The Modernist Assault
Chapter 32Hum103Instructor Beth Camp
The New Physics
Absolute and rational model of the universe
Heisenberg’s Principle of uncertainty
Einstein theory of relativity
The New Physics
Quantum physics,Atomic physics
Cause and effectnot reliable
Indifferent universe, beyond control
and unpredictable
The New Physics
Atomic BombTested in 1945
We could destroy the world
The average person no longer understood or was reassured by
Science
Early 20th Century Music
Modern composers rejected tradition Polytonal and atonal works Unorthodox sources of sound
Schoenberg’s serial technique = all 12 notes equal and must be used before any one note is repeatedStravinsky’s The Rite of Spring
Early 20th Century Art
Avant garde artists rejected the academy and “representation”Fiero says these artists “evoked” rather than “described” experience (5) Primitivism Experimentation Abstraction
Picasso: Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, Paris, 1907
Braque: Collage Picasso: Guitar, 1912-1913
Picasso: Gertrude Stein Picasso: Celestina
Picasso: MariePicasso: Dora
Picasso: Weeping Woman
Picasso: Dora
Matisse and Fauvism
Matisse: Red Room
Matisse: The Girl with Green Eyes, 1908
Futurism
Victory of Samothrace Boccioni: Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, 1913
Brancusi and Abstraction:A Muse, 1911
Nonobjective Art: Mondrian
Mondrian: Red Tree, 1911
Nonobjective Art: Mondrian
Mondrian: Amaryllis, 1910
Mondrian: Composition A: Composition with Black, Red, Gray, Yellow, and Blue, 1920
Ezra Pound: Modernism
Day by day make it newCut underbrushPile the logsKeep it growing.
Sources
Mark Hardin ArtchivePortland Art Museum