Presentation on the topic of contemporary art. Styles and movements in fine arts
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Net art (Net Art - from the English net - network, art - art) The newest type of art, modern art practice, developing in computer networks, in particular on the Internet. Its researchers in Russia, who also contribute to its development, O. Lyalina, A. Shulgin, believe that the essence of Net art comes down to the creation of communication and creative spaces on the Internet, providing complete freedom of online existence to everyone. Therefore, the essence of Net art. not representation, but communication, and its unique art unit is an electronic message. Net art (Net Art - from the English net - network, art - art) The newest type of art, modern art practice, developing in computer networks, in particular on the Internet. Its researchers in Russia, who also contribute to its development, O. Lyalina, A. Shulgin, believe that the essence of Net art comes down to the creation of communication and creative spaces on the Internet, providing complete freedom of online existence to everyone. Therefore, the essence of Net art. not representation, but communication, and its unique art unit is an electronic message.
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(English Op-art - shortened version of optical art - optical art) - an artistic movement of the second half of the 20th century, using various visual illusions based on the peculiarities of perception of flat and spatial figures. The movement continues the rationalistic line of technicism (modernism). Goes back to the so-called “geometric” abstractionism, the representative of which was V. Vasarely (from 1930 to 1997 he worked in France) - the founder of op art. The possibilities of Op art have found some application in industrial graphics, posters, and design art. (English Op-art - shortened version of optical art - optical art) - an artistic movement of the second half of the 20th century, using various visual illusions based on the peculiarities of perception of flat and spatial figures. The movement continues the rationalistic line of technicism (modernism). Goes back to the so-called “geometric” abstractionism, the representative of which was V. Vasarely (from 1930 to 1997 he worked in France) - the founder of op art. The possibilities of Op art have found some application in industrial graphics, posters, and design art.
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(graffiti - in archeology, any drawings or letters scratched on any surface, from Italian graffiare - to scratch) This is how works of the subculture are designated, which are mainly large-format images on the walls of public buildings, structures, vehicles, made using various types of spray guns, aerosol spray paint cans. (graffiti - in archeology, any drawings or letters scratched on any surface, from Italian graffiare - to scratch) This is how works of the subculture are designated, which are mainly large-format images on the walls of public buildings, structures, vehicles, made using various types of spray guns, aerosol spray paint cans.
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(from the English land art - earthen art), a direction in fine art of the last third of the 20th century, based on the use of a real landscape as the main artistic material and object. Artists dig trenches, create bizarre piles of stones, paint rocks, choosing for their works usually deserted places - pristine and wild landscapes, thereby, as if trying to return art to nature. (from the English land art - earthen art), a direction in fine art of the last third of the 20th century, based on the use of a real landscape as the main artistic material and object. Artists dig trenches, create bizarre piles of stones, paint rocks, choosing for their works usually deserted places - pristine and wild landscapes, thereby, as if trying to return art to nature.
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(minimal art - English: minimal art) - artist. a flow that comes from minimal transformation of the materials used in the creative process, simplicity and uniformity of forms, monochrome, creativity. artist's self-restraint. (minimal art - English: minimal art) - artist. a flow that comes from minimal transformation of the materials used in the creative process, simplicity and uniformity of forms, monochrome, creativity. artist's self-restraint. Minimalism is characterized by a rejection of subjectivity, representation, and illusionism. Rejecting the classic techniques of creativity and tradition. artist materials, minimalists use industrial and natural materials of simple geometric shapes. shapes and neutral colors (black, grey), small volumes, serial, conveyor methods of industrial production are used.
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“Art” is artistic creativity in general: literature, architecture, sculpture, painting, graphics, decorative and applied arts, music, dance, theater, cinema and other types of human activity, combined as artistic and figurative forms of reflection of reality.
Abstraction is one of the main ways of our thinking. Its result is the formation of the most general concepts and judgments (abstractions). In decorative art, abstraction is the process of stylizing natural forms. In artistic activity, abstraction is constantly present; in its extreme expression in fine art, it leads to abstractionism, a special direction in the fine arts of the 20th century, which is characterized by a refusal to depict real objects, extreme generalization or complete rejection of form, non-objective compositions (from lines, dots, spots, planes and etc.), experiments with color, spontaneous expression of the artist’s inner world, his subconscious in chaotic, unorganized abstract forms (abstract expressionism). Abstractionism was less expressed in sculpture than in painting. Abstractionism was a response to the general disharmony of the modern world and was successful because it proclaimed the rejection of consciousness in art and called for “giving in to the initiative to forms, colors, colors.” What is abstraction?
What is realism? Realism (from the French realisme, from the Latin realis - material) - in art in a broad sense, a truthful, objective, comprehensive reflection of reality using specific means inherent in the types of artistic creativity. The general features of the realism method are reliability in the reproduction of reality. At the same time, realistic art has a huge variety of ways of cognition, generalization, and artistic reflection of reality. Realistic art of the 20th century. acquires bright national features and a variety of forms. Realism is the opposite phenomenon to modernism.
