Lecture Notes - Modernity and Modernism

People connected the term ‘modern’ with positivity, progressiveness, style, times better than before and progression. 

Paris 1900

Urbanisation - Trottoir Rouland - Electric moving walkway

Lives were controlled by work times and schedules - different to how things were organised on farms. 

Transport - motorcar and trains in 18th and 19th centuries. 

World time becomes standardised. 

Electricity, lighting and telephones. 

Secularisation

Enlightenment - late 18th century, thinking became more scientific and philosophical (turning away from God). 

Eiffel Tower 1899 - symbol of modernity.

Caillebette - ‘Paris on a rainy day’ 1877

Class, gender relationships, dynamics, so close to people but so distant. 

Paris went through Haussmanisation (Haussman was a city architect)

The rich dominate the centre of the city and the poor live around the edges. 

Wide boulevards instead of narrow streets - ease of policing. 

Experiements emerge - thinking continues to advance, psychology and investigation. 

Fashion is a signifier of your place in society. 

Seurat - Isle de la Grande Jatte 

(Pointillism) The subject of the painting is a park where the middle classes would spend time. 

Degas - Absinthe Drinker 1876

Shows the effect of modern life on people living in the city - feeling the need to drink to oblivion. 

You can tell by the cropping of the painting that it is based on a photograph and not from direct observation - shows how modernism is affecting artwork. 

Kaiseranorama 1883

People prefer to sit at a machine to watch the world rather than go out and see it. 

Cinema - Lumière Brothers

Photography take sover painting in terms of documentation - painters turn to more subjective works. 

Picasso - Les Demeoiselles d’Avignon 1907

Moving towards abstraction, a fragmented and confused experience.

It becomes more about the media than the subject.

Graphic design is crisp and clean and usually based on a grid structure. 

‘Form follows function.’

Simplicity of objects is timeless. 

Internationalism - the language of design is recognised worldwide. Pure and minimal.