Flipped learning of Trends and Movements
This blog is part of flipped learning activity of Trends and Movements by Trivedi Megha ma'am.
Trends and Movements
The Industrial Revolution – and the rapid industrialization that followed it – marked the late 19th and early 20th centuries. But new technologies didn't only change the ways of manufacturing. They also made writers reconsider their attitudes toward the established norms of the craft. Out of this cultural shift, one of the most compelling literary movements was born: modernism.
Modernism in literature is the act of rebellion against the norms on the writers' part. They refused to conform to the rules any longer. Instead, they sought new ways to convey ideas and new forms of expressing themselves. In their opinion, the old ways of writing simply couldn't reflect the rapid social change and a new generation born out of it.
1.What is Modernism in Literature
As any physic helper would advise you to approach a subject, let's start with one crucial question: ‘What is modernism?’
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines the term 'modernism' as a practice characteristic of modern times and seeking to find original means of expressing oneself. Modernism was a movement not just in literature but also in arts, philosophy, and cinema.
As for the modernism in literature definition, the same dictionary describes it as a conscious break from the past and a search for new ways of expressing oneself. But its spirit is best reflected in a motto coined by Ezra Pound: ‘Make it new.’ The movement's main characteristics are individualism, experimentation, and absurdity. Its other characteristics include symbolism and formalism.
What about the history behind the modernism literary movement? Started by the Industrial Revolution and fueled by urbanization, the movement originated in Europe, with Virginia Woolf, Franz Kafka, and Robert Musil as early modernists. It was also heavily influenced by the horrors of World War I: it shattered the preconceived notions about society for many modernists.
The movement first developed in American literature in the early 20th century modernism. Apart from the Industrial Revolution, it was influenced by Prohibition and the Great Depression and fueled by a sense of disillusionment and loss. William Faulkner, T.S. Eliot, and E. E. Cummings are among the prominent American modernists.
Key Characteristics of Modernist Literature
Now that we've covered the modernist genre definition let's examine why certain works are considered modernist more closely. In other words, what sets modernist works apart from their counterparts? The key to unraveling the answer lies in the key characteristics of modernism. We'll define five of them that matter the most:
Individualism;
Experimentation;
Absurdity;
Symbolism;
Formalism.
Individualism
Individualism is one of the key elements of modernism. It postulates that an individual's experiences, opinions, and emotions are more fascinating than the events in a society as a whole. So, modernism is focused on describing the subjective reality of one person rather than societal changes or historical events on an impersonal scale.
A typical protagonist in modernist literature is just trying to survive and adapt to the changing world. Presented with obstacles, the protagonist sometimes perseveres – but not always. You can find compelling examples of individualism in the works of Ernest Hemingway.
The fascination with subjective reality also led to the development of unreliable narrators in fiction. You can find great examples of the Madman type of unreliable narrator in Franz Kafka's works.
Experimentation
Literary modernism rejected many of the established writing norms, paving the way for experimentation with the form. Modernist poets best exemplify it: they revolted against the accepted rules of rhyme and rhythm, thus inventing free verse (vers libre) poetry.
Modernism in literature also led to experiments with prose. Combined with individualism as another core characteristic, writers developed a narrative device called ‘stream of consciousness.’
This device is meant to reflect how the characters think, even though it may be inconsistent, chaotic, or illogical. This new technique allowed writers to craft novels that read like the protagonist's stream of consciousness.
Among authors, Virginia Woolf and James Joyce are the best examples of this characteristic in action. As for poetry, T. S. Eliot's and Ezra Pound's bodies of work are a must-read.
Absurdity
During the modernist period, authors watched the world as they knew it crumbled around them. Two World Wars, the rise of capitalism, and fast-paced globalization all undermined authors' beliefs and opinions about humankind.
This led many of them to consider the world absurd and reflect it in their writing. From the setup to the plot development, modernist works based on this characteristic take surrealist or fantastical turns. They can also be described as bizarre or nonsensical.
The rise of absurdism also led to the invention of the Theatre of the Absurd. Pioneered by European playwrights, it revolves around the idea that human existence has no grand purpose or meaning. Absurdist plays don't seek to communicate effectively; instead, they include irrational speech. There's no better example of absurdity in literary modernism than Franz Kafka's works, especially The Metamorphosis.
Symbolism
While symbolism in literature existed before the late 19th century, it quickly became one of the central characteristics of modernism in literature. Modernist authors and poets also reimagined symbolism. Where their predecessors left little unsaid, modernists preferred to leave plenty of blanks for the reader's imagination to fill.
That, however, doesn't mean there was no attention to details. On the contrary, modernist authors infused every layer of their work of fiction with symbolic details. The difference is that their way of using symbolism in writing allowed for several interpretations, all simultaneously possible and valid. As a characteristic, symbolism in the modernism literary movement is most prominent in the works of James Joyce and T. S. Eliot.
