Modernism

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Modernism

• 1918-1945

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Difference between Realism and Modernism

• Whereas REALISM
• Emphasized absolutism, and
• Believed that a single reality could be
  determined through the observation of nature

• MODERNISM
• Argued for cultural relativism,
• And believed that people make their own meaning
  in the world.

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Value Differences in the Modern World
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World War I1914 (1917-1918)
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WWI Doughboys and Air Fights
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WWI Trench War Fare and Poison Gas
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Russian Revolution 1917
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Social Snapshot of the Times

• Result of Political Turmoil
• Revolutionary Ideologies Rise
• Fascism
• The separation and persecution or denial of
  equality to a certain group based on race, creed,
  or origin
• Nazism
• Socialism featuring racism, expansionism and
  obedience to a strong leader
• Communism
• Control of the means of production should rest in
  the hands of the laborers.

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Fascism and Nazism
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Communism
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Social Snapshot of the Times

• Scientific Revolution
• Quantum theory
• Explains the nature of matter and energy on the
  atomic and subatomic level
• Principle of Uncertainty
• In quantum mechanics increasing the accuracy of
  measurement of one observable quantity increases
  the uncertainty with which another may be known

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Snapshot of the Times Implications for Nature of
Reality

• Many-worlds (multi-verse) theory
• As soon as the potential exists for any object to
  be in any state, the universe of the object
  transmutes into a series of parallel universes
  equaling the number of possible states in which
  an object can exist. Stephen Hawking posits the
  possibility for interaction between universes.
• Copenhagen interpretation nothing exists until
  it is measured
• Schrödinger's cat (dead and alive)

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Schrödinger's cat
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Forces Behind Modernism

• The sense that our culture has no center, no
  values.
• Paradigm shift
• from the closed, finite, measurable,
  cause-and-effect universe of the 19th century to
  an open, relativistic, changing, strange universe

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Characteristics of Modernism in Literature

• Literature Exhibits Perspectivism
• Meaning comes from the individuals perspective
  and is thus personalized
• A single story might be told from the perspective
  of several different people, with the assumption
  that the truth is somewhere in the middle

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Characteristics of Modernism in Literature

• Inner psychological reality or interiority is
  represented
• Stream of consciousnessportraying the
  characters inner monologue

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Characteristic of Modernism in Literature

• Perception of language changes
• No longer seen as transparent, allowing us to
  see through to reality
• But now considered the way an individual
  constructs reality
• Language is thick with multiple meanings and
  varied connotative forces.

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Characteristic of Modernism in Literature

• Emphasis on the Experimental
• Art is artifact rather than reality
• Organized non-sequentially
• Experience portrayed as layered, allusive,
  discontinuous, using fragmentation and
  juxtaposition.
• Ambiguous endingsopen endings which are seen as
  more representative of reality.

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The Armory Show International Exhibition of
Modern Art, 1913

• Watershed date in American art
• Introduced astonished New Yorkers, accustomed to
  realistic art, to modern art
• Teddy Roosevelt said, Thats not art!

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Matisse
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Cubism

• Cubism1909-1911
• Art in which multiple views are presented
  simultaneously in flattened, geometric way.

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Cubism
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Dadaism

• Dadaism deliberately irrational
• a protest against the barbarism of the War and
  oppressive intellectual rigidity
• Anti-art
• Strives to have no meaning
• Interpretation dependent entirely on the viewer
• Intentionally offends.

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Dadaism
Duchamp
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Surrealism

• Surrealism
• Grew out of Dada and automatism.
• Reveals the unconscious mind in dream images, the
  irrational, and the fantastic,
• Impossible combinations of objects depicted in
  realistic detail.

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Surrealism
Magritte
Dali
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Jackson Pollock
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Futurism

• Futurismgrew out of Cubism.
• Added implied motion to the shifting planes and
  multiple observation points of the Cubists
• Celebrated natural as well as mechanical motion
  and speed.
• Glorified danger, war, and the machine

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Futurism
Giacomo Balla
Kandinsky
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Modernism Timeline

• 1914 Outbreak of WWI
• 1917 US enters war, Russian Revolution
• 1919
• WWI ends,
• Einsteins Relativity theory confirmed,
• Prohibition begins

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Modernism Timeline

• 1920
• League of Nations begins
• 19th Amendment granting women the vote
• 1921Irish Free State proclaimed
• 1922Fascists march on Rome under Mussolini
• 1923Charleston craze

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Modernism Timeline

• 1925
• Image of human face televised
• Hitler published Mein Kampf
• 1927
• Lindbergh flies solo across Atlantic
• Al Jolson, first talkie

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Modernism Timeline

• 1929US stock market crashes
• 1933
• Hitler appointed Chancellor of Germany
• First German concentration camps
• Prohibition ends in US

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Modernism Timeline

• 1934Hitler becomes dictator
• 1936Civil War in Spain begins
• 1938Germany occupies Austria
• 1939
• Hitler and Stalin make pact
• Germany invades Poland
• Great Britain and France declare war on Germany

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Modernism Timeline

• 1941
• Germany invades USSR
• Japan bombs Pearl Harbor, US enters war
• 1942
• Battle of Stalingrad, Battle of Midway
• T-shirt invented
• 1944D-Day invasion of France

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Modernism Timeline

• 1945
• End of war in Europe
• Atomic bomb dropped on Japan
• First computer built
• Microwave oven invented
• United Nations founded

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