What do you understand by the term modernism? Futurism in art

The twentieth century, like no other, was marked by the competition of many trends in art. These directions are completely different, they compete with each other, replace each other, and take into account each other’s achievements. The only thing that unites them is opposition to the classical realistic art, attempts to find our own ways of reflecting reality. These directions are united by the conventional term “modernism”. The term “modernism” itself (from “modern” - modern) arose in the romantic aesthetics of A. Schlegel, but then it did not take root. But it came into use a hundred years later, at the end of the 19th century, and began to denote at first strange, unusual aesthetic systems. Today “modernism” is a term with an extremely broad meaning, which actually stands in two oppositions: on the one hand, it is “everything that is not realism,” on the other (in recent years) it is what “postmodernism” is not. Thus, the concept of modernism reveals itself negatively - by the method of “by contradiction”. Naturally, with this approach we are not talking about any structural clarity.

There are a huge number of modernist trends; we will focus only on the most significant:

Impressionism (from the French “impression” - impression) - a movement in the art of the last third of the 19th - early 20th centuries, which originated in France and then spread throughout the world. Representatives of impressionism sought to capturethe real world in its mobility and variability, to convey your fleeting impressions. The Impressionists themselves called themselves “new realists”; the term appeared later, after 1874, when the now famous work by C. Monet “Sunrise” was demonstrated at the exhibition. Impression". At first, the term “impressionism” had a negative connotation, expressing bewilderment and even disdain of critics, but the artists themselves, “to spite the critics,” accepted it, and over time the negative connotations disappeared.

In painting, impressionism had a huge influence on all subsequent development of art.

In literature, the role of impressionism was more modest; it did not develop as an independent movement. However, the aesthetics of impressionism influenced the work of many authors, including in Russia. Trust in “fleeting things” is marked by many poems by K. Balmont, I. Annensky and others. In addition, impressionism was reflected in the color scheme of many writers, for example, its features are noticeable in the palette of B. Zaitsev.

However, as an integral movement, impressionism did not appear in literature, becoming a characteristic background of symbolism and neorealism.

Symbolism – one of the most powerful directions of modernism, quite diffuse in its attitudes and quests. Symbolism began to take shape in France in the 70s years XIX century and quickly spread throughout Europe.

By the 90s, symbolism had become a pan-European trend, with the exception of Italy, where, for reasons that are not entirely clear, it did not take root.

In Russia, symbolism began to manifest itself in the late 80s, and emerged as a conscious movement by the mid-90s.

According to the time of formation and the characteristics of the worldview, it is customary to distinguish two main stages in Russian symbolism. Poets who made their debut in the 1890s are called “senior symbolists” (V. Bryusov, K. Balmont, D. Merezhkovsky, Z. Gippius, F. Sologub, etc.).

In the 1900s, a number of new names appeared that significantly changed the face of symbolism: A. Blok, A. Bely, Vyach. Ivanov and others. The accepted designation of the “second wave” of symbolism is “young symbolism.” It is important to take into account that the “senior” and “younger” symbolists were separated not so much by age (for example, Vyacheslav Ivanov gravitates towards the “elders” in age), but by the difference in worldviews and the direction of creativity.

The work of the older symbolists fits more closely into the canon of neo-romanticism. Characteristic motives are loneliness, the chosenness of the poet, the imperfection of the world. In the poems of K. Balmont, the influence of impressionist technique is noticeable; the early Bryusov had a lot of technical experiments and verbal exoticism.

The Young Symbolists created a more holistic and original concept, which was based on the merging of life and art, on the idea of ​​improving the world according to aesthetic laws. The mystery of existence cannot be expressed in ordinary words; it is only guessed in the system of symbols intuitively found by the poet. The concept of mystery, the unmanifestation of meanings, became the mainstay of symbolist aesthetics. Poetry, according to Vyach. Ivanov, there is a “secret record of the ineffable.” The social and aesthetic illusion of Young Symbolism was that through the “prophetic word” one can change the world. Therefore, they saw themselves not only as poets, but also demiurges, that is, the creators of the world. The unfulfilled utopia led in the early 1910s to a total crisis of symbolism, to its collapse as whole system, although the “echoes” of symbolist aesthetics can still be heard for a long time.

