Modernism Outline
AP European History
Dr. Weiselberg
Modernism, 1870-1914, outline
Modernism, definition: Art, philosophy and science which emphasizes subjective experience and personal perspective over objective truth, the irrational over the rational, the relative over the universal, action over passivity, feeling over thought. It often involves a critique of bourgeois values, such as materialism and conformity, which it claims have led to “disenchantment.” It tries to find or establish new values in this disenchanted world; it often establishes some new truth in place of an older one. Modernists try to find or define a new “self” or individual suitable to a disenchanted or re-enchanted, world.
Historical Context: Modernism is a cultural approach to the condition of “modernity,” a time period begun during the Second Industrial Revolution of 1870 to 1914, characterized by new inventions (x-rays, telephone, typewriter, photography, film), developments in transportation (internal combustion engine, airplane, automobile, underground train), new materials (reinforced concrete, steel, plate glass, plastics, dyes, synthetic fibers), urbanization (Paris, London, Berlin), and a culture obsessed with time and speed. To some degree, modernism is also a revaluation of “modern philosophy” (Descartes, Hume, Kant) and the liberal-rational tradition of the Enlightenment and French Revolution. Responses within modernism ranged from outright criticism of that tradition, to working within and refining that tradition. Modernism can be seen as a complex and sometimes contradictory set of responses to the forces of modernity. Modernism is not simply a knee-jerk reaction to modernity; it reflects modernity but also sets itself against modernity.
Examples of Modernists: Nietzsche, Freud, James Joyce, Impressionists, Cubists, Einstein.
Three Issues of Modernism
Disenchantment
Source of values in a disenchanted world
The self - what kind of person is suitable in a disenchanted / re-enchanted world?
Philosophical and Cultural Precedents
Modern Philosophy and the Enlightenment (Descartes, Hume, Kant)
Karl Marx
Charles Darwin
Richard Wagner, Gesamtkunstwerk (“Total work of art”)
Modern Art
Renaissance: proportion, linear perspective, representationalism, inherent mathematical order
French Baroque: extravagance, lavish, support of absolutism
Dutch Baroque: allegorical, depictions of Calvinism, exploration, capitalism
Neo-classical: to instruct, classical subjects, political (reinforce status quo)
Romanticism: emotional, Sublime, fantasy, reaction to Enlightenment and F Rev
Modern: no objective reality, multiple frames of reference, creative process (art for art's sake), artist's subjective feelings. Meaning: nothing beyond the work of art itself, yet in order to uncover the meaning in a modernist work of art, we have to bring in other readings and references.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Signif: First sustained promotion of perspectivalism, challenge to Enlightenment
Major Works
Birth of Tragedy, 1872
Appolinian and Dionysian
Culture = struggle
Myths = necessary for creativity, culture
-Raises the 3 issues of modernism (disenchantment, source of new values, new self)
The Gay Science (Die Froeliche Wissenschaft), 1882; Beyond Good and Evil, 1886
On the Genealogy of Morals, 1887; The Antichrist, 1895;
The Will to Power, 1901/1906
Main Concepts
Existentialism
The will to power
Nihilism
Aesthetics / creativity
Ubermensch
Herd instinct
Interpretations of Nietzsche
Nazism
Liberal-Individual psychology (Walter Kaufmann)
Modernism packet Intro:
Your interpretation:
Present-day film depictions of Nietzsche's ideas:
Rope (Alfred Hitchcock), The Matrix, A Fish Called Wanda
Sigmund Freud
Significance: "Third blow to naïve self-love of man" (Copernicus, Darwin, Freud)
"The ego is not even master in its own house"
Challenge to Enlightenment rationality, but also used scientific method to achieve
progress
Major Works:
The Interpretation of Dreams (1900); Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis
Civilization and Its Discontents (1930)
Main Concepts
The unconscious
Pyschoanalysis
Eros
Thanatos
Id, Ego, Superego
"Freudian Slip"
dreams
defense mechanisms (sublimation, repression)
neurosis
developmental theory
Freud at the movies:
Spellbound (Alfred Hitchcock), Forbidden Planet, Analyze This, Good Will Hunting, Star Wars Trilogy
The Revolt Against Positivism; Science 1870-1914
Background
Science before Scientific Revolution: myth, witch-craft, earth-centered
Scientific Revolution: scientific method, induction/deduction, empiricism,
natural / universal laws, helio-centrism, Rationalists (Descartes, Leibniz,
"Pangloss"), Empiricists (Berkeley, Locke, Hume), Kantian synthesis
19th Century Science:
August Comte - positivism
Traits of positivistic science:
Karl Marx - scientific socialism
Charles Darwin - evolution, natural selection, survival of the fittest
Origin of Species, 1859
The Revolt Against Positivism
Ernst Mach
Relativity of time and space
Henri Bergson (philosopher, writer)
Mechanistic time vs. duree reelle (real duration)
Mind geared toward action, not a repository for knowledge
Creative Evolution
Physics
Albert Einstein
Relativity, 1905
Max Planck
Quantum mechanics, 1900
Niels Bohr,
Sociology
Emile Durkheim
Anomie
Division of labor (replaces religion as cohesive element)
Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, 1905
Disenchantment
Vocational specialization, modern calling, avoid irrational/mystical/ "savior"
Psychology
Nietzsche, Freud: unconscious forces
Gustave LeBon, The Crowd, 1895
Technology: faster, higher, better
Inventions: x-rays, telephone, typewriter, photography, motion pictures, internal
combustion engine, airplane, automobile, reinforced concrete, steel, plate glass, plastics, dyes, synthetic fibers, electric lights
Standardized Time Zones
World Fairs: Great Exhibition, London, Crystal Palace, 1851; Paris, 1889
Modern Olympics, 1896
Eiffel Tower
Frederick Winslow Taylor, The Principles of Scientific Management, 1911
WWI technology: machine guns, tanks, submarines, poison gas, camouflage
Modernism in Literature: James Joyce, Thomas Mann, Franz Kafka
Modernism in Music: Richard Wagner; Claude Debussy; Igor Stravinsky, The Rite of Spring, 1913
