10/10/2012
Modernity and Modernism: An Introduction - Richard Miles
Overview of powerpoint:
1. Terms - 'modern' and 'modernity'
2. Modernity - Industrialisation, urbanisation
3. Modern artists' response to the city
4. Psychology and subjective experience
5. Modern art and photography
6. Defining modernism in art
7. Defining modernism in design
John Ruskin (1819-1900)
1850 - Using the word modern to represent classical era
William Holman Hunt
Land owner paid shepard to look after his sheep
Modern - Represents optimism and positivity
Tate Modern - Cutting edge, progressive art
To look forward, to build, to improve
Charles Jencks
The language of Postmodern Architecture 1977
15th July 1972 3.32pm - Modernism dies
Designed to solve a problem - demolished
Paris (1900)
The most modern city in the world at the time/era
Industrialisation - dominant means of production
People congregate around urban areas
Trottoir Roullant
Invented the electric moving walkway
People claimed to have been injured from it
Example of urbanisation
Globalisation
Shrinks to become noble/manageable
Electricity, railways, telephones, street lights - effect of shrinking the world
Dense society moving faster
New concepts of time emerging
Motorcars invented
Something sedate, noble, intimate ---> Fast change, experimental
Work vs leisure time
Cinema, shopping - Invented for leisure time
Hyde Park Picture House emerged in this period
Process of rationality and reason
Enlightenment
Period in the late 18th century when scientific/philosophical thinking made leaps and bounds (secularisation)
Eiffel Tower 1889
Metal was fundamentally new
New modern experience - whole new style of life
Artists portrayed this
Domination of modern over old
Experience of the individual in the city
Haussmanisation
Work vs leisure time
Cinema, shopping - Invented for leisure time
Hyde Park Picture House emerged in this period
Process of rationality and reason
Enlightenment
Period in the late 18th century when scientific/philosophical thinking made leaps and bounds (secularisation)
Eiffel Tower 1889
Metal was fundamentally new
New modern experience - whole new style of life
Artists portrayed this
Domination of modern over old
Experience of the individual in the city
Haussmanisation
Paris 1850s on = a new Paris
Old Paris architecture of narrow streets and run down housing is ripped out
Haussman (city architect) redesigns Paris
Paris is designed to accomodate modernity
Side effect - centre takes attention away from the outskirts
Large boulevards in favour of narrow streets - this made the streets easier to police - social control
The dangerous elements of the W.C are moved outside the city centre - the centre becomes an expensive M.C and upper class zone
Manet - The Balcony (1868)
Characters staring at spectacle of modern life
Not knowing your neighbour - similar to London - alienation
Experiment on attentiveness to sound (1893)
Art is a way to document modernity
Psychology was born from modernity
Caillebotte - Le Pont de L'Europe (1876)
Increased class division
In the city when cramped together new forms emerge
Fashion emerges
Individuality emerges as a result
Flaneur - Walk around the city to show their status
Seurat - Isle de la Grande Jatte (1886)
Pointalism - Not creating a realistic image
Leisure time
Degas Absinthe Drinker (1876)
Illustrates people left behind by the modern world
Kaiserpanorama (1883)
Large communal viewing device
Look through holes at series of slides
Landscapes/soft porn
People paying money to view landscapes
View through mediating device rather than directly experiencing - side effect - less directly lived
Max Nordau Degeneration (1892)
Antimodernist - Wrote about worries on modern world
Modernism explanation
If we start to think about 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 subjective responses of artists.
Monet - Gare St. Lazara (1876-7)
Paint experience of train experience - sensory
Photography and art
When people experiment with art it is because of the threat of photography
Painting was the way of recording the world
Photography is much more accurate - threatening
Dialogue between new architecture, art, science, new technology, new forms of knowledge
Modernism in design
Anti-historicism:
doesn't look backwards
looks forwards - invent new styles
Truth to materials:
New processes
Form follows function:
Things shouldn't attempt to look splendid
The look is secondary
Technology:
New techology
Old Paris architecture of narrow streets and run down housing is ripped out
Haussman (city architect) redesigns Paris
Paris is designed to accomodate modernity
Side effect - centre takes attention away from the outskirts
Large boulevards in favour of narrow streets - this made the streets easier to police - social control
The dangerous elements of the W.C are moved outside the city centre - the centre becomes an expensive M.C and upper class zone
Manet - The Balcony (1868)
Characters staring at spectacle of modern life
Not knowing your neighbour - similar to London - alienation
Experiment on attentiveness to sound (1893)
Art is a way to document modernity
Psychology was born from modernity
Caillebotte - Le Pont de L'Europe (1876)
Increased class division
In the city when cramped together new forms emerge
Fashion emerges
Individuality emerges as a result
Flaneur - Walk around the city to show their status
Seurat - Isle de la Grande Jatte (1886)
Pointalism - Not creating a realistic image
Leisure time
Degas Absinthe Drinker (1876)
Illustrates people left behind by the modern world
Kaiserpanorama (1883)
Large communal viewing device
Look through holes at series of slides
Landscapes/soft porn
People paying money to view landscapes
View through mediating device rather than directly experiencing - side effect - less directly lived
Max Nordau Degeneration (1892)
Antimodernist - Wrote about worries on modern world
Modernism explanation
If we start to think about 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 subjective responses of artists.
Monet - Gare St. Lazara (1876-7)
Paint experience of train experience - sensory
Photography and art
When people experiment with art it is because of the threat of photography
Painting was the way of recording the world
Photography is much more accurate - threatening
Dialogue between new architecture, art, science, new technology, new forms of knowledge
Modernism in design
Anti-historicism:
doesn't look backwards
looks forwards - invent new styles
Truth to materials:
New processes
Form follows function:
Things shouldn't attempt to look splendid
The look is secondary
Technology:
New techology
Internationalism:
Seek international language of design
Socialist under current
Cutlery from the Great Exhibition (1851)
Produced in the modern era
Bauhaus style cutlery 1920's
Brushed steel
Simpliciry
Anti-decoration
Neutrality
Functionality first
"Ornament is crime" Adolf Loos (1908)
Anti-historicism - No need to look back to older style - particularly talking about buildings
Simple style is timeless
Simple geometric forms
Bauhaus College of Building at Dessau
Art institution emerged in modernist era
Invented new method of teaching
Modernist education
Bauhaus building - massive windows - function - let light in and not aesthetically pleasing
Box shaped building - Best way to maximise space for artists (rational thinking)
Made out of concrete
Future typeface used
Sans-serif font invented - no need for serifs - all about simplicity
Mies Van der Rohe - Portrait of Mies in chair
Great piece of modernist design
One piece of steel
One piece of canvas
Internationalism
A language of design that could be recognised and understood on an international basis
Le Corbusier - Plan Voisin (1927)
International style of architecture
This style of build could be seen all over the world
Eutopian paradise
Build an equal world
Example of Herbert Bayer's sans serif typeface
Lowercase
Ultimately neutral typeface
Invented at Bauhaus
Times New Roman - Stanley Morison (1932)
Signify British Imperial Greatness
Fraktur font - gothic
Nazis take chagre in Germany
Shut down the Bauhaus
Nationalist
Technology
New materials
Concrete
New technologies of steel
Plastics
Aluminium
Reinforced glass
Mass production
Cheaper more widely accessible products
Products made quickly
Conclusion
The term modern is not a neutral term - It suggests novelty and improvement
Modernity (1750-1960) - social and cultural experience
Modernism - Range of ideas and styles that sprang from modernity
Importance of modernism:
1. A vocabulary of styles
2. Art and design education
3. Idea of form follows function
No comments:
Post a Comment