Weds 10th Oct 2012
"Modernity & Modernism: An Introduction" Lecture Notes
Richard Miles
John Ruskin (1819-1900)- "Modern Painters" book published 1850's
- Used 'Modern' to distinguish 1850's works, like "The Hireling Shepherd"from classic works
Emergence of 'Commodity Culture'- 'Modern' doesn't have to be 'of the moment'
- Now means 'the best' or 'most progressive' (Advertising towards Commodity Culture)
-Progressive, Optimistic and 'To Modernise is to Improve'
1960's-1970's- "Modernism Dies" at the demolition of the Pruitt-Igoe in St.Louis (15th July 1972)
- Declared by Charles Jencks at 3.32pm demolition
Paris- Quintessential city of Modernity (1900)
- People's lives became more dominated by Industry (Industrialisation)
- People's begin to congregate around industrial areas/ centres (Urbanisation)
- Factory work and Shift work- regulated lifestyle- Standardisation of World Time
- Inventions- Telephone, Railway, Street Lights (Discovery of Electricity)
- "Trottior Roullant" (electric- moving walkway)
- 'The Global Village' of Mass Communication
- 'World Shrinking'
- Lifestyles changes- Accelerates from Intimate to Unusual & Full of Discovery
- Distinctive Work vs Leisure Time
- Shopping, Cinema
- Seurat paintings show Leisure time- 'Isle de la Grande Jatte' (1886)
- Accuracy of how life works
- Contrasting colours experiment with optics
"ENLIGHTENMENT PROJECT"
= period in late 18th Century when Scientific/ Philosophical thinking made leaps and bounds
- Process of Rationality & Reason
- Secularisation
- Turn away from Religious Teaching
- Baudelaire poem "The Painter of Modern Life" documents the changes in lifestyles
- Caillebotte Paintings- Impressionist painter documenting the experience of the city lifestyle
- Separation- Strangers yet surrounded by people- Alienation
- Display of Wealth & Affluence
- Fashion- Signifying Individualism
- "flan eur" = someone who is displaying finery and status
"HAUSSMANISATION"
- Paris in the 1850's onwards is a new Paris
- Old Paris Architecture= Narrow Streets and Run Down Houses
- Haussman (Architect) re-designs Paris
- Boulevards in favour of Narrow Streets- Form of Social Control
- Dangerous elements are moved to the suburbs- Centre becomes Upper/Middle Class
Experiments of New Science- (1893) Mariz experiment on Attentiveness to Sound location
-Idea of Modern life sending people mad
- Psychology was born
- Dagar 'Absinthe Drinker' (1876)
-highlights the by-product of Modernity
-composition of Painting informed by Photography
- Invention of the Kaiserpanorama in Germany
- large viewing device where people would pay money to view landscapes
- people would rather pay and look through a device than experience it/
live it for themselves
- More mediated lifestyles
Max Nordau (1892) Essay on 'Degeneration"- (worried about the world)
- Anti-modernist
- Felt it awful to be bombarded by information
"SUBJECTIVE EXPERIENCE"- [The experience of the individual in the Modern world]
- We start to understand modern art and the modern world
- Modernism emerges out of the subjective response to artists/designers to MODERNITY
- Monet 'Gare St. Lazare' (1876-77)- painting the sensory experience of the train station
- Albert Stieglitz 'In The New York Central Yards' (1862) -photography
- Photography- Objective outlook on documenting the world
- Negotiating and understanding the world from different viewpoints
- More in control when you see the Bigger Picture
- Charles Marey 'Running Man' (1880's)
- Scientific experiment analysing how we move
- New knowledge, designs, experiments and technology
MODERNISM IN DESIGN = a negotiation or response with the modern
- Don't look to the past- Looks forward to invent new styles (Anti-Historian)
- Truth to Materials- Doesn't disguise them
- Form follows Function- Rationality of the Enlightenment Project- Usefulness over Decoration
- Technologies
- Adolf Loos (1908) "Ornament is Crime" Essay
- Following fashion will lead to failure as it will instantly, in creation, appear outdated
- "Need to decorate is evidence of Degeneration"
- The Bauhaus
- Invented Modernist Education
- Building Aesthetic is quintessentially modernist
- Lots of Light
- Box Shape
- Concrete Material
- Typeface- Sans Serif fonts are Modernist (No decoration)
- Bauhaus Cutlery- Modernist Characteristic: No decoration, simple, functional
INTERNATIONALISM
= A Language of design that could be recognised and understood on an international basis
- Le Corbusier 'Plan Voisir' (1927)
- Creating Design for Equality amongst Cities
- Herbert Bayer Sans Serif 'Bauhaus' Typeface- got rid of all capital letters
- Stanley Morrison 'Times New Roman' Typeface
- Nationalist font to signify Britishness
- German "Fraktur" Typeface
- Nationalist- Propaganda to show Superiority
- Technology
- Mass Production- Cheap, Widely Used, Quick Product
- New Materials- Concrete, Steel, Aluminium, Glass
CONCLUSION
- The term 'Modern' is not a neutral form: it suggests novelty and improvement
- 'Modernity' (1750-1960)- Social and Cultural experience
- 'Modernism'- The range of Ideas & Styles from Modernity
- Vocabulary of style
- Art & Design Education
- Idea of Form follows Function
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