Regardless of implementation social utopia, symbolism has extremely enriched Russian and world poetry. The names of A. Blok, I. Annensky, Vyach. Ivanov, A. Bely and other prominent symbolist poets are the pride of Russian literature.

Acmeism(from the Greek “acme” - “highest degree, peak, flowering, blooming time”) – literary movement, which arose in the early tenths of the 20th century in Russia. Historically, Acmeism was a reaction to the crisis of symbolism. In contrast to the “secret” word of the Symbolists, the Acmeists proclaimed value of material, plastic objectivity of images, precision and sophistication of words.

The formation of Acmeism is closely connected with the activities of the organization “Workshop of Poets”, central figures which were N. Gumilyov and S. Gorodetsky. O. Mandelstam, the early A. Akhmatova, V. Narbut and others also adhered to Acmeism. Later, however, Akhmatova questioned the aesthetic unity of Acmeism and even the legitimacy of the term itself. But one can hardly agree with her on this: the aesthetic unity of the Acmeist poets, at least in the early years, is beyond doubt. And the point is not only in the programmatic articles of N. Gumilyov and O. Mandelstam, where the aesthetic credo of the new movement is formulated, but above all in the practice itself. Acmeism strangely combined a romantic craving for the exotic, for wanderings with sophistication of words, which made it similar to the Baroque culture.

Favorite images of Acmeism - exotic beauty (so, in any period of Gumilyov’s creativity, poems appear about exotic animals: giraffe, jaguar, rhinoceros, kangaroo, etc.), images of culture(in Gumilyov, Akhmatova, Mandelstam), is solved very plastically love theme. Often subject detail becomes a psychological sign(for example, a glove from Gumilyov or Akhmatova).

At first The world appears to the Acmeists as exquisite, but “toy-like,” emphatically unreal. For example, O. Mandelstam’s famous early poem goes like this:

They burn with gold leaf

There are Christmas trees in the forests;

Toy wolves in the bushes

They look with scary eyes.

Oh, my prophetic sadness,

Oh my quiet freedom

And the lifeless sky

Always laughing crystal!

Later, the paths of the Acmeists diverged; little remained of the former unity, although the majority of poets retained loyalty to the ideals of high culture and the cult of poetic mastery to the end. Many major literary artists came out of Acmeism. Russian literature has the right to be proud of the names of Gumilev, Mandelstam and Akhmatova.

Futurism(from Latin “futurus” " - future). If symbolism, as mentioned above, did not take root in Italy, then futurism, on the contrary, is of Italian origin. The “father” of futurism is considered to be the Italian poet and art theorist F. Marinetti, who proposed a shocking and tough theory of new art. In fact, Marinetti was talking about the mechanization of art, about depriving it of spirituality. Art should become akin to a “play on a mechanical piano”, all verbal delights are unnecessary, spirituality is an outdated myth.

Marinetti's ideas exposed the crisis of classical art and were taken up by "rebellious" aesthetic groups in different countries.

In Russia, the first futurists were the artists the Burliuk brothers. David Burliuk founded the futurist colony “Gilea” on his estate. He managed to rally around himself various poets and artists who were unlike anyone else: Mayakovsky, Khlebnikov, Kruchenykh, Elena Guro and others.

The first manifestos of Russian futurists were frankly shocking in nature (even the name of the manifesto, “A Slap in the Face of Public Taste,” speaks for itself), but even with this, the Russian futurists did not initially accept Marinetti’s mechanism, setting themselves other tasks. Marinetti's arrival in Russia caused disappointment among Russian poets and further emphasized the differences.

The Futurists aimed to create a new poetics, a new system of aesthetic values. Virtuoso game with words, the aestheticization of everyday objects, the speech of the street - all this excited, shocked, and caused resonance. The catchy, visible nature of the image irritated some, delighted others:

Every word,

even a joke

which he spews out with his burning mouth,

thrown out like a naked prostitute

from a burning brothel.

