The Modernity era began around 1760 and ended at
about 1960. During this time lots of changes occurred which helped us to progress
to the world that we live in today, these are often called the forces of
Modernity. Here M. Barnard also describes the situation, ‘Every institution,
cultural tradition, social class, economic practice and political relationship
that had existed before had been fundamentally transformed. In such a context,
then, it is only to be expected that European institutions and traditions of
art, along with beliefs about art and design, were also profoundly shaken.’ (Barnard,
2005, p.120.) The main change was urbanisation, where people moved from a rural
life to one of industry and industrialisation. People’s lives became linked
with their shift patterns, which led to less freedom due to them being
controlled by their working hours. The split of work and free time made class a
lot more noticeable and people’s interaction with each other changed
dramatically. Population in these industrial areas also increased as people
fled there for work and to be part of the big cultural change. Technology was a
new phenomenon during this time with the invention of new materials such as
concrete, steel, plastics, aluminium and reinforced glass which led to mass
production. On a design level Modernism is associated with innovation and
experimental work, focussing on progress and moving on from previous ideas to
create entirely new and original developments. Designers of this time took
their work very seriously and had the belief that they could change the world
for the better and for good. It was also thought that each area of the Arts should
remain pure and separate from everything else.
One
of the places to be most affected was Paris and by 1900 it was the most
progressive city in the world. It was specifically designed to be the most
modern city, which is why a renovation called Hausmannisation occurred to
ensure this. Paris was developed into an entirely different place to what it
once was, large and open boulevards replaced crumbling alleyways and electric
street lighting was introduced in an attempt to reduce crime and push the poor
out to the suburbs. The effect of this still remains today. There was a strong
rivalry between Paris and London during the 1800’s due to the cultural race,
new exhibitions would take place across the years. The most significant of
these would be the Eiffel Tower, finished in 1889. At 1056 feet it rose above
the traditional architecture and was at the time the tallest manmade object on
earth. It was said to represent the triumph of the present over the past, which
as a statement sums up the main belief of modernity as a whole. The man that
created this historic structure was Gustave Eiffel who was 57 at the time The
Paris World Fair’s commissioners chose him to take on the job. He was also an
engineer not an architect, which could have been the secret of its success, or
the fact that The Tower could be viewed by millions of people compared to the
select few that attended galleries to view this new modernist art.
Because of this new mantra believed by the majority
in the modern world you can see changes in the art of the period, in order for
it to stay relevant and fashionable as it can be said that ‘society modernises
art’. Although, ‘Modern Art also involves a variety of challenges. Here we may
identify three: some art may represent a challenge to the modern world, for
example to the persistence of social inequality, or to the way individuals’
lives have been transformed by technology. In addition, modern art may also,
involve a variety of challenges to traditional forms of art itself. It follows
from this that such art also involves a challenge to conventional forms of
response to art… a deliberate challenge to ‘taste.’’ (Meecham and Wood, 1996,
p.7) Paris was a city that became an area of study for artists who turned their
attention away from myths and wealthy individuals as their subjects for art.
Their new focus was not to paint the world but to show the experiences of
people in this new, urban environment. For example, this painting by
Caillebotte, which depicts a man stood at a window looking out onto the streets
of Paris. As you can see the new, modern architecture is visible. The
composition has a cropped appearance brought from the invention of photography.
