“Don’t bother about being modern, unfortunately, it is the one thing that whatever you do, you cannot avoid.” (Salvador Dali 1964)In this essay I will attempt to answer the question of What is Modernism?
I do not believe there is a one, simplistic, definitive answer. Even putting Modernism in a historical context is not an easy task, consensus has two time-frames periods, between 1910-1939 and 1870-1945.
The Enlightenment (1650-1780) and its ideals had helped transform most parts of the world it had touched. Progress through science, reason, individual liberties and freedoms had proved intoxicating. In the USA, those who fought and won independence in 1776, Enlightenment ideals were the standards they marched under, those same Enlightenment ideals are woven through its constitution.
Thomas Locke (1690) wrote: ‘Man being, as has been said, by Nature, all free, and equal and independent, no one can be put out of this estate, and subjected to the political power of another without his own consent”.
The bedrock for the Industrial Revolution laid down by such Enlightenment giants such as Galileo and Isaac Newton had established new cities and industrial centres. This resulted in expanding urbanisation with growing numbers of people from a once dominant rural majority moving en-masse to the new industrial centres was facing a growing backlash.
Mill machinery was being destroyed by such groups as the Luddites in England. European opposition to Enlightenment values and its achievements had evolved into the Romanticism Era (1800-1850). A deep mistrust of progress at all costs, industrialisation that smothered individuality and spread impersonality.
Germany philosopher’s like Hegel promoted a national spirit, the concept of the German ‘volk’ was born. Eugene Delacroix, the French artist produced works like ‘La Liberte Guidant le people’ (1830) glorified imaginary of beauty and the Revolution, it has since become part of the French character.
In literature Romanticism would have some heavy hitters, Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein published in 1818 married the Gothic novel to Romanticism loathing for Enlightenment pillar progress, the ultimate insanity of progress man builds monster. Whimsical nostalgia, especially tinted imagery of Middle Ages and chivalry, Sir Walter Scot’s Ivanhoe.
William Blake managed in his poem Jerusalem to fuse the Romantics great standard bearer, Nature to the movement’s hatred of Industrialisation, the poem is based on the mythical journey made to England by Jesus in company of Joseph of Arimathea.‘Shine forth on our clouded hills
And was Jerusalem builded here
Among these dark Satanic mills’
William Blake (1804)
In these few short lines Blake manages to evoke the mystical, God and the evils of the progress of the Industrial Revolution and its evil threat to nature.
Romanticism would spawn a host artists, writers, philosophers, poets and composers whose works and influences that still resonate to the present day. Voltaire, Hegel, Wordsworth, Byron and on.
‘Before trying to distinguish the epic side of modern life, and before bringing examples to prove our age is no less fertile in sublime themes than past ages, we may assert that since all centuries and all peoples have had their own form of beauty, so inevitably will ours. That is the way of things’- Charles Baudelaire (1846)
Here is where I begin to hear, read and see the emergence of Modernism making its presence felt. Baudelaire, a French poet, essayist and art critic is usually credited with the term ‘modernity’ basically meaning that the artist has a responsibility to capture the experience, however momentary, of the world he lived in, the urban metropolis or cities of the time. This is but an instance of the initial stirrings of what would become Modernism, Although it will be christened Realism, it is my opinion that it is hair splitting differentiate.
It would not be in literature, or art, but Modernism’s impact would spread into every corner of society. Such is the upheaval Modernism has caused, its influences are still affecting us today and will do so in the future.Research:
Thomas Locke (1690) wrote: ‘Man being, as has been said, by Nature, all free, and equal and independent, no one can be put out of this estate, and subjected to the political power of another without his own consent”.
Here is where I begin to hear, read and see the emergence of Modernism making its presence felt. Baudelaire, a French poet, essayist and art critic is usually credited with the term ‘modernity’ basically meaning that the artist has a responsibility to capture the experience, however momentary, of the world he lived in, the urban metropolis or cities of the time. This is but an instance of the initial stirrings of what would become Modernism, Although it will be christened Realism, it is my opinion that it is hair splitting differentiate.
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