Definition of Modernism

A response to the questions,

"When did it begin? How did it begin? When did it end? What are the main principles associated with the Modern art Movement? Who are the main artists/critics associated with it and what is the aesthetic character of Modern Art?"

Although the date of Modernism's birth is contested by art historians, a significant majority name 1863, the year that Manet's Olympia shocked the western world, as the year in which modernism began. The dramatic schism that Manet unwittingly widened with his seminal work can be best understood by comparing it to the piece to which it was meant to pay homage, namely Titian's Venus of Urbino, painted c.1538.

Unlike the coquettish, idealized young woman in Titian's painting, who clearly came from a wealthy background and whose future lay in marriage and child rearing, Manet's rendition of the scene presents a calculating realism. The woman portrayed is no innocent youth; she stares at the spectator with confrontational directness. She is a prostitute, and all romantic notions of femininity so firmly upheld by millenia of artistic tradition are utterly denied in Manet's expertly painted work.

This eschewal of artistic tradition represents the most salient value of Modernism. Modernists tore themselves from historical precedent more firmly than any movement in history, and what followed was a vast proliferation of sub-movements and an increasing trend towards abstraction. The breadth of work being produced during the early decades of Modernism spoke to the subjectivity that became commonplace; unlike the strict boundaries and categories of the Academy, Modernism accepted all work that dared to show the unique vision of the artist. It pioneered the New and cast away the old, and with this credo in hand, artists began to use materials that had never before been considered. Duchamp began exhibiting readymades, Pollock used house paint and Eva Hesse began working with industrial plastics. This democratization of art paved the way for postmodernism, a movement that embraced an inter-disciplinary approach to creating, and that aknowledged the historical and cultural significance from which it sprouted. By the mid-1970s it was widely believed that the Postmodern period had begun.

Modernist Art Ciritics

Charles Baudelaire (poet and critic who supported Manet during the Olympia scandal)

Clement Greenburg (critic)

John Ruskin (critic staunchly opposed to modernism)

Roger Fry (Engligh pre WWI critic, championed post impressionism)

Clive Bell (Engligh pre WWII critic, championed formalism)

Apoillinaire (poet and critic who supported cubism)

Harold Rosenburg (advocated for de Kooning)

Modernist Artists:

Manet

Whistler

Guimard

Mansart

Duchamps

Kandinsky

de Kooning

Dali

Picasso

Pollock

Hesse