What do all these

texts have in
common?
Postmodernism
 Modernism
Before postmodernism there was modernism.
L.O: To understand the origins and principles of the modernist
movement.
 Premodernism
In the premodern period, the primary sources of
knowledge and understanding came from
authoritative sources.

In premodern times it was believed that ultimate

truth could be known and the way to this
knowledge was through direct revelation. This
direct revelation was generally assumed to come
from God.

The main source of authority was the church as

they were the holders and interpreters of revealed
knowledge.
 Modernism
Modernism arose from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to western society in
the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It developed out of the Victorian industrial
period as a cultural response to technological innovation and social change.

Modernism rejected the certainty of premodernist thinking, and also

that of the existence of a compassionate, all-powerful Creator.
Modernism can be viewed as a questioning of the axioms (Dictionary
Search) of the previous age.

Modernism was a revolt against the conservative values of realism.

What is realism?

It rejected all forms of tradition in the arts and architecture.

What are the arts?

It reworked the definition of what could be considered art.

 Modernism
Modernists felt the "traditional" forms of art, architecture, literature, religious faith, social
organisation and daily life were becoming outdated in the new economic, social, and
political conditions of an emerging fully industrialised world.

A characteristic of modernism is self-consciousness. This self-consciousness often led to

experiments with form and work that draws attention to the processes and materials used.

It embraced discontinuity, rejecting smooth change in everything from biology to fictional

character development and filmmaking. It approved disruption, rejecting or moving beyond
simple realism in literature and art, and rejecting or dramatically altering tonality in music.

Exhibitions, theatre, cinema, books and buildings all served to cement in the public view the
perception that the world was changing. Hostile reaction often followed, as paintings were
spat upon, riots organised at the opening of works, and political figures denounced
modernism as unwholesome and immoral.

By 1930, Modernism had entered popular culture. With the increasing urbanisation of
populations, it was beginning to be looked to as the source for ideas to deal with the
challenges of the day. Popular Culture, which was not derived from high culture but instead
from its own realities (particularly mass production) fuelled much modernist innovation.
 An example
of modernist
art
During the late 1940s Jackson Pollack's radical approach
to painting revolutionised the potential for all
contemporary art that followed him. Pollock realised that
the journey toward making a work of art was as important
as the work of art itself. Pollock redefined the way art
gets made. His move away from easel painting and
conventionality was liberating to the artists of his era and
to all who came after. Pollock's process involved placing
unstretched raw canvas on the floor where it could be
attacked from all four sides using artistic and industrial
materials; dripping and throwing linear skeins of paint;
drawing, staining, and brushing; using imagery and non-
imagery
 Is it art?
Barnett Newman,
Who's Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue?, 1966
 Pop Art
This movement rejected abstract
expressionism in favour of art that
depicted and often celebrated
material consumer culture,
advertising, and iconography of the
mass production age.
 Challenging
art
In the early 20th century Marcel Duchamp exhibited a
urinal as a sculpture. His intent was that people look
at the urinal as if it were a work of art because he said
it was a work of art. Fountain was a urinal signed with
the pseudonym R. Mutt, the exhibition of which
shocked the art world in 1917. Duchamp can be seen
as a precursor to conceptual art. Other famous
examples being John Cage's 433, which is four
minutes and thirty three seconds of silence. Many
conceptual works take the position that art is the result
of the viewer viewing an object or act as art, not of the
intrinsic qualities of the work itself. Thus, because
Fountain was exhibited, it was a sculpture.
 The pursuit of truth
Many modernists believed that by rejecting
tradition they could discover radically new
ways of making art.
The pursuit of truth and the ability of
humans to seek it was demonstrated in the
arts.
They attacked traditional realism and
traditional modes of representation in order
to reveal the truth in the human
condition.
 Modernism in Film
Modernist filmmakers emphasised
rather than hid the collisions
produced by editing.
They sought to make audiences
question what they saw.
Crucially they questioned the surface
appearance to create a critical and
questioning stance in their audiences.
 Criticisms of
Modernism
The most controversial aspect of the modern movement was its
rejection of tradition. Modernism's stress on freedom of expression
and experimentation disregards conventional expectations.

In many art forms this often meant startling and alienating

audiences with bizarre and unpredictable effects, as in the strange
and disturbing combinations of motifs in surrealism.

In literature this often involved the rejection of intelligible plots or

characterisation in novels, or the creation of poetry that defied
clear interpretation.

The Soviet Communist government rejected modernism as elitist

while the Nazi government of Germany deemed it narcissistic and
nonsensical, exhibiting modernist paintings alongside works by
the mentally ill in an exhibition entitled Degenerate Art.
 Plenary
Having discussed the modernist
movement, has your view on what can
be considered art changed at all?