What is avant-garde? Avant-garde - (from the French avant - advanced, garde - detachment) is a concept that defines experimental, modernist endeavors in art. In every era, innovative phenomena arose in the fine arts, but the term “avant-garde” was established only at the beginning of the 20th century. At this time, such trends as Fauvism, Cubism, Futurism, Expressionism, and Abstractionism appeared. Then, in the 20s and 30s, surrealism occupied avant-garde positions. During the 1920s, new varieties of abstractionism were added - various forms of actionism, working with objects (pop art), conceptual art, photorealism, kineticism, etc. In all avant-garde movements, despite their great diversity, common features can be identified: rejection of norms classical images, formal novelty, deformation of forms, expression and various playful transformations. All this leads to a blurring of the boundaries between art and reality (ready-made, installation, environment), creating the ideal of an open work of art that directly invades the environment. Avant-garde art is designed for dialogue between artist and viewer, active human interaction with a work of art, participation in creativity (for example, kinetic art, happenings, etc.).
What is underground? Underground (English underground - underground, dungeon) is a concept meaning "underground" culture, opposing itself to the conventions and restrictions of traditional culture. Exhibitions of artists of the movement in question were often held not in salons and galleries, but directly on the ground, as well as in underground passages or the metro, which in a number of countries is called the underground (subway). Probably, this circumstance also influenced the fact that this direction in the art of the 20th century. this name was established. In Russia, the concept of underground has become a designation for a community of artists representing unofficial art.
What is surrealism? Surrealism (French surrealisme - super-realism) is a movement in literature and art of the 20th century. developed in the 1920s. Having emerged in France on the initiative of the writer A. Breton, surrealism soon became an international trend. Surrealists believed that creative energy comes from the sphere of the subconscious, which manifests itself during sleep, hypnosis, painful delirium, sudden insights, automatic actions (random wandering of a pencil on paper, etc.). Surrealist artists, unlike abstractionists, do not refuse to depict real-life objects, but present them in chaos, deliberately devoid of logical relationships. Lack of meaning, rejection of a reasonable reflection of reality is the basic principle of the art of surrealism. The very name of the direction speaks of its isolation from real life: “sur” in French “above”; artists did not pretend to reflect reality, but mentally placed their creations “above” realism, passing off delusional fantasies as works of art. Thus, the number of surrealist paintings included similar, inexplicable works by M. Ernst, J. Miró, I. Tanguy, as well as objects processed by the surrealists beyond recognition (M. Oppenheim).
What is modernism? Modernism (French modernisme, from Latin modernus - new, modern) is a collective designation for all the latest trends, directions, schools and activities of individual masters of art of the 20th century, breaking with tradition, realism and considering experiment the basis of the creative method (Fauvism, expressionism, cubism, futurism, abstract art, dadaism, surrealism, pop art, op art, kinetic art, hyperrealism, etc.). Modernism is close in meaning to avant-garde and opposite to academicism. Modernism was negatively assessed by Soviet art critics as a crisis phenomenon in bourgeois culture. Art has the freedom to choose its historical paths. The contradictions of modernism, as such, must be considered not statically, but in historical dynamics.
What is pop art? Pop art (English: pop art, from popular art - popular art) is a movement in the art of Western Europe and the USA since the late 1950s. The heyday of pop art came in the turbulent 60s, when youth riots broke out in many countries of Europe and America. The youth movement did not have a single goal - it was united by the pathos of denial. Young people were ready to throw overboard the entire past culture. All this is reflected in art. A distinctive feature of pop art is a combination of challenge and indifference. Everything is equally valuable or equally priceless, equally beautiful or equally ugly, equally worthy or unworthy. Perhaps only the advertising business is based on the same dispassionate and businesslike attitude towards everything in the world. It is no coincidence that advertising had a huge influence on pop art, and many of its representatives worked and are working in advertising centers. The creators of advertising programs and shows are able to cut into pieces and combine in the combination they need, washing powder and a famous masterpiece of art, toothpaste and Bach's fugue. Pop art does the same.
What is op art? Op art (English op art, short for optical art - optical art) is a movement in the art of the 20th century, which became widespread in the 1960s. Op art artists used various visual illusions, relying on the peculiarities of perception of flat and spatial figures. The effects of spatial movement, merging, and floating of forms were achieved by introducing rhythmic repetitions, sharp color and tonal contrasts, the intersection of spiral and lattice configurations, and twisting lines. In op art, installations of changing light and dynamic structures were often used (discussed further in the section kinetic art). Illusions of flowing movement, sequential changes of images, unstable, continuously rearranging forms appear in op art only in the viewer’s perception. The direction continues the technical line of modernism.
What is kinetic art? Kinetic art (from the gr. kinetikos - setting in motion) is a direction in modern art associated with the widespread use of moving structures and other dynamic elements. Kineticism as an independent movement took shape in the second half of the 1950s, but it was preceded by experiments in creating dynamic plastic art in Russian constructivism (V. Tatlin, K. Melnikov, A. Rodchenko) and Dadaism. Previously, folk art also showed us examples of moving objects and toys, for example, wooden birds of happiness from the Arkhangelsk region, mechanical toys imitating labor processes from the village of Bogorodskoye, etc. In kinetic art, movement is introduced in different ways; some works are dynamically transformed by the viewer himself, others - vibrations of the air environment, and others are driven by a motor or electromagnetic forces. The variety of materials used is endless - from traditional to ultra-modern technical means, right up to computers and lasers. Mirrors are often used in kinetic compositions.
What is hyperrealism? Hyperrealism (eng. hyperrealism) is a movement in painting and sculpture that arose in the USA and became an event in world fine art in the 70s of the 20th century. Another name for hyperrealism is photorealism. Artists of this movement imitated photos using painterly means on canvas. They depicted the world of a modern city: shop windows and restaurants, metro stations and traffic lights, residential buildings and passers-by on the streets. At the same time, special attention was paid to shiny surfaces that reflect light: glass, plastic, car polish, etc. The play of reflections on such surfaces creates the impression of interpenetration of spaces.