Formalism
As mentioned above, 20th-century modernism was defined by the search for radically new forms of expression. Creativity fueled this search, paving the way for the emergence of original forms.
In modern period literature, the writing process was no longer perceived as a laborious craft. Modernists treated it as a creative process instead. In some cases, the originality of the form was deemed more important than the substance. Take the works of E. E. Cummings as an example here. Instead of conventionally putting the poetry on the page, he spread out separate words and phrases on the page as if it were a canvas and his poem – the paint. Other examples of formalism include the use of invented or foreign words and phrases and unconventional structure – or its absence.
2.Explain ‘Stream of Consciousness’
Some novels are dry and factual. Little is said beyond what is required. Such a technique can be quite effective, as evidenced by the works of Ernest Hemingway and Richard Ford. However, many writers choose to delve into the minds of their narrators and characters, providing a running monologue of what transpires in their heads. This is known as stream of consciousness writing.
What Is Stream of Consciousness Writing?
Stream of consciousness writing refers to a narrative technique where the thoughts and emotions of a narrator or character are written out such that a reader can track the fluid mental state of these characters.
The term “stream of consciousness” traces back to The Principles of Psychology, published in 1890 by William James. It was first applied to literary criticism by May Sinclair in 1918, via analysis of novels by Dorothy Richardson. However, the technique existed long before it was named—stream of consciousness writing can be found in the nineteenth-century works by Edgar Allan Poe, Leo Tolstoy, and Ambrose Bierce, among many others.
It became especially popular among writers of the Modernist era—roughly contemporaneous with Sinclair’s 1918 essay. Famous Modernist practitioners of the stream of consciousness technique include Virginia Woolf, Samuel Beckett, James Joyce, and Marcel Proust. It has remained fashionable in the ensuing years, appearing in the mid-century works of William Faulkner, Jack Kerouac, and Flannery O’Connor to those of contemporary writers like Stephen King, Salman Rushdie, and Nathaniel Rich.
What Is the Purpose of Stream of Consciousness Writing?
Stream of consciousness writing allows authors to provide a more intimate portrayal of their subjects. It prevents them from being confined to physical descriptions or accounts of spoken dialogue, which was a standard issue literary technique prior to the rise of the stream of consciousness approach. Via stream of consciousness writing, readers are able to track characters’ thoughts in real time, thus enabling them to understand not only what a character does but why they do it.
Examples of Stream Of Consciousness Writing
From the modernist era forward, stream of consciousness writing has been consistently popular. Here are some of its most notable applications.
1. James Joyce, Ulysses (1922). This novel tracks a single day in the life of Irishman Leopold Bloom. It contains long lengthy passages of stream of consciousness, truly mimicking a brain’s free-associative abilities. Joyce pushed this technique even further in later works, culminating in the arguably narrative-free Finnegan’s Wake.
2. Samuel Beckett, Molloy (1951). Beckett used many of the same narrative techniques as his Irish contemporary Joyce. Most famous as a dramatist, Beckett placed stream of consciousness style monologues in the mouths of many of his characters and later applied the method to his novels.
3. Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway (1925). Woolf used stream of consciousness writing to articulate her characters’ inner monologues, both in this novel and others like To The Lighthouse.
4. William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying (1930). Faulkner had already worked with stream of consciousness in earlier novels like The Sound and the Fury, but As I Lay Dying stood out in its method of narrating the novel through the perspective of 15 different characters, each of whom narrated in a stream of consciousness style.
5. Jack Kerouac, On the Road (1957). Kerouac’s novel stood out for using stream of consciousness as actual narration. Via the largely autobiographical narrator Sal Paradise, Kerouac presents the story as a largely uninterrupted flow of ideas. Driving home the point was the fact that Kerouac typed the entire novel in epic bursts on a continuous roll of typewriter paper.
6. Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes From Underground (1864). Decades before “stream of consciousness” became a literary term, authors were using it to create intimate portraits of their narrators. The technique was popular in Russian literary culture, with strong examples written by the likes of Tolstoy, Chekov, and Dostoevsky. Become a better writer with the MasterClass Annual Membership, which gives you access to video classes taught by literary masters, including Neil Gaiman, Dan Brown, Margaret Atwood, and more.
3.Expressionism
At the start of the twentieth century, an artistic tendency swept through Europe, spurred on by resistance to bourgeois culture and a fervent search for rejuvenated creativity. It came to be known as Expressionism. Words that characterize Expressionist artists and Expressionist art are ‘self’, ‘psyche’, ‘body’, ‘sexuality’, ‘nature’, and ‘spirit’. The term is so elastic that it can accommodate artists ranging from Vincent van Gogh to Egon Schiele and Wassily Kandinsky. Together, these artists tapped into very raw, true, and eternal questions, topics, and struggles that had been stirring beneath the surface and which remain familiar to us even today.
What is Expressionism?