(V. Mayakovsky, “Cloud in Pants”)

Today we can admit that much of the Futurists’ creativity has not stood the test of time and is only of historical interest, but in general, the influence of the Futurists’ experiments on the subsequent development of art (and not only verbal, but also pictorial and musical) turned out to be colossal.

Futurism had within itself several currents, sometimes converging, sometimes conflicting: cubo-futurism, ego-futurism (Igor Severyanin), the “Centrifuge” group (N. Aseev, B. Pasternak).

Although very different from each other, these groups converged on a new understanding of the essence of poetry and a desire for verbal experiments. Russian futurism gave the world several poets of enormous scale: Vladimir Mayakovsky, Boris Pasternak, Velimir Khlebnikov.

Existentialism (from Latin “exsistentia” - existence). Existentialism cannot be called a literary movement in in every sense words are rather philosophical movement, a concept of man that appears in many works of literature. The origins of this movement can be found in the 19th century in the mystical philosophy of S. Kierkegaard, but existentialism received its real development in the 20th century. Among the most significant existentialist philosophers we can name G. Marcel, K. Jaspers, M. Heidegger, J.-P. Sartre and others. Existentialism is a very diffuse system, having many variations and varieties. However, the general features that allow us to talk about some unity are the following:

1. Recognition of the personal meaning of existence . In other words, the world and man in their primary essence are personal principles. Error traditional view, according to existentialists, lies in the fact that human life is viewed as if “from the outside,” objectively, and the uniqueness of human life lies precisely in the fact that it There is and that she my. That is why G. Marcel proposed to consider the relationship between man and the world not according to the “He is the World” scheme, but according to the “I – ​​You” scheme. My attitude towards another person is only a special case of this comprehensive scheme.

M. Heidegger said the same thing somewhat differently. In his opinion, the basic question about man must be changed. We are trying to answer, " What there is a person”, but you need to ask “ Who there is a man." This radically changes the entire coordinate system, since in the usual world we will not see the foundations of each person’s unique “self.”

2. Recognition of the so-called “borderline situation” , when this “self” becomes directly accessible. In ordinary life, this “I” is not directly accessible, but in the face of death, against the background of non-existence, it manifests itself. Concept borderline situation had a huge influence on the literature of the 20th century - both among writers directly associated with the theory of existentialism (A. Camus, J.-P. Sartre), and authors who are generally far from this theory, for example, almost all plots of war stories by Vasil Bykov.

3. Recognition of a person as a project . In other words, the original “I” given to us forces us to make the only possible choice every time. And if a person’s choice turns out to be unworthy, the person begins to collapse, no matter what external reasons he may justify.

Existentialism, we repeat, did not work out as literary direction, but had a huge influence on modern world culture. In this sense, it can be considered an aesthetic and philosophical direction of the 20th century.

Surrealism(French “surrealisme”, lit. - “super-realism”) - a powerful trend in painting and literature of the 20th century, however, it left the greatest mark in painting, primarily due to its authority famous artist Salvador Dali. Dali’s infamous phrase regarding his disagreements with other leaders of the movement “a surrealist is me”, for all its shockingness, clearly places emphasis. Without the figure of Salvador Dali, surrealism probably would not have had such an impact on the culture of the 20th century.

At the same time, the founder of this movement is not Dali or even an artist, but precisely the writer Andre Breton. Surrealism took shape in the 1920s as a left-radical movement, but noticeably different from futurism. Surrealism reflected the social, philosophical, psychological and aesthetic paradoxes of European consciousness. Europe is tired of social tensions, of traditional art forms, of hypocrisy in ethics. This “protest” wave gave birth to surrealism.

The authors of the first declarations and works of surrealism (Paul Eluard, Louis Aragon, Andre Breton, etc.) set the goal of “liberating” creativity from all conventions. Great importance was attached to unconscious impulses and random images, which, however, were then subjected to careful artistic processing.

Freudianism, which actualized human erotic instincts, had a serious influence on the aesthetics of surrealism.

In the late 20s - 30s, surrealism played a very noticeable role in European culture, but the literary component of this movement gradually weakened. Major writers and poets, in particular Eluard and Aragon, moved away from surrealism. Andre Breton's attempts after the war to revive the movement were unsuccessful, while in painting surrealism provided a much more powerful tradition.

