Modernism and Post Modernism

Salmah Aldaghady 

Art and Women

Prof Cacoilo

November 18, 2019

Modernism/Postmodernism

To start off, Modernism first started as a global movement in the late 19^th-20^th century.  This movement primely influenced men and women who lived in Europe. People ignored the old paintings and started to try new things. Modernism was seen as a dissatisfaction to all of art and culture. Individuals had inspiration to make new art pieces. Artists tried new ideas, so they can become well known. They started making art by using paint and began to make art with photography with fabric material.  Women in Europe, artists were a part of the influence that helped the development of Modernism with the new techniques. A new technique that was a great part of impact during modernism was that women designed different colors and patterns for clothes for fashion. The modernization time frame of Modernism was an accretion of developments. In the book “Guriella Girls” the author says, “The movements that makeup modernism is: impressionism, post-impressionism, fauvism, cubism, futurism, constructivism, dada-ism, surrealism, expressionism, and abstract-expressionism” (Guerrilla Girls 59). All these styles of art premised a movement for artists while giving women the same equal amount of freedom as men. An example of this is the abstraction of expressionism which describes that artists can focus on many things for example shapes, colors, designs rather than just one thing. Sonia Delaunay is an artist who helped build abstract art. “Delaunay’s work with textiles and embroidery encouraged her to break down forms and emphasize surface structure” (Chadwick, 261). In the painting below, she used those colors to convey the world. “Their patterns of abstract forms were arranged both to enhance the natural movement of the body and to establish a shimmering movement of color” (Chadwick 262). Sonia portrayed her use of patterns and colors to demonstrate her work. Sonia used these different shapes and colors in her paintings purposely because she wanted to allow the audience a chance to understand and realize that art is not just following rules, its more than that. So, Sonia allowed for her audience to see her art more than just the tiles that were shown but to see further than that.

 Sonia Delaunay, Couverture de Berceau, 1911

Furthermore, Surrealism is another development that allows for artists to show their thoughts and express what they believe. A true example of this is Frida Kahli who was an artist that belived in the Surrealist movement. She was a Mexican painter and greatly succeeded in wide international popularity. Her work includes self-portraits hats the symbolize and express her pain and sexuality.  One of Farida’s famous art pieces is the photo below, The Broken Column. The art work was created for the purpose of showing her pain and suffering she had been through and at the same time she is sending the audience a message to show us that she’s very strong and is holding on tight and is able to continue on.

Postmodernism initially started around the 1960s. It allowed for questioning of the ideas and the value of modernism. Postmodernism is more about reality and the actual experiences of the ones artwork and expressing them while Modernism spotlights on the unreasonable dynamic thoughts.  In the reading of Chadwick he says, “Postmodernism was known as the breaking down of the unified traditions of Modernism”, "Postmodernism draws heavily on existing representations rather than inventing new styles, and it often derives its imagery from mass media or popular culture, has focused attention on the ways that sexual and cultural difference are produced and reinforced in these images."(Chadwick 380). Postmodernism questioned modernism, Yoko Ono was a artist that had a great impact on Postmodernism. Yoko Ono was married to John Lennon and one of her famous art performances is called “Cut Piece.” Cut Piece was about Yoko giving herself to the audience and letting them to cut all of her clothes off. Another famous artist who used her body as art was Cindy Sherman, she used herself primarily in her artwork. In her portraits she would position her body in a specific way the artist saw women for years.

  

  

The Broken Column, Frida Kahlo

          

”Cut Piece” Yoko Ono

   

Cindy Sherman Untitled 1979

During Modernism, women tried to express their feelings towards sexuality. Susanne Valadon was one of the artists that expressed this feeling through art. Susanne painted a piece of art called The Blue Room. This piece of art is very powerful, it portrays a message that many women would express. In the photo below, you can see that a woman has a cigarette in her mouth as she is laying down wearing her pajamas and does not care about anyone or anything. She is doing her own thing. The message that Suzanne tried to put out there with this piece of art is that women have the option to portray themselves to the world in any way they want or feel. She used a woman in this piece as a model laying down very relaxed embracing her own skin and size. (116)

Suzanne Valadon, The Blue Room

In comparison to modernism and post modernism there were still many similarities. Modernism art and postmodernism art both occurred in two distinctive occasions that explain and clarify the way individuals portrayed craftsmanship and how it originated. Artists were able to come up with new techniques to make art during Modernism. Modernism was a time period that the artists paid more attention on themes that did not express any meaning, the main focus was more on the writer. To compare, Postmodernism’s focus was more on the reader. The new art ideas that artists decided to come up with was portrayed but the difference between modernism and postmodernism is that women’s bodies were art. Either they used their own bodies or other women’s bodies it was still portrayed as art. The main goal that women wanted to make is to show the world that art existed. They felt it was their responsibility to make sure that their art existed and people would acknowledge it and see the meaning behind it and show how much an art piece can bring forth and express.

Links

https://owlcation.com/humanities/Whats-The-Difference-Between-Modernism-and-Postmodernism 

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/m/modernism 

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/p/postmodernism 

All of these links were used to help me better understand what is modernism and what is postmodernism 

Work Cited 

The Guerrilla Girls, The Guerrilla Girls’ Bedside Companion to the History of Western Art (New York, Penguin       Books, 1998)

Whitney Chadwick, Women, Art, and Society, 4th or 5th edition, (New York: Thames and Hudson), 2007.