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I've never been called a guardian angel before.
What a foreign feeling.

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------- The Thematic Elements of Modern Art -------

Uncertainty around this time had infected nearly everything; nature, God, man, the future, reason--it was simply a matter of time that uncertainty would come to contaminate the arts. Artists began to question just what is it that makes art, art? As stated before, pre-Modern art concerned itself with representing the beauty and splendor of the natural and mythological worlds in as high fidelity as possible. The early Modern artists challenged this notion in two ways: one, by showcasing things that weren't beautiful or awe-inspiring. In fact, many of them chose to illustrate things that begot despair, provoked anxiety, and inspired confusion. Two, the form of the disconcerting subject matter should be just as despairing, anxious, and confusing to match. The piece that unequivocally captures these two departures from traditional art is Edvard Munch's The Scream. Here a quite alien-looking man holds his head in exasperation, presumably screaming at some unseen horror. The liberal use of curves and swirls, the extreme perspective of the riverbed, and a nauseating, dirty color palette suggests that the very structure of reality is coming undone and devolving into chaos. The world isn't as orderly and beautiful as pre-Modern art would have you believe; the Greek pantheon of Gods are not exerting their wills playfully and mankind is not caught in the epic, heroic transaction. The Christian God isn't carefully monitoring His creation from the glory of His kingdom, among the cherubs and archangels. No, instead, man is left to fend for his own, in a universe whose processes aren't due to the will of some supernatural being(s), but of cruel happenstance or unknown, uncaring, deterministic calculation. Reality and the struggle that mankind faces therein is not heroic, ennobling, or comprehensible, but rather pitiable, frightening, and confusing. Reality isn't providential, let alone unified and sensible.

The Scream by Edvard Munch.

In Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, women and notions of feminine beauty are turned on their heads as these five nude, Spanish prostitutes are depicted with broad, masculine features. Two of them are even sporting African mask-inspired faces, indicating a touch of brutishness and incivility. Even more unsettling is how all five of them are gazing at the viewer (the one popping a squat, thanks to the abandoned perspective of cubism, is seemingly mimicking Regan from The Exorcist) in a cold, judgmental manner. "Use me then get the hell out." is the idea I get. These are prostitutes, long thought through rosy, romantic sentiment to be compassionate entertainers and sources of sensual pleasure for weary, love-forlorn men. However, Picasso manages to dispel all softness and romanticism from this institution of comfort, not only by his neglect of curves for angles and straight lines, but by demonstrating the contemptuous attitudes of these working girls. In some sense he's illustrating a truer, but far uglier reality. That prostitute you paid for? She's doesn't find you charming. To her, you're only a job. Just as you've reduced her to a means of pleasure, she's reduced you to a means of income. And so it goes, the oft-cited modern theme of people commoditizing each other, with every interaction being a logical transaction, resulting in loneliness and alienation.

Les Demoiselles d'Avignon by Pablo Picasso.

Another popular piece of Modern art is Salvador Dalí's The Persistence of Memory. In this classic piece, a bleak, empty, but unquestionably naturalistic is depicted. Ignoring all of the weird stuff happening in this painting for a minute, it's somewhat apparent that the scene is rendered in a style that is akin to pre-Modern works. The sky looks realistic enough, mountains in the distance look decent, there's a nice barren tree, the crowns on the watches look meticulously crafted and realistic, but while on the watches..."what the actual f*ck? They're melting. That's not normal. And what the hell is that thing on the ground? A log? A goose? A person?". The genius of Dalí's work lies in the juxtaposition of a realistic style, but the inclusion of nonsensical, bizarre content. This creative style is reflective of Freudian psychoanalysis that began to take off in the late 19th to early 20th century. This was a discipline that took a person and their psychology--which Enlightenment-style thinking would have you believe as being ostensibly intelligible, rationality-based and clear--and revealed the counter-intuitive, irrational, and instinctual-based machinery that actually constituted that particular psychology. All of these elements are mirrored in Dalí's work, giving one the sense that, much like mankind, the landscape being portrayed seems almost conceivable, almost sensible, but that there is more depth when analyzed a little closer. When examined under a microscope, things are stranger than first appearances might indicate, with reason providing little in the way of guidance.

The Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dalí.

------- The Reductive Aspect of Modern Art -------

A common criticism I've heard regarding Modern art is that it is too pretentious, given what it is. The colloquialism that you might've heard once or twice before is something along the lines of "This is art? It looks like something a four year old could've made!". Such sentiments are generally reserved for pieces that are reductive or deconstructionist in style. While I think the motivation and questions associated with the pursuit of this style are far more interesting than the products of the style themselves, this development is still very salient in any discussion concerning Modern art. As I've said before, the time period was characteristically turbulent, with so many foundations being challenged and the zeitgeist of skepticism in the air. Consequentially, artists wanted to know what made art, art. What is the essence of art? What made it unique from other media or representations such as literature, film, music, etc? So, following an analytic attitude characteristic of Enlightenment-style thinking, they took an elimination-based approach to determine the essence of art. If one could paint something while withholding some kind of attribute, and still have the completed work considered art, then in theory one should be able to methodically withhold additional attributes and slowly converge onto some fundamental axiom of what art is. Thus, Modern art isn't merely defined and confined to what is actually on the canvas, but it is also defined by what is actually not on the canvas. In this development, art is not only defined by presence, but also by absence.

The first stages of this reductionist trend were implemented by some of the aforementioned painters, particularly that of Picasso and Dalí. Their works contrasted with the works of pre-Modern art in the manner that they typically depicted things that are not connected to reality, or have zero human significance whatsoever. The first reduction is essentially content-focused. Okay, so instead of painting naturalistic scenes of bowls of fruit, or dummy thicc Greek goddesses, we turn to painting surreal bowls of fruit and dummy thicc Greek goddesses in a fractured perspective. Absence of connection to the external, real world, check. Either way, it's clearly still art.

Now then, the second development of this reductionist trend was to eliminate the third dimension. Art was traditionally an attempt to capture a three dimensional scene onto a two dimensional plane. But is that representation of a three dimensional scene essentially necessary? Apparently not, as Barnett Newman's Black Fire I shows us that a two dimensional representation on a two dimensional plane can still be considered art. It's perhaps even a 'purer' form of art, since representation of a third dimension isn't exclusive to just painting, but of sculpture. To take this elimination strategy even further, Morris Louis's technique, as shown in Alpha Phi, involved thinning down his paint in order to eliminate texture: a nuanced indicator of the third dimension. Absence of the third dimension, check.

Black Fire I by Barnett Newman.

Alpha Phi by Morris Louis.

With the third dimension eliminated, what else can we remove? Why not composition? Pre-Modern art typically had masterful composition, with subjects and surroundings meticulously placed to give the sensation of space, form, motion, balance, contrast, unity, and emphasis. The 'drip technique' developed by Jackson Pollock effectively removed all thoughtful consideration and intention from artistic composition, by randomly splattering paint on the canvas using forceful limb movements. Implementation of this technique is most clearly seen in his No. 5 piece. So it's right about here where people begin to think that Modern art is something stemming from the mind and motor expertise of a child, hence it isn't art. To this, personally, I disagree. There is much beauty and order to be found through stochastic processes (population coding done by groups of neurons, for example, can reveal stimulus information, emerging through the chaotic, background neuronal noise), though it's a type of beauty that is not immediately obvious. It's more emergent in nature. In any case, absence of composition, check.

No. 5 by Jackson Pollock.

The fourth development of the reductionist trend included the elimination of color and color differentiation. Pre-Modern works usually showcased a wide swathe of colors, demanding great technical skill in faithfully reproducing the near-infinite hues of human skin, capturing the iridescence of the ocean under a midday sun, or illustrating the extent of battle damage sustained on a Roman legate's cape. So, forgoing complex color sets, hues, saturations, luminosities, Modern artists elected to take up simple color swatches. Red Yellow Blue White by Ellsworth Kelly is a good example of this stylistic development, with Kasimir Malevich's White on White the outcome of taking the development to it's extreme conclusion. That is, the complete absence of color; check.

