Notes Made in Lecture:
• Modernity: Historical phase in western society.
• Our Contemporary culture is much influenced by Modernism.
• Modernity – Industrialisation, urbanisation.
• Modern artist’s response to the city.
• Psychology and subjective experience
• New art forms such as Photography emerged ultimately from the Modern era.
• John Ruskin – 1819-1900
• Modernity starts mid 18th century, ends early 20th century – can be argued.
• Ruskin was one of the first to describe “Modern”. Moving away from the “Classical”.
• “The Highland Shepherd” – Holman Hunt.
• “The New Women” photomontage, Spanish pavilion, Paris International Exhibition. 1937.
• Positivity, progression, to improve – Modern.
• TATE Modern – The most cutting edge progression in art.
• Optimism, looking forwards, to build, always to improve.
• Charles Jencks – says modernism died after demolition of the Pruitt, 15th July 1972. SYMBOLISM.
• Paris 1900 – quintessential modern city. – industrial centre, urbanisation.
• Pre modern – William Holman Hunt, rural, ordered by seasons.
• Trottoir Roullant – (electric moving walkway).
• Rapid advances in technology.
• Railways, Telephone get invented – V. IMPT.
• Mass communication, the world shrinks to be a more manageable place.
• Dense society, faster moving.
• World Time Standardised – had to come up with this after the invention of the railway system.
• A world full of discovery and dizzying experiment.
• Shopping as leisure activity starts in Modernism.
• Hyde Park Picture House – Site of Modernity – GO SEE.
• “Enlightment Project” – period in late 18th century when scientific/philosophical thinking made leaps and bounds.
• Secularisation.
• Process of rationality & reason.
• THE CITY – modernism – almost a figure.
• A whole new pace/style of life.
• “The Painter of Modern Life” – poem/ essay first documentation.
• The experience of the city is the subject.
• “Haussmarisation”
• Paris 1850s on = a New Paris.
• Hausman – city architect redesigns Paris.
• Lots of old crumbling streets/danger lots of crime.
• Large boulevards replaced the narrow streets of Paris. First city really to reinvent itself.
• Caillebotte – Painter capturing ‘Modern Life’ , the experience of the modern city.
• Psychology experiments, speed of modern life would send people crazy.
• How the mind is effected by the speed of modern life.
• Alienation within modern world, increased divide between working class and middle class.
• Fashion is an important factor within a city it divides you from the crowd and shows individuality.
• Degas – “ Absinthe Drinker” – psycho active drink, bi-product of modernity.
• Composition shows it new artistic form influenced and response from Photography.
• Painting starts a dialogue with Photography.
• Kaiser panorama – 1883 – viewing experience.
• Engaging with the world more visually with the image.
• Max Nordau – Degeneration – 1892 – anti-modernist, thought it was awful to be bombarded with information, The degeneration of humanity.
• Modernism emerges out of the subjective responses of artists/designers to; MODERNITY.
• Subjective experience, how people experience modernity.
• Modernism through any art form, is a way of responding the experience.
• To paint the “experience” the sensory dislocation. Monet – new techniques.
• Experimenting with painting in this time is a response from the threat of Photography.
• Paintings formally where the only way to document the world. Photography takes this and does it more objectively.
• Different views of the world gives you a different understanding of the world.
• Relationship between science, new forms of knowledge, artistically.
• Dialogue between the Modern & the Modernist.
• Anti-Historicism – Modernism in design.
• Truth to materials.
• Form follows Function.
• Technology
• Internationalism
• Cutlery produced with new material, new style, simplicity, anti-decoration, functionality first. Form Follows function.
• Adolf Loos – “Ornament is crime” 1908.
• Simple geometric forms appropriate to the material being used.
• No need to look backward to older styles.
• Designs going by the idea of being timeless.
• The Bauhaus – Radical art institution.
• “Internationalism” – A language of design that could be understandable to all.
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