NIKOLAOS BOGIATZIS

The Relationship between Modern Art and Modernity

Modern art and modernity had an interesting and paradoxical relationship. The former

should picture the latter. However, the art that had to represent the certain historical

period moved independently. That independence did not mean that there was a

divorce between the two. In fact, modernist art developed alongside modernity. It

would be helpful to explore what ‘modernity‘ and ‘modernism‘ mean, and to

understand the relationship between certain works of art and the historical period

that were made.

The term ‘modernity‘ was first used by the French poet and critic Charles Baudelaire

in 1863 : ‘ By modernity I mean the ephemeral, the fugitive, the contingent, the half

of art whose other half is the eternal and the immutable ‘ (Baudelaire, 1988, p.23).

He was not talking about the transformation of Paris as the first ‘ modern ‘ city or

the new technological achievements like the railway engines. He was interested in the

human experience of living in such conditions. Édouard Manet had depicted that

constantly changing condition in modernity with Le Chemin de fer ( The Railway ) in

1873 ( Fig. 1 ).

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( Fig. 1 )

The subject of the painting was steam. Steam is an image of power. As T. J. Clark

wrote : ‘ It is a figure of nostalgia, for a future, or a sense of futurity, that the

modern age had at the beginning but could never make come to pass ‘ ( Clark,

2002, p. 157 ).

The urban scenery was changing in a rapid way and that could be reflected in

Impressionist painting which used bright colours, dabbed brushstrokes and blurred

edges of forms (Wood, 2003, pp. 16 - 17). Looking at Camille Pissarro’s The

Boulevard Montmartre at Night which was made in 1897 ( Fig. 2 ), we could sense

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the vibrancy of Paris under the new urban conditions.

( Fig. 2 )

However, alongside that new social environment where the machine started to

accelerate modern living, the appearance of social alienation became evident. The

artists suffocated under those conditions. Their way to escape was not to depict

modernity. An independent art, free from the burden of imitating modern reality was

born. ‘Modernism‘ came to challenge ‘modernity‘ (Wood, 2003, p. 21).

The autonomy of modernist art was achieved through the persistence in the shapes

and colours. The subject matter was not anymore reflections of reality. What

mattered was the aesthetic effect that the work of art could achieve. As the

American critic Clement Greenberg highlighted in 1965 : ‘ Modernism used art to call

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attention to art ‘ ( Greenberg, 1988, p. 6 ). He declared Manet as the first modernist

painter and favoured the work of Paul Cézanne. What Greenberg emphasised about

modernism was the flatness it achieved : ‘ Flatness alone was unique and exclusive

to that art … Flatness, two - dimensionality, was the only condition painting shared

with no other art, and so Modernist painting oriented itself to flatness as it did to

nothing else ‘ ( Greenberg, 1988, p. 6 ).

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In Cézanne’s Dans le parc de Château Noir ( The grounds of the Château Noir )

which was made circa 1900 ( Fig. 3 ), that claim is evident.

( Fig. 3 )

The commodity of the spectacle, the dynamism of the modern, the flânerie were

absent. Rocks and trees were the subject matter. Cézanne wrote in a letter sent to

the painter Émile Bernard in 1905 :

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The sensations of colour, which give the light, are for me the reason for the

abstractions which do not allow me to cover my canvas entirely nor to pursue the

delimination of the objects where the points of contact are fine and delicate; from

which it results that my image or picture is incomplete ( Cézanne, 1993, p. 213 ).

The colour and the flatness became two substantial ingredients for the artist to

denounce the new modern life. Cézanne’s work is important because he painted in a

different way than that of the past. ‘ The paradox which animates Cézanne’s painting

lies in the gap between two worlds, on the one hand the three - dimensional world

which is the scene of our activities and the limitless object of our vision, on the

other the bounded two - dimensional canvas, within the literal edges of which any

transcription of that world must be adjusted ‘ ( Harrison, 1993, p. 213 ).

