Hello, my name's Tom and welcome back to
my channel where I talk a little bit about theatre, a little bit about being a
PhD student and a little bit about those two things forced to live together in a
slightly too small two-bedroom flat. No long-winded introduction from me today
other than to say we're going to continue our wading through some key
terms in cultural theory by looking at modernism. Also, I have just got back from holiday and that is why I have a slightly sunburnt nose. Particularly
today, we're going to be really interested in how this use of the word
modernism relates to our discussions about art and culture and society and
politics more generally. If you have any thoughts or questions along the way then
do make sure to let me know down in the comments and, as always, if you think this thing might be vaguely useful then do consider lending me one of your
subscribes. Without further ado though, here is Modernism: What the Theory? Colloquially, the term "modern" is
something which travels with us as the years tick by. Take cars, for example,
(something I know next to nothing about...) what was considered to be a modern car
in the 1920s is very different to what was considered to be a modern car in the
1940s and the 1960s and 1980s and the 2000s and today. When used in this regard, we might consider the word modern to have a lot in common with the word
contemporary, meaning something of the period in which we are speaking. Yet even
this use of the word modern is not completely objective. So, someone with a
brand-new 2018 Audi A1 (which Google tells me is a thing) might consider
themselves to have a far more modern car than someone who drives a 2010 Suzuki
Swift despite the fact that both are functioning completely fine within the
year 2018. In this case, we can see that the term modern actually becomes a
subjective opinion or a value judgment. As we continue our discussion of
modernism throughout this video, both these definitions are worth keeping
in the back of your mind. When we use the word "modern" we might totally, earnestly
be using it to describe something that is simply recent or new or contemporary
however, when doing so, we often subconsciously also invoke the idea that
what is new or recent is fundamentally better than what is older. The term
modernism, then, is not used to describe works of art that are being created now
in the year 2018 (or whatever year you're watching this in depending on how long
YouTube lasts), instead it's used to describe a specific period in art
history (and I'm using the word art incredibly broadly here to mean all
different forms of art) from roughly the end of the 19th century to about the
middle of the 20th century. Some people might describe modernism as an artistic
movement however I'd say it's more accurate to describe it as a collection
of movements. For, while there hasn't been a single artistic movement in history
where everyone involved in it is in total agreement
about everything, there is usually a considerable similarity between the
artistic styles (or what we call aesthetic styles) between all of the artists
that're creating work as part that movement. Among the many, many artists that we might associate with modernism or consider to be modernists, however,
there is a huge deviation in both the form and content of their work. Let's
begin by taking an example from visual art. So, Monet's water lilies and
Picasso's Guernica are both widely considered to be examples of modernist
art. Their styles, however, are incredibly different. The reason for this is that
Monet considered himself to be an impressionist while Picasso was perhaps
the artist who defined the cubism movement. The Impressionists sought a new way to capture nature within art. They therefore did away with the process of
sketching while outdoors and then taking those sketches indoors to complete
paintings based on that sketch in favour of taking all their oils and artistic
materials out with them to paint in situ. There were really interested in, rather
than catching nature as it appears to the human eye,
capturing the ever-changing colors and light that happens within nature. The
Cubist's, on the other hand, had very little interest in capturing things as
they appeared to humans in the moment Instead, they were really interested in
capturing the totality of the object of their artwork. They did this, mostly,
through taking how it looked through multiple different viewpoints and
placing those together on a single piece of paper. The resultant pieces of art
made by the Impressionists and the Cubists are vastly different. In fact,
their artistic styles and motivations don't even directly contradict each
other and therefore seem like they might have absolutely nothing in common. Why
then do we discuss both in terms of being forms of modernism? Perhaps it's
best to consider modernism, then, not as a particular collection of
thoughts in the way that we might be able to describe Impressionism or Cubism
as a particular collection of thoughts but instead as a way of thinking. Both
Monet and Picasso rejected the artistic forms and ideas which came before them
in the pre-modern era. Most pre-modern artistic movements considered themselves
to be doing art in service of God and, therefore, they were far more interested
in how they could capture their inspiration on the page rather than
being interested in artistic form for the sake of artistic forms sake. But
the Impressionists and the Cubists, however, are very interested in
privileging artistic technique when they're discussing their ideas with very little
thought for divine inspiration. What modernist movements have in common, then,
is first a rejection of the past, what they also have in common, however, is the
idea that they can make art objectively better and this is true across art forms.
