Modernism

Around 1918-1945

Roots in 1890s

Main points

Differences between Realism and Modernism

Modernism Timeline and Social Snaphots

Forces behind Modernism Characteristics of Modernism in

Literature Canonical Literary Authors Modernism in Visual Arts

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.

Value Differences in the Modern World

Pre-Modern World Modern World (Early 20th Century)

Ordered Chaotic

Meaningful Futile

Optimistic Pessimistic

Stable Fluctuating

Faith Loss of faith

Morality/Values Collapse of Morality/Values

Clear Sense of Identity Confused Sense of Identity and Place in the World

Modernism Timeline

1914: Outbreak of WWI 1916: Irish War of

Independence 21 Nov 1920: Bloody Sunday

1917: Russian Revolution

World War I:1914 (1915-1918)

WWI: Air Fights

WWI: Trench War Fare and Poison Gas

Modernism Timeline

1918: WWI ends

1920: Einstein’s Relativity

theory confirmed

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.

Fascism and

Nazism

Communism

Modernism Timeline

1920 League of Nations

begins 19th Amendment

granting women the vote

1921—Irish Free State proclaimed

1922—Fascists march on Rome under Mussolini

1923—Charleston craze

Modernism Timeline

1925— Image of human face

televised Hitler published Mein

Kampf

1927 Lindbergh flies solo

across Atlantic Al Jolson, first talkie

Modernism Timeline

1929—US stock market crashes

1933 Hitler appointed

Chancellor of Germany

First German concentration camps

Prohibition ends in US

Modernism Timeline

1934—Hitler becomes dictator

1936—Civil War in Spain begins

1938—Germany occupies Austria

1939 Hitler and Stalin make

pact Germany invades

Poland Great Britain and

France declare war on Germany

Modernism Timeline

1941 Germany invades

USSR Japan bombs Pearl

Harbor, US enters war

1942 Battle of Stalingrad,

Battle of Midway 1944—D-Day

invasion of France

Modernism Timeline

1945 End of war in Europe Atomic bomb

dropped on Japan United Nations

founded First computer built Microwave oven

invented

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

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)

Schrödinger's cat

Forces behind Modernism

Discovery of the unconscious psychoanalysis

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

Characteristics of Modernism in Literature

Literature Exhibits Perspectivism

Meaning comes from the individual’s 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

Characteristics of Modernism in Literature

Inner psychological reality or “interiority” is represented

o Stream of consciousness—portraying the character’s inner monologue

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.

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 endings—open endings which are seen as more representative of reality

Canonical Modernist Authors

T.S. Eliot W.B. Yeats James Joyce Virginia Woolf Ernest Hemingway Franz Kafka Gertrude Stein F. Scott Fitzgerald Ezra Pound

Modernism in Visual Arts

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, “That’s not art!”

Matisse

Cubism

Cubism—1909-1911 Art in which multiple views are presented

simultaneously in flattened, geometric way.

Cubism

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.

Dadaism

Duchamp

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.

Surrealism

Dali Magritte

Jackson Pollock

Futurism

Futurism—grew 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

Futurism

Giacomo BallaKandinsky

Main points

Differences between Realism and Modernism

Modernism Timeline and Social Snaphots

Forces behind Modernism Characteristics of Modernism in

Literature Canonical Literary Authors Modernism in Visual Arts

The End