Modernism and Post-Modernism

Gabriele Munter. Boating. 1910

By 1896, there was a demand for a new relationship between art and life that blended fine arts and crafts. The issues and changes regarding the public and private spaces of women and the reform of women's clothing were important in shaping this field where women played an important role. Things such as needlework, potter, embroidery, and fashion would fall under this new field and be pivotal in reforming decorative arts in England and America. The production of printed silks and large-scale tapestries provided by women artists, added another layer to this new and expanding field art (Chadwick 254-255). In Gabriele Munter painting Boating 1910, the use of dark contour lines and simple color shapes with a pyramidal composition is an example of the shift from informality and we are only able to see the male figure from her perspective. This work is a move toward greater abstraction.

Modernism was a Western art movement that was regarded as the deliberate rejection of the artistic styles of the past. Modernism focused on experimentation in forms, techniques and materials that would create a better reflection of modern society. There were many other "isms" that took demanded attention each pulling and pushing artistic freedom and creativity in many different and exciting directions. For example, abstract artists had "a desire to break with nature and infuse the resulting art with profound spiritual content" (Chadwick 252). These works combined various forms of geometric shapes, which were at the time the current fashion trend as well as signifying modernity, to create work that spoke much differently to the spectator than past works. German expressionism, which

Paula Modersohn-Becker. Mother and Child Lying Nude. 1907

lasted approximately fifteen years, was widely spread throughout Europe. The goal was to forgo literal representations of nature and to express a more subjective outlook on life. A German expressionist artists, a pioneer and first women to paint a full-length nude self portrait, Paula Modersohn-Becker's preference for simple forms and complex textures are evident in her work.

Hannah Hoc. Dada Dance. 1919-1921

The Dada movement of the early twentieth century was reacting against the rise of capitalism and the degradation of artists and their work. The Dadaist sought to answer the question as to the role of art in the modern age. They contemplated the current, widely accepted meaning of art and did so through experimentation with objects in their work. Hannah Hoc's dadaist work, Dada Dance 1919-1921 is a good example of the juxtaposing photographs and text that both endorse and criticize media representations. This is at the core of dadaism.

Surrealism, whose roots were founded in Dada, proposed that the enlightenment had inhibited the superior qualities of the irrational, unconscious mind. This movements unique techniques paved the way for a new art form striving to fuse the subconscious and the conscious into one new reality or a type of fantasy. Pain and suffering are evident in this painting by Frida Kahlo. She never identified as a surrealist, but other felt differently. In this painting, she allows the spectator to know her in a very personal way. The painting depicts what everyday life is like for her, constant pain. She is wrapped in a hospital bed sheet and her torso is covered in nails. The Roman column is looks to be on the verge of crumbling much like how she feels about her life. Her painting are very emotional and raw and depict the surrealist manners.

Frida Kahlo. The Broken Column. 1944

Beginning in the twentieth century, things began to change for women across the domestic and public spheres. For example, a woman's movement that emphasized equal rights, organizations were being formed that were devoted to women's interests, and female artists were changing the traditional patriarchal society. Many female painters and sculptors (Eileen Agar and Louise Bourgeois) works depicted the mind, body, and intimate and sexual subject matter. Women chose to address issues such as identity and the daily objectification of women in their art. By calling attention to sexuality, identity, and history, female artists influenced the techniques and development of modernism.

Postmodernism was a reaction to modernism and included not one, but many styles of art such as, conceptual and feminist art. Modernism was based on idealism and a belief that certain truths were the basis for understanding and explaining reality. These artists used form and technique to reflect the modern world. There work displayed vivid colors, thick paint application, and emphasized geometric forms. Postmodernism was more skeptical, questioned reason and challenged those certain truths that modernist artists subscribed so strongly to. Postmodern artists used philosophy, individual experiences, and embraced more complex layers of meaning, contrast with modern artists who believed in clarity and simplicity. Postmodernism trashed the status quo of style, and introduced a new era of freedom and a mentality that anything goes. These works include photographs and billboards, are often funny, but they can also be confrontational and controversial.

Cindy Sherman. Untitled 1979

Cindy Sherman's photographs explore common female social roles or personas and questions the seductive and often oppressive influence of mass-media over individuality. "She does this by exposing the fiction of a "real" woman behind the images that Western culture constructs for our consumption in film and advertising media. She uses herself as the subject and acts out the "psychoanalytic notion of femininity as a masquerade-that is, as a representation of the masculine desire to fix the woman in a stable and stabilizing identity" (Chadwick 383). Through her backgrounds and makeup, her work depicts the sexual desires and mass deceptions that the media circulates to the public.

Although women artists, throughout history have made and still make monumental contribution to the field of art, sadly they still face ostracism to some degree and continue to fight for recognition for their achievements that is so easily bestowed upon men. This ostracism is touched upon in the Guerrilla Girls' regarding Frida Kahlo when they state that her first solo exhibition "was just one year before [I] was dead. Some say it was given to me because I was about to go" (page 78). Additionally, male artists couldn't acknowledge Georgia O'Keeffe as a great painter, instead, "men like to put [me] down as the best woman painter,"  when to Georgia O'Keeffe she thought of herself as "one of the best painters" (Guerrilla Girls 74). It's sad to think that death play's a part in deciding when and if a female artist's work is displayed. Only when men acknowledge this struggle and join together with women and demand equality, will the term "artist" hold no gender or bias.

References:

Chadwick, Whitney. Women, Art, and Society. New York: Thames and Hudson, Inc., 2017. Book

By: Dorothy DeFrank