What is a readymade? Readymade (English: ready made) is one of the common techniques of modern (avant-garde) art, which consists in the fact that an industrially produced object is taken out of its usual everyday environment and exhibited in an exhibition hall. The meaning of the readymade is this: when the environment changes, the perception of the object also changes. The viewer sees in the object displayed on the podium not a utilitarian thing, but an artistic object, expressiveness of form and color. The name readymade was first used by M. Duchamp over the years in relation to his “ready-made objects” (comb, bicycle wheel, bottle dryer). In the 60s, the readymade became widespread in various areas of avant-garde art, especially in Dadaism.
What is installation? Installation (from the English installation - installation) is a spatial composition created by the artist from various elements - household objects, industrial products and materials, natural objects, text or visual information. The founders of the installation were the Dadaist M. Duchamp and the surrealists. By creating unusual combinations of ordinary things, the artist gives them a new symbolic meaning. The aesthetic content of the installation is a play of semantic meanings that change depending on where the object is located - in a familiar everyday environment or in an exhibition hall. The installation was created by many avant-garde artists R. Rauschenberg, D. Dine, G. Uecker, I. Kabakov. Installation is an art form widespread in the 20th century.
What is environment? Environment (English environment - surroundings, environment) is an extensive spatial composition that embraces the viewer like a real environment, one of the forms characteristic of avant-garde art of the 1990s. Sculptures by D. Segal, E. Kienholz, K. Oldenburg, and D. Hanson created naturalistic environments that imitate an interior with human figures. Such repetitions of reality could include elements of delusional fiction. Another type of environment is a play space that involves certain actions by spectators.
Conclusion Art is always in tune with its time, it is modern and reflects the worldview of society as a whole. In turn, art has a strong influence on the masses, which is why the attitude of the artist himself to life is so important. The development of various distorted trends in art, the so-called pseudo-art, is in tune with its era. The entire history of art and architecture is a living tissue, constantly developing and changing. In any era, be it the classical art of Greece, the Italian Renaissance or ancient Russian art, there was a struggle of trends, influences, a struggle of old ideas with emerging qualitatively new manifestations. However, with all the variability of art forms within a given period, there were always relatively stable artistic features - compositional, plastic, coloristic, rhythmic and others that determined the style of a particular time. The best representatives of culture: artists, graphic artists, sculptors, architects, filmmakers, actors, writers of yesterday and today strive in their creativity to reflect the best thoughts and feelings of humanity, to treat with care the masterpieces of world culture.
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Modern Art
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Contemporary art is a set of artistic practices that developed in the second half of the twentieth century.
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Contemporary art is understood as art that goes back to modernism or is in conflict with this phenomenon.
Floral murals: floral wall paintings by Paul Morrison
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History of modern art
Contemporary art was formed at the turn of the 1960s and 70s. The artistic quest of that time can be characterized as a search for alternatives to modernism. This was expressed in the search for new images, new means and materials of expression, up to the dematerialization of the object (performances and happenings). Many artists followed the French philosophers who proposed the term "postmodernism". We can say that there has been a shift from object to process.
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Performance is a form of contemporary art in which the work is composed of the actions of an artist or group in a specific place and time.
Nude performance for the opening of the Munich Opera Festival
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Performance can include any situation that includes four basic elements: time, place, the artist’s body and the relationship between the artist and the viewer. This is the difference between performance and such forms of fine art as painting or sculpture, where the work is constituted by the exhibited object.
Performance by Joseph Beuys, 1978
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Installation (English installation - installation, placement, assembly) is a form of modern art, which is a spatial composition created from various elements and representing an artistic whole.
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Types of installations
An installation can be characterized as a valuable symbolic decoration in itself, created at a certain time under a certain name. It is important that the viewer does not contemplate the installation from the outside, like a painting, but finds himself inside it. Some installations are close to sculpture, but differ from the latter in that they are not sculpted, but assembled from dissimilar materials, often of industrial origin.
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Grotte Stellaire star installation on the ceiling and walls. Art project by Julien Salaud
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The founders of the installation were Marcel Duchamp and the surrealists.
Masters of installation Joseph Beuys Robert Rauschenberg Joseph Kosuth Edward Kienholz Ilya Kabakov
Hyperrealistic surrealism by Nancy Fouts
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Forest of multi-colored lace. Installation of Pop-Up Paradises
Kilograms and kilometers of multi-colored lace hanging from the ceiling of the Faena Arts Center gallery in Buenos Aires is an original art project by Argentine designer Manuel Ameztoy, who thus depicted the natural landscapes and plant motifs that actually exist in the province of Entre Rios, where he was born and spent his childhood. The textile installation is called Pop-Up Paradises, and this name clearly demonstrates how attached the author is to his homeland and appreciates the beauty of the Argentinean nature.
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Watershed Wall - an installation in Toronto dedicated to the power of water
Many large cities are established near a large and stable source of water. Some, next to several at once. So Toronto is not experiencing any shortage of liquid in its taps and pipes. However, many of the water sources that this city uses have long been no longer visible - they are hidden. The Watershed Wall installation is dedicated to the real water map of Toronto.
