Modernism, from the French word “moderne” or the newest, modern, was a general name for the cultural and art-aesthetic movement beginning at the end of the 19th and progressing into the 20th century. In many respects, Modernist thinking has paved the way for the development and practice of the modern art. Modernism unites a set of independent art directions, such as expressionism, cubism or futurism, on both the social scale and its cultural and creative value. Those separate art movements, although all original and revolutionary in their opposition to the traditions of Academic art and restrictive Victorian code of conduct, often contradict each other in their creative ways of expressing reality. However, what unites them is the philosophical outlook on the truths and realities of the world that is emerging in philosophical inquiries of their contemporaries. Modernism becomes the culture of denying previously presupposed truths, anti-traditionalism that went against the norms of the previously admired academic style of painting. There is an overt split from the previously moral and historical, from “preaching” and educating and, instead, a major refocus on finding new ways of perceiving and expressing reality.
Sharply experiencing the disharmony of the world, expressed in Nietzsche’s proclamation that the God is dead with moral compasses abandoned to the state of chaos and no truth to be taken as certain (Wood 203-204), Avant-gardists and later Modernists are facing the world as severe, absurd and alienated. Since many previous notions of reality are no longer valid, questioned by Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard and Freud, Modernist artists have to find new order and language to express art as both a way of self-expression of the artist and a hypothesis of the world truths as well as their continuous transformation. The artists search for answers in the present and try to glance into the future instead of reminiscing and rehearsing the events of the past. The departure from controlled structure and rigid moral undercurrents, let the philosophers, socialists and artists express their individuality and open their minds to possibilities unrelated to the past historical experiences. It allows them to go deeper, into discovery of true human self with its sensibility and, often, its agonizing irrationality and chaos. The thinking becomes fragmented as reflection of human unconsciousness and the state of events is less idealized and often presents itself realistically bleak and disappointing. The conceptual thinking becomes an inseparatable component of creative process making art a reflection of both the artist’s creative and spiritual process as well as the viewer’s reaction to it. In his essay “A Model of Modernism” Norman F. Cantor ascribes several defining characteristics of the Modernist movement, among which are the focus of disharmonious and fragmentary, functionalism and sexual openness (Cantor 45-47).
Pablo Picasso "Man with Violin"
Pablo Picasso "The Poet"
Pablo Picasso’s work, such as “Man with Violin” and “The Poet”, is highly fragmented, made out of fractions that separately could be identified but put together do not add up to an objective totality. By looking at “Man with Violin,” we see the nose of the musician, his mustache and a fraction of the violin but they do not add up to create his comprehensive portrait. Similarly in “The Poet,” the portrait once harmoniously combined seems to be like a mirror smashed against the concrete floor, its pieces scattered then put together at random, with the “scroll of paper” and the eyes and mouth of the poet placed at logically incomprehensible positions. There is no longer a predetermined pattern but a disharmonious composition lacking conclusive finish. However, the totality is not nonexistent but, instead, it is transferred from individual identities to relationships of multiple facets, their unique interaction and unity. Although we are not sure what to look for as totality we can still identify the fragments and process them as part of the reality seeking interpretation. Since there is no specific order in which fragments should combine in order to be perceived and understood, the elements of the cubist work become interchangeable and its composition becomes a link holding disassociated fractions. The fragments are put together by the mind of the cubist and processed by the mind of the viewer, thus, rendering the work highly subjective to interpretation.
Giacomo Balla "Dynamism of the Dog on a Leash"
Marcel Duchamp
"Nude Descending a Staircase No 2"
Giacomo Balla’s “Dynamism of the Dog on a Leash” is a great example of futurist work and its fascination with speed, power, machines and technology. The concern with simultaneity of movement in time is recorded by divisionist method of painting and interpretations of the abstract effects of light on the moving objects. The dog appears to be multi-legged with the image smudged and the leash appearing as forming a cone instead of a single line. The painting escapes its two-dimensional frame and introduces the concept of time as a new dimension. The speed as well as movement are closely analyzed and their function is broken up into fragments in order to be analyzed and understood from a scientific perspective. “Nude Descending a Staircase No 2” by Marcel Duchamp is another great example of fascination with how things work in motion set against the increment of time. The figure is fragmented and extended in time as though it was photographed at a very high speed smudging the movement in the air or simply recorded and put together as a continuous progression in time placed on a continuous line of action. The
beginning of 20th century and Industrial revolution brought many developments to the inquisitive eye of both the scientist and the artist. The machines were studied with precision that transferred to the same scientific and physiological fascination with the movement of the human body in space, its function.
Edouard Manet "Olympia"
Egon Schiele "Standing Nude Young Girl"
Edouard Manet’s “Olympia” is a new take on female nudity and sexuality. The academic tradition held that nude was a goddess and in her lack of clothing reflected purity. The nude was always a creation of imagination, referring to mythology or historical event. In Manet’s painting, however, the woman, who is no longer a creation of artist’s fantasy but an actual courtesan named Victorine Meurent, is not a nude but a naked temptress boasting sexually alluring boudoir mules and a red flower in her hair. She gazes at us with her shameless fearless eyes. The flowers in the hands of her servant and the hissing cat acknowledge a presence of the stranger in the room. Since the cat is directed at the viewer and so is the gaze of Victorine, there could be a logical connotation that the viewer becomes Olympia’s next trick. Egon Schiele’s “Standing Nude Young Girl” shows another side of exploration into the realm of sexuality. It no longer focuses on the beauty of the female form but, on the opposite, Schiele’s method of depiction, ascribed to the Expressionist style of painting, is harsh and almost repulsive and, instead, gives his subjects a soul full of vulnerability, insecurity and painful air of loneliness. Where depiction of “Olympia” is marked with artistic precision and vividness of color and shades, “Standing Nude Young Girl” looks like an unfinished sketch boasting little decorative elements besides the fragile naked frame of the girl and her helpless gaze.
The end of 19th and beginning of 20th century showed many new philosophical and cultural trends as well as forms and styles of creative expression, yet what united this time period under a single name of Modernism is dynamism of inquisitive search for new reality, innovative norms of perceiving and processing the world and pressing social responsibility for the community that was once rigid and highly divided but now, with technological innovations, is pressed closer together needing new strategies of communicating and coexisting.
Bibliography:
Wood, Robert E. Nietzsche’s Horizon. Placing Aesthetics. Ohio University Press, 1999
Cantor, Norman F. Modernism. The American Century. HarperPerennial, 1998
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