Modernism Around 1918 1945 Roots in the 1890

Modernism Around 1918 -1945 Roots in the 1890 s

Main points • • • Differences between Realism and Modernism Timeline and Social Snaphots Forces behind Modernism Characteristics of Modernism in Literature Canonical Literary Authors Modernism in Visual Arts

Difference between Realism and Modernism Whereas REALISM • emphasized absolutism, and • believed that a single reality could be determined through the observation of nature MODERNISM • argued for cultural relativism, • and believed that people make their own meaning in the world.

Value Differences in the Modern World Pre-Modern World Ordered Modern World (Early 20 th Century) Chaotic Meaningful Futile Optimistic Pessimistic Stable Fluctuating Faith Loss of faith Morality/Values Collapse of Morality/Values Clear Sense of Identity Confused Sense of Identity and Place in the World

Modernism Timeline • 1914: Outbreak of WWI • 1916: Irish War of Independence § 21 Nov 1920: Bloody Sunday • 1917: Russian Revolution

World War I: 1914 (1915 -1918)

WWI: Air Fights

WWI: Trench War Fare and Poison Gas

Modernism Timeline • 1918: • WWI ends • 1920: • Einstein’s Relativity theory confirmed

Social Snapshot of the Times • Result of Political Turmoil • Revolutionary Ideologies Rise • Fascism • The separation and persecution or denial of equality to a certain group based on race, creed, or origin • Nazism • Socialism featuring racism, expansionism and obedience to a strong leader • Communism • Control of the means of production should rest in the hands of the laborers.

Fascism and Nazism

Communism

Modernism Timeline • 1920 • League of Nations begins • 19 th Amendment granting women the vote • 1921—Irish Free State proclaimed • 1922—Fascists march on Rome under Mussolini • 1923—Charleston craze

Modernism Timeline • 1925— • Image of human face televised • Hitler published Mein Kampf • 1927 • Lindbergh flies solo across Atlantic • Al Jolson, first talkie

Modernism Timeline • 1929—US stock market crashes • 1933 • Hitler appointed Chancellor of Germany • First German concentration camps • Prohibition ends in US

Modernism Timeline • 1934—Hitler becomes dictator • 1936—Civil War in Spain begins • 1938—Germany occupies Austria • 1939 • Hitler and Stalin make pact • Germany invades Poland • Great Britain and France declare war on Germany

Modernism Timeline • 1941 • Germany invades USSR • Japan bombs Pearl Harbor, US enters war • 1942 • Battle of Stalingrad, Battle of Midway • 1944—D-Day invasion of France

Modernism Timeline • 1945 • End of war in Europe • Atomic bomb dropped on Japan • United Nations founded • First computer built • Microwave oven invented

Social Snapshot of the Times • Scientific Revolution • Quantum theory • Explains the nature of matter and energy on the atomic and subatomic level • Principle of Uncertainty • In quantum mechanics: increasing the accuracy of measurement of one observable quantity increases the uncertainty with which another may be known

Snapshot of the Times: Implications for Nature of Reality • Many-worlds (multi-verse) theory • As soon as the potential exists for any object to be in any state, the universe of the object transmutes into a series of parallel universes equaling the number of possible states in which an object can exist. Stephen Hawking posits the possibility for interaction between universes. • Copenhagen interpretation: nothing exists until it is measured: • Schrödinger's cat (dead and alive)

Schrödinger's cat

Forces behind Modernism • Discovery of the unconscious • Psychoanalysis • The sense that our culture has no center, no values • Paradigm shift • from the closed, finite, measurable, causeand-effect universe of the 19 th century to an open, relativistic, changing, strange universe

Characteristics of Modernism in Literature • Literature Exhibits Perspectivism • Meaning comes from the individual’s perspective and is thus personalized • A single story might be told from the perspective of several different people, with the assumption that the “truth” is somewhere in the middle

Characteristics of Modernism in Literature • Inner psychological reality or “interiority” is represented o Stream of consciousness—portraying the character’s inner monologue

Characteristic of Modernism in Literature • Perception of language changes: • No longer seen as transparent, allowing us to “see through” to reality • But now considered the way an individual constructs reality • Language is “thick” with multiple meanings and varied connotative forces.

Characteristic of Modernism in Literature • Emphasis on the Experimental • Art is artifact rather than reality • Organized non-sequentially • Experience portrayed as layered, allusive, discontinuous, using fragmentation and juxtaposition • Ambiguous endings—open endings which are seen as more representative of reality

Canonical Modernist Authors • • • T. S. Eliot W. B. Yeats James Joyce Virginia Woolf Ernest Hemingway Franz Kafka Gertrude Stein F. Scott Fitzgerald Ezra Pound

Modernism in Visual Arts

The Armory Show: International Exhibition of Modern Art, 1913 • Watershed date in American art • Introduced astonished New Yorkers, accustomed to realistic art, to modern art; • Teddy Roosevelt said, “That’s not art!”

Matisse

Cubism • Cubism— 1909 -1911 • Art in which multiple views are presented simultaneously in flattened, geometric way.

Cubism

Dadaism • Dadaism –deliberately irrational • a protest against the barbarism of the War and oppressive intellectual rigidity • Anti-art • Strives to have no meaning • Interpretation dependent entirely on the viewer • Intentionally offends.

Dadaism Duchamp

Surrealism • Grew out of Dada and Automatism • Reveals the unconscious mind in dream images, the irrational, and the fantastic • Impossible combinations of objects depicted in realistic detail.

Surrealism Dali Magritte

Jackson Pollock

Futurism • Futurism—grew out of Cubism. • Added implied motion to the shifting planes and multiple observation points of the Cubists • Celebrated natural as well as mechanical motion and speed • Glorified danger, war, and the machine

Futurism Kandinsky Giacomo Balla

Main points • • • Differences between Realism and Modernism Timeline and Social Snaphots Forces behind Modernism Characteristics of Modernism in Literature Canonical Literary Authors Modernism in Visual Arts

The End