Prior to this period visual art was often created in service of a deity,
literature was often (I would argue( created in order to document history or
particular lifestyles as they happened while theatre and performance were,
primarily, used (particularly in the English context) in service of a king or
queen and their ancestors. As such, the aesthetic style or form that these
artworks took was never in the spotlight. Certainly, particular styles came and
went from fashion, however, these were always viewed as side products
of those broader functions. When we look at modernist movements, then, we begin to see artists become interested in the practice of art itself and in discussing
and exploring the form they might take. Also, and this will particularly become
useful when we want to distinguish between modernist movements and postmodernist movements, all of these artists across forms believed that they could
make art objectively better. If a sculptor or filmmaker or musician today
were to suggest that they had figured out a way to make their artform reflect
the world around them better in an objective manner, we'd perhaps
treat them with a little bit of suspicion or consider them a little bit
arrogant. When we're discussing the modernists,
however, we're discussing groups of people who are living at a time where it
was very possible for them to very earnestly and honestly make those
statements with the true belief that they were working towards a better
realization of the world through art. While the developments that occurred
during the modernist era can often seem unrelated and between particular
different art forms can sometimes seem entirely contradictory, what we do see
that unites modernism across all the different art forms and movements is a
particular way of thinking. It is a period of explosive formal experiment
and, in particular, we can see this in the forest loads of manifestos that were
published announcing each of the particular artistic movements throughout
this period. And, in mentioning manifestos, it's perhaps worth turning briefly to
politics where we can see a similar thing happening which might help to
synthesize this idea of modernism as a way of thinking. If the modern period was
that in which the "isms" dominated within art, they also dominated within politics.
Again, there had certainly being disagreements in how to best run a
country or a continent or the world in the past, however it is in this period (from
about their end of the 18th century to the middle of the 20th century) that we
begin to see some of our more modern or contemporary political ideologies
develop. We gain socialism, capitalism gets its name, and fascism takes hold in
Europe. Unlike previous political ideologies
which may have seen themselves as just one idea among many, each of these sees
themselves as the defining political ideology which can take humanity to the
best place, to some kind of utopia. When we talk about modernism, then, we're not
talking about a particular movement but whole array of a movements from
Impressionism and Cubism in art to Futurism and Naturalism in performance,
to Anarchism and Socialism in politics. It's really a period of history in which
the way we think about society and the world and therefore culture and art is
operating in a particular way and, although many of these artistic
movements consider themselves to be breaking with the past and therefore
pushing forward human progress, in doing so they also fall into the trap that we
discussed at the beginning of this video of assuming their objective critique of
things which are modern to be fundamentally better than those which
have gone before. They don't engage critically with this concept and assume
it to be a value judgment but embrace it as an objective fact. And, as we'll find
out when we move on to post-modernism in my next video, this was something that
was to become very much questioned after the world was witness to two world wars
in very quick succession. But, as I say, that's something that we'll look at next
time. Thank you very much for watching this video I hope it's been a bit of a
start of trying to crack that quite difficult-to-crack nut of modernism. I've
got some really exciting What The Theory? videos planned for the future but, as
always, do let me know down below if you've got any particular concepts that
you're struggling with that you think would make for a good video. And, also, if
you have enjoyed this one then please do consider lending it one of your thumbs
ups. Thank you very much for watching once again that's all from me and have a
great week!
