Chapter 31

The Move toward Modernism

Late Nineteenth Century

PhilisophyWilhelm Nietzsche

(1844-1900)Henri Bergson

(1659-1941)

NietzscheNietzsche 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).

BergsonTwo primary forces in life: in

tellect and intuition. The essence of life is duration,

or “perpetual becoming.” (Fiero 788)

BergsonHe believed that “true experience is dura

tional, 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 SakeSymbolism ImpressionismJaponisme Art NouveauPostimpressionism

Art for Art’s SakeL’art pour l’artagainst the Enlightenment“more concerned with sensor

y experience than with moral purpose, with feeling than with teaching . . .” (Fiero 786)

Art for Art’s SakeThe artists “made art that obey

purely aesthetic impulses, that—like music—communicated meaning through shape or sound, pattern or color” (Fiero 786)

Symbolism1885-1910In favor of subjective expression that dre

w 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)

SymbolismFavorite themes:

Religious mysticismThe eroticThe supernatural

SymbolismLiterature:

BaudelaireVerlaineRimbaudMallarmé

SymbolismPainting:

Holdler, The Chose One

Music:Debussy

Munch, The Dance of Life

Gauguin

Khnopff, I Lock My Door Upon Myself

Klimt, The Kiss

ImpressionismMajor features

LuminosityThe interaction of light and formSubtlety of tonePreoccupied with sensation itself

ImpressionismMajor artists:

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

JaponismeJapanese woodblock prints

Features: flat, unmodulated colors, undulating lines, empty spacesSubject matter: (1) urban life (2) the floating world of courtesans, actors, and dancers

ukiyo-e (浮世繪 )Nineteenth-century Japanese "Ukiy

o-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

Influences1. 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 (1864-190

1)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.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.edu/exhibitions/current/Hokusai.htm#

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, 1856http://www.honoluluacademy.org/cmshaa/academy/index.aspx?id=1405

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

Vincent van GoghBridge in the Rain (after Hiroshige), 1887 http://www.hiroshige.org.uk/hiroshige/influences/VanGogh.htm

Plum Garden, 1857

http://www.hiroshige.org.uk/hiroshige/100_views_edo/images/100_views_edo_030.jpg

Vincent van GoghFlowering Plum Tree1887 http://www.hiroshige.org.uk/hiroshige/influences/VanGogh.htm

Irises at Horikiri http://www.hiroshige.org.uk/hiroshige/100_views_edo/images/100_views_edo_056.jpg

Riverside bamboo market at Kyobashi1857 http://www.hiroshige.org.uk/hiroshige/100_views_edo/images/100_views_edo_076.jpg

James Abbott McNeill WhistlerNocturne in Blue and GoldOld Battersea Bridge1872-5http://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 Screenhttp://www.hiroshige.org.uk/hiroshige/influences/images/whistler_CapriceInPurpleAndGoldNo%202_TheGoldenScreen.jpg

Monet

Whistler

Van Gogh

Art NouveauAn 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 NouveauCommitted to evocation and

expression like SymbolismFollowed the Symbolist cult of the

exotic, lavish, and esoteric interior Heir to Symbolist imagery: the lily,

the sphinx, the vampire

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

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

Otto EckmannGerman (1865-1902)for Scherrebek Weaving SchoolFive Swans, 1897woven woolhttp://www.nga.gov/feature/nouveau/exhibit_audio.htm#

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

Victor Horta, Tassel House, Brussels, 1892-3. http://www.unc.edu/courses/2002spring/art/038/951/Tassel%20House.htm

SculptureDegasRodin

PostimpressionismVan Gogh GauguinSeurat Cézanne

The End