Expressionism is considered more as an international tendency than a coherent art movement, which was particularly influential at the beginning of the twentieth century. It spanned various fields: art, literature, music, theatre, and architecture. Expressionist artists sought to express emotional experience, rather than physical reality. Famous Expressionist paintings are Edvard Munch’s The Scream, Wassily Kandinsky’s Der Blaue Reiter, and Egon Schiele’s Sitting Woman with Legs Drawn Up.
Expressionism is a complex and vast term that has meant different things at different times. However, when we speak of Expressionist art, we tend to think either about the artistic tendency which followed as a reaction to Impressionism in France or about the movement which emerged in Germany and Austria in the early twentieth century. In France, the Dutch artist Van Gogh was digging deep and revealing his unusual, troubled, and colorful psyche; in Germany, the Russian Wassily Kandinsky was exploring spirituality in art as an antidote to alienation in the modern world; in Austria, Egon Schiele and Oskar Kokoschka were fighting society’s moral hypocrisy by tackling topics such as sexuality, death, and violence; finally, Edvard Munch was making waves in Norway and all over Europe with his wild, intense expressions of the environment and his self and psyche.
Edvard Munch’s The Scream (1893)
Wassily Kandinsky’s Der Blaue Reiter (1903)
Der Blaue Rith Harms in 1917, depicting her sitting on the floor, resting her cheek on her left knee. Her fiery red hair contrast strikingly with the green of her shirt. The portrait is bold and suggestive, with definite erotic undertones – eroticism being one of the main themes in Schiele’s work.
Franz Marc’s Blue Horses (1911)
Franz Marc was one of the founding members of Der Blaue Reiter. He gave an emotional and psychological meaning to the colors he used in his work, and blue was used to depict masculinity and spirituality. Marc was fascinated by animals and their rich inner worlds, and he portrayed his animal subjects in a deeply emotional way.
The end of Expressionism, and its continuation
Several expressionist artists lost their lives during World War I, or as a result of the war due to traumas and illness. Franz Marc fell in 1916; Egon Schiele died during the 1918 influenza epidemic, and many others took their own lives after breaking down under the traumas of the war. Finally, the era of German Expressionism was extinguished by the Nazi dictatorship in 1933. Countless artists of the time, among whom were Pablo Picasso, Paul Klee, Franz Marc, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Edvard Munch, Henri Matisse, Vincent van Gogh, and Paul Gauguin, were labeled as “degenerate artists” by the Nazis and their Expressionist artworks were removed from museums and confiscated.
Yet Expressionism continued to inspire and live on in later artists and art movements. For example, Abstract Expressionism developed as an important avant-garde movement in the post-war United States in the 1940s and 1950s. The Abstract Expressionists renounced figuration and instead explored color fields, gestural brushstrokes, and spontaneity in their art. Later, in the late 1970s/early 1980s, Neo-Expressionism started developing as a reaction against the Conceptual art and Minimalist art of the time. Neo-Expressionist artists were greatly inspired by the German Expressionists who came before them, often depicting their subjects in a raw manner with expressive brushstrokes and intense colors. Famous Neo-Expressionist artists include Jean-Michel Basquiat, Anselm Kiefer, Julian Schnabel, Eric Fischl, and David Salle.Absurdism
3.Absurdism
Nothing good is going on in my life”
A daily thought I used to wake up and sleep to. The days felt all the same and the food started to taste pale. I’ve done everything that I was asked to do. Got good grades, was admitted into a good university, and landed the perfect job.
“Is this everything that life has to offer”
When I was younger, I felt full of life. Who cares if I scored 60% on my physics exam, I’ll just perform better in the next one. Who cares if a couple of people stopped talking to me, I’ll just make more friends. I studied, played and took time to read books.
As I reach my 20’s, all those things that once did not move a needle, were a lasting cyclone in my mind. The cycle of life started to turn into a mouse’s maze where no matter how much you tried, you could not escape.
Wake up, go to work, come back, sleep.
You repeat the cycle and think to yourself — “Is this it?”
You’ve reached an emotional state where nothing matters but here is what I read that might just help you get a different outlook on life
“The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion”. — Albert Camus
This philosophy is as simple as it sounds.
Life is absurd.
You are born in a world where the rules have already been laid down. If you try to spread your wings there are people beside you who will cut them even before you learn how to fly. You work, you eat, you do everything but forget to answer that one important question — are you happy?
Absurdism is a philosophical outlook that explores the contradiction between the human desire for meaning and the indifferent, chaotic nature of the universe.
The life you live is irrational and sometimes devoid of true meaning/purpose. We think that life is tragic because it is wretched and constantly find ways to blame others, making us bitter.
Absurdism does not fight to tell you the meaning of life, on the contrary, it just states that there is no meaning in life.
Wait, So How is This a Philosophy?
When you’ve been forced to find meaning in life, you pull your hair out to search for it. You try to find it in hobbies, in your monochrome jobs and sometimes in other people too. When you’re unable to find it, you tend to experience all those negative emotions of nothingness.