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Installation Camera Flowers. Flowerbeds where cameras bloom
The dream of an amateur photographer is to come to a forest, a garden or a city park, a vegetable garden or a field, and collect there a rich harvest of lenses, cameras and flashes for every taste, color and size. In some ways, this idea was brought to life by the Brazilian artist Andre Feliciano in his colorful installation Camera Flowers, presented in the greenhouse of the New York photo village Photoville.
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House-library from Miler Lagos - installation.
Of course, in the original, the igloo is built from snow or ice brick blocks, but that’s what they’re rich in, as they say. The book igloo, neatly stacked with bricks in the shape of novels, fairy tales, reference books, encyclopedias, textbooks and plays, is part of an exhibition at the MagnanMetz Gallery called Home.
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Plastic fish – environmental installation at the G20 summit
After all, it’s no secret that the amount of garbage in the oceans of our planet is growing at such a pace that this growth is already the biggest environmental problem on Earth. And artists from all over the world are trying to draw attention to this disgrace. For example, Angela Pozzi, who organized an entire exhibition of her own sculptures made from plastic she found on the ocean shore near her home.
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Illusory installations in city parks from Cornelia Konrads
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Art that borders on magic, a reality that can easily be mistaken for a mirage, an illusion, an optical illusion - this is the effect that the masterpieces of artist Cornelia Konrads produce on an unprepared and inexperienced viewer. Her installations decorate city parks and squares in Germany and every time surprise passers-by, not only visitors, but also locals.
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3D sculpture installations made from hanging stones
Jaehyo Lee's work captures the beauty of original elements in a new, stylized form. He makes ordinary stones, picked up on the pavement, float in the air, turning into airy, almost weightless stone sculptures. The Korean author probably possesses some kind of special magic, capable of controlling nature and forcing organic materials to play completely different roles, without, however, losing his face. So, in his works, stone always remains stone, wood - wood, sand - sand...
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Bak Song Chi's installations "floating" in the air
Figures and images suspended in the air are a special type of modern sculpture, which art critics from time to time call an installation, since they cannot decide what is correct.
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Bak Song Chi, the famous installation of pieces of coal
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Creative dinner among trees and birds Art installation - happening.
At a dinner party for VIPs, held as part of the art fair in Art Brussels, Belgian designer Charles Kaisin presented a three-meter oak table “Fantasies of Charles”, in the surface of which trees “sprouted”.
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A happening is a theatrical performance with elements of improvisation, designed to involve the public in the performance itself and pursuing commercial goals.
The main task of such a happening is to add variety to ordinary public relations procedures. A presentation or press conference takes on elements of a happening. Moreover, they can be completely transformed into a happening, or the happening can become part of them. The application of a happening as a method can be extremely broad, but the goal will always be the same - to stand out so that the target audience remembers the event.
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Collage is a technical technique in the fine arts that consists in creating works of art by gluing onto any base materials that differ from the base in color and texture.
Collage was introduced into art as a formal experiment by the Cubists, Futurists and Dadaists. At that stage, scraps of newspapers, photographs, and wallpaper were used for visual purposes. Pieces of fabric, wood chips, etc. were glued onto the canvas.
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Dogs made from paper waste. Original collages by Peter Clark
Doesn't bark, doesn't bite, he's called a dog. No, this is not the same symbol that is present in every e-mail address. These are amazing, original paper collages created by the talented author Peter Clark from a variety of waste paper found literally underfoot.
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Currency collages by Rodrigo Torres
Different artists “mock” banknotes in different ways. For example, Hans-Peter Feldmann makes wallpaper from them, Scott Campbell cuts them, and Craig Sonnenfeld folds origami figures from banknotes. But Rodrigo Torres turns currencies from around the world into collages.
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Awakening. Coffee painting by Arkady Kim, presented in Gorky Park
Since many people already firmly associate coffee with the morning and the need to wake up, this is exactly what Moscow artist Arkady Kim called his huge painting made of coffee beans - Awakening - a monumental work with an area of 30 sq.m. was presented to the public in Moscow.
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Body art (eng. body art - “body art”) is one of the forms of avant-garde art, where the main object of creativity is the human body
Body art compositions are performed directly in front of the viewer or recorded for subsequent display in exhibition halls. The movement arose at the early stage of the avant-garde, but became particularly widespread during the period of postmodernism, which resorted to it as an element of installations and performance.
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Artistic culture Cubism Cubism is a special form of primitivism that focused attention on the stereometry of an object, depicting the world in the form of interconnected, geometrically correct figures. The emergence of cubism is traditionally dated to 1906-1907 and is associated with the work of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. The term "Cubism" appeared in 1908, after the art critic Louis Vaucelle called Braque's new paintings "cubic whims" Pablo Picasso, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, 1907 Juan Gris Man in a Cafe, 1914
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Artistic Culture Collage Collage is a combination of pieces of various materials and media, such as newspapers, magazines, product packaging, fabrics, paints and photographs, combined into one composition. The term itself comes from the French “coller”, which means “glue”. It was invented by Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso in the early 20th century, when collage became a separate part of modern art. In early 1912, Picasso created “Still Life with Chair Caning”, by combining a piece of oiled cloth and a chair seat into an oval-shaped picture. It is considered to be the first "modern" collage, but this claim is controversial as George Braque developed the papier collé (paper collage) technique in the same year.
