Modernism in art triumphed from the 19th century onward and in the early 20th century virtually changed the way art came to be perceived. From the Abstractionists to the Cubists to the Surrealists to the followers of Dada, the modernists continually reinvented themselves with newer and wilder movements, firmly rejecting tradition and all its preoccupations. It was only fitting, however, that modern artists should break so completely with the past: modern society had split from the old world with the Protestant Reformation, the Age of Enlightenment, the Scientific Revolution, and the Romantic Era, all of which followed one on the heels of the other. This paper will trace the history of the final era -- the modernist -- by examining five works of five different painters of the modernist era: Franz Marc's "Fate of the Animals," Pablo Picasso's "Guitar and Violin," Marcel Duchamp's "found" artwork "Fountain," Salvador Dali's Surrealist masterpiece "The Persistence of Memory," and Piet Mondrian's "Composition with Red, Blue, and Yellow."
As European society sought to understand itself according to new Romantic/Enlightenment ideals (like the ideals of the French Revolution -- liberty, fraternity, equality), many artists sought to reflect the societal revolution around them by initiating artistic revolution. Just as the old world societal structure went away, so too did the old world art forms. The Classical, the Baroque, the Realistic and the Romantic all fell away. The Impressionists delivered the first blow -- but their works still reflected an objective vision. The modern world emphasized subjectivity. Thus, the modernists would create art that would reflect nothing objective but rather something abstract, subjective or (in the case of Duchamp) downright absurd.
Each of these five artists basically came into their own in the early 20th century. Each of them worked through the latest artistic novelty that had come before them. Each of their famous and original techniques was like a response to the other. Mondrian dabbled with post-Impressionism before identifying...
According to Schmutlzer, "The buildings of Horta reveal the full importance of architectural initiative" (114). In his book, a History of Modern Architecture, Joedicke (1959) reports that, "In the nineteenth century a circle of adventurous artists, known as 'Les XX,' had already appeared in Brussels, who were strongly influenced by William Morris and his followers. In 1893 Victor Horta, who belonged to this group, built the house in the Rue
Rauchenberg and Shochat Shochat and Rauschenberg: Challenging Taboos Rauschenberg's "Odalisk" (1955-58) and Shochat's "Johanan and the Rooster, 2010" are separated by half a century and yet both works reflect one another artistically, in terms of style, theme and ideas. "Odalisk" is a parody of the 19th century portrait "La Grande Odalisque" by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, which depicts a nude Turkish concubine reclining on a bed peering over her shoulder at the
The open space invites you to dwell on the mysterious and contemplate the interior life -- away from the crowded, stacked-up world just beyond the walls: "deliberately placed…beyond the limits of control" (Witcombe). The Guggenheim, therefore, takes you out of your element: it transports you into another time, another place -- a time and place that never existed and has yet to come into existence: a sanctuary where modern art
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Civilization and Barbarism and Cruelty The works of Esteban Echeverria's El Matadero/The Slaughterhouse and Domingo Faustino Sarmiento's Facundo two classic works Argentinean 19th century literature How does one behave like a civilized human being when one is confronted with a brutal dictator and what causes a dictator to rise to power in a land such as Argentina? These are the central questions posed both by the literature of the poet Esteban
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