Exploring the beginning of our modern world. The earliest representations can be found through traditional art forms where people's experience of the modern were through oil paintings. Individual's social experiences of the emergence was captured in these paintings. Modernity suggests the city, urban life and industrialisation. These aspects are at the centre of the experience and the changes to these elements affect how people respond. I am keen to unpick the way in which the modern affected people's ways of thinking, seeing and doing and how the sense of themselves altered. A shift through visual culture can be seen in paintings which record and spot the individual psychology. Things began to become mass reproduced thanks to the rise in industrialisation. Etchings and photography are both products of the modern world and came into prominence at this time.
Modern carries with it a value judgement that to be modern is to be better than old, to modernise is to make something better. It hasn't always been that way, however. Prior to the modern era, to be modern just meant to be 'of your time'. It didn't carry with it connotations of being better or improved. John Ruskin wrote a book titled the Modern Painter's Book and critiqued as to whether new painters were as good as classic ones, debating the ancient and the new. I need to think of modernist as progressive, acceleration and heightened - all interlinking concepts. The Pre-Raphaelites rejected the moder world, at their time, and went back to the Raphael era of renaissance painting. They wanted to reject the horrors of the industrial world and go back to highly decorative, romanticised works. The Pre-Raphaelites and their values were considered modern. They certainly didn't progress though as they turned away from the modern world and went back to a historic vision of society.
Much of the analysis will start in 1900 Paris, which was the epicentre of modernity. It was a quintessential modern city housing great exhibitions, metropolises and examples of modern architecture. This changed in the 50's when New York became the advent of the modern world as we know it today. This timeframe represents a society that moves away from the life of agriculture, farming, relying on sunrise and sunset to map the day - to a society of condensation of life in cities. Mass cities evolved of hundreds and thousands of people in one area - squashed together but not knowing one another. This was a huge contrast to before where people lived in small towns and villages and knew each other and their roles in society - farmer, shop owner, priest, postman. People were now dressing the same, doing the same work and had an alienated sense of existence. Alongside this social alienation was the development of factory labour, mechanisation, an increase in the pace of life. Rapid acceleration of existence living in producetibe powerhouses of cities for life. New inventions and an array of distractions. We were no longer dominated by natural elements like the sunrise but schedules and timetables and production clocking on and off, being quicker and faster and more efficient. This was all to make more profit. Punch: work. Punch: leisure. A pattern emerges because of industrialisation.
World Time comes in during this era as people are now travelling between countries more often. The telephone was developed and prominent in this era so that people could communicate in different cities and countries. We now needed an agreement on standardised time as we move through time zones. People can now control light and work in the evenings, humanity had shifted the rules of nature reinventing the world order as laid down previously. The world suddenly shrinks and becomes more manageable; less chaotic and confusing. We can now get around the world in a few days rather than weeks. The world is moe conquerable and yet more dizzying and confusing. Modernity has its parameters estimated from 1750 to the mid 20th century, with it dying out in the late '50s to mid '60s. We are no longer living in modernity now; we are considered to be in a Postmodern age.
Trottoir Roulant was a powerful walkway at 7km close to the Gallery de Machines. There was a quasi-competitive streak between Paris and London to show off how experimental their city was in comparison to others. London, Paris and New York helped giant citywide expos to showcase all of their products of art and design. There was a process of secularisation where people turned away from religion and God as a way of understanding themselves and their lives - instead turning towards reason like science, technology and rationality. Society becomes more modern, urban and less religios. The city is the nexus of the modern; the epicentre of life where everything and everywhere else is peripheral. In regards to Paris, the development and unveiling of the Eiffel Tower caused a rupture in terms of its' aesthetic - looking like a support mechanism for something else rather than a symbolic decoration. It was a giant iron phallus rising over the city, looking over the beautiful gothic architecture as a lump on extended iron. It truly suggested the sweeping away of the old and imposing the modern on a historic place, whether people were ready for it or not. It signified an aggression to modernism, being invasive in many ways. The old is brushed aside and replaced at increasing speed.
Gustav Caillebotte's paintings spoke of the new Paris, the Paris of modernity. His works captured how industrial society brings with it the rate of profit and wealth through factory labour, affluent middle class and upper classes and labouring classes. Class distinctions being created. A couple parading through the streets of New Paris. Grand arteries and giant streets were capable of accommodating motor cars as well as carriages. In some ways it was also a political project, employed by Napoleon from the 1850's to resign Paris, to control the city is a militaristic way to bring tanks in. The modern was able to control us as much as it was able to free us. Paris was becoming gentrified; expensive and affluent for only the rich. The working classes and the less desirable elements get marginalised and pushed to the outskirts (something which is still see in today's cities). Manet talked about how new society gives us new material things - fancy new clothes and houses but we become less human and less connected in the process.
The birth of psychological society, psychiatry, disciplines of understanding mental processes happened at this time through a desire, out of a worry, that the rapid change in the pace of life would send people insane. The fear that people's sensibilities would be distracted by new possibilities. Class distinctions emerged in paintings sowing social rituals, flanneurs and proto-hipsters. The high classes strolling through the city experiencing modernity, walking slowly and showing off how finely dressed they are with extravagant pets such as monkeys and parrots. Taking in the city with little time for rejects. New forms of social behaviour were formed. A picture of modern life and all of its trappings, relaxing by the Siene. In its form and technique a product of modernity. Optical science was being developed at this time. Different coloured dots would create an illusion of blue. The technique removes the art. Seurat was anti-expressive, anyone can do it and be another cog in the machine. No creativity, laboriously and painstakingly adding dots. Using faceless characters without expression - the modern world if turning us into faceless zombies but decorated ones with new fashions and new forms of leisure.