Red Yellow Blue White by Ellsworth Kelly.

White on White by Kasimir Malevich.

Onto the fifth development. This is where things start to get fairly contentious and debatable, as with the works that removed realist content, dimension, composition, and color, one can still make a case for its 'artiness' with relative ease. With this development, the aesthetic, stylistic quality of art is stripped away; art isn't something you see, but something you 'think'. It becomes conceptual, rather than perceptual. A good example of  this would be Robert Rauschenberg's Erased de Kooning Drawing. As the name would imply, the work is merely a near-blank piece of paper, which used to feature an illustration by artist Willem de Kooning, only Rauschenberg erased it. It was Rauschenberg's intention to see if art could be generated from erasure; if a creation could emerge out of an act of destruction. While the answer is ultimately up to subjective interpretation, it sets precedence for the twin notions that art does not necessarily need traditional skills in order to be considered art, and that art doesn't have to be visual. These two notions in my estimation account for a lot of the (delightfully) 'distasteful' essence that became hallmark of Modern art. Absence of aesthetics, check.

Erased de Kooning Drawing by Robert Rauschenberg.

Perhaps removing the 'special' nature of the subject of works of art would reveal something about the truth of art? This was the main thrust of the sixth development, and is perfectly captured by Andy Warhol's Campbell's Soup Cans. You know the one. A series of paintings featuring 32, ordinary, everyday cans of Campbell's soup. The extensive catalog of Campbell's flavors all neatly lined in a 4x8 array, with some kind of underlying social commentary on the mass-produced and cheap culture of capitalism. Quite iconic and known by virtually anyone remotely familiar with Americana. But, of all works that could be considered in-line with this development, I have to say that my favorite is Marcel Duchamp's Fountain. Sure, it's not a painting, but it's still an important contribution to Modern art. Simply put, it is a ready-made, mass-produced, store-bought urinal. The genius of this is that Duchamp himself was an accomplished artist, well-trained and versed in classical technique. He knew of the exactitude and finesse art required, knew that it was revered because of these features and high skill ceiling. Yet he presented a urinal he didn't even make himself for exhibition at the Grand Central Palace in New York. Duchamp's intention here was to demonstrate that the artist is not some excellent creator, the creative process isn't ennobling, nor are the creations themselves special. Cynically, it's all just a bunch of junk that you can piss on. Duchamp's work here is arguably the early 20th century progenitor of your modern day shitpost. Best of all, art critics initially applauded and hailed Duchamp as a great artist, admiring the aesthetic beauty of his 'creation', never doubting if the work truly is art. Effectively, the point here was entirely missed: the objective was to determine why, exactly, this urinal wasn't art. Unfortunately, that question remains unresolved throughout the history of Modern art and remains unresolved to this very day. At any rate, absence of the 'special' status of the artistic subject? Check.

Cambell's Soup Cans by Andy Warhol.

Fountain by Marcel Duchamp.

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This is going to appear as such a meme post, but to hell with it. Inspiration strikes unexpectedly.

What could a nonsensical anime from Winter 2018 and an art/philosophy movement from the late 1900s have in common?

That is, what qualities could Pop Team Epic (by Bkub Okawa) and postmodernist art and philosophy possibly share?

Okay, that was hard to write with a straight face, but bear with me. This will make sense soon, I promise.

Oddly enough, it was reading the translated OP lyrics that caught my attention. A few samples:

"An idea, lurking in the familiar scenery. You’re always under surveillance."

Hmm. Michel Foucault's reference to the panopticon in Discipline and Punish, comes to mind.

"An unconcious bias. No one knows its reason for being."
"Repeating. Spirographs inside your head. A geometric pattern of creation and destruction."
"It’s an everchanging mandala. Break even your memories into crumbles."

Lacanian psychoanalysis, with an explicit example of The Symbolic.

"Break it into tiny pieces and swap it out~. If it was born from nothing, then go back to nothing! All of it!"
"I want to change the design – gotta break it so you can see."
Faintly reminiscent of Jacques Derrida and Jean-François Lyotard's structuralist criticisms.

