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Exit Victorian ways of thought and enter a new
way of thinking. Modernism is giving up old ways in pursuit of new methods and
avant garde attitudes. In the 19th and 20th centuries and especially after World
War I, artists began to give up old ways of creating. The scientific
discoveries of this time, the inventions of modern conveniences, and the
industrial revolution all had a profound effect on people. These changes and
discoveries influenced artists. Modern ways in the arts rebelled against old
ways of thinking. Dancers, artists, designers, and musicians, architects,
writers, who discarded old ways of doing things, are called modernists.
In visual arts, one can look back to the 1860's and begin to
see the start of modernism with the artist Edouard Manet.
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Olympia,
by Edouard Monet |
Unlike modern times, Nude models were typically required to
be modest and drape their faces with cloth in Victorian times. Manet’s paintings broke away from many ideologies of
his time.
Modernism continues to change and evolve into new forms of art movements such
as:
impressionism, post-impressionism, cubism, futurism, expressionism,
constructivism, de stijl, abstract expressionism, color field painting, lyrical
abstraction, geometric abstraction, minimalism, abstract illusionism, process
art, pop art, and post-minimalism.
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Some famous modernist and contributors to the modernist
movement are: Walter Darby Bannard, Ross Bleckner, Johannes Andreas Brinkman,
Sir Anthony Caro, Dan Christensen, Chuck Close, Susan Crile, Ronald Davis, Jim
Dine, Helen Frankenthaler, Lucian Freud, Sam Gilliam, Solomon Guggenheim,
Monroe Harriet, Al Held, Jasper Johns, Alex Katz, Ellsworth Kelly, Ronnie
Landfield, Brice Marden, Agnes Martin, Elizabeth Murray, Kenneth Noland, Claes
Oldenburg, Tom Otterness, Jules Olitski, Philip Pearlstein, Larry Poons, Archie
Rand, Robert Rauschenberg, James Rosenquist, Sean Scully, Richard Serra, Joel
Shapiro, Frank Stella, Joan Snyder, Cy Twombly, Isaac Witkin, and Larry Zox.
If you’re interested in furthering your knowledge in Modernism, Google some of
the names mentioned above. You may also be pleased to check out the following
books:
High Art: Charles Baudelaire and the Origins of Modernist Painting
by David Carrier
Most Difficult Journey: The Poindexter Collections of American Modernist
Painting
by Ben Mitchell, Rick Newby, Andrea Pappas
Against Voluptuous Bodies: Late Modernism and the Meaning of Painting
by J. M. Bernstein
Glorious Eccentrics: Modernist Women Painting and Writing
by Mary Ann Caws
British Artists and the Modernist Landscape
by Ysanne Holt
Cezanne and Modernism (SUNY Series, The Margins of Literature):
The Poetics of Painting
by Joyce Medina, Miriam I. Spariosu (Editor)
The Modernist Tradition in American Art, 1911-1939
by Marilyn S. Kushner, Susan Cooke, David Mickenberg (Preface by)
The Women of Beaver Hall: Canadian Modernist Painters
by Evelyn Walters
Modernists in Taos: From Dasburg to Martin, Vol. 1
by David L. Witt, Elizabeth J. Cunningham (Editor, Dean A. Porter
Sources: Wikipedia, Encyclopedia Britannica, Amazon.com
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