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Modernism

Modernism. Historical Context. World War I – “The Great War” introduced technology of destruction Communism Stalin’s industrialization of the Soviet Union 20 million dead Social realism in the arts

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Modernism

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  1. Modernism

  2. Historical Context • World War I – “The Great War” introduced technology of destruction • Communism • Stalin’s industrialization of the Soviet Union • 20 million dead • Social realism in the arts • Fascism – nationalism and racism: Hitler’s institutionalization of genocide, radio and film used for propaganda

  3. Mass Media in the U.S. • Documentary arts: Commercial film Radio programs Posters Photography

  4. Science • Einstein’s Theory of Relativity • Quantum mechanics

  5. Picasso • Mastered traditional techniques • blue period • rose period • Abandoned Renaissance tradition – new rules • Developed cubism with Georges Braque – it was an attempt to shatter previous ideas about form • Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (fig. 21.3)

  6. Influences on Picasso • Cézanne’s work • African and Polynesian masks • Iberian sculpture

  7. Cubism • Revolutionary departure from representational art. The area around painted objects became part of the abstract geometric forms. • Presented the object from many angles simultaneously • An attempt to present an object in a “perceptual” way – idea that as we look at something, we “see” one side, but “perceive” its other sides (and interiors) as well.

  8. Stages of Cubism • Analytical phase: browns and grays, colors should not distract from lines and planes • Synthetic phase: collage

  9. Abstraction • Pure line, shape and color – non-representational (no recognizable objects) • Sculpture: Brancusi’s Bird in Space (fig. 21.18) • Painting: Piet Mondrian’s Composition in Red, Yellow, and Blue (fig.21.17)

  10. Anti-Art • Dada: rejection of reason and order in art • Marcel Duchamp’s “ready-mades:” The Fountain (fig.21.12) • Later influenced performance art, pop art

  11. Expressionism • German Expressionism: Die Brücke (The Bridge) and Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) • Inspired by Fauves (Matisse) • Color caused “vibrations in the soul (Kandinsky in Concerning the Spiritual in Art).” • Emil Nolde’s Dance Around the Golden Calf (fig. 21.18) • Wassily Kandinsky’s Improvisation No. 30 (Warlike Theme) (fig. 21.19)

  12. Freud • The Interpretation of Dreams influenced the humanities of the Twentieth Century • Psychoanalysis: freeing unconscious desires repressed by parental and societal taboos

  13. Surrealism • Ideas supported by a willful misinterpretation of Freud • André Breton: automatism • Surrealist painters sought to release the images of the subconscious • Joan Miró: Painting (fig. 21.14) • Salvador Dalí: The Persistence of Memory (fig. 21.15)

  14. Modernism in Literature • Poetry: • meter and rhyme discarded • complexity, historical allusions • poetry should reflect the difficulty of experience • Prose: • stream of consciousness narrative • conveyed characters inner selves • complexity, historical allusions

  15. Modernist Literature • T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land: new hero – ironic, frustrating, disappointing, self-doubting, anxious • Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis: character becomes a giant insect • Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway: interior monologues occurring throughout a single day • James Joyce’s Ulysses: asingle day in the life of Leopold Bloom • Ernest Hemingway’s In Our Time: depicts the realities of war

  16. Music/Stravinsky • Stravinsky’s music introduced multiple meters, or polyrhythm, and multiple simultaneous keys or polytonality, disturbing dissonance • Le Sacré du Printemps shocked the music world • Russian folk tradition • Diaghilev: artistic director • Nijinsky: dancer/choreographer

  17. Music/Schoenberg • Rejected the classical tradition of orchestral music • Atonal music: not composed in a key – expressionistic • Twelve-tone method: not popular with audiences • Pierrot Lunaire

  18. Modernist Architecture • Bauhaus School (German) – Walter Gropius: clean, functional design • Le Corbusier (French) functional glass and metal designs • Art deco: sleek, simple shapes with decorative forms, like the “gargoyles” of the Chrysler Building

  19. American Artists • Georgia O’Keeffe: Yellow Calla (fig. 21.25) • Edward Hopper: Nighthawks (fig. 21.35) • Dorothea Lange: Migrant Mother; Nipomo, California (fig.21.30) • William Faulkner: The Sound and the Fury • Flannery O’Connor

  20. American Dance • Modern Dance: freedom from classical ballet – Isadora Duncan • Modern Ballet: classical training/freer expression – George Ballanchine, Martha Graham

  21. American Music • Aaron Copland: Appalachian Spring • Charles Ives: 114 Songs • George Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue, Porgy and Bess

  22. American Architecture • Frank Lloyd Wright – organic design that works with the environment • Fallingwater (fig. 21.23) • Furniture designed by Wright in his homes

  23. Jazz! • Improvised melodies, “swing” rhythm • African-American origins • George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, Rhapsody in Blue • Large dance bands • Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Charlie “Bird” Parker, John Coltrane, Miles Davis

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