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Artistic culture Collage George Braque developed the technique of paper collage (papier collé). Using scraps of newspapers and magazines, he placed them on the canvas, then covered them with paint, achieving the effect of painting. He first used this technique in 1912 in Fruitdish and Glass (see above).
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Artistic culture Surrealism The main concept of surrealism, surreality is the combination of dream and reality. The surrealists were inspired by radical leftist ideology, but they proposed starting the revolution with their own consciousness. They thought of art as the main instrument of liberation. “Surrealism is Me” - Salvador Dali Salvador Dali. A Dream Inspired by the Flight of a Bee, 1943 The appearance of the face of Aphrodite of Knidos in the background of a landscape
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Artistic culture Futurism Futurism, a style that originated at the beginning of the century in Italy, idealized the new things that the industrial era brought to the life of mankind. Futurism sought to convey the dynamics of movement and change. The synthesis of futurism and cubism became abstractionism - the creation of abstract compositions from geometric shapes. The founders of abstract art were V. Kandinsky and P. Mondrian. K. Malevich, who defined his work as supermatism, sought to completely free art from the need to reflect reality, which limits the artist’s freedom of creativity. The pinnacle of abstractionism is considered to be his “Black Square” on a white background (1913). Umberto Boccioni - The street enters the house. 1911 Kazimir Malevich Black Suprematist Square, 1915
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Artistic culture Abstract expressionism D. Pollock believed that art should be a form of spontaneous self-expression. Jackson Pollock composition No. 8 1949
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Artistic culture Constructivism The development of innovative, technocratic ideas back in 1920 was constructivism, which tried to bring culture as close as possible to engineering creativity, to rationalize creativity. Constructivism subsequently developed into the art of design. The first design laboratory was created in Germany (Bhaus school 1919-1932). The most popular was the constructivist style in architecture, the most prominent representatives of which were Le Corbusier and I. Leonidov. In 1922, Corbusier created a project for the City of the Future for 3 million inhabitants, deprived of the usual division into the center and the outskirts. The idea of constructivism was that true beauty can only be created by the construction genius of man, organizing space more rationally and aesthetically than nature.
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Literature The literature of the 20th century was greatly influenced by the direction of critical realism that emerged in the last century, addressing unresolved problems in society, the destinies of people, torn out of the usual conditions of existence by circumstances. Its development became the current of psychological realism, the most prominent representatives of which were W. Faulkner, E. Hemingway, G. Bell, S. Zweig and many others. The focus of their work is the individual, her fate in a changing world, her inner world, her search for the meaning of life. Their hero is, as a rule, a seeker, striving for happiness for others, for love. His main victory is over himself; a hero can be killed, but not defeated.
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Literature One of the leading directions was the direction of intellectual realism, characterized by the strengthening of the philosophical, conceptual principles in literary creativity. Representatives of this trend in various genres (English writer and playwright B. Shaw, English science fiction writer H. Wells, Czech science fiction writer and playwright K. Capek, German playwright B. Brecht, etc.) show that the world not only destroys the human in man, but and is created by man as an inhuman world. This idea appears especially clearly in anti-war works (English writer R. Aldington, German - E.M. Remarque, whose book “All Quiet on the Western Front” was translated into dozens of languages).
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Literature In the USSR, China, and Eastern European countries that claimed to be socialist, the officially supported direction of artistic creativity was socialist realism. It would be, however, a simplification to consider it only as a direction oriented toward the fulfillment of a certain ideological order dictated “from above.” At its origins in Russia stood M. Gorky, who consciously, based on his own convictions, at the beginning of the century turned his talent to support the Social Democratic movement. In Western countries, many prominent writers and poets came to support radical, revolutionary ideas. In France it is R. Rolland, A. Barbusse, L. Aragon, in Germany - B. Brecht and A. Segers, in Spain - G. Lorca, in Chile - P. Neruda. They managed to introduce into literature the image of the masses, seized by a single idea, impulse, capable of both destruction and creation.
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Socialist realism M. Gorky R. Roland G. Lorca P. Neruda They introduced into literature the image of the masses, embraced by a single idea, capable of both destroying and creating the world.
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Literature Experiments in the field of artistic creativity have not spared literature. Many writers paid tribute to avant-gardeism, which sought to move away from traditional plot lines and narrative logic, and to show reality through the refraction of consciousness. One of the founders of avant-gardeism, D. Joyce, used the method of stream of consciousness, describing all the random transitions of thoughts, impressions, and sensations. M. Proust and A. Gide, and many other writers experimented with avant-gardeism. The ideas of the irrationality of the world, the pointlessness of trying to understand it with the help of reason, are reflected in the works of many writers of the expressionist movement. Thus, the Austrian writer F. Kafka shows a world where behind the everyday routine of life there are impersonal forces hostile to man, behind which one can see the contours of a soulless state machine. Expressionism is characterized by grotesqueness, the absence of an optimistic perspective, and a display of human insecurity and loneliness.
