Question 1

People use the term "modern" in various ways, often very loosely, with many implied

associations of new, contemporary, up-to-date, and technological. We know the difference

between modern society and one that remains tied to the past. It usually has less to do with art

and more to do with technology and industrial progress, like indoor plumbing, easy access to

consumer goods, freedom of expression, and voting rights. In the 19th century, however,

modernity and its connection with art had certain specific associations that people began

recognizing and using as barometers to distinguish themselves and their culture from earlier

nineteenth-century ways and attitudes.

Chronologically, Modernism refers to the period from 1850 to 1960.  It begins with

the Realist movement and ends with Abstract Expressionism. That's just a little over one

hundred years. During that period, the western world experienced significant changes that

transformed Europe and the United States from traditional societies agriculturally based on

modern cities and factories and mass transportation.

Capitalism replaced landed fortunes and became the economic system of modernity.

People exchanged labor for a fixed wage and used their wages to buy ever more consumer

items rather than produce such things themselves. This economic change dramatically

affected class relations because it offered opportunities for great wealth through individual

initiative, industrialization, and technology, somewhat like the technological and dot.com

explosion of the late 20th and early 21st century. The Industrial Revolution began in England

in the late 18th century. It rapidly swept across Europe (hit the U.S. immediately following

the Civil War), transformed economic and social relationships, offered an ever-increasing

number of cheaper consumer goods, and changed notions of education.  Who needed the

classics when a commercial/technically oriented education was the key to financial success?
The industrial revolution also fostered a sense of competition and progress that continues to

influence us today.

Urban culture replaced agrarian culture as industrialization and cities grew.  Cities

were the sites of new wealth and opportunity with their factories and manufacturing potential.

People moving from small farms, towns to large cities helped to break down traditional

culture and values.  There were also new complications such as growing urban crime,

prostitution, alienation, and depersonalization.

In a small town, you probably knew the cobbler who made your shoes, and such a

personal relationship often expanded into simple economics you might be able to barter food

or labor for a new pair of shoes or delay payments.  These kinds of accommodations that

formed a substructure to agrarian life were swept away with urbanization. City dwellers

bought manufactured shoes, transported by railroads, displayed in shop windows, and

purchased only cash.  Assembly lines, anonymous labor, and advertising created more

consumer items and a growing sense of depersonalization.  The gap between the "haves" and

the "have nots" increased and was more visible in the city.

Technological advances such as industrialization, railroads, gaslighting, streetcars,

factory systems, indoor plumbing, appliances, and scientific advances were rapidly made.

These changes dramatically affected the way people lived and thought about themselves.

One consequence was that people in industrialized areas thought of themselves as progressive

and modern and considered undeveloped cultures in undeveloped countries as primitive and

backward.

Modernity is characterized by increasing secularism and diminished religious

authority. People did not abandon religion, but they paid less attention to it.  Organized

religions were increasingly less able to dictate standards, values, and subject matter. Fine art

moved from representing human experience and its relationship to God's creation focusing on
personal emotions and individual spiritual experiences that were not based in any organized

and institutionalized religion.

The modern world was extremely optimistic people saw these changes as positive.

They welcomed innovation and championed progress. Change became a signifier of

modernity. Anything traditional and static signaled outmoded, old-fashioned, conservative,

and avoided by the new modern public. Modern Europe and the U.S. internalized these

positions and used modernity as a way of determining and validating their superiority. The

nineteenth century was also a period of tremendous colonial growth and expansion in the

name of progress and social benefit, and all of these activities were spearheaded by newly

industrialized western countries.

Many artists closely identified with modernity and embraced the new techniques and

innovations, the spirit of progress, invention, discovery, creativity, and change. They wanted

to create the modern world and were anxious to try out new ideas rather than following the

more conservative guidelines of Academic art. Is this not to say that these mid-nineteenth-

century artists were the first to challenge an older generation or set of ideas. Many academic

artists had argued over formal issues, styles, and subject matter, but this was much like a

good-natured agreement within a club

By the mid-1850s, polite academic disagreements were being taken out of the

Academy and onto the street.  Artists were looking increasingly to the private sector for

patronage, tapping into that growing group of bourgeois or middle-class collectors with

money to spend and houses to fill with paintings. This new middle-class audience that made

its money through industrialization and manufacturing had lots of "disposable income," and

they wanted pictures that they could understand, that was easy to look at, fit into their homes,

addressed subjects they liked. Not for them the historical cycles of gods, saints, and heroes

with their complex intellectual associations and references; instead, they wanted landscapes,
genre scenes, and still life.  They were not less educated than earlier buyers but educated with

a different focus and set of priorities. The reality was here and now; progress was inevitable,

and the new hero of modern life was the modern man.

Modernity is then a composite of contexts: a time, space, and an attitude. What makes

a place or an object "modern" depends on these conditions.

Finally, although modern artists were working throughout many countries in Europe

and the United States, most 19th art and much 20th-century contemporary art is cantered in

France and produced by French artists.  Unlike England, which was politically stable in the

19th century, France went through various governments and insurrections, all of which

provided a unique political and cultural environment that fostered what we know as modern

art.