Postmodernism - a powerful literary movement of our time, very diverse, contradictory and fundamentally open to any innovations. The philosophy of postmodernism was formed mainly in the school of French aesthetic thought (J. Derrida, R. Barthes, J. Kristeva, etc.), but today it has spread far beyond the borders of France.

At the same time, many philosophical origins and the first works refer to the American tradition, and the term “postmodernism” itself in relation to literature was first used by the American literary critic of Arab origin, Ihab Hasan (1971).

The most important feature of postmodernism is the fundamental rejection of any centricity and any value hierarchy. All texts are fundamentally equal and capable of coming into contact with each other. There is no high and low art, modern and outdated. From a cultural standpoint, they all exist in some “now,” and since the value chain is fundamentally destroyed, no text has any advantages over another.

In the works of postmodernists, almost any text from any era comes into play. The boundary between one’s own and someone else’s word is also destroyed, so interspersed texts are possible famous authors into a new work. This principle is called " centonity principle» (centon – game genre when a poem is composed of different lines from other authors).

Postmodernism is radically different from all other aesthetic systems. In various schemes (for example, in the well-known schemes of Ihab Hasan, V. Brainin-Passek, etc.) dozens of distinctive features of postmodernism are noted. This is an attitude towards play, conformism, recognition of the equality of cultures, an attitude towards secondaryness (i.e. postmodernism does not aim to say something new about the world), orientation towards commercial success, recognition of the infinity of the aesthetic (i.e. everything can be art) etc.

Both writers and literary critics have an ambiguous attitude towards postmodernism: from complete acceptance to categorical denial.

IN last decade people are increasingly talking about the crisis of postmodernism and reminding us of the responsibility and spirituality of culture.

For example, P. Bourdieu considers postmodernism a variant of “radical chic”, spectacular and comfortable at the same time, and calls not to destroy science (and in the context it is clear - art) “in the fireworks of nihilism.”

Many American theorists have also made sharp attacks against postmodern nihilism. In particular, the book “Against Deconstruction” by J. M. Ellis, which contains a critical analysis of postmodernist attitudes, caused a stir.

At the same time, it must be admitted that so far there are no new interesting directions that offer other aesthetic solutions.

"Clarissa, or the Story of a Young Lady, Containing the Most Important Questions" privacy and showing especially the evils which may result from the wrong conduct of both parents and children in relation to marriage.” Now, however, this scheme is noticeably more complicated. It is customary to talk about pre-symbolism, early symbolism, mystical symbolism, post-symbolism, etc. However, this does not cancel the naturally formed division into older and younger.

fr. modernisme) - 1) the general name of trends in art and literature of the 20th century, which are characterized by the denial of traditional forms and aesthetics, reliance on the conventions of style, the search for new aesthetic principles, a break with realism; 2) one of the forms of adaptation of religion to new conditions of its existence; modernism revises outdated traditional religious ideas and concepts that have come into obvious conflict with new ones scientific ideas believers, with their changed consciousness.