So what if I tell you that you don’t ‘need’ to find a meaning? What if there is no meaning and the journey is more important than the lesson it teaches?
I looked up at the mass of signs and stars in the night sky and laid myself open for the first time to the benign indifference of the world.
— Albert Camus, “The Stranger”
At its core, absurdism acknowledges the contradictions and irrationalities of the human condition. It recognizes that life is inherently meaningless and devoid of inherent value. You don’t come into this life with a purpose defined — the journey becomes fun when you try to give it meaning itself.
Instead of succumbing to nihilism or despair, absurdism invites us to confront the absurdity of existence head-on and find meaning in the face of chaos.
Too Technical?
Here’s how it helped me. Last year the place I was working at lost their investments and the entire business was shut down. It was my first job and while most of my friends were building their banks, I was fighting to keep myself employed.
“Why me?” was a question that I could not stop asking myself. As a person in despair, I had started spending time sitting on my bed and binging shows to detach myself from reality.
As a person who started embracing the absurd, I thoughtIt is not my fault the company lost business. These things happen more usually than I know, I just happened to experience it early in my career.
It is not the last job in the world, a month or even two — I’ll land an even better one.
The moment I started adding “so what” to these terrible feelings, life started to make sense again
So what I’m earning less right now
So what if I don’t have my own business yet
If not now, then later. If the purpose of life is to create a purpose, I will build mine soon.
This absurdism helped me to start my blog.
“What the worst that could happen, no one would read it?”
Well, yes, when I took that “so what” and started doing the things that scared me the most — I was building a life where I am not afraid to chase after my dreams.
I recall first coming across the concept of absurdism as a genre in literature, during my undergraduate days. In a class on 20th-century drama studies, we covered the "Theatre of the Absurd" (Esslin, 1961) and the approaches many writers took to convey meaning—arguably, lack of meaning. Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, in particular, stuck with me. In fairness, not much happens in the two-act play, leading some critics back in the 1950s to refer to it as boring—as a play in which nothing happens—twice. For me, the play was—and remains—greatly intriguing. When performed right, there is an underlying vibe of dread, despair, and uncertainty throughout it, as the minimal cast waits in vain for the titular Godot. So, what makes it absurd? We’ll get back to that in a moment.
Upon my budding interest in the genre, I engaged more narratives and read more theory, eventually arriving at the work of Albert Camus. Though I had been previously aware of his literary work, I had never looked at it from a truly philosophical scope. So, I read him again, from an absurdist perspective, and I began to better understand the points being made—in an existence, arguably, where such points don’t matter.
Arguably, Camus’ most famous contribution is his essay The Myth of Sisyphus, in which the titular Sisyphus is condemned by the gods to push a boulder up a large hill for all eternity. As Sisyphus gets to the top each time, inevitably, the boulder falls down the other side and he must start over. Sounds like a crummy existence, right? The sad truth is that the analogy is made in reference to our own existences. Every day you get up, eat breakfast, go to work, get stuck in traffic, eat again, sleep, and do more or less the same things until you realise the monotony of it all. Then you evaluate the importance of your daily activities and question the point of it all (e.g., work, romance, hobbies). Shouldn’t there be something more to it? Shouldn’t there be more than simply existing, just waiting—like, for Godot? (See, I told you I’d get back to it.)
It’s kind of absurd, the way we live, isn’t it? Think about it: the uncertainty associated with life—pandemics, terrorist attacks, car accidents, allergic reactions, wars over beliefs about how individuals should live their lives, wars over access to harvesting millions-years-old dead animals that heat our homes and make our cars go—and tinned sardines. All of it is absurd.
Creating Meaning
Absurdism questions us, on a philosophical level, about what’s the point of it all—and sure, it posits that there is no underlying meaning. But it’s not all doom and gloom like many nihilist perspectives. Instead, it accepts that there is no underlying meaning and empowers the individual to stand up against the absurdity of existence and create their own meaning: "We must imagine Sisyphus happy."
I have always found this perspective particularly comforting. That’s why I bring it up—because there’s quite a bit of overlap with what we were recently discussing regarding "It is what it is." We cannot control everything in the world. Again, there are things you can do or control—so, do so. Be proactive. On the other hand, there are things we have no control over—the universe’s indifference toward us, exhibited through the random nature of events occurring around us will yield things we can do nothing about. Why dwell on the things we cannot change? It is what it is.
This notion of absurdism doubles as a reinforcing foundation for a perspective presented on this page a while back, regarding thoughts on legacy and "meanings" of life. Specifically, if we look at Sisyphus not as the victim of a tragic fate, but rather as a man who "enjoys" his work, despite his absurd existence, then perhaps this isn’t such a negative outlook on our existence or potential lack of meaning. Again, we must imagine Sisyphus happy. Akin to our previously discussed mantra regarding "It is what it is," we must shift our attention from the negatives we can do nothing about to the attainment or experience of things that we value.
