modernism

modernism. An imprecise term, defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as ‘the methods, style, or attitude of modern artists, specifically a style of painting in which the artist deliberately breaks away from classical and traditional methods of expression; hence, a similar style or movement in architecture, literature, music etc.’ John A. Walker (Glossary of Art, Architecture and Design Since 1945, 1973, 3rd edn., 1992) regards modernism as ‘the ideological basis of modern art', but Charles Harrison and Paul Wood (Art in Theory 1900–1990, 1992) write that ‘modern art cannot simply be equated with Modernism. Rather, Modernism stands on the one hand for a cluster of notionally independent values associated with the practice of modern art and on the other for a particular form of critical representation of the modern in art—a representation in which the pursuit of art's moral independence is taken to be decisive.’

The ‘cluster of values’ to which Harrison and Wood refer are largely concerned with ideas of change and progress, and historians and critics have devoted a good deal of time to discussing where to locate the changes of attitude, style, and technique that brought about an outlook that can be called modernist. Arnold Hauser (1892–1978), a Hungarian born British-naturalized art historian, placed the origins of the ‘modern temper in art’ as early as the 16th century. In his book Mannerism: The Crisis of the Renaissance and the Origin of Modern Art (2 vols., 1965), Hauser defined ‘modern’ art in terms of self-consciousness, and in accordance with his Marxist views he related this to a crisis resulting from the beginnings of modern capitalism. It is more usual, however, to locate the origins of modernism in the Paris of the mid-19th century, and the idea that art must change because the experience of life itself changes is often specifically traced to the poet and critic Charles Baudelaire (1821–67). Baudelaire believed that ‘absolute and eternal beauty does not exist’ and promoted the idea of an art that portrays modern life; he was a friend of Edouard Manet, whose pictures are often regarded as central works in the tradition of modernism because they marked the beginning of a trend for avant-garde painting to become increasingly preoccupied with the visual and material facts of the medium for their own sake. Mid-19th-century Paris also witnessed a decisive breaking of the monopoly of state-sponsored exhibitions, and such affirmation of the artist's liberty and individuality has been seen as an important strand in modernism. This ‘freedom', however, is dependent on a shift from the patronage of state institutions to that of a private art market based on the promotion of a relatively small number of ‘stars', so the much-prized individuality is as rooted in economic factors as the art of the past.

The ‘particular form of critical representation’ mentioned by Harrison and Wood is associated above all with Clement Greenberg; indeed they say his name is ‘virtually synonymous with Modernist criticism'. Greenberg saw modernism as a continuous, self-critical tradition concerned with ‘purely optical experience’ (see MODERNIST PAINTING), beginning with Manet and virtually ignoring any art produced outside Paris and New York. He wrote that ‘Modernism has never meant anything like a break with the past … Modernist art develops out of the past without gap or break.’ The modern work that did not fit into his critical scheme—for example Kinetic art and Pop art—he dismissed as ‘novelty art'. Greenberg's contemporary and rival Harold Rosenberg was very different in outlook; for him modernism was more a set of disruptions than a continuous process, his notion of persistent experimentalism being reflected in the title of his book The Tradition of the New (1959). Rosenberg's views have been shared by other critics and historians who admire modern art at its most politically subversive, for example in Dada.

For those who accept Greenberg's formulation, it is possible to regard modernism as having come to an end in the extreme reductivism of Minimal art. The reactions against such austerity are one aspect of Postmodernism.