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Modernism

fr. - modernisme, from moderne - modern, English. - modernism) An ambiguous concept used in science in several senses. In the widest of them, it is used in Western aesthetics and art history of the 20th century. to indicate great circle phenomena of culture and art of an avant-garde-modernization nature that arose under the influence of scientific and technical theory in the technogenic civilization of the second. floor. XIX - first floor. XX century (or even somewhat broader), starting with symbolism and impressionism and ending with all the latest trends in art, culture and humanitarian thought of the 20th century, including all avant-garde movements (see: Avant-garde), right up to its antipode - postmodernism. Among the main theoretical forerunners of M., Lessing, Kant, and the Romantics are often cited; The immediate theoretical leaders include Nietzsche, Freud, Bergson and many non-classical philosophers and thinkers of the 20th century, in particular, existentialists and structuralists. The main features of M. point to the aesthetic strategy of autonomy of art, fundamental independence from any extra-artistic contexts (social, political, religious, etc.); to the utmost obfuscation or complete rejection of the mimetic principle (see: Mimesis) in art; emphasis on artistic form(a tendency that has reached its logical limit in formalism of any kind - both artistic and research), understood as the essential basis of a work of art and identical to its content; and as a result of all this - to the absolutization of the visual (or audio) representation of the work as a fundamentally new quantum of being, original and self-sufficient. In Russian-Soviet aesthetics and art history, the concept of M. was most often used to designate the entire complex of avant-garde-modernist phenomena (see: Avant-garde) from the position of a biased negative assessment. Basically, this is the position of the conservative line (see: Conservatism) in traditional culture in relation to everything innovative; V Soviet science it was, first of all, determined by party-class ideological guidelines. M. was not so much an object scientific analysis, how much comprehensive, often sweeping criticism. M. was criticized for his departure from traditional (within the framework of the tradition of the 19th century, first of all) culture - for anti-realism, aestheticism, departure from socio-political engagement, for joining with mysticism, for the absolutization of artistic and expressive means, for appealing to the irrational sphere, alogism, absurdity and paradox, for pessimism and apocalypticism, for formalism, for blurring the line between art and life, etc. The narrowed meaning of the term “M.” seems more strict. as one of the three main stages in the development of art in the 20th century: avant-garde, M. and postmodernism (see also: Artistic culture of the 20th century). Typologically and phenomenologically, M., along with the main features listed in the first (broad) semantic mode, inherits many of the achievements and findings of the avant-garde itself, but abandons its rebellious, shocking, scandalous manifestation. M. is, as it were, an academized avant-garde; he affirms many of the avant-garde innovative artistic and aesthetic discoveries as self-evident classics. For M., cubism, abstractionism, expressionism, surrealism, constructivism, dodecaphony, and the literature of Joyce are classics that organically continued the centuries-old history of world art. Chronologically, the apogee of M. falls somewhere in the late 40s - 70s, that is, it partially captures both the late avant-garde and early postmodernism, representing, as it were, some kind of intermediate link between them. If the avant-garde has in many ways taken to its logical limit (often to the point of absurdity) the autonomy of means and methods artistic expression traditional arts, as a rule, still within their framework (painting, music, sculpture, literature) and only outlined some fundamentally new search moves for art presentation (Duchamp’s readymade, spatial collages, photomontages, etc.), then M. mainly developed precisely these strategies of art production, unconventional for classical art. Starting with pop art, kineticism, minimalism, all kinds of actions, installations, conceptual art(see: Conceptualism), environmental artists from M. take art objects beyond the boundaries of art itself in the traditional sense, destroy the boundaries between art and the surrounding reality, and often actively involve the recipient in the process of creativity, contemplation, and participation in art projects (see: Happening). Creators of modernist objects and conceptual spaces or actions, as a rule, abandon the traditional aesthetic (= artistic) significance of art and state only their original and unique existence at the moment of presentation and reception. Paradoxes, absurd moves, illogical combinations of seemingly incompatible elements, etc. techniques performed by the method of assembly based on collage-montage, often from materials far from traditional for art (usually used household items and their fragments, used machines, mechanisms, devices of industrial civilization, less often - newly created certain technological non-utilitarian simulacra that have no real prototypes and any functional purpose), are designed to activate the perception of the recipient and are designed for a very broad and subjective semantic polysemy. With M., environmental aesthetics begins to take shape in the sphere of artistic culture, and it contains the main sources of POST-culture (see: POST-); in a number of its art directions, M. from the 60-70s. flows into postmodernism. Lit.: Modernism. Analysis and criticism of the main directions. M., 1980; The Gender of Modernism. An Anthology. Ed. B.K.Scott. Bloomington, 1990; Eysteinsson A. The Concept of Modernism. Ithaca, 1990; Stevenson R. Modernist Fiction. An Introduction. N.Y., London, 1992; Drucker J. Theorizing Modernism. Visual Art and the Critical Tradition. N.Y., 1994; Nicholls P. Modernism. A Literary Guide. London, 1995; From Modernism to Postmodernism. An Anthology. Ed. L. E. Cahoone. Cambridge/Mas., Oxford, 1996. V.B.