Earlier than Greenberg, the English critic Clive Bell wrote about the changing

conditions in painting and the debt that the artists of his day owed to Cézanne. He

emphasised pure form and in 1914 claimed that, ‘ Everything can be seen as pure

form, and behind pure form lurks the mysterious significance that thrills to ecstasy ‘

(Bell, 1988, pp. 76 - 77). He called the relations and combinations of lines and

colours and their aesthetic effects ‘ significant form ‘ . He also highlighted that

‘people who cannot feel pure aesthetic emotions remember pictures by their subjects;

whereas people who can, as often as not, have no idea what the subject of a

picture is‘ ( Bell, 1988, p. 74 ). The importance of the shapes of forms and the

colours were the key element in modernism.

Modernism’s formalism is an interesting territory to explore, especially because of its

non representation of modern life. Henri Matisse painted View of Notre – Dame

(Fig. 4), in 1914.

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( Fig. 4 )

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Matisse was interested in finding a harmony through his art, a path that had to

meet balance and serenity ( Wood, 2003, p. 23 ). Earlier in 1909, the English critic

Roger Fry argued that ‘ we should rather justify actual life by its relation to the

imaginative ‘ ( Fry, 1988, p. 81 ). Modernist art, through its refusal to depict modern

life, narrated modernity’s story in an impressive way. As T. J. Clark mentioned,

‘Modernism is the form formalism took in conditions of modernity - the form it took

as it tried to [ devise ] an answer to modernity [ and ] that form was stressed and

aberrant’ ( Clark, 2002, p. 163 ).

If we try to compare the four paintings so far, we can see that Manet’s Railway and

Pissarro’s Boulevard are following an almost common narrative with modernity. The

former, having the steam in the epicentre as a sign of power and dynamism while a

trace of limitation is present, as the woman and the girl are behind railings ( Clark,

2002, p. 159 ). The latter, with its blurred forms, could be used as a visual comment

in the rapidly changing urban environment. In Cézanne’s Grounds and Matisse’s View

of Notre - Dame the narrative distances itself from modern living. Cézanne

‘exemplifies the modernist emphasis on the formal aspects of art, rather than its

figurative content or subject matter‘ ( Wood, 2003, p. 22 ). Matisse tried to cause an

aesthetic emotion, as well. Both of the paintings are far from modernity but are

linked with it via modernity’s negation.

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From the First World War modernist art embraced complete abstractness. Begun in

1916 and reworked in 1917, Piet Mondrian painted Composition in Line ( Fig. 5 ).

( Fig. 5 )

Mondrian tried to find unity and like the Impressionists and Neo - Impressionists

sought coherence and harmony. In this composition, the bars appear to form a basic

unit which the painter has in control. In 1914, he wrote of his methods and the use

of vertical and horizontal lines that he ‘ constructed consciously, though not by

calculation, and directed by higher intuition . . . ; chance must be avoided as much as

calculation ‘ ( Mondrian, 1982, p. 250 ). As his work developed through time,

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Mondrian believed that he achieved a harmony that he called ‘ repose ‘. Paul Wood

argued that ‘ it is the balancing of various particular elements and their eventual

subsuming in a pictorial totality, that represents the plastic equivalent for universal

harmmony ‘ (Wood, 2004, p. 256 - 257). With Mondrian, the escapism from modern

life through abstractness is more radical than that of Cézanne or Matisse. It involves

a spiritual quest, as well.

Kasimir Malevich through his ‘ Suprematism ‘ tried to free art from the objective

world. His art flourished because of the social conditions in Russian society which was

ready for radical changes at that time. In the years 1918 and 1919 Malevich painted

a series called White on White ( Fig. 6 ).

( Fig. 6 )

‘ In their purity these paintings seemed to parallel the efforts of mathematicians to

reduce all mathematics to arithmetic and arithmetic to logic ‘ ( Schapiro, 1982, p.

202 ). Malevich worked through the combinations that he would be able to create

and from coloured geometrical compositions he ended up in the simplicity of the

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white colour. Even Malevich’s abstraction was not separate from modernity, as he

tried to challenge the latter through his new aesthetic perception. He said : ‘ Let us

seize the world from the hands of nature and build a new world belonging to man

himself ’ ( Malevich, 1988, p. 258 ).

