GENERAL DESCRIPTION
With the Industrial Revolution of the 18th century came the rapid growth of cities and unprecedented technological developments. During the 19th century, print media circulation increased and travel became more readily accessible, both of which contributed to the social dynamics of urban centers. These new conditions, later collectively termed "modernity", also resulted in the firm belief that science and reason would continually improve quality of life, health, and education. At the same time, many Western European nations benefited from colonial territories in Africa and Asia, which contributed to a sense of ever-expanding knowledge of far-off places.
In general, modern art responds to the complex conditions of modernity. Various movements at different points in time respond to these conditions in different ways. Some movements and styles, such as Impressionism, Pointillism, and Cubism moved away from ideas of art as a means to mimic nature, instead incorporating emerging ideas about the science of light, color, and vision. For example, Camille Pissaro's Apple Harvest uses the vibration caused by tiny brightly-colored dabs of paint to create the impression of afternoon sunshine [1955.17.M]. Cubism, a later pioneering movement, acknowledges the inability of human vision to perceive every surface of an object at once and plays with the limits of perception by fragmenting space and emphasizing texture, thereby offering an entirely new way to experience everyday objects. The still-life Guitar and Pipe, by Juan Gris, aptly demonstrates this [1998.219.McD].
A major hallmark of modern art is its emphasis on the materiality of the medium, the idea that the meaning of a work derives from the paint itself, how it lays on the canvas, or how color and form interact. These ideas date back to Impressionism and Cubism, but are evident as well in more recent work by artists such as Joan Mitchell, Lee Krasner, Jackson Pollock, Helen Frankenthaler, Richard Diebenkorn, or Robert Motherwell. For example, Motherwell's In Black and White, No. 1 emphasizes the raw materiality of how paint spatters and scrapes across canvas [1981.130]. Tied to the exploration of medium, geometry, and form is an emphasis on artists' authenticity, originality, and the perceived universality of their work. Minimalism brought these ideas to their fullest realization through geometric abstraction. While Modernism continues to influence how we think about art, many of its tenets, and especially the conception of the artist-as-genius, have come under criticism since the rise of postmodernist thinking during the sixties and seventies.
Chloë Courtney, Digital Collections Content Coordinator, 2018
Drawn from
- Suzanne Weaver, DMA research document "Modernism/Postmodernism," n.d., Education files
- Kim Levin, "Farewell to Modernism," in Theories of contemporary art, Richard Hertz (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1985).
- Clement Greenberg, "Avant-Garde and Kitsch," in Art and Culture: Critical Essays (Boston: Beacon Press, 1965).
- H.H. Arnason and Elizabeth C. Mansfield, "The Origins of Modern Art," in History of Modern Art: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, Photography, (Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2010), 1-16.
NOTES
MODERNISM -- scientific, belief in progress, experimental, self-referential, reductionistic, exclusivity, purity, self-critical, style, originality, authenticity, formalism, significant form, individualistic, risk-taking, presence, self-defining, timelessness, universality, self-reflexive, purity of media, artist as original, art work as unique
"I identify Modernism with the intensification, almost exacerbation, of this self-critical tendency that began with the philosopher Kant. Because he was the first to criticize the means itself of criticism, I conceive of Kant as the first real Modernist...The essence of Modernism lies, as I see it, in the use of the characteristics methods of a discipline to criticize the discipline itself--not only to subvert it, but to entrench it more firmly in its area of competence...Nothing could be further from the authentic art of our time than the idea of a rupture of continuity. Art is, among many other things, continuity. Without the past of art, and without the need and compulsion to maintain past standards of excellence, such a thing as Modernist art would be impossible." CLEMENT GREENBERG, "Modernist Painting" in Modem Art and Modernism: A Critical Anthology
"It (modern art) was experimental: the creation of new forms was its task. Every since Impressionism ventured into optics, it shared the method and logic of science. There were the Einsteinian relativities of Cubist geometry, the technological visions of Constructivism and Futurism, de Stijl and Bauhaus, the Dadaist' diagrammatic machinery. Even Surrealist visualizations of Freudian dreamworlds and Abstract Expressionist enactments of psychoanalytical processes were attempts to tame the irrational and rational techniques. For the modernist period believed in scientific objectivity, scientific invention: its art had the logic of structure, the logic of dreams, the logic of gesture and material. It longed for perfection and demanded purity, clarity, and order. And it denied everything else, especially the past: idealistic, ideological, and optimistic modernism was predicated on the glorious future, the new and improved." KID LEVIN, "Farewell to Modernism," in Theories in Contemporary Art
"This is the genesis of the abstract. In turning his attention away from subject matter of common experience, the poet or artist turns it in upon the medium of his own craft ...Picasso, Braque, Mondrian, Miro, Kandinsky, Brancusi, even Klee, Matisse and Cezanne derive their chief inspiration from the medium they work in. The excitement of their art seems to lie most of all in its pure arrangement of spaces, surfaces, shapes, colors, etc. to the exclusion of whatever is not necessarily implicated in these factors. CLEMENT GREENBERG, "Avant-Garde and Kitsch," in Art and Culture
From
Suzanne Weaver, DMA research document "Modernism/Postmodernism," n.d., Education files
Copied Emily's notes here for future reference. CLC, 7/27/18.