Moreover, we discussed that from an objective, biological position, we must consider that our purpose is simply to exist and propagate as we can, and, once we pass, that purpose has ended. But if we consider the sustainability of our existence—even after we’re gone—and recognise that we have the ability to change things for future generations, just as a result of being here, does that not suffice as meaning?
In conclusion, an "It is what it is" mantra for coping with worry and stress might be a useful approach; but, consistent with many cognitive reframing strategies, it may not be easy. However, what might facilitate this is the consideration of absurdist philosophy and meaning-building. I’m not saying you should subscribe to such an outlook, but consideration of its related perspectives might facilitate a means for more clearly identifying the things we value in an uncertain world and working toward such endeavours, while accepting the things we can do nothing about instead of unnecessarily dwelling on them. Notably, Beckett was never one for explaining his work, but one of his "deeper" descriptions of Waiting for Godot was that all that mattered were "the laughter and the tears."
5.Surrealism
Surrealism originated in the late 1910s and early ’20s as a literary movement that experimented with a new mode of expression called automatic writing, or automatism, which sought to release the unbridled imagination of the subconscious. Officially consecrated in Paris in 1924 with the publication of the Manifesto of Surrealism by the poet and critic AndrĂ© Breton (1896–1966), Surrealism became an international intellectual and political movement. Breton, a trained psychiatrist, along with French poets Louis Aragon (1897–1982), Paul Éluard (1895–1952), and Philippe Soupault (1897–1990), were influenced by the psychological theories and dream studies of Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) and the political ideas of Karl Marx (1818–1883). Using Freudian methods of free association, their poetry and prose drew upon the private world of the mind, traditionally restricted by reason and societal limitations, to produce surprising, unexpected imagery. The cerebral and irrational tenets of Surrealism find their ancestry in the clever and whimsical disregard for tradition fostered by Dadaism a decade earlier.
Surrealist poets were at first reluctant to align themselves with visual artists because they believed that the laborious processes of painting, drawing, and sculpting were at odds with the spontaneity of uninhibited expression. However, Breton and his followers did not altogether ignore visual art. They held high regard for artists such as Giorgio de Chirico (1888–1978), Pablo Picasso (1881–1973), Francis Picabia (1879–1953), and Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968) because of the analytic, provocative, and erotic qualities of their work. For example, Duchamp’s conceptually complex Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass) (1915–23; Philadelphia Museum of Art) was admired by Surrealists and is considered a precursor to the movement because of its bizarrely juxtaposed and erotically charged objects. In 1925, Breton substantiated his support for visual expression by reproducing the works of artists such as Picasso in the journal La RĂ©volution SurrĂ©aliste and organizing exhibitions that prominently featured painting and drawing.
The visual artists who first worked with Surrealist techniques and imagery were the German Max Ernst (1891–1976), the Frenchman AndrĂ© Masson (1896–1987), the Spaniard Joan MirĂł (1893–1983), and the American Man Ray (1890–1976). Masson’s free-association drawings of 1924 are curving, continuous lines out of which emerge strange and symbolic figures that are products of an uninhibited mind. Breton considered Masson’s drawings akin to his automatism in poetry. MirĂł’s Potato (1999.363.50) of 1928 uses comparable organic forms and twisted lines to create an imaginative world of fantastic figures.
About 1937, Ernst, a former Dadaist, began to experiment with two unpredictable processes called decalcomania and grattage. Decalcomania is the technique of pressing a sheet of paper onto a painted surface and peeling it off again, while grattage is the process of scraping pigment across a canvas that is laid on top of a textured surface. Ernst used a combination of these techniques in The Barbarians (1999.363.21) of 1937, a composition of sparring anthropomorphic figures in a deserted postapocalyptic landscape that exemplifies the recurrent themes of violence and annihilation found in Surrealist art.
In 1927, the Belgian artist RenĂ© Magritte (1898–1967) moved from Brussels to Paris and became a leading figure in the visual Surrealist movement. Influenced by de Chirico’s paintings between 1910 and 1920, Magritte painted erotically explicit objects juxtaposed in dreamlike surroundings. His work defined a split between the visual automatism fostered by Masson and MirĂł (and originally with words by Breton) and a new form of illusionistic Surrealism practiced by the Spaniard Salvador DalĂ (1904–1989), the Belgian Paul Delvaux (1897–1994), and the French-American Yves Tanguy (1900–1955). In The Eternally Obvious (2002.456.12a–e), Magritte’s artistic display of a dismembered female nude is emotionally shocking. In The Satin Tuning Fork (1999.363.80), Tanguy filled an illusionistic space with unidentifiable, yet sexually suggestive, objects rendered with great precision. The painting’s mysterious lighting, long shadows, deep receding space, and sense of loneliness also recall the ominous settings of de Chirico.
