Tuesday 3 May 2011

Modernism/Postmodernism


Modernism

"In the field of art the broad movement in Western art, architecture and design which self-consciously rejected the past as a model for the art of the present. Hence the term modernist or modern art. Modernism gathered pace from about 1850. Modernism proposes new forms of art on the grounds that these are more appropriate to the present time. It is thus characterised by constant innovation. But modern art has often been driven too by various social and political agendas. These were often utopian, and modernism was in general associated with ideal visions of human life and society and a belief in progress. The terms modernism and modern art are generally used to describe the succession of art movements that critics and historians have identified since the Realism of Courbet, culminating in abstract art and its developments up to the 1960s. By that time modernism had become a dominant idea of art, and a particularly narrow theory of modernist painting had been formulated by the highly influential American critic Clement Greenberg."


From what i gathered from the detailed description above is that Modernism is the progression of todays art, focusing on appropriate figures in todays time from 1850. 

Modernism can be seen as taking a series of reactions to a particular situation, and the challenge to brawl values from the clash between the two. Modernism was not defined by its avant garde but also by a modifying trend within past artistic forms. 


There is a lot of information and history behind the subject matter of modernism and i found it a lot to take in, but what i did understand within the images found were interesting. Modernism was the new movement of art deviating from paintings depicting historical context, landmarks to abstract and romantic context.


Realistic, naturalistic art had dissembled the medium, using art to conceal art; Modernism used art to call attention to art. The Limitations that constitute the medium of painting- the flat surface, the shape of the support, the properties of the pigment- were treated by the Old Masters as negative factors that could be acknowledged openly... Whereas one tends to see what is an Old Master before one sees the picture itself, one sees a Modernist picture as a picture first... (Greenberg 1960, in Greenberg IV 1993,pp.86-7)


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Georges Seurat - Sunday Afternoon on the island of the Grande Jatte, 1886-6

Georges Seurant theory of working was to distribute colour equally across the entire canvas for most of his painting are landscapes, or views from a distant showing borders of sea and shores. 


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Georges Seurat - The Channel of Gravelines, Grand Fort-Philippe,

Post-Modernism


"Postmodernism is difficult to define, because to define it would violate the postmodernist's premise that no definite terms, boundaries, or absolute truths exist.
Postmodernism claims to be the successor to the 17th century Enlightenment. For over four centuries, “postmodern thinkers” have promoted and defended a New Age way of conceptualizing and rationalizing human life and progress. Postmodernists are typically atheistic or agnostic while some prefer to follow eastern religion thoughts and practices. Many are naturalist including humanitarians, environmentalists, and philosophers". 


Peter Shire And Chair.
Both Modernism and Post - modernism are deep and intriguing subject matters that could stir up an heated debate in matter of seconds. I personally think there is no right or wrong movement between the two as they both are similar and different in there own ways. 
modernism brought the attention of a different prospectus of perceiving life, philosophy, Science, art and literature, by entwining with advancing technology it was not long before experimentation to be taken place. Modernism began to spread and began to change the views and and aspects of life to the mankind.   Postmodernism (after the modern) began to take form after the 1960s impacting on society and economy the developments in society, the economy and the culture of the 1960s were impacted by postmodernism.



To difference between the two is that modernist is about the examination of truth that can be seen abstarted  where as postmodernist believe that there isn’t such a thing as absolute truth. A postmodernist views the world outside of themselves as being in error, that is, other people’s truth becomes indistinguishable from error.thinkers believe that there is no universal truth, abstract or otherwise.

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