20190813



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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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