Avant-garde movements

Modernism, Cubism, Italian Futurism, Abstract Art

MODERNISM is a complex movement that started after 1910 in Europe involving writers, composers, painters, photographers, film makers.

The idea was that there isn’t only one truth, one reality ie truth and reality are not absolute.

So reality is presented from various perspectives. In particular writers wanted to present the mind and the unconscious.

At the beginning of the 20^th century Paris became the centre of innovation. One avant-garde movement was CUBISM (1907 to the 1920s). It was inspired by the Post-Impressionist Cézanne who said “Everything in nature takes its shape from the sphere, the cone and the cylinder”. Cubism rejected traditional painting and the Impressionists. Picasso and Braque broke up and reassembled objects in a scrambled way. Cubism was the precursor to Abstract Art. It drew inspiration from tribal art (Africa- Oceania) and primitive art.

ITALIAN FUTURISM started in Italy with the Futurist Manifesto (1909) by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti who celebrated the new industrial age and the cult of the machine. The Futurists revolted against the ideas of the past and celebrated the new industrial age (for example the beauty of speed). Balla, Severini and Boccioni adapted cubist techniques and gave visual expression to the modern urban life and celebrated the cult of the machine.

The Russian Wassily KANDINSKY (1866-1944) moved to Munich and in 1910 affirmed that the objective of art is to express the artist’s feelings NOT TO REPRESENT OBJECTS.

Around 1913 Kandinsky began working on paintings considered abstract works in modern art.

AVANT-GARDE MOVEMENTS IN EUROPE – FIRST QUARTER OF THE 20^TH CENTURY

Avant-Garde Movements rejected established standards.

MODERNISM is an Avant-Garde movement that started after 1910 in Europe involving writers, poets, composers, painters, photographers, film makers.

It is marked by :

• radical rejection of tradition, to embrace the new
• experimentation
• freedom of expression
• knowledge and reality are not absolute ie there isn’t only one truth, one reality. So reality is presented from various perspectives. Moreover, writers wanted to present the mind and the unconscious.

They were influenced by:

 

The physicist Albert EINSTEIN (1879-1955). His Theory of Relativity reflected the contemporary world: there is no absolute truth or reality. Einstein demonstrated (June 1905) that space and time vary, depending on how fast speed is ie at speed of light in a vacuum (300,000 kilometres per second)

Sigmund FREUD (1856-1939) who studied the complex operations of the mind.

“The most significant level of human consciousness is the unconscious which can be accessed through dreams and has a great influence on man’s conscious behavior” - 1900 The Interpretation of Dreams and Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality – His ideas helped to shape Modernist novels and the interior monologue.

The French philosopher Henri BERGSON (1859-1941) who made a distinction between external time, linear and chronological and internal time, subjective and measured by emotions. He helped Modernist writers who wrote about thoughts and feelings in terms of perceptions, memories and associations.