Modernity and Modernism : An Introduction
The terms modern and modernity
Modernity - Industrialisation, urbanisation, the City.
The modern artist response to the city.
Psychology and subjective experience
Modern art and photography
defining Modernism in art.
John Ruskin 1819-1900
This lecture was based on modernity from the 1850's.
Art
William Holman Hunt
pastoral scene
'Highling shepard'
Land owner has paid a young man to look after his flock of sheep but the young man is more interested in wooing a young maid therefore the sheep will escape and eat all the crop.
optimism
Tate modern - Cutting edge, progressive
To look forward and build
To modernise is to improve - went on to the 60's/70's
Housing project - Pruitt Igoe, St louis
it was demolished
Charles Jencks said it died
15th July 1972, 3:32pm
Paris in the 1900's was the most modern city in the world
Heavy industry - main means of production
Trottoir Roullant - electric moving walkway (7kmph). Life revolved around industry - Shift work
Marshall Mclunon - the global Village
Introduction of the railways meant that time had to be standardised.
Urbanisation/industrialisation - Motor Cars - Dense society
people can loose themselves in a city of millions
If we start to think about the subjective experience (the experience of the individual in the modern world) we start to come close to understanding modern art and the EXPERIENCE of modernity. (Modernism)
Emerges out of the subjective responses of artists
Monet
Paints an experience of a train station using a new technique.
When people experiment with art its because of the threat of photography which was the new medium.
Before photography art was the main way of documenting and communicating the world. Art ran the risk of being made redundant therefore painting had to re-invented.
Relationship between science and technology.
Modernism in design
Anti-historicism - doesn't look back, looks at contemporary or beyond
Truth to materials - new products
Form follows function - things should work look is secondary. Stripped down to its bare function
Technology - new way of making things
Internationalisation - seek internal
Simplicity, no decoration, neutrality
Anti-historicism - no need to look backward to older styles
'Ornament is crime' Adolf Loos (1908)
Truth to materials - simple geometric forms appropriate to the material being used
Form follows function
Characters redundantly starring at the city, not knowing their neighbour
similar to London Underground - so squished together but still far apart. Can't talk to other people.
Psychology lab 1893
experiment on attentiveness to sound location
- they believed modernity would send people mad/insane
In the city people are alienated meaning that fashion became the way to make a statement about yourself, it was a way of identifying class difference.
falneur - showcased their status
The alcoholic drink Absynth became very popular with artists as it was seen to have some psychoactive properties.
Kaiserpanorama - Germany 1883
large communal viewing machine, slides, soft porn and images
The use of this device suggests that people would rather see the world through a piece of technology than directly experiencing it.
Mediated
Max Nordau
anti-modernist, degeneration 1892
Bauhaus - radical art institution in modern era.
The building - modernist aesthetic
lots of light needed for an art school resulting in huge windows. the ability to make these windows requires modernist techniques
The building is functional meaning that the look is secondary
Square building - best way to maximise space
Own typeface - sans serif fonts (futura?) in modernist era it is stripped down to it most basic form
Internationalism
- A language of design that could be recognised and understood on a international basis
Type - Herbert Bayer
Sans serif typeface
he also argued that all text should be lower case (ditch capitals/uppercase)
Stanley Morrison
Times new roman - 1932
signify imperial greatness
Nazi - Fraktur Font
all propaganda
nationalistic - gothic
All materials :
Concrete
New technologies of steel
Plastics
Aluminium
Reinforced glass
Conclusion
The term modern is not a neutral term - it suggests novelty and improvement
Modernity - (1750-1960) social and cultural experience
modernism the range of idea and styles that sprang from modernity
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