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Literature The idea of the mechanistic nature of the state, the alienation of any socio-political institutions that suppress individuality, was especially clearly reflected in such a literary movement as existentialism. Its representatives (J.P. Sartre, A. Camus) considered personality as an absolute value. At the same time, which is generally characteristic of avant-gardeism, existentialists do not have the positive heroes usual for realistic literature. People among avant-garde artists are most often self-centered, hostile to each other and society. The ideas of existentialism became the basis of the culture of youth rebellion in the last third of the 20th century. Works of art belonging to the genre of social dystopia, combining elements of avant-garde and realism, have become widespread. English writers O. Huxley (1894-1962), D. Orwell (1903-1950), famous science fiction writer H. Wells (1866-1946), creator of adventure and romantic sagas about the heroes of the exploration of Alaska J. London (1876-1916), Russian writer E.I. Zamyatin (1884-1937), addressing the theme of the future, created cautionary novels. The heroes of their works live in a society where the trends that made themselves felt at the beginning of the century were fully embodied. Power in this society belongs to a narrow group of elites who, with the help of manipulated, poorly educated and intellectually limited members of mass political parties, have established undivided control over the state and society. The “iron heel” of the new oligarchy mercilessly eradicates not only dissent, but also seeks, in principle, to prevent the emergence of people capable of an independent, critical perception of reality. The consequence of the emergence of such a society, warned G. Wells, would be the complete degradation of both the managers and the governed.
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Existentialism Viewed personality as an absolute value. The ideas of existentialism became the basis of the culture of youth rebellion in the last third of the 20th century. J-P. Sartre A. Camus Genre of “social dystopia” O. Huxley, G. Wells, J. London, E. Zamyatin They turned to the topic of the future - they created novels of warning.
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Theater The art of theater flourished during the period between the two world wars. The realistic tendency of its development, associated with the work of K.S. Stanislavsky, has received recognition in many countries of the world. The search for new forms of theatrical art was most fully reflected in the Russian theater school V.E. Meyerhold, German - M. Reinhardt. The conventional, expressionist direction in theatrical art was associated with the rejection of the traditional interpretation of the author's text, the introduction of new, symbolic characters, and the widespread use of non-standard stage design techniques.
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Mass culture The introduction of universal free school education, the achievement in countries of high and medium levels of development of almost one hundred percent literacy of the population, and the rise in living standards created the preconditions for the emergence of mass culture. Initially, it was represented by comics, so-called pulp literature - cheap, mainly entertainment publications for mass consumption.
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Film art Since the invention of cinema in 1895, a new type of creativity has become widespread - film art. Very quickly, cinema went beyond the creation of documentaries and newsreels, and, despite the limited technical capabilities, the creation of feature films began. The suburb of Los Angeles in California - Hollywood - has acquired a reputation as the world's "dream factory". New possibilities opened up with the invention of sound films in the 1930s. In 1933, the first color film was made in the United States. In terms of its creative capabilities, cinematography has come close to theatrical art, and in terms of its appeal to the mass audience, it has far surpassed it.
Features of artistic culture of the 20th century. were determined by the new conditions of its formation, among which the leading factors were revolutions, wars (especially two world wars), scientific discoveries and technical achievements. The prerequisites for the artistic culture of this time began to take shape at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. Therefore, the art of this period is a turning point, crisis art, expressing the highest tension of the moment and finding new ground for its development. At the turn of the century, with the advent of impressionism in the West and the activities of the World of Art association in Russia, artistic culture acquired a new functional purpose.
If the previous art of critical realism saw its task in exposing reality, in the desire to reconstruct it, then non-realistic art (and in essence, this is almost all new art of the 20th century) strives to become a means of intuitive or, on the contrary, intellectual comprehension of reality. Without trying to compete with such newly emerging methods of capturing reality as photography and cinema, and refusing to duplicate the external world of phenomena, artists are trying to create a new reality, a new world, enclosed within the framework of the two-dimensional space of the canvas.
For the art of the 20th century. characterized to a greater extent not by approaching reality and its criticism (as was characteristic of critical realism), but by detachment from the events of social life, not sociologism, but philosophy in colors, where artists reflected the ideas of cosmism (the works of A. Filonov) and showed destruction matter with its own means of artistic expression (K. Malevich’s Suprematism).
Hence the sometimes manifested unemotionality, coldness, and rationality of this art, which carries not only an artistic, but also a philosophical load. It was precisely these qualities of his, namely apoliticality, asociality and the lack of a clearly expressed orientation towards imitation of nature, i.e. non-objectivity, that made it possible to designate him as elitist, bourgeois, created for a select minority by an artist in an “ivory tower”. The principles of new art allow for the possibility of distorting reality, separating volumes into separate fragments-planes, which distinguishes, in particular, the works of the Cubists. Sometimes artists (like, for example, the primitivist A. Rousseau) create their own, naive world, which seems to remind people of the Golden Age.
In the context of this own, non-objective reality, emotions are evoked by certain color combinations, as well as geometric designs. It is characteristic that many artists began to work within the framework of objective reality, but gradually abandoned the principles of realism, considering them not to correspond to the time (K. Malevich and V. Kandinsky followed this path in their work).
The principle of rejection of reality and traditional methods of its embodiment in a work of art also becomes leading in architecture, where modernism at the turn of the century soon gives way to constructivism with its reliance on modern technical achievements, an international style that unifies cultural differences in architecture, then to organic architecture, as it were “fitted” into the natural context, closer to the end of the century - deconstructivism and postmodernism.
Another feature of 20th century art. is the absence of a common unified style that would allow all of its constituent artistic movements to be placed in a single row of stylistic evolution. Many of them are in the history of art of the 20th century. coexist in parallel, without significantly affecting each other’s aesthetics. Thus, Fauvism or Cubism is not a consequence of the development of realism at the turn of the century, just like neorealism of the late 40s. does not stem from abstract art. The artistic life of each of these movements is also different: some of them, having arisen suddenly, without visible prerequisites, quickly exhaust themselves, such as cubism, while others exist steadily throughout the century, undergoing only insignificant modifications in various historical and social conditions, such as neoclassicism.