This movement really pushed artists into thinking of new styles, for example
classical painting followed the rule of thirds but this soon gave way to the
idea of cropping. Artists also abandoned realism, as surrealism was something
that a camera couldn’t capture. In relation to this here is a piece by French
artist Robert Delaunay, an impressive piece capturing the symbol of Modernity
in France. Robert Hughes comments on this piece by saying, ‘Delaunay must have
painted The Tower thirty times, and he was almost the only artist to paint it
at all… ‘The Red Tower’ shows how fully Delaunay could realise the sensations
of vertigo and visual shuttling… The Tower is seen, almost literally as a
prophet of the future – its red figure, so reminiscent of a man, ramping among
the silvery lead roofs of Paris and the distant puffballs of cloud. That vast
grid rising over Paris with the sky reeling through it became his fundamental
image of modernity: light seen through structure.’ (Hughes, 2000, p.21.) The
development of optical science led to experimentation in styles of painting,
like dots of contrasting colour. Also, because of the new camera technology new
bird’s eye view angles documented a big shift in visual culture. Another
innovative painting style was that of staying true to materials, letting paint
appear as paint and not trying to use it to represent something else. An example
of this is work by American, abstract painter Jackson Pollock who is best known for his ‘drip and splash’ style. To achieve this look he attached his canvas to
the floor instead of an easel and discarded brushes for sticks or trowels to
manipulate the paint that he poured from a can. You can tell that he used this
technique because ‘You cannot get that kind of looping line with oil paint on a
brush. (Wood, 1996, p.109) He also commonly mixed in sand, broken glass and
other matter. In the example here you can clearly see his style in action, the
paint appears very free without any intention to replicate another form or
material, which was the purpose of works like this.
As well as Architecture and Fine Art being radically
changed these changes also applied to Graphic Design. ‘The roots of modern
typography are entwined with those of twentieth-century painting, poetry and
architecture. Photography, technical changes in printing, new reproduction
techniques, social changes and new attitudes have also helped to erase the
frontiers between the graphic arts, poetry and typography and have encouraged
typography to become more visual, less linguistic and less purely linear.
(Spencer, 2004, p.11) Before the modernist age type had serifs and often had a
high stroke contrast. However, this all soon changed with the sans serif style.
Type became about appearing simple and stripped down with the main focus being
communication not decoration and although this look was around in the 1800’s it
wasn’t until the Modernist era that it became popular. During the nineteenth
century the monumental changes happening in society went un- recognised by the
printing community. As typefaces grew bigger and fatter due to advertising and
the competition of production the printer still clung to the small book layout.
As time passed designers became more forceful, although printing still revolved
around using metal type on a letterpress, the typographers of this era had
ideas that would push this process to the limits and discarded the horizontal
discipline that moveable type inflicted. They started to look at the
composition with the recipient in mind and how they would view it, rather than
through the eyes of the producer. Printers now had to tackle very difficult
demands of non-linear compositions and way before the development of methods
such as photo-typesetting and dry transfer lettering. Another common feature in
typefaces was ‘unicameral’ type, where all the text was lower case and the
capitals discarded. An example of this is one of Herbert Bayer’s sans-serif
fonts called ‘Bayer’. The most popular style of type for the modernists was the
‘Grotesk’, the name was made by William Thorowgood who was the first person to
produce a sans serif type with lower case. Akzidenz-Grotesk is perhaps the most
famous of this style a modern interpretation of this is Helvetica, which as one
of the most successful fonts of all time shows its good design.
As time passed the idea of Modernism faded to become
less popular and by the 1960’s it could have been said that it was over and a
new era began, Post Modernism.
Bibliography
1. Laclotte, M, (1987), 'The Musee
d'Orsay', London, Thames and Hudson.
2. Gablik, S, (2004), 'Has Modernism
Failed?', London, Thames and Hudson.
3. Johnson, D, (1987), 'The Age of
Illusion: art and politics in France 1918-1940', London, Thames and Hudson.
4. Bernard, E, (2004), 'Modern Art,
1905-1945), Edinburgh, Chambers.
5. Meecham, P, (2000), 'Modern Art: a
critical introduction', London, Routledge.
6. Barnard, M, (2005), ‘Graphic Design as
Communication’, Oxon, Routledge.
7. Hughes, R, (2000), ‘The Shock of the New’, London,
Thames & Hudson.
8. Spencer, H, (2004), ‘Pioneers of Modern Typography’,
Hampshire, Lund Humphries.
9. Rodrrigues, C and Garratt, C, (2004), Introducing
Modernism, Royston, Icon Books.
10. L, Dawtrey, T, Jackson, M, Masterton, P, Meecham and
P, Wood, (1996), Milton Keynes, Yale University Press and The Open University.
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