A Modernist View of What Art is

I think page 136 says it well "The art that ensued from this interpretation (avant agarde) of modernization could be seen as elitist, anti-demoratic, and at odds with mass culture". Modernists are in my opinion very anti-mainstream. They attempt to create art and masterpieces that later become mainstream, at which point they redesign and reconfigure to fabricate a new modern genre. On page 47, it mentions that things that used to be modern are now sitting on shelves in university libraries as 'classic'. Society as a whole are modernists in loose interpretation, because they welcome modernism into their sphere, however, modernists as a whole are more removed from their art. I get the sense that modernists create a piece and walk away from it--almost sensing public mass production and exploitation. These artists don't revel in their works, they move on to the next piece without looking back.

Modernists would think that each individual decides what art is for themselves. They would say that art is a personal matter, and that, interpretation and conceptual-ism all aid art's definition. Modernists are self-proclaimed exiles who choose to be out of the mainstream, whereas post-modernists were so far from society that they weren't ever apart of the bigger world. Modernists also reject modernity, the industrial side of modernism, because modernity is about fusing form and function, and most modernists care more about the emotion of a piece, rather than the use of it.

Part Two of Modernism

In this section of the book, a part that stood out to me was the idea of there being a connection between primitivism and modernism. Primitivism, as defined by the book, as a deep link to 'feelings and ideas'--a sort of fancy way to say that they take root from the past and what we consider 'primitive' or 'third world'. But when you think that the book has suddenly shifted to an ignorance, you flip the page to find that primitivism has received controversy over the notion of ethnocentrism (or bigotry judging based on the values from one's own world view). So, is primitivism, while a crucial part of redefining art to create modernism (because most anything new takes its foundation from something in its past), could it possibly be the wrong way to go about creating modernism? The whole primitivism section delves not only in art in the typical canvas form, but also in literary and expressionistic form.

I also liked the way that the novel blended together Dadaism into surrealism, which in turn refers back to Freud and the idea of the 'mental world' and psychology being used to express the real world in rather abstract ways.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EDdCjtzcw8&feature=PlayList&p=BEB03A62FE28FFD3&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=18

^ primitivism reminded me of "Why Man Creates", because of this idea of an evolution of creation and how some things never change

Why Man Creates

Love Song..?

In this poem, you hear a cynicism and satirical nature with his choice of words. The last line especially , "Till human voices wake us, and we drown", is very eerie. His use of stream of consciousness may at first confuse the listener, causing them to focus on his scatter-brained style of poetry rather than the words themselves--but this stream is eerie because of this. Hearing someone's true, uncensored, raw emotions put on paper can be the scariest thing on this planet--because I am a firm believer that with the dark comes the light, and everyone is capable of writing "dark and twisty" things, even if in reality the writer is far from dark. Hearing/reading his mind on paper really shows this side of him.

He does thread the whole poem together with the question of "Do I dare?"--the idea that people often question whether or not they should do something (either pre, during, or post an event). In this way, he makes you connect his stream of consciousness and create a work of art that makes you question yourself and others.

It is post-modern for all of the reasons mentioned above. By having a natural flow, the author allows for a poem to be created that in itself is unorthodox. It has no constant rhythmic pattern, nor constant rhyme scheme or even tone. It has imagery (the yellow fog) and it has description, but any other ties to poetry are seemingly gone from the text.

The Parable of the Madman

Nietzsche's selection evokes great emotion. The speech of the madman, in reference to the death of God, is in itself very powerful. But I don't think he is literally referring to God being dead---I think it is much more symbolic of the notion that people were abandoning him for the potholes of sin and evil. Nietzche died right before the turn of the century, and in my opinion, his works were too soon, and too new---which therefore would make it modern. I dare say this because of Mr. Yost mentioned in class before we read: that he died before WWII and the rise of Anti-Semitism in Germany as a means of scapegoat for the rough economic times in Germany. His works were needed during this time, but he died long before he could be present in the lives of those who lived 30-40 years after his death. His lack of physical presence made it impossible for his works to make any impact on Germany during the time, because the citizens were too busy in a frenzy of chaos and depression.

In this case, the modernism found in this piece was harmful to society; not because it was too advanced for the time, but because it was needed later on. But I still think the piece is modern because of its lack of romanticism, and its stark look on reality. It is roughly comparable to the idealism of transcendentalism in America, in the sense that it was an abolishment of the establishment---but Nietzsche doesn't put any romanticism in his work.

In my other post, I said modernism doesn't use symbolism--I think I was too rash. I think in our book on page 43, this statement was in reference only to a single piece of art, something I didn't realize.

Modernism Novel

So we have just begun a new book to kind of rewind history to take a look at the movement pre-post-modernism--ie., modernism. On page 42 there was a great summation of the whole section. "It proclaimed itself, it exuded a confidence in its newness and radicality" And on page 43 "the figures (of modernism) are not allegorical or symbolic--their meaning must be read off the canvas, the surface of the picture". Modernism is in my opinion an attempt to redefine art as something new and original.

Also, there was talk of modernity versus modernism/modernists, which was really interesting. Modernity being referred to something as more industrial, rather than artistic.

But, it also mentioned something we discussed in class: the notion that something considered modern at its original emergence becomes an 'established tradition' (47). Something boring, old, and has-been material. Dry and boring, like what the majority of adolescents dread to read in a English fine literature course, or what they hate to have to interpret in an Art 101 course.

Postmodernism??

Well, after reading "Introduction to Post-Modernism"--with the hyphen of course, I really learned a little bit more about the extremist views artist have on art itself. The main thing I got from this book was that art cannot be categoried. Art is collage and hybrid of a multitude of resources and traditional artistic forms. Post Modernists themselves try to break the 'art rules' and take things out of context to therefore create an artistic medium. However, the notion of a post modernist is slightly paradoxial in a sense that post-modernism is about anti-identity. And, since calling something post-modern automatically brands an image of rebellious anarchy and over-conceptualism, things considered post-modern with that title are in themselves no longer post-modern, for one cannot be in the movement if it is directly associated with it. This creates an even more complicated slant on 'What is art and who decides?'...But, an interesting one at that. I feel those who are not post-modern or who do not associate with the movement would decide the 'art' to not be art, because it is so far from mainstream

this book really on skimmed the surface on this question of art, and opened my eyes to how truly contreversal the subject is.