The modernist movement refers to the period of anti-technological and nihilist works of diverse thinkers, writers and artists spanning from late nineteenth century to well into the twentieth; It mostly blossomed in the period between the two world wars, around 1914 to 1945. It arose as a revolt against Realism which believed that reality exists independent of the observers, and was marked by a strong and intentional break with tradition, including a reaction against established religious, political, and social views. It placed great emphasis on the subjective nature of reality, that is, ‘the world is created in the act of perceiving it’. This paradigm shift in thought and structure can be mainly attributed to a series of cultural shocks. The first of these great shocks was the WWI, which ravaged Europe from 1914 through 1918. At the time, it was looked upon with such ghastly horror that many people simply could not imagine what the world seemed to be plunging towards. The second was the rapid changes in technology which showed concepts and contraptions transcending the boundary from the imaginary to the real. All the horrific applications of these recent innovations they had witnessed in the WWI further led to a sense of disillusionment. With the advent of the industrial revolution and the subsequent breakdown of the work process, the sense of community began to disintegrate and the feeling of individualism grew. There was no connection with history or socio-religious institutions; the ‘modernist’ experience was that of alienation, loss, and despair. Modernists championed the individual and celebrated inner strength. They believed that life is unordered and started to concern themselves with the sub-conscious mind. Self-consciousness and self-awareness became more and more important as the general feeling of never truly grasping reality came into being. Everything began to be seen in a more abstract, unconventional and uncertain light. Since one could never have a complete sense of the absolute truth, writers and artists began to look at the world as a joint set of several fragmented parts, parts which they tried to explore through their work.
Modernism in Art
In keeping with the spirit of modernism, modern art was associated with art where the traditions of the past were not considered and experimentation with the form, functions and material was observed. A tendency towards abstraction was characteristic of this art. It began with the legacy of painters like Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Cezanne, and Paul Gaugin, and can be said to begin with Post-Impressionism (1885-1905) which was distinctive by the use of vivid colours, thick application of paint, unique brush strokes, and real-life subject matter. The artists of this period were more inclined to emphasize geometric forms, to distort form for expressive effect, and to use unnatural or arbitrary colour. Cubism (1907-1915) was another sub-movement of modern art where the objects were broken up, analyzed, and re-assembled in an abstracted form: instead of depicting objects from one viewpoint, the artist depicted the subject from a multitude of viewpoints to represent the subject in a greater context. Pablo Picasso made his first cubist paintings based on Cézanne's idea that all depiction of nature can be reduced to three solids: cube, sphere and cone. Often the surfaces intersected at seemingly random angles, removing a coherent sense of depth. Another atypical feature was the background and object planes interpenetrating one another to create a shallow ambiguous space. Futurism (1909-1914) was a revolutionary Italian movement that celebrated modernity. They glorified and emphasized themes associated with contemporary concepts of the future, including industrialization, speed, technology, youth and violence, and objects such as the car, the airplane and the industrial city, along with the speed, noise and energy of urban life. Surrealism (1924-1939) came next which was distinctive as a juxtaposition of objects that would typically not be together in a certain situation. It was essentially a fusion of elements of fantasy with elements of the modern world to form a kind of superior reality. Surrealists believed in the innocent eye, art created in the unconscious mind. They worked with psychology and fantastic visual techniques, basing art on memories, feelings, and dreams. Levitation, changing an object’s scale, transparency, and repetition was used to create a “typical” surrealist look. Salvador Dali and Rene Magritte were major proponents of this art form whose works have now attained cult following.
Modernism in Architecture
In essence, it implied ‘Form follows function’. As was the case everywhere else, it was a rebellion against traditional styles with little or no ornamentation. Factory-made parts and man-made materials such as metal and concrete were used. The emphasis was on function. There was simplicity and clarity of form, open-plan interiors, and absence of clutter. Another important feature was the presence of zoned areas where residential and commercial amenities were distinct and separate. Bauhausism, which lasted from 1919-1933, has come to represent the refinement of the Modern movement and the fundamentalist design ethic. In 1919, after the economy collapse in Germany due to the crushing war, architect Walter Gropius was appointed to head a new institution that would help rebuild the country and form a new social order. The Bauhaus Institution, thus formed, called for a new "rational" social housing, and was characterized by flat roofs, smooth facades, and cubic shapes. These architects rejected "bourgeois" details such as cornices, eaves, and decorative details as they were against ornamentation of any kind and wanted to use principles of Classical architecture in their most pure form.
Modernism in Music
Typical of that period, it was fuelled by the desire to “make it new”. It believed in the infiltration of music, that is, to reconstruct music on new modern terms which were more popular and accessible rather than the traditional esoteric ‘High Culture’ genres. The innovation in recording technology for production also played a significant role, as now it was possible to compose directly with the means of keeping time and to record or archive composition. The performance now was bigger, it was an event - Poème Symphonique (Ligeti, 1962) for 100 metronomes is an example where the piece required ten "performers", each for ten of the hundred metronomes. The metronomes were wound to their maximum extent and set to different speeds. As the metronomes wound down one after another and stopped, periodicity became noticeable in the sound, and individual metronomes could be more clearly distinguished.
Modernism in Literature
In broad terms, the era was marked by sudden and unexpected breaks with traditional ways of viewing and interacting with the world. In contrast to the Romantic world view, there was little concern for Nature, Being, or the overbearing structures of history, social norms and cultural values. In the place of progress and growth, the Modernists saw decay and a growing alienation of the individual. There was an underlying need to reflect upon the complexity of modern urban life and the machinery of modern society was perceived as impersonal, capitalist, and antagonistic to the artistic impulse. There was intentional distortion of shapes, and the rise of the non-linear narrative. Fragmentation, lack of conciseness, breaking down of the limitations of space and time, and disillusionment were some other prominent features.
This period also introduced the “unreliable” narrator which replaced the omniscient, trustworthy narrator that had been around for centuries, and readers were forced to question even the most basic assumptions about how the novel was to operate. James Joyce, in his novel Ulysses, puts forth a narrative where the events are really the happenings of the mind, the goal of which is to emphasize the strange routes of human consciousness. A whole new perspective came into being known as “stream of consciousness.” Novelists started looking inwards instead of looking at the outer world. TS Eliot’s The Waste Land is considered to be a definitive sample of Modernist literature. Biblical-sounding verse forms, sections that resemble prose more than poetry, occupation with self and inwardness, the loss of traditional structures, and a fluid nature to truth and knowledge are very prominent elements. These authors (Eliot, Joyce, Kafka) also heavily relied on classical allusions, dense and frequent references, in their works.
Modernist writers, including T.S. Eliot, James Joyce, and Virginia Woolf lived and wrote in the capital cities of Europe, using the city as a source of inspiration, a research tool, and a setting for their literature. City living was conducive to the birth and rise of literary cliques, which encouraged development of new styles of writing. The Modernist view of the city tended towards a pessimistic sense of urban failure, and a mixed feeling of attraction and distaste is discernible in their writings. T.S. Eliot's poetry, PRUFROCK and Other Observations (1917), James Joyce's Dubliners (1914), and Virginia Woolf's The Waves (1931), all deal with the negative aspects of the city, and how it has led to the loss of a sense of community and purpose.
By WWII, the modernist thoughts had begun to fade away and artists of the newer generation pursued a more democratic, optimistic mode for poetry and the novel. Commercialism, publicity, and the popular audience were starting to be embraced instead of shunned. Alienation was redundant. However, this movement had indeed managed to produce a profound, radical change in the way people perceive truth and reality.
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