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American modernism American modernism like modernism in general is a trend of thought that affirms the power of human beings to create, improve, and reshape their environment, with the aid of scientific knowledge, technology and practical experimentation, and is thus in its essence both and . The idea that individual human beings can define themselves through their own inner resources and create their own vision of existence without help from family, fellow citizens, or tradition is a large trend. The general term covers many political, cultural and artistic movements rooted in the changes in at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. American modernism is an artistic and cultural movement in the United States starting at the turn of the 20th century with its core period between World War I and World War II and continuing into the 21st century. ’s definition of modernism, in his book The Condition of Postmodernity, is grounded in and evolves from essay, The Painter of Modern Life, as “the transient, the fleeting, the contingent; it is the one-half of art, the other being the eternal and the immutable,”. He draws attention to the “paradoxical unity” in this definition; the American modernist movement expressed the short-lived and the unchanging aspects of a cultural and political upheaval from the late 19th to the better part of the 20th century. Most modernist works were publicized before 1914, which made it a pre-war movement; however, America along with the countries involved in world wars, modernism "needed the desperate convulsions of the great struggle, the crashing of regimes it precipitated, to give [it] the radical political dimension it had hitherto lacked." Within the context of America's involvement in two world wars, its economic depression, the rise of socialism and the threat of democratic capitalism, “intellectual and aesthetic” modernism presented a philosophy to break free from. In the 1960s, people grew “antagonistic to the oppressive qualities of scientifically grounded technical-bureaucratic rationality....”. Modernism—in general—evolved from philosophies, yet rejected all historical reference. “Modernity”, writes Harvey, “can have no respect even for its own past...”, it must embrace a meaning collected and defined “within the maelstrom of change”. Enlightenment thinkers collectively gathered the individual efforts working “freely and creatively for the pursuit of human emancipation and the enrichment of daily life”. Early modernists married to the Enlightenment ideal—the progressiveness, the break with history, the embrace of the “transitory”, the “fleeting”, and the “maelstrom of change”-- yet, with the lacuna of war, these optimistic views were abandoned. Out of the vestiges of war-times, modernism became wary of the “relation between means and ends” as socialist governments began to take form. With ties to the rejection of history, modernists attached to the idea of “creative destruction”. In order to make something new, the old must be abandoned and/or dissembled. Much of this concept of “creative destruction” is mirrored in the movement. The historical contexts of reality as a basis for idealism (as apparent in Enlightenment thinking), becomes a blurring of the lines and angles of reality, and the rejection of idealism. Modernists embraced machinery, language as a mechanism for communication, as the bastion of political and cultural rationality. From this evolved definition, “it meant that, for the first time in the history of modernism, artistic and cultural, as well as ‘progressive’ political revolt had to be directed at a powerful version of modernism itself”. Art became as established elite and modernist philosophy seeped into the institutionalized aspects of life that modernists had initially breaking from. Needless to say, modernism “lost its appeal as a revolutionary antidote”. It was in these contexts that the anti-modernist movements of the 1960s began to take shape and pave the way for the emergence of postmodernism in America. History Characteristically, art has a tendency to abstraction, is innovative, aesthetic, futuristic and self-referential. It includes , , music, film, , as well as . It reacts against , artistic conventions and of art. Art was not only to be dealt with in academies, theaters or concert halls, but to be included in everyday life and accessible for everybody. Furthermore, cultural institutions concentrated on and scholars paid little attention to the revolutionary styles of modernism. Economic and technological progress in the U.S. during the gave rise to widespread , which influenced some modernist artists, while others were skeptical of the embrace of technology. The victory in World War I confirmed the status of the U.S. as an international player and gave the people self-confidence and a feeling of security. In this context American modernism marked the beginning of American art as distinct and autonomous from European taste by breaking artistic conventions that had been shaped after European traditions until then. American modernism benefited from the diversity of immigrant cultures. Artists were inspired by African, Caribbean, Asian and European folk cultures and embedded these exotic styles in their works. The Modernist American movement is a reflection of American life in the 20th century. In this quickly industrializing world and hastened pace of life, it is easy for the individual to be swallowed up by the vastness of things; left wandering, devoid of purpose. Social boundaries in race, class, sex, wealth, and religion are all being challenged. As the social structure is challenged by new incoming views the bounds of traditional standards and social structure dissolve and a loss of identity is all that remains; translating later into