In 1929, DalĂ moved from Spain to Paris and made his first Surrealist paintings. He expanded on Magritte’s dream imagery with his own erotically charged, hallucinatory visions. In The Accommodations of Desire (1999.363.16) of 1929, DalĂ employed Freudian symbols, such as ants, to symbolize his overwhelming sexual desire. In 1930, Breton praised DalĂ’s representations of the unconscious in the Second Manifesto of Surrealism. They became the main collaborators on the review Minotaure (1933–39), a primarily Surrealist-oriented publication founded in Paris.
The organized Surrealist movement in Europe dissolved with the onset of World War II. Breton, DalĂ, Ernst, Masson, and others, including the Chilean artist Matta (1911–2002), who first joined the Surrealists in 1937, left Europe for New York. The movement found renewal in the United States at Peggy Guggenheim’s gallery, Art of This Century, and the Julien Levy Gallery. In 1940, Breton organized the fourth International Surrealist Exhibition in Mexico City, which included the Mexicans Frida Kahlo (1907–1954) and Diego Rivera (1886–1957) (although neither artist officially joined the movement). Surrealism’s surprising imagery, deep symbolism, refined painting techniques, and disdain for convention influenced later generations of artists, including Joseph Cornell (1903–1972) and Arshile Gorky (1904–1948), the latter whose work formed a continuum between Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism.
6.Postmodernism
Postmodernism can be seen as a reaction against the ideas and values of modernism, as well as a description of the period that followed modernism's dominance in cultural theory and practice in the early and middle decades of the twentieth century. The term is associated with scepticism, irony and philosophical critiques of the concepts of universal truths and objective reality.
The term was first used around 1970. As an art movement postmodernism to some extent defies definition – as there is no one postmodern style or theory on which it is hinged. It embraces many different approaches to art making, and may be said to begin with pop art in the 1960s and to embrace much of what followed including conceptual art, neo-expressionism, feminist art, and the Young British Artists of the 1990s.
Post-modernism and Modernism
Postmodernism was a reaction against modernism. Modernism was generally based on idealism and a utopian vision of human life and society and a belief in progress. It assumed that certain ultimate universal principles or truths such as those formulated by religion or science could be used to understand or explain reality. Modernist artists experimented with form, technique and processes rather than focusing on subjects, believing they could find a way of purely reflecting the modern world.
While modernism was based on idealism and reason, postmodernism was born of scepticism and a suspicion of reason. It challenged the notion that there are universal certainties or truths. Postmodern art drew on philosophy of the mid to late twentieth century, and advocated that individual experience and interpretation of our experience was more concrete than abstract principles. While the modernists championed clarity and simplicity; postmodernism embraced complex and often contradictory layers of meaning.
The many faces of postmodernism
Anti-authoritarian by nature, postmodernism refused to recognise the authority of any single style or definition of what art should be. It collapsed the distinction between high culture and mass or popular culture, between art and everyday life. Because postmodernism broke the established rules about style, it introduced a new era of freedom and a sense that ‘anything goes’. Often funny, tongue-in-cheek or ludicrous; it can be confrontational and controversial, challenging the boundaries of taste; but most crucially, it reflects a self-awareness of style itself. Often mixing different artistic and popular styles and media, postmodernist art can also consciously and self-consciously borrow from or ironically comment on a range of styles from the past.
Jacques Lacan
Jacques Lacan (1901–1981), was a prominent French psychoanalyst and theorist. His ideas had a huge impact on critical theory in the twentieth century and were particularly influential on post-structuralist philosophy and the development of postmodernism. Lacan re-examined the psychiatry of Sigmund Freud, giving it a contemporary intellectual significance. He questioned the conventional boundaries between the rational and irrational by suggesting that the unconscious rather than being primitive, is just as complex and sophisticated in its structure as the conscious. He proposed that the unconscious is structured like a language which allows a discourse between the unconscious and conscious and ensures that the unconscious plays a role in our experience of the world.
7.Modernism
Modernism refers to a global movement in society and culture that from the early decades of the twentieth century sought a new alignment with the experience and values of modern industrial life. Building on late nineteenth-century precedents, artists around the world used new imagery, materials and techniques to create artworks that they felt better reflected the realities and hopes of modern societies.
The terms modernism and modern art are generally used to describe the succession of art movements that critics and historians have identified since the realism of Gustav Courbet and culminating in abstract art and its developments in the 1960s.
Although many different styles are encompassed by the term, there are certain underlying principles that define modernist art: A rejection of history and conservative values (such as realistic depiction of subjects); innovation and experimentation with form (the shapes, colours and lines that make up the work) with a tendency to abstraction; and an emphasis on materials, techniques and processes. Modernism has also been driven by various social and political agendas. These were often utopian, and modernism was in general associated with ideal visions of human life and society and a belief in progress.
By the 1960s modernism had become a dominant idea of art, and a particularly narrow theory of modernist painting had been formulated by the highly influential American critic Clement Greenberg. A reaction then took place which was quickly identified as postmodernism.
As a revolutionary movement, Modernist works introduced various novel techniques and thematic concerns that challenged traditional literary norms. The following are some of the most significant characteristics of the modernist period that define this influential period in literary history.
