Modernity & Modernism

Lecture

Modernity & Modernism - Richard Mills

Remember: 24th sept - 15th jan V&A post modernism style subversion 1970 - 90

Terms: modern, modernity - brings a change of culture - industrialization, urbanization - the city

modern artists response to the city

psychology and subjective experience

modern art and photography

defining ‘modernism’ in art

John Ruskin - 1819-1900

wrote book called Modern Painters - used it as ‘the now’

new woman - improvement on traditional woman - now capable of doing manual labour, working, voting etc

new - describing it as progression

term shifts and meaning - improvement of quality

Paris 1900, the signs of modernity

Paris was most modern city at the time, competition with Britain ‘who was more modern’ - to be later replaced by New York

urban and modern was rapidly different at the time, modernity said to be finished in its 60s

‘How can modernism of ended’ people say ‘we live in post modernism’

urbanization

farming is now heavy industry

urbanization brings density of people to city - a mass of people together that don’t know each other

life speeds up due to invention of trains, whole country now accessible in hours

invention of phone

new sites of leisure, cinema etc, forms of distraction, bikes, electricity

Trottoir Roullant - electric  moving walkaway - 7km n hour, allows people to interact with the city

London Crystal Palace, great exhibition

attempt to beat paris

cultural race who can be most cultural city between Paris and London

enlightenment project - basically where world starts to turn to science and philosophy instead of religion in late 18th century (thinking made leaps and bounds)

City becomes social life, where everything happens, the hub, a character itself, and an object study due to social dynamics

railways becoming national and international, countries agree on world time, people ran days by solar clock, increased density of population increases alienation and loneliness

fashion starts to become a key signifier of yourself, you have to find ways to identify and express yourself

Haussmanisation

Paris 1950’s on - a new paris

old Paris architecture of narrow streets and run down housing is ripped out haussman (city architect) redesigns paris

form of social control interesting side effect - modernizing paris

peoples interactions start to change, electric street lights come in.

growth of psychology late 1800s

people worried with inventions, would eventually make people go mad - effecting artists work

throughout period of modernity - direct change to society - almost forced art into a different place

society modernizes art - NOT modernizing society

bring out interactions with people

painting by Surat?

modern scene suggestions of prostitution

juxtaposed dots and colors

technique developed by optical sciences, a new discovery especially in art

Surat 2

factory workers, with factory behind them, shift work ends so relaxing (free time)

life becomes rational, sneaking in on a break whilst rich go by on their boats - class separation

photography changes what painters does

kaiserpanorama 1883

mass optical viewing devise

sit on chair (like peep show) and view images of landscapes

what it represents - psychology - why  people chose to pay to do that instead of go seeing the sites themselves

we get our understanding and see life through a television and the internet

isolated, individualized - modern phenomenon - changes world not always for the better

Max Nordau - book  degeneration 1892

contemporary critics worried about changes of society - people seeing modern world as bad - others celebrated it

max predicted ‘the end of the 20th century will probably see a generation of whom it will not be injurious to read a dozen square yard of newspapers daily (yes internet) - to be constantly called to the telephone, to be thinking simultaneously of the 5 continents of the world, to live half their time in a railway carriage, or in a flying machine and... know to find their ease in the mist...

The Lumiere brothers - radical - people had not seen anything like it. They showed a train coming to a stop at a platform - the audience ran away thinking it was coming at them! never had seen film before.

if we start to think about the subjective experience (the experience of the person/ individual and thoughts of themselves in modern world) we come close to understanding modern art and experience of modernity - modernism emerges out of the subjective response of artists.

modernism in art/design

its emerging of changing the world

the same change occurs in design, which will respond to the world and whats happening at the time.

anti - historicism (always looks forward) moderns better/good (and doesn’t look back)

truth to materials (let materials speak for themselves)

form follows function (beauty follows its function)

technology

internationalism

Adolf Loos (1908) wrote an essay - ornament is crime

truth to materials, simple geometric forms appropriate to the material being used, form follows function

Bau Haus - foundation school in Dessau

was a modern building, big windows, wall is nothing but concrete, new font

technology

new materials; concrete, new technologies of steel, plastics, aluminum, reinforced glass

mass production

reinforced resin and steel to design the modern hill shoes for women

conclusion

the term modern is not a neutral term - suggests novelty and improvement

modernity (1750-1960) - social and cultural experience

modernism - range of ideas and styles that sprang from modernity

importance of modernism: 1) a vocab of styles. 2) art and design education. 3) idea of form follows function

Seminar Continued with Gary Barker

Modernism as abstraction

reference:

Letlye color box (1935)

Mary Ellen Bute, color rhapsodie (1948)

Oskar Fischinger designing Disney’s Fantasia/ Worked for Walt Disney (hidden under walt)

Modernism and the myth of artists

Vincent Van Gosh

John Brapby - one of the first portrait commissions was to paint Coronation Street.