Relationships of collage to Modernism and Modernity - Coursework Example

Relationships of Collage to Modernism and Modernity Introduction to the Era of Modernism The term Modernism is used to define the modernist period in England which began with First World War. This period is characterised by artistic talent and experimentation that boomed during twenties and got vanished by the economic depression in 1930s. It is very difficult to define the term modernity in few sentences as this small term says a lot about a whole era beginning with First World War and ending before the end of World War II. In context of arts and literature of that era, modernity defines the philosophies that prevailed during the Enlightenment of the eighteenth century1”( Matt Dotson, 2005). The catastrophic and dark years of world war two led to a period of uncertainty and led to the end of modernist era. The year 1965 marked the end of modernism era, giving way to anger and protest. As seen by French Philosopher Jean-François Lyotard, the beginning of world war II lead to the end of the era of enlightenment resulting in the "'failure of the grand narratives', that is, the lost of trust in products and knowledge of the Enlightenment era. Sadly, these systematic bodies of knowledge were the best hope of European humanists' to contribute positively and constructively to the world2" (Wheale 9). Even though in the above quoted sentence, the term narrative is used to imply the liner idea of societal progress, the literal implications of "'failure of the grand narratives', cannot be ignored. Collage as a Medium to Represent Modernism Views The era of modernism witnessed a wide range of experimental and avant-garde trends in the literature and other arts of the early 20th century. The period between the Industrial Revolution and the catastrophic World War II witnessed many interesting developments in the field of art and literature. The art of collage is one of the many forms of avant-garde artistic techniques which flourished and became popular between the period of Industrial Revolution and the catastrophic World War II. The art of collage developed during this era has been particularly interesting as being implanted between the modernism and postmodernism, it reflected a little mix of both modern and postmodernism philosophies. “An artistic collage developed during the era of Enlightenment and modernism mostly made use of ribbons, newspaper clippings, handmade or colored papers, photographs, and some portions of other artwork. The collage was designed by gluing together some or all of these materials to a canvas. Another innovative technique to make collage technique was developed by Jonathan Talbot, (popular for developing multi-dimensional collage-constructions) which eliminated the use of adhesive from collage assembly”3(wikipedia). The exemplary art of Collage popular during the era of modernism cannot be merely termed as a physical technique as it was a perfect blend of contrasting materials that represented philosophies, thoughts, and attitudes. Collage was a beautiful medium to express via few symbols- whole gamut of issues and views.“ The collage aesthetic is the sole methodological link existing between such modernist masterpieces as the music of Igor Stravinsky, T. S. Eliot The Waste Land, Joyce Ulysses, and the architecture of Frank loyd Wright, and it lies, of course, at the very heart of the century's most important new art medium--the motion picture4 ”( Budd Hopkins 1997:5). Somewhere near the end of the year 1911, Picasso created a small oval collage work, generally regarded as the first collage of art history using the chair canning. The collage depicted a cubist still-life. On over one third surface of the canvas, Picasso glued a piece of commercial oil cloth carrying the image. On the remaining space of the canvas he painted a cubist still life—a highly ambiguous image that allowed some brushstrokes to move smoothly across the "perforated" oilcloth. This collage marked the use of color and decoration dominant in cubism. In this small seminal work, using the blend of painting and photography, Picasso marked the beginning of new era of synthesis cubism5 ( Budd Hopkins 1997:5). Picassos “Glass and Bottle of Bass”, is another masterpiece depicting the exemplary collage of this nature. A cut of newspapers representing glass were used by Picasso to raise all sort of issues. This work of Picasso is considered to be the finest example of use of collage to represent modernism and modernity. The era of modernism and its downfall were brilliantly represented by the art of collage. Infact, no technology until today, even though the world has developed so many new softwares, can compete with the art of collage. The art which was beautifully used to symbolically represent the era of modernism by some great artists like Picasso. The art of Collage was used by many great artists to symbolically depict the era of modernism and the issues that they could see coming with the postmodernism era. "If a piece of newspaper can become a bottle that gives us something to think about in connection with both newspapers and bottles, too. This displaced object has entered a universe for which it was not made and where it retains, in a measure, its strangeness6" (Brockelman 31). Another great artist Schwitters has used collage as medium and platform where different materials come together and become unified on a single canvas. A collage treats all the materials used on it equally. At the same no relationship is known to exist between them (as in postmodernist relativism)7. Schwitters. Collage beautifully represented and addressed problems that would have emerged much later in the post modernism era. It did not ignore those problems or questions that will come with post modernism era, instead, addressed those using symbols and figures. The art of collage was brilliantly used by artists of the modern era to represent the dilemmas of postmodernism era. During the era of modernism, collage was used as a powerful tool to deal with the issues of postmodernism such as the irony of the historical revisionist, the natural hollowness surrounding the world, and the death of the author in literary sense as depicted by the deconstruction theory of Derrida. Derrida’s theory of deconstruction implied that all meaning is relative which meant that none of the work of writers or artists could convey a particular meaning. A reader was free to interpret the work as per their understanding. This directly meant the end of literary work which no longer could convey any meaning. All these concerns and issues were expressed by literary artists using the collage technique. What happens is this: "Meanings becomes the property of the interpreter, who is free to play, deconstructively, with them8" (Butler 24). The Summary We can see that even when there is no direct relationship between modernism and collage, yet Collage played an important role to artistically depict the downfall of modernism and meaninglessness of postmodernism. Many great artists used collage as a medium to address issues of the declining form of art and literature and advent of postmodernism era. In today’s time the exemplarily art of Collage might have taken a backdrop with the advent of modern day computers and softwares, but till today, the work collage works created by Picasso, addressing the issues of modernism and post modernism are considered masterpieces. It looks very difficult that any modern technology or software would be able to create such an artistic creation representing the whole society by few symbols gathered on collage. I doubt if we have any such modern techniques available to overshadow the brilliance of collage of modernism era. Reference List 1-Matt Dotson. The Philosophical Origins of Musical Collage, 2005 2-Wheale, Nigel, ed. The Postmodern Arts: An Introductory Reader. London: Routledge, 1995. 3- Referencing, not plagiarism. Retrieved on May 28, 2005 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collage 4-5-Budd Hopkins. Modernism and the Collage Aesthetic, New England Review. Volume: 18. Issue: 2. Publication Year: 1997. Page Number: 5. 6-Brockelman, Thomas P. The Frame and the Mirror: On Collage and the Postmodern. Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 2001. 7-Schnittke, Alfred. A Schwitters Reader. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2002. 8-Butler, Christopher. Postmodernism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. End Notes 1- Read More