Rejection of Traditional Forms and Conventions
Modernist literature marked a revolutionary, conscious break from conventional literary methods. It vehemently dismissed the structured composition, ethical absolutes, and elaborate language that were hallmarks of Victorian literature. Modernist authors chose to mirror their age’s mess, fragmented reality, purposefully disrupting and upending entrenched norms. This shift wasn’t merely about moving away from the past but a purposeful leap into the uncharted territories of literary expression.
Experimentation with Narrative Structure and Style
One of the defining features of literary modernism is its inventive manipulation of form. Many writers fearlessly experimented with stream-of-consciousness narrative, a technique that attempts to simulate human thoughts’ free-flowing and non-linear nature. They also embraced innovative structures, such as fragmented narratives and polyphonic perspectives, which magnified their works’ intricacy and depth.
Focus on Subjective Experiences and Interiority
Literary modernism bore a significant focus on the internal world of characters. It dismissed the external, observable world in favor of the subjective and introspective, putting a magnifying glass on characters’ perceptions and mental states in the short story rather than prioritizing the storyline. This shift in focus emphasized the complexity of individual perception as authors sought to navigate the labyrinth of the human mind.
Fragmentation and Non-linear Storytelling
Modernist works often eschew the orderly progression of linear narratives, reflecting the fragmented, disjointed reality of the early modernists’ era instead. The storyline is frequently fractured, disrupted, or intentionally made challenging to follow. This narrative style underscores the themes of uncertainty and dislocation pervasive during the first modernist period, skillfully translating societal disruption into a narrative form.
Emphasis on Individualism and Self-expression
The individual’s experience takes center stage in many modernist writers’ works. In short stories, writers amplified the characters’ autonomy and self-expression, frequently set against restrictive societal norms or cataclysmic events. This emphasis on individual experience was a narrative choice and a bold statement on the value and complexity of personal perspectives in a rapidly changing world.
Literary modernism represented a daring shift in how writers perceived the world and human experience. Its innovative narrative techniques and focus on the subjective experience offered a fresh lens to examine reality, one that continues to shape and influence literature today.
Modernist literature was more than just a movement; it was a profound, deeply felt response to an era of enormous change and upheaval. As outlined above, modernism’s five traits and characteristics can only begin to touch upon the rich, multifaceted world of literary movements – a world that continues to inspire and provoke us to this day.
8.Dadaism :
Dada was an artistic and literary movement that began in ZĂĽrich, Switzerland. It arose as a reaction to World War I and the nationalism that many thought had led to the war. Influenced by other avant-garde movements - Cubism, Futurism, Constructivism, and Expressionism - its output was wildly diverse, ranging from performance art to poetry, photography, sculpture, painting, and collage. Dada's aesthetic, marked by its mockery of materialistic and nationalistic attitudes, proved a powerful influence on artists in many cities, including Berlin, Hanover, Paris, New York, and Cologne, all of which generated their own groups. The movement dissipated with the establishment of Surrealism, but the ideas it gave rise to have become the cornerstones of various categories of modern and contemporary art.
Key Ideas & Accomplishments
- Dada was the direct antecedent to the Conceptual Art movement, where the focus of the artists was not on crafting aesthetically pleasing objects but on making works that often upended bourgeois sensibilities and that generated difficult questions about society, the role of the artist, and the purpose of art.
- So intent were members of Dada on opposing all norms of bourgeois culture that the group was barely in favor of itself: "Dada is anti-Dada," they often cried. The group's founding in the Cabaret Voltaire in ZĂĽrich was appropriate: the Cabaret was named after the 18th century French satirist, Voltaire, whose novella Candide mocked the idiocies of his society. As Hugo Ball, one of the founders of both the Cabaret and Dada wrote, "This is our Candide against the times."
- Artists like Hans Arp were intent on incorporating chance into the creation of works of art. This went against all norms of traditional art production whereby a work was meticulously planned and completed. The introduction of chance was a way for Dadaists to challenge artistic norms and to question the role of the artist in the artistic process.
- Dada artists are known for their use of readymades - everyday objects that could be bought and presented as art with little manipulation by the artist. The use of the readymade forced questions about artistic creativity and the very definition of art and its purpose in society.
Examples of Famous Dada Art
The movement has brought many famous artworks. Here are a selected few examples of dadaism art:
- Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain (1917)
- Marcel Duchamp’s Bicycle Wheel (1913)
- Man Ray’s Ingres’s Violin (1924)
- Hugo Ball’s Sound Poem Karawane (1916)
- Raoul Hausmann’s Mechanical Head (The Spirit of our Time) (1920)
- Hannah Höch’s Cut with the Kitchen Knife Dada Through the Last Weimar Beer Belly Cultural Epoch of Germany (1919)
- 9.What is comedy of Menace?