10.4. Main directions of modern Western art
Modernism (French modernisme, from moderne - newest, modern) is the main direction of Western art of the 19th-20th centuries. The first sign of the beginning crisis in the artistic culture of the West was the reproduction - both academic and salon - of old styles and, above all, the heritage of the Renaissance. However, this appeal to classical models was not determined by historical necessity, but rather, on the contrary, testified to some confusion and the absence of a clearly discernible goal of art. In such a situation, the only reference point, strengthened by the prestige of tradition, was, of course, classical art. But this path was not productive enough, and soon the turn to the classics was replaced by its sharp negation. This situation is vaguely reminiscent of the one that contributed to the formation of the Romanticism style, which was the antithesis of Enlightenment classicism. At the beginning of the 20th century. Modernism becomes a similar opposition to tradition.
The former belief in “eternal truths” is being replaced by relativism, according to which there are as many truths as there are opinions, “experiences,” “existential situations,” and in the historical world, each era and culture has its own unique “soul,” a special “vision,” “collective dream", his own closed style, not connected by any general artistic development with other styles, equally valuable and simply equal. Modernism historically developed under the sign of a rebellion against the high appreciation of classical eras, against the beauty of forms and the reality of representation in art.
In the theory of modernism, reflection of reality is considered an outdated principle, giving way to its denial. In practice, this is expressed in the disappearance of the visual features of art, replaced by a system of signs that are as free as possible from visual associations and determined by the artist himself. In poetry, the word loses its meaning, acquiring new value as a factor of physical - acoustic - influence, in music the specificity of sound is destroyed, and atonal harmonies and various everyday noises are endowed with aesthetic value, such basic concepts of musical aesthetics as melody, harmony, timbre, rhythm are transformed and so on.
Thus, modernism of the 20th century. becomes, in a certain sense, a revolution of artistic culture. However, quite soon the practice of avant-garde artists began to be firmly assimilated into the cultural life of capitalist society, and the promotion of new trends began to be determined not by the internal logic of the development of art, but by commercial or other, not at all artistic, goals. If the “Black Square” by K. Malevich, which the artist himself called “the embryo of all possibilities,” was created in 1910 as a declaration of a new direction - Suprematism (from the Latin supremus - perfect), embodying the extreme degree of departure from reality both in the field of color and and forms, and was an innovative work, then the mass of similar works of the 1930-1940s loses their value of discovery and continues to use already proven artistic methods. Such “art” is supported by advertising, creating the illusion of need and artificial demand for artistic artifacts (for example, to own a trench in the Nevada desert, dug by an artist). Naturally, these objects, which sometimes do not represent artistic value, have another value equivalent in the form of prestige, acting as symbols of financial power and evidence of the owner’s wealth. And even such truly rebellious movements of modernism, as the “new left” movement of the 1960s, were integrated by bourgeois art and, as G. Marcuse noted, turned into a commodity.
Abstractionism is a movement in the art of the 20th century that refuses to depict real objects and phenomena, manifesting itself in painting, sculpture and graphics. The very term “abstract art” indicates the alienation of this art from reality. Abstractionism formulated its positions in the 1910s. as an anarchic challenge to public tastes, in the late 1940s - early 1960s. this direction belonged to the most widespread phenomena of Western culture. Abstractionists consider the Impressionists their spiritual mentors. However, the works of the latter, despite some departure from the principles of realism, were not pointless. Thus, Van Gogh wrote: “If I... tried to move away from reality and began to create with color like music... but truth and the search for truth are dear to me. Well, I still prefer to be a shoemaker than a musician, working with paints."
There are two main directions in abstract art.
The first is psychological. Its founder is considered to be V. Kandinsky, who in his works managed to convey the lyricism and musicality of his intuitive insights. Here, the main means of expressiveness are not the shape of the object and the features of space, but the coloristic features of the latter. V. Kandinsky set his task to express the spiritual in art and comprehend the highest intuitive feelings:
“The birth of a true work of art is a mystery. If the artist’s soul is alive, it does not need the crutches of head reasoning and theories. It itself will find what to say, while the artist himself may not be aware of what exactly at that moment. The inner voice of the soul will tell him, what form does he need and where to get it (whether from external or internal "nature"). Every artist, guided by the so-called feeling, knows how suddenly and unexpectedly for himself he can become disgusted with the form he has imagined and how "by itself" the first, rejected , will be replaced by another, correct one. Beklin says that a true work of art is a great improvisation, that is, that reasoning, construction, preliminary composition should be just preparatory steps leading to a goal. And even this goal can arise before him unexpectedly himself."
Kandinsky saw natural forms as an obstacle to art, and considered realistic art unreliable, unable to express the fullness and diversity of experiences of a unique personality - the artist. Kandinsky, following Plato, represented the entire society in the form of a pyramid, the base of which is made up of material people, the top - the spiritually rich, and is crowned by the artist, who directs his gaze not at the world, but at himself.
The second line of development of abstract art is geometric (or intellectual, logical). Its founder is the Dutch artist P. Mondrian, who in his painting represented the relationships of planes painted in different ways.