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Modernism is an aesthetic concept that emerged in the 1910s and developed especially intensively in the interwar twenty years. Some researchers associate the emergence of modernism with the work of the French “damned poets” of the 1870s (P. Verlaine, A. Rimbaud) or even with the publication of Charles Baudelaire’s book “Flowers of Evil” (1857). However, the more accepted point of view is that modernism developed as a result of a revision of the philosophical foundations and creative principles of artistic culture of the 19th century, which occurred over several decades, until the First World War. This revision is evidenced by the history of such schools and movements in European culture as impressionism, symbolism, new drama, cubism, imagism, futurism and a number of other, less significant ones. Despite all the sometimes sharp differences in programs and manifestos, these schools are united by the perception of their era as a time of irreversible historical changes, accompanied by the collapse of the beliefs and spiritual values ​​by which their predecessors lived. The conviction that arose on this basis in the need for a radical renewal of the artistic language of classical realism gave the main impetus to the formation of modernism as an aesthetic doctrine.

Modernism is being formed in the context of an approaching socio-historical crisis unprecedented scale, the apogee of which was the world war. This atmosphere reinforces the sense of groundlessness of the liberal-humanistic mentality and beliefs in steady social progress that lived through the 19th century. The bankruptcy of the positivist worldview that prevailed in those days is becoming increasingly obvious. New concepts in the natural sciences and humanities lead to significant change pictures of the world, directly responding to modernism in art, the philosophical attitude of which is the movement “a realibus ad realiora” (“from the real to the most real”). The principle of comprehending the hidden meaning behind the empirics of phenomena and things corresponded to the spirit of this culture, artistic ideas which is close to those philosophical teachings and scientific doctrines of the period of formation of modernism, where the search for the “most real” leads to a radical revision of positivist principles and provisions based only on the study of the “real”. Of particular importance for the creativity of the followers of modernism were the concept of the “stream of consciousness”, experimentally developed and then theoretically substantiated in the “Principles of Psychology” (1890) by the American philosopher W. James, the doctrine of intuition and the interpretation of life processes by analogy with the processes of consciousness, proposed in the works the French thinker A. Bergson (“Immediate Data of Consciousness”, 1889; “Creative Evolution”, 1907), the doctrine of psychoanalysis created by the Austrian psychologist Z. Freud (“I and It”, 1923). The theory of archetypes (images expressing the collective unconscious), which was developed by C. Jung, a Swiss follower (and then antagonist) of Freud, had a wide impact on the literature and art of modernism. Objectively, some features of the artistic vision of modernism (in particular, the interpretation of time and space) have commonality with the theory of relativity (1915) by A. Einstein.

Despite the absence of a program document that formulated the main starting premises and aesthetic aspirations of modernism, the development of this trend in the artistic culture of the West and Russia reveals the stability of its inherent features, allowing us to talk about a certain artistic system(in a number of works, preference is given to another term - artistic method). Modernism is always more or less consistent abandons the principle of representation, i.e. images of reality in a system of connections that are really inherent in it, which are recreated under the sign of authenticity and life-likeness, and invariably contrasts this principle with the emphasized conventionality of the picture, built on the idea of ​​artistic deformation, alogism, and play with meanings: this emphasizes the impossibility of finite, indisputable truths about the world and man. The art of modernism perceives a fact of life not as a given, but necessarily as a problem. A state of “epistemological uncertainty” prevails and the completeness and authenticity of the reconstruction of the world in all the richness of its connections, which was the main thing, is recognized as unrealizable. creative task for the artistic culture of the 19th century, which developed within the boundaries of the aesthetics of classical realism. Modernism is characterized by a predilection for depicting reality as chaos and absurdity; a person is most often described in the context of his alienation from society, the laws of which are perceived by him as incomprehensible, illogical and irrational. The situation of alienation that a person faces in both public and private life, constantly being convinced of the impossibility of real mutual understanding and dialogue with others, gives rise to a complex of “unhappy consciousness”, recreated in many of the most significant works of modernism, starting with the work of F. Kafka.

