Modernism Through the 1940's in Art
Joey Steinbach
Contemporary Issues
Eric Ouren
3/5/2013
Test 1. Trace the development of Modernism from its early beginnings through its subsequent permutations and developments up to, roughly, the 1940’s
In order to trace the development of modernism throughout history we must first define “modernism”. Modernism is the rejection of the ideology or realism and makes use of the works of the past, through the application of reprise, incorporation, rewriting, recapitulation, revision and parody in new forms. Modernism also rejects the certainty of the Enlightenment as well as an all-powerful, compassionate creator. In lesser words, it rejects traditional conventions (such as realism and perspective). In this paper I intend to follow modernism through the 19th century and beyond, noting on such artists as Eduard Manet, Andy Warhol, Gustave Courbet, Pablo Picasso and Jackson Pollock and the significant and lasting effects they had on modernism in art. Since renaissance times, the Salon, the official art exhibition sponsored by the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris, was the hub and canon of popular, acceptable and academic art. Art had remained stagnant for years with no conceptual developments for centuries. A local Frenchman by the name of Gustave Courbet despised the Salon. He rejected the false rhetoric of such trivial art. Instead, he painted real, actual people in real, actual events, such as in his painting “The Funeral at Ornons” which depicts a funeral among peasant men and women. This was a radical idea for the time and he was seen as an anarchist because of it (along with his political ideals). It wasn’t as though he was in support of abstraction but rather just the understanding of the physical world. This groundbreaking idea set the artistic world ablaze. His non-idealized subject matter disgusted the Salon who refused to even show his works. Eduard Manet was painting during this time as well, and his work even outlived Courbet’s. Manet
Contemporary Issues
Eric Ouren
3/5/2013
Test 1. Trace the development of Modernism from its early beginnings through its subsequent permutations and developments up to, roughly, the 1940’s
In order to trace the development of modernism throughout history we must first define “modernism”. Modernism is the rejection of the ideology or realism and makes use of the works of the past, through the application of reprise, incorporation, rewriting, recapitulation, revision and parody in new forms. Modernism also rejects the certainty of the Enlightenment as well as an all-powerful, compassionate creator. In lesser words, it rejects traditional conventions (such as realism and perspective). In this paper I intend to follow modernism through the 19th century and beyond, noting on such artists as Eduard Manet, Andy Warhol, Gustave Courbet, Pablo Picasso and Jackson Pollock and the significant and lasting effects they had on modernism in art. Since renaissance times, the Salon, the official art exhibition sponsored by the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris, was the hub and canon of popular, acceptable and academic art. Art had remained stagnant for years with no conceptual developments for centuries. A local Frenchman by the name of Gustave Courbet despised the Salon. He rejected the false rhetoric of such trivial art. Instead, he painted real, actual people in real, actual events, such as in his painting “The Funeral at Ornons” which depicts a funeral among peasant men and women. This was a radical idea for the time and he was seen as an anarchist because of it (along with his political ideals). It wasn’t as though he was in support of abstraction but rather just the understanding of the physical world. This groundbreaking idea set the artistic world ablaze. His non-idealized subject matter disgusted the Salon who refused to even show his works. Eduard Manet was painting during this time as well, and his work even outlived Courbet’s. Manet