Humanities - Modernism in Art, Literature and Film - Essay Example

Humanities: Modernism in Art, Literature and Film Table of Contents Answer 3 Answer 2) 4 Answer 3) 5 Answer 4) 6 References 8 Answer The standard web definition of modernism and the perspective of modernism as a literary or cultural movement are often overlapped. The term modernism is a wide - umbrella term and refers to a “radical shift in aesthetic and cultural sensibilities evident in the art and literature of the post - World War One period”. 1 Modernism refers more specifically to a set of cultural activities and movement and a range of associated display of cultural and social movements evolving out of wide - scale and far - reaching transformations in western society during the era of late nineteenth century and early half of twentieth century. The first half of the nineteenth century Europe witnessed a large number of wars and revolution that consequently lead to “turning away” form traditional form of aesthetics and evolved a new genre of art, culture and social activities. Modernism rejected the doctrine of the conviction in “Enlightenment Thinking” and negated the existence of an empathetic and omnipotent creator. But these essentially doesn’t mean that the movement of modernism negated the existence for all kinds of religion and existence of god, nor do they rejected every kind of “Enlightened Thought”, to be more precise rather, modernism was a movement that challenged and questioned the maxims of the previous age. Modernism, therefore, marks a very distinguishing difference with the Victorian bourgeois morality and a complete deviation from the nineteenth century optimism. It profoundly displayed pessimistic scenario of a culture in disorder. Answer 2) Modernism, as a movement and as an aesthetic form, is subjected to myriads of criticism. Charles Baudelaire is treated as one of the major poets of the modernist movement and a staunch follower and patron of modern art and literature. Baudelaire was the first author of the symbolist tradition. In his ‘To the Bourgeois and The Heroism of Modern Life, from Salons of 1845 and 1846’, Baudelaire wrote, “It is true that the great tradition has been lost, and the new one is not yet established”. He envisioned it and completely believed his words. He indeed plays a seminal role in the history of modern art. Baudelaire reshaped and reformulated the romantic aesthetics and casted it in the vain of Modern fit. Baudelaire called ‘modernism’ a movement for all and his reviews especially of 1846 gave a power to the middle-class Europeans to involve themselves into the so called elite aesthetics. Baudelaire in his Salon Review of 1846 said, “You, the bourgeois, be you king, lawgiver, or businessman. You are the natural friends of the arts, because you are some of you rich men and the others scholars”. 2 He opened the doors of the exhibition hall for his middle-class patrons and visitors. Baudelaire completely discarded the elite monopoly of minds and found the manifestation of modernist movement through symbolist tradition. Filippo Tommasso Marinetti is well known for his ‘Futurist Manifesto’, which he wrote in the year of 1908. He believed in the complete degeneration of art and viewed that violence can be the only means of producing an aesthetic effect. Marinetti proclaimed the unity of life and art in his ‘Futurist Manifesto’ and declared that violence is inherent of art and manifestation of aesthetic in itself. Marinetti viewed about art, “We will glorify war - the worlds only hygiene – militarism, patriotism, the destructive gesture of freedom-bringers, beautiful ideas worth dying for, and scorn for woman”. 3 He publicly declared the destruction of museums, libraries and all kind of centers for practice of art and academics that generates crowd or gather them who are shaken by great works or pleasure of that work. Answer 3) Pablo Picasso, the most celebrated Spanish painter of Twentieth century and an acclaimed artist of the world was greatly influenced by the Modernist Movement. His ‘Les Demoiselles d’Avignon’ of 1907 or ‘The Young Ladies of Avignon’ is the most celebrated work and a masterpiece considered as the monumental path-breaking picture in ‘Modern Art’. This is because it broke through all the conventional techniques of European art. In Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, Picasso portrayed five nude prostitutes standing on the street of Avignon, Barcelona. Initially, he wanted to create a regular brothel scene with a prostitute and a sailor but he deviated and indulged into Cubism, which was bold enough and raised a sexual anxiety and disturbance in the minds of the viewers. The techniques, he