
• Which articulated a new outlook, often
conflicting, about Western culture…
• And the reality, both optimistic and
pessimistic, of a new world order.
Modernism Emerges out of the
Late Victorian Era (1880-1900)
• Conservative mores and attitudes
• Economic affluence, leisure, “the good life”
• Tradition, nationalism, social tranquility
• Faith in the “Progress of Human Species”
(Enlightenment) and ordered progress
• Art (music, poetry/lit., painting, dance, etc.)
was intended to please, to moralize, to
uphold classic Victorian social values
1889…
Tour Eiffel built in Paris
“Modern” marvel of
engineering
Defied limitations of size
and materials…changed
the urban landscape
Horrified critics…at first
Symbolized technological
optimism and progress
Rise of Futurism
• Founded by poet Filipo Marinetti in Italy (1909)
• Contrasted the weepy sentimental ideas of
Romanticism (and the beloved past)…
• Embraced “speed, noise, machines, pollution,
cities, and violence”
• Thrilled to the prospect of technological
progress, new forms and materials, and the
FUTURE of a brave new world (vs. the hypocrisy
of those who condemned it)
Chicago, IL: 1893 World’s Fair
Shaped landscape of Modern
America
• debut of consumer products and the popular
culture of advertising
-Aunt Jemima, Cream of Wheat,
hamburgers, carbonated soda
• “The Midway” was the prototype of today’s
amusement parks
• Utopian vision of modern America as a
commercial juggernaut
• Beginning of corporate control over national culture
- Ex. Disney’s EPCOT…“the world brought to you
by AT&T and Coca-Cola”
• Celebration of technology and commerce
-showed that America could move upward and
forward by embracing tech.—esp. electricity—it
was not to be feared but embraced
-“White City” inspired the Emerald City of OZ!
• Patriotic tour de force
-Pledge of Allegiance and Columbus Day
-John Phillip Sousa performed at the Fair
-inspired Dvorak’s New World Symphony
World Columbian Exposition of 1893
• America’s coming-out party to the world…an
extravagant, bold showcase of American
superiority, innovation, and resolve
• Set American on the path toward modernity in the
twentieth century, but….
• Even more, reflected the brewing cultural
crisis…the confusion, hope, and sense of
fragmentation of a transitional age
The Triumph of Form:
Frank Lloyd Wright
and
Modern Architecture
Cubism: fragmentation of
objects into geometric form
Pablo Picasso
&
Georges Braque
Fauvism: supremacy of color
over subject
Henri Matisse
&
Piet Mondrian
Abstraction: attention to line,
color, shape, and proportion
Wassily Kandinsky
DADA: anti-art, anarchy and
the absurd
Marcel Duchamp
Surrealism: Freud, dreams,
and the psychic connection
Rene Magritte
&
Salvador Dali
Man Ray:
Father of Avant Garde
Photography
So then, what is Modernism?
• A. Not a period, but an all-encompassing artistic
and philosophical movement
• B. A rejection of Victorian standards of how art
should be made, consumed, and interpreted
• C. “New and distinctive features in the subjects,
forms, concepts, and styles of literature and art
in the early 20th century, especially after WWI”
(more on that later)…Modernism is primarily
about the range and possibility of FORM