JACKSON POLLOCK – “Lavender Mist” (1950)

Modernism

Modernism o A comprehensive

but vague term for

a movement (or

tendency) which

began to get under

way in the closing

years of the 19th c.

o Rejected

positivism – belief

that science could

explain everything,

inc. human nature

PIET MONDRIAN – “Composition

10” (1939-1942)

Modernism pertains to all the creative

arts, especially poetry, fiction, drama,

painting, music and architecture…

“Persistence of Memory” – Salvador Dali

General Tenets of Modernism

• Challenged

tradition and the

status quo

• Fascination with

(w/) the new, the

modern, the

mechanical

• Focus on form and

stylistic

experimentation

• Exploration of

perception and

representation

• Critique of

mimesis or realism

in how we

represent the

world

–RENÉ MAGRITTE

“The Treachery of Images” (1929)

Modernism was largely brought about by the convergence of several

factors:

• The devastation caused in Europe after World War I, when the most enlightened and advanced nations on the earth came together to kill each other in staggering numbers.

War and the New World Order

• World War I – first “total war”

• Mechanization/machines of war utter, heartless destruction

• Est. 8,500,000 deaths of soldiers from wounds/disease

• Est. 13,000,000 civilian casualties

– Disease

– Starvation

– Massacre

Loss…of Everything

• Enormity of war undermined

humankind’s faith in Western society

and culture

– Re-examination of traditional belief systems

(gov’t, religion)

– Sense of hopelessness

– Lost Generation

• The wholesale urbanization and industrialization that took place during the nineteenth century.

• The fragmentation of belief in the unified individual that occurred as the result of the work of several scientists and philosophers.

Additional factors:

Karl Marx Asserted that human

moral, cultural, and

religious values were

caused not by any

inherent sense of

good or evil but by

the requirements of a

particular system.

Charles Darwin Discovered that the

evolution of species

was the result of

“natural selection”

and competition

rather than through

any special act of

purposeful creation

(vs. G-d).

Friedrich Nietzsche Identified the moral and

cultural crises facing

Western civilization.

Viewed artists as purveyors

of culture.

Dismissed Christian

morality (“God is dead”)

and profferred the morality

of the Superman and the

Slave.

Warned of the dangers of

embracing nihilism.

Sigmund Freud

Asserted that most elements of the human personality were the result of various psycho-sexual traumas experienced in infancy and early childhood and stored in the subconscious mind.

Anti-Realism

• Art for art’s sake

• Allusion over description confusing, but purposeful, reflects confusion of new world

• Subjective no absolutes

• Questioning of conventional—”real”---view of the world

• Literature and art rely heavily on

– Myth

– Symbol

– Archetype (“primary image” inherent, not societal)

– The Unconscious

Aesthetic Characteristics of Modernism

• Abandonment of traditional “rules” for creating art, music, and literature

MARC CHAGALL

“I and the Village” (1911)

• Fragmented representations of time, meaning, and human nature

VINCENT VAN GOGH – “The Starry

Night” (1889)

MARCEL DUCHAMP

“Nude Descending a

Staircase, No. 2” (1912)

PABLO PICASSO

“Les Demoiselles d’Avignon”

(1907)

• Sense of loss, alienation, abandonment, and disillusionment

EDVARD MUNCH – “Evening on Karl Johan” (1892)

“The Lovers II” – René Magritte

Modern Fiction

o Art no longer to teach (no didactic function)

o Writers questioned the moral and artistic purposes

of literature.

o Culture fragmented and individualized

Language itself was seen as an unreliable medium,

with an uncertain relationship to reality; the very

notion of clear, straightforward communication

between people was brought into question.

“That’s not it at all, that’s not what I meant at all.”

–T.S. Eliot

o Influenced by the work of Sigmund Freud,

authors made the interior their stage

emphasized the individual and the subjectivity

of perception.

o Experimented with new uses of language and

imagery and new narrative structures:

o stream-of-consciousness narration

o multiple points of view

o fragmented, nonsequential plots.