Modernism continued its interesting journey with the second generation of abstract

art after the Second World War. Abstract Expressionism and New York were in the

spotlight. The artists involved did not follow the easel tradition and the bigger size of

their paintings was a new element, as well. Modernist art was constantly changing,

and in 1965 the American critic Michael Fried highlighted ‘ the gradual withdrawal of

painting from the task of representing reality ‘ ( Fried, 1988, p. 115 ). Jackson Pollock

painted Autumn Rhythm in 1950 ( Fig. 7 ).

( Fig. 7 )

His technique was innovative. It included ‘ dripping the paint from cans and

splattering it from the end of a brush ‘ ( Harris, 1993, pp. 46 - 47 ). However, his

art was not separate from the social conditions in America. The establishment needed

weapons in every aspect of modern life, art and culture included, to prove its

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superiority over USSR’s existence and influence. The avant – garde of Abstract

Expressionism became the favoured art movement. Artists and critics who were

marginal, became mainstream and popular. Modernism underwent an Americanisation

and the role of the institutions was vital to that. The Museum of Modern Art

organised an exhibition called The New American Painting. It was brought to Europe

in 1958 and 1959 and functioned as a proof for the dominance of American art in

modernism ( Harris, 1993, pp. 62 - 63 ). This does not mean that the artistic

methods of modernist art were not interestingly changed and did not deserve

attention from the critics. As Greenberg wrote in 1965’s Modernist Painting : ‘The

immediate aims of Modernist artists remain individual before anything else, and the

truth and success of their work is individual before it is anything else‘ (Greenberg,

1988, p. 9). But what needs mention in Jackson Pollock’s or Mark Rothko’s ( Fig. 8 )

work for example, apart from the autonomy that they achieved, is that they painted

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under a social context.

( Fig. 8 )

If they would live under other circumstances or historical periods, their artistic

approach would be different. What ‘ formalists ‘ like Greenberg did, was to

systematically ignore the social context in which Abstract Expressionism existed : The

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world was divided mainly in two spheres of influence, the American and the Soviet,

each one trying to prove its superiority in every aspect of life. The arts could not be

excluded. The suffocation of the artist under modern living strongly affected the way

that art was maid. As T. J. Clark wrote : ‘ Modernism was modernity’s official

opposition ‘ ( Clark, 2002, pp. 172 - 173 ).

Looking back at the paintings explored in this essay, we can see the artworks’

increasing trend of independence. As we move forward, the artists challenged

modernity by moving away from the depiction of reality. From the blurred forms in

Pissarro’s Boulevard to Rothko’s Red, White and Brown painting, the forms are

becoming more abstract. Moreover, the main objective is to affect the aesthetic

perception of the viewer. Greenberg highlighted that ‘ the only consistency which

counts in art is aesthetic consistency, which shows itself only in results and never in

methods or means ‘ (Greenberg, 1988, p. 8).

The artists, affected by the social alienation that modernity brought, opposed the

depiction of the latter in their paintings. The negation of modernity as subject matter

to modernist art took different forms through its many different movements. In 1950,

Pollock mentioned that ‘ each age finds its own technique ‘ ( Pollock, 2003, p. 26 ).

However, all those years, the paradox of modernity’s negation by modernist art

remained steadfast. Apart from being paradoxical, that relationship was creative and

radical, as well. The social context of modernity had a decisive role in the way that

modernist artists painted. ‘ Painting in modernism was a means of investigation : it

was a way of discovering what the dreams of modernity really amounted to, by

finding what it took to make a painting of them ‘ ( Clark, 2002, p. 165 ).

Overall, despite the achievement of artistic autonomy, modernist art developed

alongside modernity.

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References

Baudelaire, C. ( 1988 ) ‘ The Painter of Modern Life ‘ In Frascina, F., Harrison, C.

(eds.) Modern Art and Modernism : A Critical Anthology. London : Paul Chapman, The

Open University, pp. 23 - 27.

Bell, C. ( 1988 ) ‘ The Aesthetic Hypothesis ‘ In Frascina, F., Harrison, C. (eds.)

Modern Art and Modernism : A Critical Anthology. London : Paul Chapman, The Open

University, pp. 67 - 74.

Bell, C. ( 1988 ) ‘ The Debt to Cézanne ‘ In Frascina, F., Harrison, C. (eds.) Modern

Art and Modernism : A Critical Anthology. London : Paul Chapman, The Open

University, pp. 75 - 78.