Surprised by the amount of postmodernist themes potentially referenced in the OP, I thought for a while of how many of them are actually realized in Pop Team Epic. Could Pop Team Epic actually be a postmodernist masterpiece? Could this explain the polarizing, hate-it-or-love-it nature of the show? By my analysis, yes, PTE is in fact a postmodernist masterpiece in an artistic sense. As such, it violates a lot of our expectations when it comes to art, both visual and literary. It is because of this very reason that I think people have come to despise its nonsensical nature while others have come to adore it.

------- Let's talk about visual art in general for a second -------

I'll be the first to admit it; visual art isn't my domain of expertise. Although I have visited my fair share of galleries, installations, museums, and art walks, by no means am I a leading authority on the matter. Most of these excursions resulted in me trying to appreciate the aesthetic appeal of the piece, the artistic technique necessary to create the piece, or the intended message/profile of the artist of the work. Efforts towards this last objective are greatly augmented by the inclusion of a glass of wine or strong spirit; I highly recommend it. Aside from being a casual admirer of visual art, I'm also no historian or scholar when it comes to the domain either. My knowledge of the niceties between Baroque and Rococo is fairly limited, and I honestly couldn't tell you the difference between Expressionism and Impressionism (well, now I could, since I'd just looked each of them up).

However, for the purposes of this examination, none of that knowledge is strictly requisite. As far as I'm aware, the end of the 19th century saw a fairly dramatic break with traditional forms of art. I'm going to go ahead and label all of the art pre-1880s that fits this traditional style as 'pre-Modern' art. If my rough, base, and careless treatment of these works bothers you at this point, I feel it appropriate to remind you that I'm writing about an anime that has been colloquially described as "one giant shitpost". So get over it. Pre-Modern art, for the most part, deals with nature, the supernatural, myths, conquest, religious themes...all of which has some kind of human significance. In almost all instances, great technical skill was needed on the part of the artist to capture texture, lighting/shadows, perspective, composition, and color, in order to depict these concepts as brilliantly and realistically as possible. Some examples of this type of art would include The Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli, or Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog by Caspar David Friedrich.

The Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli.

Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog by Caspar David Friedrich.

It is said that pre-Modern art is capable of stirring up the intellect and passions of the observer. That its sheer grandeur and beauty is hair-raising. Personally, I never felt overwhelmingly moved by any pre-Modern piece. There's something to be said about historical context here, that perhaps it was awe-inspiring to the people that lived at the time since the themes were relatively new then, more relevant to them, and/or they had never been visually represented before. Contrast to our time period where these themes have long since been done to death, most of us live a life free from mortal danger/strife (so our appreciation for beauty in normalcy is severely diminished), and we possess technology that constantly bombards us with visual stimuli to such an extent that even the novel becomes passé within a week's time. Despite this, I can say that I still have an appreciation for these works, since the themes presented are timeless and considered universal to some extent. I can look at Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog and feel the conflicting emotions that an uncertain future, with its vast array of possibilities, may bring.

Yet the type of art that rouses my intellect and stirs my emotions the most is what came after the 1880s, after pre-Modern art. This is known as the advent of 'Modern' art. If pre-Modern art was universal, dignified, beautiful, coherent, and inspiring, Modern art is limited, undignified, ugly, irrational, and pessimistic. With good reason too; at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th nearly everything appeared to be heading towards absolute chaos. What were typically considered traditional institutions, such as religion, were either under heavy attack by Enlightenment-style thinking or completely dismantled. Religion--with it's faith-based answers to the world, the nature of man, and meaning/purpose--had been ravaged by scientific accounts that highlighted the cold, empty, meaningless nature of the universe and mankind's wretchedness against that overwhelming void. New doctrines such as Marxism promised that the revolution would come soon and utopia was on its way; needless to say, that prophecy was never fulfilled, leaving proponents disappointed and disillusioned (Marxist anxiety produces exceptional Modern art). Hell, skeptical epistemologies (thanks, Kant) made people doubt their sensory and cognitive facilities, leading to a rejection of rational thinking. There's a reason why the German traditions of idealism and irrationalism gained traction during this time period.

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