Modernism describes a series of dramatic and far-reaching changes to the aesthetic and cultural values underpinning artistic endeavour in the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-centuries. These changes were, in part, a reaction to rapid technological and social changes occurring at the time.
Equally, they came about because many creative artists, writers and designers believed that traditional forms of cultural production could not adequately represent or indeed respond to the staggering complexity of the modern world.
Pablo Picasso
Guernica (1937)
Gurnica by Pablo Picasso, depicts the bombing of Guernica by German and Italian warplanes at the behest of the Spanish Nationalist forces, on April 26, 1937, during the Spanish Civil War. The Spanish Republican government commissioned Pablo Picasso to create a large mural for the Spanish display at the Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne (1937) Paris International Exposition in the 1937 World's Fair in Paris.
Modernism was not, in any simple sense, a “movement” in the arts in the sense that impressionism or cubism were. Indeed, the term modernism only began to be used to categorise the cultural and aesthetic movements it describes several decades after its greatest flowering.
So, as a term it can be somewhat misleading. Nonetheless, it remains useful, because it allows us to consider the dramatic, often incomprehensible changes in aesthetic and literary values that occurred at this time.
More specifically, it allows us to explore those changes in relation to the seismic shifts in social and economic life of the era
BRAQUE
'Violin and Candlestick'
Georges Braque, a major 20th century French painter and sculptor who, together with Pablo Picasso, developed the art movement known as Cubism in the opening decade of the 20th century.
GRIS
'Pablo Picasso'
Juan Gris, whose portrait of Picasso [1912] is a significant early Cubist painting done by a painter other than Picasso or Braque, went on to became a leading proponent of the movement, developing it in a distinctive direction.
MUNCH
'The Scream'
Edvard Munch, Norwegian Symbolist painter, printmaker and an important forerunner of expressionistic art is probably best-known for his composition, The Scream. This painting is part of a series The Frieze of Life, in which Munch explored the themes of life, love, fear, death, and melancholy.
Some modernists, such as the predominantly French based Surrealists and Dadaists, rejected rational approaches to the creation of artistic work. Instead, they opted for illogicality and absurdity, arguing that these were better suited to reflecting the full complexity of modern life.
Close Me!
The Temptation of St. Anthony (detail), Max Ernst, 1945
Max Ernst, German painter, sculptor, graphic artist, and poet. is considered to be one of the primary pioneers of the Dada movement and Surrealism.
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The Temptation of St. Anthony (detail), Max Ernst, 1945
Max Ernst, German painter, sculptor, graphic artist, and poet. is considered to be one of the primary pioneers of the Dada movement and Surrealism.
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L.H.O.O.Q (1930) Marcel Duchamp
Marcel Duchamp’s work is most often associated with the Dadaist and Surrealist movements. Duchamp's output influenced the development of post-World War I Western art. He challenged conventional thought about artistic processes and art marketing, not so much by writing, but through subversive actions such as dubbing a urinal "art" and naming it Fountain. He produced relatively few artworks, while moving quickly through the avant-garde circles of his time.
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The Eileen Gray Bibendum Chair was named by Gray herself, when she saw Michelin Tires iconic caricature. One of a number is of designs Gray did for Suzanne Talbot's Rue de Lota project, it typifies Gray's opulent take on the stark modernist aesthetic.
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Transport. The extraordinary rate of change in methods of transport in the 19th and early part of the 20th century gave rise to a wholly new experience of being in the world.
