The Move toward Modernism Chapter 31 The Move toward Modernism

Late Nineteenth Century

Philisophy Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900) Henri Bergson (1659-1941)

Nietzsche Nietzsche held that “life is a senseless flux devoid of any overarching purpose. There are no moral values revealed by God. Instead . . . God is dead. . . . All the values taught by Christian and bourgeois thinkers are without foundation . . . . There is only naked man living in a godless and absurd world” (Perry II 269)

Nietzsche “Nietzsche called for the emergence of the overman or superman, a higher type of man who asserts his will, gives order to chaotic passions, makes great demands on himself, and lives life with a fierce joy” (Perry II 269).

Bergson Two primary forces in life: intellect and intuition. The essence of life is duration, or “perpetual becoming.” (Fiero 788)

Bergson He believed that “true experience is durational, a constant unfolding in time, and that reality, which can only e apprehended intuitively, is a state of qualitative changes that merge into one another without precise outlines” (Fiero 788)

Artistic Movements Art for Art’s Sake Symbolism Impressionism Japonisme Art Nouveau Postimpressionism

Art for Art’s Sake L’art pour l’art against the Enlightenment “more concerned with sensory experience than with moral purpose, with feeling than with teaching . . .” (Fiero 786)

Art for Art’s Sake The artists “made art that obey purely aesthetic impulses, that—like music—communicated meaning through shape or sound, pattern or color” (Fiero 786)

Symbolism 1885-1910 In favor of subjective expression that drew on sensory experience, dreams, and myth. By means of ambiguous but powerful images, the symbolists strive to suggest ideas and feelings that might evoke an ideal rather than a real world. (Fiero 788)

Symbolism Favorite themes: Religious mysticism The erotic The supernatural

Symbolism Literature: Baudelaire Verlaine Rimbaud Mallarmé

Symbolism Painting: Holdler, The Chose One Music: Debussy

Munch, The Dance of Life

Gauguin

Khnopff, I Lock My Door Upon Myself

Klimt, The Kiss

Impressionism Major features Luminosity The interaction of light and form Subtlety of tone Preoccupied with sensation itself

Impressionism Major artists: Monet (1840-1926) Renoir (1841-1919) Pissarro (1830-1903) Edgar Degas (1834-1917)

Japonisme Japanese woodblock prints Features: flat, unmodulated colors, undulating lines, empty spaces Subject matter: (1) urban life (2) the floating world of courtesans, actors, and dancers

ukiyo-e (浮世繪) Nineteenth-century Japanese "Ukiyo-e" woodblock prints are often called "pictures of the Floating World"--that is, pictures of the transient world of the actors, courtesans and rich merchants of the brothel and theater district of the city of Edo, now called Tokyo. http://www.carnegiemuseums.org/cmag/bk_issue/1996/marapr/hokusai.htm

ukiyo-e (浮世繪) Ukiyo-e printmakers utilized themes from daily life in a large city as well as drawing from the beauty of the Japanese landscape. Another situation common to the culture of a large city such as Edo, and to contribute to the motifs of the ukiyo-e printmaker was the area of the city given over to pleasure. http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1982/4/82.04.03.x.html

Influences 1. Edgar Degas (1834-1917) 2. Mary Cassatt (1844-1926) 3. Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) 4. Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890) 5. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) 6. James McNeil Whistler.

Japanese Compositional Devices: as found in ukiyo-e prints that demonstrate flat space. 1. Asymmety. 2. Flat Space. 3. Line: Lines come together or converge as they come to the foreground as compared to Western perspective devices. Diagonals are often used. 4. Flat Color as compared to the use of shadow to convey three dimensional form. http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1982/4/82.04.03.x.html

Katsushika Hokusai (葛飾北斎) (1760-1849)

The Great Wave Off Kanagawa http://www. ibiblio The Great Wave Off Kanagawa http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/hokusai/ From "Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji"; 1823-29

Red Fuji, http://www.stmoroky.com/reviews/gallery/hokusai/24views.htm

Boy Viewing Mount Fuji, 1839, http://www. asia. si

Utagawa Hiroshige (歌川廣重, 安藤廣重) (1797-- 1858)

Suruga Street from the series “One Hundred Famous Views of Edo” Japan, Edo period, 1856 http://www.honoluluacademy.org/cmshaa/academy/index.aspx?id=1405

Ando Hiroshige Japanese, 1797 – 1858 Great Bridge: Sudden Rain at Atake, 1857 http://www.cmoa.org/collections/works.asp#void

Vincent van Gogh Bridge in the Rain (after Hiroshige), 1887 http://www

Plum Garden, 1857 http://www.hiroshige.org.uk/hiroshige/100_views_edo/images/100_views_edo_030.jpg

Vincent van Gogh Flowering Plum Tree 1887 http://www. hiroshige. org

Irises at Horikiri http://www. hiroshige. org

Riverside bamboo market at Kyobashi 1857 http://www. hiroshige. org

James Abbott McNeill Whistler Nocturne in Blue and Gold Old Battersea Bridge 1872-5 http://www.hiroshige.org.uk/hiroshige/influences/images/whistler_Nocturne%20in%20Blue%20and%20Gold%20-%20Old%20Battersea%20Bridge.jpg

James Whistler, Caprice in Purple and Gold: The Golden Screen http://www.hiroshige.org.uk/hiroshige/influences/images/whistler_CapriceInPurpleAndGoldNo%202_TheGoldenScreen.jpg

Monet

Whistler

Van Gogh

Art Nouveau An international style of decoration and architecture which developed in the 1880s and 1890s. the art form began as a result of the Arts and Crafts Movement, which rejected the mass-produced techniques of industrialization. Art Nouveau developed a new style of exuberant curving lines, assymetrical design and elements of fantasy. http://www.qdesign.co.nz/designhist_artnou.html

Art Nouveau Committed to evocation and expression like Symbolism Followed the Symbolist cult of the exotic, lavish, and esoteric interior Heir to Symbolist imagery: the lily, the sphinx, the vampire

Art Nouveau Art Nouveau resurrected the interlacing lines of Celtic art and the fluid arches and curves of Gothic architecture in exuberant style, but the arts and artifacts of Japan were the crucial inspiration They were intrigued by the novel artistic vision of the wood prints, with their simple pallette of colours and asymmetrical outlines, and the abrupt angularity of the branching cherry blossom tree. http://www.qdesign.co.nz/designhist_artnou.html

Tiffany Studios American (firm active 1902-1932) Wisteria table lamp, c. 1902 http://www.nga.gov/feature/nouveau/exhibit_audio.htm#

Louis Majorelle (1859-1926) and Daum Frères (firm active 1878 onward), Orchid desk http://www.nga.gov/feature/nouveau/exhibit_audio.htm#

Otto Eckmann German (1865-1902) for Scherrebek Weaving School Five Swans, 1897 woven wool http://www.nga.gov/feature/nouveau/exhibit_audio.htm#

Tiffany Studios American (firm active 1902-1932) Jack-in-the-pulpit vase, c. 1902-1910 http://www.nga.gov/feature/nouveau/exhibit_audio.htm#

Victor Horta, Tassel House, Brussels, 1892-3. http://www. unc

Sculpture Degas Rodin

Postimpressionism Van Gogh Gauguin Seurat Cézanne

The End