A comedy of menace is a play in which the laughter of the audience in some or all situations is immediately followed by a feeling of some impending disaster. The audience is made aware of some menace in the very midst of its laughter. The menace is produced throughout the play from potential or actual violence or from an underline sense of violence throughout the play. The actual cause of menace is difficult to define: it may be because, the audience feels an uncertainty and insecurity throughout the play.
Harold Pinter's The Birthday Party is a comedy of menace. The play is actually the mingling of comedy with a perception of danger that pervade the whole play. Stanley, the central protagonist always finds his life beset with danger. Meg is the owner of the boarding house away from the society where Stanley stays temporarily as a tenant. Meg arranges a birthday party in Stanley's honour though Stanley denies it being his birthday. Two gentlemen called Mr. Goldberg and Mr. Mc Cann come to stay in the same boarding house for a couple of nights. Their appearance fills Stanley's mind with unexplained fear and tension. Stanley attempts to disturb the strangers so that they will be forced to go away. The feeling of menace is reinforced when Stanley scares Meg by saying that some people would be coming that very day in a van. They would bring a wheelbarrow with them to take someone away. Eventually no one comes but Mr. Goldberg and Mr. Mc Cann take stanley with them. In fact Goldberg and Mc Cann represents parts of Stanley's own subconscious mind. Nothing is stated or hinted about Goldberg and Mc Cann and about their attitude towards Stanley. At best they seem to be agents of some organisation which has sent them to track down Stanley.
The Birthday Party and Look Back in Anger perfectly reveal the individual and social problems and doubts that great Britain was moving through during the post-war era. Both this two famous plays indicate the spirit of times and become vehicle or instrument for dramatic action.
10.Avant Grade Movement
We artists will serve you as an avant-garde, the power of the arts is most immediate: when we want to spread new ideas we inscribe them on marble or canvas.”
-Henri de Saint-Simon
What is Avant-Garde Art?
Originally a French term denoting the vanguard of an army, the word ‘avant-garde’ entered the art vocabulary in early 19th-century France to indicate any artist, movement, or artwork that develops experimental concepts, processes, and forms questioning the status quo.
Radical by nature, avant-garde art pushes pre-existing boundaries and pursues unexplored artistic avenues.
The Origin of the Avant-Garde
It was political, economic, and socialist theorist Henri de Saint-Simon the first one who, believing in the social power of the arts, drew the analogy between radical art practices and an advancing military formation: “We artists will serve you as an avant-garde, the power of the arts is most immediate: when we want to spread new ideas we inscribe them on marble or canvas. What a magnificent destiny for the arts is that of exercising a positive power over society, a true priestly function and of marching in the van [i.e. vanguard] of all the intellectual faculties!”
Initially tied to social and political ideals, the concept of avant-garde subsequently shifted towards radical aesthetics and techniques.
Avant-Garde Art Movements
As applied to art, the term avant-garde concerns anything ahead of its time. In this sense, the radicals of yesterday have become mainstream today, creating the environment for a new generation of innovators to emerge. However, the idea of ‘avant-garde’ is often associated with the beginning of modern art and considered by many to be exclusively related to modernism, therefore indicating all those art movements that, between the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, went against the traditional way of looking at art and initiated a cultural revolution following a programmatic and ground-breaking set of aims. In this light, the origins of avant-garde art are also the origins of the contemporary notion of the ‘art movement.’ As contemporary philosopher Alain Badiou has stated, “More or less the whole of twentieth-century art has laid claim to an avant-garde function.”
Here are some of the major twentieth-century avant-garde art movements:
- Abstract Expressionism
- Constructivism
- Cubism
- Dadaism
- Expressionism
- Futurism
- Impressionism
- Minimalism
- Pop Art
- Surrealism
- Suprematism
- Symbolism
Famous Avant-Garde Works in Contemporary Art
- The Black Square: the Zero of Form
- Paul Klee, Angelus Novus, and Walter Benjamin Meet
- Stories of Iconic Artworks: Picasso’s Guernica
- Piero Manzoni and his Merda d’Artista
References:
---. “ What Is Dadaism, Dada Art, or a Dadaist?” Artland Magazine, 6 Dec. 2023, magazine.artland.com/what-is-dadaism.
Smoul. “Absurdism: The Philosophy That Changed My Mindset - Change Your Mind Change Your Life - Medium.” Medium, 29 Nov. 2024, medium.com/change-your-mind/absurdism-the-philosophy-that-changed-my-mindset-c8393f10c032.
Study Portal. “Stream of Consciousness in Literature.” YouTube, 3 Jan. 2019, www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYAUkfv3kwM.
Curious Muse. “Dadaism in 8 Minutes: Can Everything Be Art? 🤔.” YouTube, 7 May 2021, www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4WlTijUNc0.
“Surrealism Movement Overview.” The Art Story, www.theartstory.org/movement/surrealism.
Tate. “Modernism | Tate.” Tate, www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/m/modernism.
“Postmodernism | Tate.” Tate, www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/p/postmodernism.
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