This situation provokes both a radical rebellion against the tragic - due to its ontological nonsense - “human destiny” (a common problematic in the literature of existentialism), and philosophical reflection, the result of which is the image of reality as an ever-repeating cycle, when again and again it turns out that the lost personality in the “crowd of lonely people”, hopelessly lost the sense of meaningfulness and purposefulness of her existence (the novels of J. Joyce). Conscious of his own incompleteness, the hero of modernist literature reflects especially intensely on the problems of self-identity and comes to the conviction that a constructed, complete, internally organic image of himself has become impossible for him. The fragmentation and fragmentation of spiritual and emotional experience can be felt by him elegiacally, with a touch of drama (“subjective epic” by M. Proust, prose by V. Nabokov of the American period), but sometimes in modernism it acquires a tragic and farcical interpretation with a predominance of elements of “black humor” (theater of the absurd E. Ionesco and S. Beckett, novels by J. Barth and T. Pynchon).

The parody of some of the most deeply rooted philosophical and artistic beliefs that distinguished the era of classical realism constitutes an important element of many works of modernism, starting from the earliest (the drama and prose of A. Jarry), and is integral part creative program such schools belonging to the history of modernism as Dada and surrealism. At the same time, for the largest representatives of modernism characterized by the desire to rely on the phenomena of artistic culture of the 19th century that they reinterpreted, which in their interpretation, predetermined creative principles interpreters themselves, turn out to be taken beyond the framework of realistic aesthetics (this is how A. Bely reads N.V. Gogol, who had a strong influence on his prose, and Proust similarly learns the important lessons of G. Flaubert, from whom he adopts primarily, if not exclusively , the idea of ​​a work free from any kind of ideology and didactics). In dialogue with the tradition of modernism, he pays special attention to the literature of romanticism, in which he discovers some motifs and artistic ideas that were widely developed in his own practice - the power of alienation, the disappeared integrity of life experience, and the “romantic irony” emerging on this basis.

Early modernism

Early modernism is distinguished by its desire to construct and artistically substantiate own concept human experience “in our time” (this is how E. Hemingway, who was close to modernism in his youth, titled his first book). This concept, which requires overcoming the outdated, in the opinion of adherents of modernism, principle of “mimetic referentiality” (i.e. conscious correlation work of art with a range of phenomena of objective reality, recognized as the most essential for its understanding), is intended to express the new self-awareness of literature, concerned not with the problems of reliable reconstruction of reality, but with perspectives and levels of perception of life experience. However, it is also recognized that this experience has a certain kind of spiritual content (“metaphysics of reality”), and sometimes writers belonging to modernism even find in this experience, like T. S. Eliot, a certain transcendental meaning. But as modernism develops, this issue begins to play a less significant role, giving way to valuable experiments with artistic language, which become increasingly formalistic (French “ new novel”, who announced a program to combat the “heresy of figurativeness”), and sometimes even destructive (the later S. Beckett, who came to the idea of ​​a “literature of silence”, i.e. the rejection of creativity, replaced by blank pages as a gesture of rejection of the world). The American researcher of modernism and the subsequent stage of “postmodernity” I. Hassan writes that at this stage, in contrast to the “classical period” of modernism, everything becomes possible in literature, including the “ritual destruction of language”, and “metaphysics” and “transcendence” disappear ", "teleology" inherent in the artistic practice of modernism, if, without ignoring the fundamental differences between them, we talk about Joyce, Eliot or E. Pound. All of them as well English writers, adjacent to the Bloomsbury group that formed in the 1910s, led by V. Woolf, played important role in the development of the most significant provisions of the literary program of modernism, which assumed new principles for constructing an artistic universe (mythologism, emphasized subjectivity individual perception and experiences of reality, the multiplicity of appearances and the difficulty of self-identification of the hero, obligatory and extensive references to “cultural memory”, present directly in the text of the works, and often even constructing this text). Of significant importance for the writers who belonged to this circle (and subsequently for the aesthetics of modernism in general), the philosophical ideas that they intensively developed by J. Moore, whose work “Principles of Ethics” (1903) proved the impossibility of distinguishing between the criteria of good and evil on the basis of the doctrines of social evolution or natural, generally accepted norms, as well as the provisions of the neo-Hegelian F. G. Bradley, set out in the treatise “Appearance and Reality” (1893). This work criticized the concept of self-sufficiency of empirical knowledge of reality and declared unreliable or, in any case, inconclusive any knowledge about it that ignores the specificity of the refractions of reality in individual perception.