Meanwhile, Freudian analysis and its scientific effort to understand the human subconscious heavily influenced the Dada and Surrealist movements during the early twentieth century. The Dadas and Surrealists held a cynical view of modernity and the technological advances it promised, due in part to the ravages of the first World War. They embraced the bizarre as a way to jolt oneself out of the social conditioning and neurological psychoses caused by modernity. Apparitions, a desolate landscape by Yves Tanguy reveals a concern with the mysteries of the unconscious
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General Description
With the Industrial Revolution of the 18th century came the rapid growth of cities and unprecedented technological developments. During the 19th century, print media circulation increased and travel became more readily accessible, both of which contributed to the social dynamics of urban centers. These new conditions, later collectively termed "modernity", also resulted in the firm belief that science and reason would continually improve quality of life, health, and education. At the same time, many Western European nations benefited from colonial territories in Africa and Asia, which contributed to a sense of ever-expanding knowledge of far-off places.
In general, modern art responds to the complex conditions of modernity. Various movements at different points in time respond to these conditions in different ways. Some movements and styles, such as Impressionism, Pointillism, and Cubism moved away from ideas of art as a means to mimic nature, instead incorporating emerging ideas about the science of light, color, and vision. For example, Camille Pissaro's Apple Harvest uses the vibration caused by tiny brightly-colored dabs of paint to create the impression of afternoon sunshine [1955.17.M]. Cubism, a later pioneering movement, acknowledges the inability of human vision to perceive every surface of an object at once and plays with the limits of perception by fragmenting space and emphasizing texture, thereby offering an entirely new way to experience everyday objects. The still-life Guitar and Pipe, by Juan Gris, aptly demonstrates this [1998.219.McD].
A major hallmark of modern art is its emphasis on the materiality of the medium, the idea that the meaning of a work derives from the paint itself, how it lays on the canvas, or how color and form interact. These ideas date back to Impressionism and Cubism, but are evident as well in more recent work by artists such as Joan Mitchell, Lee Krasner, Jackson Pollock, Helen Frankenthaler, Richard Diebenkorn, or Robert Motherwell. For example, Motherwell's In Black and White, No. 1 emphasizes the raw materiality of how paint spatters and scrapes across canvas [1981.130]. Tied to the exploration of medium, geometry, and form is an emphasis on artists' authenticity, originality, and the perceived universality of their work. Minimalism brought these ideas to their fullest realization through geometric abstraction. While Modernism continues to influence how we think about art, many of its tenets, and especially the conception of the artist-as-genius, have come under criticism since the rise of postmodernist thinking during the sixties and seventies.
Chloë Courtney, Digital Collections Content Coordinator, 2018
Drawn from
- Suzanne Weaver, DMA research document "Modernism/Postmodernism," n.d., Education files
- Kim Levin, "Farewell to Modernism," in Theories of contemporary art, Richard Hertz (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1985).
- Clement Greenberg, "Avant-Garde and Kitsch," in Art and Culture: Critical Essays (Boston: Beacon Press, 1965).
- H.H. Arnason and Elizabeth C. Mansfield, "The Origins of Modern Art," in History of Modern Art: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, Photography, (Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2010), 1-16.
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Notes
MODERNISM -- scientific, belief in progress, experimental, self-referential, reductionistic, exclusivity, purity, self-critical, style, originality, authenticity, formalism, significant form, individualistic, risk-taking, presence, self-defining, timelessness, universality, self-reflexive, purity of media, artist as original, art work as unique
"I identify Modernism with the intensification, almost exacerbation, of this self-critical tendency that began with the philosopher Kant. Because he was the first to criticize the means itself of criticism, I conceive of Kant as the first real Modernist...The essence of Modernism lies, as I see it, in the use of the characteristics methods of a discipline to criticize the discipline itself--not only to subvert it, but to entrench it more firmly in its area of competence...Nothing could be further from the authentic art of our time than the idea of a rupture of continuity. Art is, among many other things, continuity. Without the past of art, and without the need and compulsion to maintain past standards of excellence, such a thing as Modernist art would be impossible." CLEMENT GREENBERG, "Modernist Painting" in Modem Art and Modernism: A Critical Anthology
"It (modern art) was experimental: the creation of new forms was its task. Every since Impressionism ventured into optics, it shared the method and logic of science. There were the Einsteinian relativities of Cubist geometry, the technological visions of Constructivism and Futurism, de Stijl and Bauhaus, the Dadaist' diagrammatic machinery. Even Surrealist visualizations of Freudian dreamworlds and Abstract Expressionist enactments of psychoanalytical processes were attempts to tame the irrational and rational techniques. For the modernist period believed in scientific objectivity, scientific invention: its art had the logic of structure, the logic of dreams, the logic of gesture and material. It longed for perfection and demanded purity, clarity, and order. And it denied everything else, especially the past: idealistic, ideological, and optimistic modernism was predicated on the glorious future, the new and improved." KID LEVIN, "Farewell to Modernism," in Theories in Contemporary Art
"This is the genesis of the abstract. In turning his attention away from subject matter of common experience, the poet or artist turns it in upon the medium of his own craft ...Picasso, Braque, Mondrian, Miro, Kandinsky, Brancusi, even Klee, Matisse and Cezanne derive their chief inspiration from the medium they work in. The excitement of their art seems to lie most of all in its pure arrangement of spaces, surfaces, shapes, colors, etc. to the exclusion of whatever is not necessarily implicated in these factors. CLEMENT GREENBERG, "Avant-Garde and Kitsch," in Art and Culture
From
Suzanne Weaver, DMA research document "Modernism/Postmodernism," n.d., Education files
Copied Emily's notes here for future reference. CLC, 7/27/18.
Meanwhile, Freudian analysis and its scientific effort to understand the human subconscious heavily influenced the Dada and Surrealist movements during the early twentieth century. The Dadas and Surrealists held a cynical view of modernity and the technological advances it promised, due in part to the ravages of the first World War. They embraced the bizarre as a way to jolt oneself out of the social conditioning and neurological psychoses caused by modernity. Apparitions, a desolate landscape by Yves Tanguy reveals a concern with the mysteries of the unconscious
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