Modernism

Image: 'modernity.'

> Paul Greenoff

> modernism is an ideology.

> Modernist art and design...when did it start?

> In Paris good things were happening

> as well as Scotland and Veinna...

> Modernism...a product of modern times.

> About communication...

> cities becoming fast and complicated places....start to have a framework.

> The mechanical age...the machine age...

> Best way in is via design.

> Mechanical speed up age.

> 1900's- Art Nouveaux.

Progress...forward development, in with Marx- for the people.

> Impressionism just started.

> 1906-07...Cubism hits Paris.

> Flat planes of colour in Picasso.

> Cubism, a weird dislocation, becomes the avant garde...

> New century...exciting time.

* arts and crafts movement was against the machine.

> A lot of the work seemed to be about machines.

> Look at integration between humans and machine.

> Walter Gropius, a cavelry officer set up The Bahaus...producing design for a brighter and better future.

> Lots of countries getting involved....France, Austria, Germany....etc.

> Decompartmentalisation...break down barriers between all art movements.

> Bahaus...very left wing.

Social morality...Has to be for the people.

> Moral issue was that it had to be good for people.

- flat pack housing, plenty of glass, easy to make structures, clean houses...

> Very modern ideas around in the 20's.

> should be an amount of 'Truth.' No disguising- can see nuts, screws on furniture for example...

> Straightforward...brushmarks in painting become apparent, production is evident.

'Total work of art'- Should be cohesive (visually).

> Visual beauty.

- art should permeate everything.

> Well judged.

> Bahaus- klee, Kandinsky...head of Bahaus- they were fine artists teaching design.

> Technology...use appropriately.

> one offs...intend to be 'mass produced.'

> Function-Can only succeed if you are going to be functional.

> Form follows function.

> Against decorative objects.

> Progress- Guiding principle of modernism.

> Modernism is utopian....carried on through to the 60's.

> Very much about- anti historicism...hated historical styles.

> asymetry.

> Historical styles- represented power.

> Roccoco- all to do with power and wealth- more elaborate.

> the more complex and decorative- the more powerful

....................................... expensive- the more exclusive.

- the above are seem as symbols of oppression.

Abstraction

. ways of losing cues, look cleaner and purer.

. abstraction reduces to purity.

> abstraction- break down to sinple forms, circle, square, triangle.

> abstraction= truth.

> purely about form, there is no illusion.

> Geometry was pure.

> Ornament is crime.' Adolf Loos. Seen as a social crime.

...should look clean...timeless.

Internationalism or Universality.

> Notion of trying to break down national barriers.

> modernism would 'unite' the world.

> much more cohesive visual language.

> less alienating.

> democratic, fair and unifying.

Transformation Of Consciousness

> if you have utopian ideals, then you are going to make people feel better and have better citizens.

> Can environment or design alter the way people feel?

> makes peoples lives Better.

Theology

> Apply same religious fever....almost.

> 'The great epoch has begun, there exists a new spirit.'

> Nazi's closed The Bauhaus in 1933.

> modernism filtered down to mainstream production.

> utopian, idealist, left wing...(could almost be seen as very macho...).

> Modernism...started 1880's ish...