isolation, alienation, and an overall feeling of separateness from any kind of “whole”. The unity of a war rallied country was dying, along with it the illusion of the pleasantries it sold to its soldiers and people. The world was left violent, vulgar, and spiritually empty. The middle class worker falls into a distinctly unnoticeable position, a cog much too small to hope to find recognition in much greater machine. Citizens were overcome with their own futility. Youths dreams shatter with failure and a disillusioning disappointment in recognition of limit and loss. The lives of the disillusioned and outcasts become more focal. Ability to define self through hard work and resourcefulness, to create your own vision of yourself without the help of traditional means becomes prized. Some authors endorse this, while other, such as Fitzgerald, challenge how alluring but destructively false the values of the privileged can be. Modernist America had to find common ground in a world no longer unified in belief. The unity found lay in the common ground of the shared consciousness within all human experience. The importance of the individual is emphasized; the truly limited nature of the human experience forms a bond across all bridges of race, class, sex, wealth, or religion. Society, in this way, found shared meaning, even in disarray. Some see modernism in the tradition of 19th century and the "" movement. argues that modernist art excludes "anything outside itself". Others see modernist art, for example in and music, as a medium for emotions and moods and many works dealt with contemporary issues, like feminism and city life. Some artists and theoreticians even added a political dimension to American modernism. American modernist design and architecture enabled people to lead a modern life. Work and family life changed radically and rapidly due to the economic upswing during the 1920s. In the U.S. the car became popular and affordable for many, leisure time and entertainment gained importance and the job market opened up for women. In order to make life more efficient, designers and architects aimed at the simplification of housework. The at the end of the '20s and during the '30s disillusioned people about the economic stability of the country and eroded utopianist thinking. The outbreak and the terrors of World War II caused further changes in mentality. The period that followed is termed . The era is generally considered characteristic of the art of the late 20th century beginning in the 1980s. Visual arts American modernist painting Main article: · , An Arrangement, 1901 · , Cosmic Synchromy (1913-14), . Oil on canvas, 41.28 cm x 33.34 cm., . · , Portrait of a German Officer, 1914 · , Form and Light, Motif in West New Jersey (1914) · , Improvisation, c.1915-1916 · 1920, Airplane Synchromy in Yellow-Orange, · , Spring, 1921 · , Painting, oil on canvas, 23 3/4 x 36 3/8" (60.3 x 92.4 cm)c. 1929-1930 · , Amoskeag Canal 1948 There is no single date for the beginning of the modern era in America, as dozens of painters were active at the beginning of the 20th century. It was the time when the first landscapes, still-lives and portraits appeared; bright colors entered the palettes of painters, and the first non-objective paintings were displayed in the galleries. According to Davidson, the beginning of American modernist painting can be dated to the 1910s. The early part of the period lasted 25 years and ended around 1935, when modern art was referred to as, what called the . The 1913 in New York City displayed the contemporary work of European artists, as well as Americans. The , and paintings startled many American viewers who were accustomed to more conventional art. However, inspired by what they saw, many American artists were influenced by the radical and new ideas. The early 20th century was marked by the exploration of different techniques and ways of artistic expressiveness. Many American artists like , , and others went to Europe, notably Paris, to make art. The formation of various artistic assemblies led to the multiplicity of meaning in the visual arts. The gathered around ( or ); the circle glorified abstract visions of New York City (, ); color painters evolved in direction of the colorful, abstract "" ( and ), whereas visualized the industrialized landscape of America in the form of sharp and dynamic geometrization (, , ). Artists like , , , , , , , , , , , , , (Zorach), , and ushered in the era of to the . , Hot Still-Scape for Six Colors - 7th Avenue Style, 1940 The shift of focus and multiplicity of subjects in the visual arts is also a hallmark of American modernist art. Thus, for example, the group brought the focus on the modern city, and placed emphasis on the diversity of different classes of citizens. Two of the most significant representatives of The Eight, Robert Henri and made paintings about social diversity, often taking as a main subject the slum dwellers of industrialized cities. The late 1920s and the 1930s belonged (among many others) to two movements in American painting, and . The regionalists focused on the colorfulness of the American landscape and the complexities of country life, whereas the social realists went into the subjects of the , poverty, and social injustice. The social realists protested against the government and the establishment that appeared hypocritical, biased, and indifferent to the matters of human inequalities. Abstraction, landscape and music were popular modernist themes during the first half of the 20th century. Artists like Charles Demuth who created his masterpiece I Saw The Figure Five in Gold in 1928, (1881–1918) and were closely related to the as well. Sheeler typically painted cityscapes and industrial architecture as exemplified by his painting Amoskeag Canal 1948. and musi...
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