Question 2

Dada and Surrealism were two artistic movements that began in the early 20th

century. Both directions arose from the disgust of the harsh results of World War I. Dada and

Surrealism are often thought of as a similar actions due to their proximity to time and artist

sharing. Both shared the defining belief that social and political radicalism should be deeply

involved with artistic innovation. In turn, the artists of both movements desired to move

beyond aesthetic pleasure, to affect people's lives by making them see and experience things

differently. However, despite being looked at as similar movements, Dada and Surrealism did

have their subtle differences and own characteristics. This paper will further explore and

discuss some of these differences and features. Born out of the Avant-Garde of early 20th

century Europe, Dada or Dadaism rejected and mocked artistic and social conventions and

emphasized the illogical and absurd (The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopaedia). The height

of this movement was from 1916 to 1922. Dada was birth in the neutral city of Zurich in

Switzerland immediately following the end of the War.

 Surrealism began in the 1920s and grew out of Dadaism. The word 'Surrealism' was

coined by writer Guillaume Apollinaire in 1917, where he used it to describe his ballet 'Les

Mamelles de Tiresias.' The Surrealists sought to channel the unconscious as a means to

unlock the power of the imagination. Disdaining rationalism and literary realism and

powerfully influenced by psychoanalysis, the Surrealists believed the rational mind repressed

the power of the invention, weighing it down with taboos. Surrealists believed that Freud's

concepts of dreams, ego, superego, and idled to the authentic self and more objective reality.

The article Dada vs. Surrealism by the website The Artist states: "The artists believed that a

metaphysical, surrealistic, dreamwork approach to social change was superior to the methods

of Dadaism. They wanted Surrealism to show that representing objects as they were was

important, but that they should be expressed with a thesis, antithesis, and a synthesis between

the two in a fully open space for imagination." Surreal artists used painting techniques that

allowed the unconscious to express itself and created unnerving, illogical scenes or strange

creatures using everyday objects. Besides the presence of psychological theories, imagery is

probably the most recognizable element of Surrealism.

Each artist relied on their recurring motifs arisen through their dreams or/and

unconscious mind. At its basic, the imagery is outlandish, perplexing, and even eerie, as it is

meant to push the viewer(s) out of their comforting assumptions. André Breton was an

original member of the Dada group who then started and led the Surrealist movement in

1924. Though Guillaume Apollinaire coined the term earlier, Andre Breton adopted the word

'The Manifesto of Surrealism.' In New York, Breton and his colleagues curated Surrealist

exhibitions that introduced ideas of automatism. He worked in various creative media,

focusing mainly on collage and printmaking. Like his friend Tristan Tzara, Breton introduced

ways in which text and image could be united through the chance to create new, poetic word-

image combinations.
 When one considers the early 20th century masters of Expressionism and cubism, two

widely recognized artists come clearly to mind; Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse. For the

example of early cubism, page 487 of our text, fig. 21.15 shows Pablo Picasso’s Les

Demoiselles d’Avignon, 1907, oil on canvas. This painting is an extraordinary depiction by

Picasso of five young prostitutes of the time within the French city of Avignon, hence the

name, for the literal translation is "the young women of Avignon." The key point behind this

painting and the rest of cubism is why the figures within the image seem to appear

fragmented and borderline contorted. For Picasso he created the women in this painting to fit

into analytic cubism (a later term). The regular perspective commonly seen within traditional

forms of representation is all but abandoned. In this painting, each surface seems to appear as

its plane of space, then melds in with the background planes. This aspect of perspective

makes it improbable to be able to describe the painting by the experience alone. The expertise

and foreground having their solidity within the image create an odd sense of unity for all

portions of the profoundly groundbreaking work for that period and art. Next, a defining

example of Expressionism may be found on page 484 of our text. Figure 21.12 shows Henri

Matisse's The Joy of Life, 1905-06, oil on canvas. For this painting, the viewer may notice a

difference in the depiction of the human body from Picasso's work as mentioned above. Here,

Matisse depicted his expressionistic vision of a Tahitian paradise. In this respect, his human

figures are not only different in that they do not follow cubism, but that they are free form

and blissful within their Garden of Eden and not just fulfilling a presence of sensual

pleasures. Is this fitting, for Expressionism itself is a style in which the creator's own

subjective or opinionated feelings take over the creation of the art rather than an actual

representation of a setting? Henri Matisse's use of color within this painting is highly fitting

of "the fauvist vision." As seen by the earth, trees, and sky of his setting, color has not been

used to rationally depict an object but instead used as a personally expressive element. As a
final point for this post, I feel I have learned much from taking this course in art appreciation.

Besides a grade and a posting on a piece of paper or site showing the gained credit for the

course, I feel I can take away knowledge that cannot be "un-learned." What I mean by that is,

in 6 months, a year, five years, or perhaps even longer, if I stop and look at a piece of art

within a local museum or wall on the street, I will be able to break it down and notice aspects

I would have otherwise not been able to before taking this class. I have gained knowledge I

didn't have before, realizing that art's historical and cultural context is just as important and

defining as the piece of art itself. It was fascinating to recognize how many art objects were

created throughout history based on what religion, leader, or cultural mindset was in place

now. For example, a lovely jade sculpture was not just made by an individual who just really

loved jade, but that that particular type of stone was extremely favored within that culture.

Out of this course, I would have to say that two of my favorite artists are Audrey Flack and

Salvador Dali. Audrey for her talent in photorealism and Dali for his unique perspective on

Surrealism (I wish he had a more significant portion of focus within our text). It's been a

pleasure learning and posting with you all. Good luck with everything!