Clark, T. J. ( 2002 ) ‘ Modernism, Postmodernism, and Steam ‘, October, 100 (2), pp.

154 - 174.

Clark, T. J. ( 1988 ) ‘ On the Social History of Art ‘ In Frascina, F., Harrison, C. (eds.)

Modern Art and Modernism : A Critical Anthology. London : Paul Chapman, The Open

University, pp. 249 - 258.

Fried, M. ( 1988 ) ‘ Three American Painters ‘ In Frascina, F., Harrison, C. (eds.)

Modern Art and Modernism : A Critical Anthology. London : Paul Chapman, The Open

University, pp. 115 - 121.

Fry, R. ( 1988 ) ‘ An Essay in Aesthetics ‘ In Frascina, F., Harrison, C. (eds.) Modern

Art and Modernism : A Critical Anthology. London : Paul Chapman, The Open

University, pp. 79 - 87.

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Greenberg, C. ( 1988 ) ‘ Modernist Painting ‘ In Frascina, F., Harrison, C. (eds.)

Modern Art and Modernism : A Critical Anthology. London : Paul Chapman, The Open

University, pp. 5 - 10.

Harris, J. ( 1993 ) ‘ Abstract Expressionism and the Politics of Criticism ‘ In Wood, P.,

Frascina, F., Harris, J., Harrison, C. ( eds. ) Modernism in Dispute : Art since the

Forties. New Haven, London : Yale University Press, The Open University, pp. 42 - 65.

Harrison, C. ( 1993 ) ‘ Cézanne ‘ In Frascina, F., Blake, N., Fer, B., Garb, T., Harrison,

C. ( eds. ) Modernity and Modernism : French Painting in the Nineteenth Century.

New Haven, London : Yale University Press, The Open University, pp. 201 - 213.

Schapiro, M. ( 1982 ) ‘ Abstract Art ‘ In Schapiro, M. ( ed. ) Modern Art : 19th and

20th Centuries : Selected Papers. New York : George Braziller, pp. 185 - 232.

Schapiro, M. ( 1982 ) ‘ Mondrian ‘ In Schapiro, M. ( ed. ) Modern Art : 19th and

20th Centuries : Selected Papers. New York : George Braziller, pp. 233 - 261.

Wood, P. ( 2003 ) ‘ Modernity and Modernism ‘ In Gaiger, J. ( ed. ) Frameworks for

Modern Art. New Haven, London : Yale University Press, The Open University, pp. 16

- 27.

Wood, P. ( 2004 ) ‘ The Idea of an Abstract Art ‘ In Edwards, S., Wood, P. ( eds. )

Art of the Avant – Gardes. London : Yale University Press, The Open University, pp.

229 - 271.

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Illustration List

( Fig. 1 ) : Manet, Édouard ( 1873 ) The Railway, Oil on canvas, 93.3 x 111.5 cm,

National Gallery of Art, Washington.

( Fig. 2 ) : Pissarro, Camille ( 1897 ) The Boulevard Monmartre at Night, Oil on

canvas, 53 x 65 cm, The National Gallery, London.

( Fig. 3 ) : Cézanne, Paul ( c. 1900 ) The Grounds of the Château Noir, Oil on canvas,

91 x 71 cm, The National Gallery, London.

( Fig. 4 ) : Matisse, Henri ( 1914 ) View of Notre – Dame, Oil on canvas, 147.3 x 94.3

cm, Museum of Modern Art, New York.

( Fig. 5 ) : Mondrian, Piet ( 1916 – 17 ) Composition in Line, Oil on canvas, 108 x 108

cm, Kröller - Müller Museum, Otterlo.

( Fig. 6 ) : Malevich, Kasimir ( 1918 – 19 ) White on White, Oil on canvas, 79 x 79

cm, Museum of Modern Art, New York.

( Fig. 7 ) : Pollock, Jackson ( 1950 ) Autumn Rhythm, Oil on canvas, 267 x 526 cm,

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

( Fig. 8 ) : Rothko, Mark ( 1957 ) Red, White and Brown, Oil on canvas, 253 x 208

cm, Kunstmuseum, Basel.

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