Or…
How Modern Art backed itself into a Corner
This is Part 3 of this series, in which I talk about what Modern Art means. Part 1 talks about the rules of art for hundreds of years, and how impressionists broke those rules. Part 2 talks about how the stones the impressionists threw turned into an avalanche of abstraction. You should read part 2 before reading below (if you haven’t already), because this entry picks up where it ends. This entry is really the second half of Part 2, I cut it into parts because of length.
Like before, clicking on the links below will launch a pop-over image, without taking you away from the page. (Though there aren’t many links in this one)
On to pontification.
Abstraction Hits A Wall
There’s one thing I wonder about when I look at the Modern Art period, and the background for this question addresses why folks sometimes have difficulty appreciating Modern Art.
The most interesting thing about Modern Art was the road that artists traveled down, the ways that artists changed the philosophies of what art is during the first half of the 20th century.
Individual works of art are a record of the road they were on, but it turns out that the journey down the road was more interesting than any of the individual stops. Each of those stops along the way, cubism, fauvism, expressionism, whateverism, don’t always make a lot of sense on their own, because each one is a move further down this “Modern Art” road. They build upon the progress that came before, and push further down the road towards pure abstraction.
When I look at a painting of a white square, I look at it as a step towards pure abstraction, a step towards proving that art doesn’t need a subject, a step towards demonstrating that art was about raw art materials, and what could be done with them. Outside of that context, however, a white square isn’t very interesting and doesn’t make much sense.
This is where Modern Art loses a lot of people. The context is missing. An abstract collection of shapes isn’t always interesting or beautiful, at least from an objective view. The meaning and importance depends on the context in which it was made, and how it expanded the boundaries of art.
The history of Modern Art is the history of this march towards pure abstraction, taken one step at a time. I sense that it was a proud march, artists bravely pushing boundaries and courageously proving art could be more and more abstract.
Getting back to my question about this, what I wonder is, did they realize this road was a dead end?
There is a natural limit to abstract art. There is a point at which art cannot be any more abstract, because it is as abstract as is possible with a tube of paint and a canvas. That limit was reached in the 1940s and 1950s, and this was the destination of the Modern Art road.
When artists reached this destination, everyone discovered that the road wasn’t a road at all, it was more like a pier. There was no where left to go.
Modern Art was a dead end, artists had moved in this direction as far as was possible. Even worse, it was the getting there that was interesting. It isn’t nearly so interesting to stay there. They could either hang out at the end of the pier, or walk back to the shore. Both options are boring.
Luckily, a couple strange guys, Jasper Johns and Andy Warhol, saw a third way; they decided to jump off the pier into the ocean, and that’s when things really got wacky.
Tomorrow, this series continues with the cleverly named Post-Modern art that came after Modern Art.
Tags: abstract, art history, Meaning
Not sure I agree with the pier metaphor. Sure, once you’ve left the canvas blank you’ve got nothing left to take away and you have to turn around, but I don’t think you have to go all the way back to painting people, or other subjects, to make innovations. Rather I think a lot can, and has been drawn from the modern artists. Perhaps more importantly, the newer art could never have happened if we hadn’t gone though this dramatic deconstructionism. A “dead end” implies there’s only one way left to go: back the way you came. And on the linear scale of subject to abstraction, that’s true. But to me, it’s more like driving from the middle of a metropolitan area, through the suburbs, the rural areas, and then out to a desolate desert. Maybe you’ve driven out to the middle of nowhere, but that doesn’t mean the road ends. In fact, the roads out of the desert are essentially limitless, with an infinite possible directions the artist can go in.
In any case, if you want to read a great book about the music which parallels the art of this period, I highly recommend The Rest is Noise by Alex Ross. Part of the reason I’m enjoying these posts so much is I can plainly see direct correlations between the art and music, sometimes even down to the specific person. For instance, when I think of Mahler, the artist that springs to mind is another Gustav — Klimt. The rich golds used in his painting, which often seem to practically swallow his subject, remind me of the similarly rich harmonies of Mahler, constantly brushing up against the limits of traditional tonality.
I don’t think it necessarily had to be like a pier, but the way I see it, Modern artists framed it as if it was. They are the ones that seemed to define the conversation, they said, with their collective actions, that the move towards abstraction was what art was all about.
Objectively, no, there was no pier, but subjectively, it seems like the Modern Artists were saying, “we need to build this pier. It is the only proper way to go.”
There were other directions, like DaDa and surrealism, in this time, but their approach didn’t really take off until post-modernism (which is coming up next – the next one is taking a bit of time to write).
Anyway, I’ve got “The Rest is Noise” on my Audible wishlist, I’ll get it with my next batch of credits.
.-= Sean´s last blog post ..A Short and Irreverent Art History- Part 1 =-.
Yeah, ok, I can hang with this.
.-= Dave Doolin´s last blog post ..Failure is a Point of View Who’s defining yours =-.
Right on. My concern when writing these articles was that they would only make sense to me.
.-= Sean´s last blog post ..A Short and Irreverent Art History- Part 2 =-.
Sean,
Really a good point about abstraction. I never heard it put like that and it makes sense. There was nowhere else to go and now we get to Warhol. Are you going to tell me that Warhol is not a dead end?
.-= Ralph´s last blog post ..How you can tell a story with Trailmeme Plugin for WordPress =-.
I think of Warhol abandoned the concept of “art as a fine object”, along with other artists in the 50s and 60s, and that set the tone for the next step of progress in art, the unraveling of what art should *mean*.
.-= Sean´s last blog post ..A Short and Irreverent Art History- Part 4 =-.
dear all,
I think what attracts the mind in “modern art” or whatsoever called is an eye catching perception of “something unknown – unusual – never seen – remarkable –
stunning – super lovable – etc.. Brief something that the minds keeps busy…
This effect may result in being attracted or even buying a work of art.
What an individual considers as “remarkable” depends on many factors and especially what he/she has NOT percepted as a child.
As the beginning of a discussion I am waiting for interesting reactions.
Pats 2277