Some movements of abstract art, following the line of development of this direction (Suprematism, Neoplasticism), echoing the searches in architecture and the art industry, created ordered structures from lines, geometric shapes and volumes, others (Tachisme), in line with the psychological tendency, sought to express the spontaneity, unconsciousness of creativity in the dynamics of spots or volumes. Talented representatives of abstract art (W. Kandinsky, K. Malevich, P. Mondrian, V. Tatlin) enriched the rhythmic dynamics of painting and its palette, but solving global issues and existential problems that always face a person within the framework of abstract art turned out to be impossible.
Surrealism. By the beginning of the 1920s. pre-war modernism had exhausted itself as a creative activity. In contrast to the modernism of the pre-war years, which suffered from its internal pain, the new irrational movements - surrealism, Dadaism, expressionism - themselves sought to cause pain to people, instilling in them the idea that the whole world was fatally unhappy, incoherent and meaningless. The irrational tendencies of art were concentrated in surrealism, which arose as an artistic movement in European painting in 1925-1926.
The most typical surrealist paintings were created by the Belgian R. Magritte and the Catalan S. Dali. These paintings are irrational combinations of purely objective fragments of reality, perceived in their natural form or paradoxically deformed. The image of a human figure with filing cabinets in his stomach (S. Dali, “Anthropomorphic Closet”), boots with human toes or a hunter sucked into a brick wall (R. Magritte, “Red Model”) contain the artist’s programmatic attitude to the world and to to your creativity. The feeling of whimsicality and surprise of the phenomena of this world gives rise in such art to the idea of its unknowability, of the absurdity of existence, which appears to the artist in frighteningly nightmarish or amusingly phantasmagoric guises. The theoretical basis for the new movement in artistic culture belongs to the French poet and psychiatrist Andre Breton. His “First Manifesto” (1924) sets out the distinctive features and tasks of surrealism: “Surrealism is pure psychological automatism, with the help of which - in words, drawing or any other way - an attempt is made to express the actual movement of thought. It is a record of thinking that occurs outside any control on the part of the mind and beyond any aesthetic or moral considerations. Surrealism is based on the belief in the supreme reality of certain, hitherto ignored forms of associations, in the omnipotence of dreams, in the purposeless play of thinking. Its goal is the final destruction of all other psychological mechanisms in order to put in their place solutions to the most important problems of life."
The development of surrealism was greatly influenced by the work of S. Freud and his concept of psychoanalysis, where the psyche is interpreted as subordinate to unknowable, irrational, eternal forces located outside of consciousness. According to Z. Freud, the deep foundation of the psyche, influencing the real, conscious life of a person, becomes the unconscious. And according to his conviction, the unconscious appears with the greatest immediacy in dreams and art, and it is in them that the true path to knowledge of the “natural essence” of man is revealed.
The development of surrealism proceeded rapidly: by the turn of the 1920-1930s. it penetrates into the painting of other European countries - England, Sweden, Czechoslovakia. In the 1930s reaches Latin America, Australia, Japan, and manifests itself not only in painting, but also in sculpture.
Pop art art. The name pop art (from the English popular art - public art) was introduced by L. Eloway in 1965. The movement itself arose in the 50s. XX century in the USA and England. Initially, the role of pop art was limited to the task of replacing abstract art, which was never accepted by the general public, with art that was understandable to the general public. Pop art proclaimed itself a new realism, as it widely used real everyday things and their copies, photographs, and dummies. Pop art idealized the world of material things, which, through the organization of a certain context of their perception, was endowed with artistic and aesthetic status. But such mastery of the subject did not acquire the significance of an artistic discovery. Let us turn to historical comparisons of the artistic development of the world of things.
This world, represented, for example, by Flemish still life, not only glorifies the bounty and richness of nature, but is also combined with the language of traditional allegories of the four elements, seasons and five senses. The Dutch still life, reflecting the unique properties and individuality of things interconnected by a hidden meaning, proclaims the frailty of earthly existence and the immortality of art. The Age of Enlightenment in its works, in particular in the genre under consideration, glorifies an active and active person and objects - as products of his creative work.
In pop art, a thing is aestheticized as an object of mass consumption, and the work becomes a materialized dream of the consumer. And it seems that the desire to find the epic in everyday objects and everyday views (as the pop artist R. Hamilton expressed the goal of his work) in reality becomes the affirmation of the person-acquirer, for whom the beauty of a thing is replaced by its utilitarian usefulness, creative potential - by financial opportunities, and spiritual aspirations - a thirst for material consumption.
Among the varieties of pop art, there are op art, characterized by the extensive use of optical effects, color spots, e-art with moving structures, and environmental art with objects surrounding the viewer. However, the varieties of pop art do not differ from each other in meaning. This style is similar to design style goods on display or advertising. The advertising aesthetics of pop art is the direct fetishization of a thing or the demonstration of an old thing that should be replaced by a new one. Pop art is ideal for the “man of the crowd,” consumer-oriented, brought up on advertising and mass communication.
Review questions
- How is the crisis of Western culture of the 20th century assessed? in the works of Western and domestic thinkers?
- What are the principles of scientism and anti-scientism?
- What are the principles of Eurocentrism and what explains the crisis of Eurocentrism in the 20th century?
- How did philosophers of the 19th-20th centuries evaluate? phenomenon of massification?
- What are the basic principles of Russian cosmism?
- What is the principle of dehumanization of art according to H. Ortega y Gasset?
- What are the global problems of our time, what are the ways to overcome them?
- Describe the main directions of modernism: abstractionism, cubism, surrealism, expressionism, pop art, etc.