employed was the prostitutes standing and directly looking at the eyes of their viewers. He took plenty time to develop the oil canvass of 96”x92” and displayed many hidden symbols. The masterpiece conveyed many social messages. The distinct effect was evident from the two ladies, wearing Negro masks. conveyed the messages of violence and slavery. A strong influence of ‘Iberian Sculpture” is noticed in the piece which is similar by many extents to ‘Cubism’. Another technique employed by Picasso was portrayal of the picture from multi-dimensional perspective rather than representing it from two - dimensional plane. He also applied ‘Still Life’ paintings as the apple, grapes, melons and pears appearing at the bottom of the painting and employed thoroughly minimalistic color scheme unlike Cezanne and used blue curtains between the figures and portrayed the women with his original style put forward with angular curves displayed in geometrical contours. 4 From Manet, Picasso borrowed his motif and very surprisingly, he tried to display more boldness through his paintings by surpassing his motifs, transcending his ideas and techniques e.g. by clothing men and turning a domestic scene to a brothel. He stripped off the Manet’s male picnickers and made it more shocking by portraying naked women sitting with clothed men. 5 Answer 4) Twentieth century Avant – grade believed in crossing the boundaries of accepted conventions and norms of aesthetics and launches its viewers, into a new realm of limitless cultural paradigm and a newer hegemony that leads to post-modernism, surrealism and often banks upon Dadaism. They choose visual arts to convey the pushing limits of their perspective and paradigm. They launched its audience to the new visions of spirituality, philosophy, socio-economic perspectives and urban thoughts because they wanted to bank upon the mass culture. Avant - grade was formed of marginalized writers and artist, who do not have any problem with the main stream art, but strongly attacked the capitalization of art forms and media. They attacked the surrealism in the advertising world of 1930s. They argued that it is not a true kind of surrealism used but ‘media capitalized’ for the sake of its style and popularity. They reach more number of audiences and break through the barriers of conventions with a vision to establish mass-culture in its true vain. Avant - grade took the refuge of visual arts because by the first half of twentieth century, visual arts started taking the form of popular medium of art form. Visual arts were also powerful in conveying social messages that started taking a vital role. For example, ‘The Life of Zero’, a film by Robert Florey, released in the year 1937, is the direct effect direct of Avant - grade mass culture and manifestation of its ideals through visual arts. Clark’s ‘Paintings of Modern Life’ presented a new form of art history and that transcended the traditional preoccupations of mankind with art form and iconography. Clark viewed Olympia (1853) by Manet as “obfuscating and tortured”. His essay, ‘Paintings of Modern Life’ also exalted the works of Courbet and Manet at parallel. It exposed the political implications of these great artists through their symbolist manifestation. Clark grasped at the social and intellectual perspectives and phenomena thoroughly and re-examined the art works. 6 References Campbell, P, 2009. At the National Gallery. London Review of Books. http://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n06/peter-campbell/at-the-national-gallery (accessed 01 March 2010). Clark, T. J., 1943. A Biographical Dictionary of Historic Scholars, Museum Professionals and Academic Historians of Art. Dictionary of Art Historians. http://www.dictionaryofarthistorians.org/clarkt.htm (accessed 01 March 2010). Italian Futurism, 2009. The Founding and Manifesto of Futurism by F. T. Marinetti. The Founding and Manifesto of Futurism. http://www.italianfuturism.org/manifestos/foundingmanifesto/ (accessed 01 March 2010). Keep, C., McLaughlin, T. & Parmar, R. 2000. Modernism and the Modern Novel. The Electronic Labyrinth. http://www2.iath.virginia.edu/elab/hfl0255.html (accessed 01 March 2010). Labedzki, A., No Date. His Most Famous Painting (Les Demoiselles D Avignon) - Pablo Picasso. Ezine Articles. http://ezinearticles.com/?His-Most-Famous-Painting-%28Les-Demoiselles-D-Avignon%29---Pablo-Picasso&id=2376813 (accessed 01 March 2010). O’Brien, E., No Date. Charles Baudelaire, To the Bourgeois and The Heroism of Modern Life, from the Salons of 1845 and 1846. Sacramento State. http://www.csus.edu/indiv/o/obriene/art109/readings/10%20baudelaire%20hero%20%20bourgeois%204.htm (accessed 01 March 2010). . Read More