Modernism

Modernism

What is Modernism?

Modernism is as style of art that was influenced by the cultural trends and changes, which were happening at the time. The western society was transforming. The cities were expanding and creating more modern industries. Modernism also rejected the idea of religious belief. The modernists at this time felt the traditional forms of art, architecture, literature, religious faith and some social organizations were outdated and ill fitted to their newly developing modern lives.

Paul Klee

The image above is of a painting by Paul klee called “highways and byways”. It is said to be the most important painting to come from Paul’s trip to Egypt. Paul was a teacher at the Bauhaus. He was very good at experimenting and mixing different techniques to produce new and interesting imagery. All of his pieces are very detailed and specific, but have a semi-abstract feel about them. As you can tell by the painting above, he has obviously put so much time, effort and detail into this piece, but it doesn’t look like anything in particular, a prominent feature in a lot of abstract work.

The piece above is another painting by Paul called “Ancient sound”. You can see how this piece is even more abstract than the last, but when you know the title it is clear how the work may relate to sound art. I can see the sound waves here, concentrated in one are and fading out, shown by the difference in color on the squares which make up the painting.

       Paul was very experimental and wrote extensively about his art, and the modernism movement. He was very passionate about these new styles of art and the strange possibility it gave artists, rather than the restrictive traditional styles of painting.

Walter Gropius

Walter Gropius was a Germen Architect and founder of a school. His work was designing buildings like the one in the photograph above. This was so strange at the time because the style of buildings was changing from the traditional stone architecture type, to the image above. And Walter was one of the artists and designers to contribute to this change. Walter along with Ludwig, Corbusier, and Frank Lloyd is widely regarded as one of the pioneering masters of modern architecture. The building on the previous page was such a revelatory design because of it’s strange, unique and modern mirror type cladding on the front of the building, the people had been so used to the buildings being covered in decorative architectural stone work, so this was a complete change. Some of his other designs had great contrasts between black and white colors, which had never been seen before.

Walter also designed modern, minimalistic furniture, which was another shock from the traditional patterned, wooden pieces.

 The Bauhaus (pictured in the image on the previous page) was an art school in Germany that combined crafts and the fine arts. It was famous for its approach to design. Walter Gropius founded the Bauhaus. The artist and work that was produced in the Bauhaus later became one of the most influential currents in modern design, modern architecture and modern art.

Wassily Kandinsky

Wassily Kandinsky is agreed to be one of the earliest abstract artists. He moved around a lot pre-war and during the war, but eventually settled down and became an art teacher. In his early works he wouldn’t have been described as abstract, if anything it looks more realistic.

The photograph above is called “improvisation Number 26 rowers”. Wassily tried to use different color combinations and shapes to evoke emotions from the viewer, he wanted the viewers to find a meaning for the painting themselves. The paintings are not truly abstract though, they are based on real things and reality, so they can not be classed as pure abstract even though the style and techniques are arguably so.

Synesthesia plays a large part in his work. He tries to give the viewers experiences with his work.

Anni Albers

Anni is predominately a textile designer, though her designs look very abstract and wonderful as a piece of work in themselves. The image above is one of her textile designs called “black white grey”. She has a very good understanding of how different tones can work together to bring out the other, and she arranges her piece in a very interesting and unique way. It is not a straightforward pattern, she has some areas which are even some with greater amounts of one color, but it works very well.

The photograph above is another of the pieces by Anni. Here she is much more focused on the element of geometric shapes in her work. `She uses the contrast between the black white and yellow to draw your attention to a certain area of the piece. She creates these as something different from the generic complicated floral designs which were popular at the time, she was creating designs to make the clothing more modern.

Josef Albers

The piece above is called “Interactions of color”, created in 1963. Josef was a painter, designer, teacher and artist. He wrote a lot about his theory of color and how colors correspond with each other. He taught and wrote extensively about color theory.

Mies van der rohe

Miles was an architect and a teacher. His specialty was designing very modern and innovate buildings to a particular style; he designed very low, very long buildings, which were always extremely minimalistic (photograph above). His buildings featured slender structural pillars and open plan living. These were things, which at the time were a very alien concept, and so his architectural influences helped to move the development of modernism to a new level. His buildings seem to create an illusion on hovering above ground.