The modern is not neutral. It, in some ways, suggests improvements or to make things better, alluding to a better path. Modernism is not a sarcastic movement, It is Utopian wth a whole range of style, effecting everything including the ways in which we teach art and design.
Modern carries with it a value judgement that to be modern is to be better than old, to modernise is to make something better. It hasn't always been that way, however. Prior to the modern era, to be modern just meant to be 'of your time'. It didn't carry with it connotations of being better or improved. John Ruskin wrote a book titled the Modern Painter's Book and critiqued as to whether new painters were as good as classic ones, debating the ancient and the new. I need to think of modernist as progressive, acceleration and heightened - all interlinking concepts. The Pre-Raphaelites rejected the moder world, at their time, and went back to the Raphael era of renaissance painting. They wanted to reject the horrors of the industrial world and go back to highly decorative, romanticised works. The Pre-Raphaelites and their values were considered modern. They certainly didn't progress though as they turned away from the modern world and went back to a historic vision of society.
Much of the analysis will start in 1900 Paris, which was the epicentre of modernity. It was a quintessential modern city housing great exhibitions, metropolises and examples of modern architecture. This changed in the 50's when New York became the advent of the modern world as we know it today. This timeframe represents a society that moves away from the life of agriculture, farming, relying on sunrise and sunset to map the day - to a society of condensation of life in cities. Mass cities evolved of hundreds and thousands of people in one area - squashed together but not knowing one another. This was a huge contrast to before where people lived in small towns and villages and knew each other and their roles in society - farmer, shop owner, priest, postman. People were now dressing the same, doing the same work and had an alienated sense of existence. Alongside this social alienation was the development of factory labour, mechanisation, an increase in the pace of life. Rapid acceleration of existence living in producetibe powerhouses of cities for life. New inventions and an array of distractions. We were no longer dominated by natural elements like the sunrise but schedules and timetables and production clocking on and off, being quicker and faster and more efficient. This was all to make more profit. Punch: work. Punch: leisure. A pattern emerges because of industrialisation.
World Time comes in during this era as people are now travelling between countries more often. The telephone was developed and prominent in this era so that people could communicate in different cities and countries. We now needed an agreement on standardised time as we move through time zones. People can now control light and work in the evenings, humanity had shifted the rules of nature reinventing the world order as laid down previously. The world suddenly shrinks and becomes more manageable; less chaotic and confusing. We can now get around the world in a few days rather than weeks. The world is moe conquerable and yet more dizzying and confusing. Modernity has its parameters estimated from 1750 to the mid 20th century, with it dying out in the late '50s to mid '60s. We are no longer living in modernity now; we are considered to be in a Postmodern age.
Trottoir Roulant was a powerful walkway at 7km close to the Gallery de Machines. There was a quasi-competitive streak between Paris and London to show off how experimental their city was in comparison to others. London, Paris and New York helped giant citywide expos to showcase all of their products of art and design. There was a process of secularisation where people turned away from religion and God as a way of understanding themselves and their lives - instead turning towards reason like science, technology and rationality. Society becomes more modern, urban and less religios. The city is the nexus of the modern; the epicentre of life where everything and everywhere else is peripheral. In regards to Paris, the development and unveiling of the Eiffel Tower caused a rupture in terms of its' aesthetic - looking like a support mechanism for something else rather than a symbolic decoration. It was a giant iron phallus rising over the city, looking over the beautiful gothic architecture as a lump on extended iron. It truly suggested the sweeping away of the old and imposing the modern on a historic place, whether people were ready for it or not. It signified an aggression to modernism, being invasive in many ways. The old is brushed aside and replaced at increasing speed.
Gustav Caillebotte's paintings spoke of the new Paris, the Paris of modernity. His works captured how industrial society brings with it the rate of profit and wealth through factory labour, affluent middle class and upper classes and labouring classes. Class distinctions being created. A couple parading through the streets of New Paris. Grand arteries and giant streets were capable of accommodating motor cars as well as carriages. In some ways it was also a political project, employed by Napoleon from the 1850's to resign Paris, to control the city is a militaristic way to bring tanks in. The modern was able to control us as much as it was able to free us. Paris was becoming gentrified; expensive and affluent for only the rich. The working classes and the less desirable elements get marginalised and pushed to the outskirts (something which is still see in today's cities). Manet talked about how new society gives us new material things - fancy new clothes and houses but we become less human and less connected in the process.
The birth of psychological society, psychiatry, disciplines of understanding mental processes happened at this time through a desire, out of a worry, that the rapid change in the pace of life would send people insane. The fear that people's sensibilities would be distracted by new possibilities. Class distinctions emerged in paintings sowing social rituals, flanneurs and proto-hipsters. The high classes strolling through the city experiencing modernity, walking slowly and showing off how finely dressed they are with extravagant pets such as monkeys and parrots. Taking in the city with little time for rejects. New forms of social behaviour were formed. A picture of modern life and all of its trappings, relaxing by the Siene. In its form and technique a product of modernity. Optical science was being developed at this time. Different coloured dots would create an illusion of blue. The technique removes the art. Seurat was anti-expressive, anyone can do it and be another cog in the machine. No creativity, laboriously and painstakingly adding dots. Using faceless characters without expression - the modern world if turning us into faceless zombies but decorated ones with new fashions and new forms of leisure.
The modern is not neutral. It, in some ways, suggests improvements or to make things better, alluding to a better path. Modernism is not a sarcastic movement, It is Utopian wth a whole range of style, effecting everything including the ways in which we teach art and design.