Eliot gave the necessary substantive precision to the concept of modernism. Feeling of crisis of ideas and exhaustion artistic possibilities, embodied in the art of classical realism, among Eliot and artists close to his views (P. Valery, G. Benn) grew into the confidence that a certain era in culture, marked by the dominance of the humanistic doctrine, had ended. New system philosophical and aesthetic ideas, in which the search for pictorial forms authentic for the 20th century is carried out (i.e. the principle of “modern vision”, normative for modernism, is implemented), is formed by writers of a similar orientation under the sign of a comprehensive critique of humanism, which is opposed to the apology of transpersonal creativity, opposing the cult of the “reciting personality”, who is not given the opportunity to comprehend the highest meanings of existence. Conveying the confusion of the individual, together with the collapse of humanism, which has lost its spiritual support, authentically recreating the “unhappy consciousness” in which there is a “continuous amalgamation of heterogeneous experience”, creativity, according to Eliot, becomes a counteraction to despair, a way out of a dead end, an introduction to the world of enduring moral and cultural values. The “main plot” of works of modernism, focused on the principle of “transpersonal creativity,” is determined by the desire to discover behind the reconstructed chaos of “catastrophic” reality the presence of cultural tradition and the activity of spiritual principles, which give meaning and teleology to existence. Poetics, authentic for this “plot,” most often represents a fusion of tragedy, parody, lyricism, conceptual and visual associations, sharply specific for each major artist (it turned out to be especially organic in one of program works modernism - Eliot's poem "The Waste Land", 1922). This poetics is characterized by the widespread use of myth or mythological reminiscences (they emphasize the stability, the “eternity” of the main collisions that emerge through the seeming nonsense of the “real”), as well as the idea of ​​the stream of consciousness, which replaced the previous idea of ​​psychological stability and homogeneity of the individual’s reactions to external world.

A new system of depiction methods and artistic moves in the literature of modernism is affirmed along with a new understanding of man, when everything that is personal, non-typical, and goes beyond the limits of social determinism turns out to be the most significant (in this regard, the experience of D.H. Lawrence was of particular importance). Introspection, marked by a particularly interested attention to the region of the subconscious, as well as to archetype images, becomes a way to penetrate into the innermost human motivations, approaching the truth about both the nature of man and the nature of his connections with the universe. The “fabric of ideas” in the art of modernism acquires a much more significant meaning than attempts to recreate the “fabric of reality” in a life-like form. Artistic convention in its most diverse manifestations dominates this literature, committed to an emphatically subjective depiction of the world - often with pronounced elements of play, irony and travesty. Sometimes (for example, in surrealism) the parodic principle is combined with a clearly expressed ideological tendency: art is perceived as a powerful means of destroying the stereotypes and phobias of logical, flatly rationalistic thinking.

With the passage of time, the art of modernism intensifies its inherent perception of modernity. Like an era when connections between people weaken and alienation becomes all-encompassing, making the individual powerless in the face of the absurdity that has reigned in public life. This situation is accompanied by an increase in the literature of modernism of aspirations for hermeticity, the actual contentlessness of creativity, which widely affected poetry (the American school of objectivism), and drama (the theater of the absurd, especially at a late stage of development), and prose. Joyce's path from Dubliners (1914), a book that embodied some of the basic aesthetic ideas of modernism, but at the same time created a plastic image of a certain society, to Finnegans Wake (1939), completely closed in the sphere of experiments with composition, point of view and language , can be seen as an example of evolution typical of modernism as a whole.

For many years considered in Western aesthetics to be incorrect for describing the artistic process, the term modernism established itself in the 1980s not only in works on the history of literature and art, but also in historical works, where the concept of “modernist consciousness” is becoming increasingly accepted, defining the character of an entire era, the boundaries of which extend from the turn of the 19th-20th century to last third The 20th, when the “postmodern time” comes into its own. However, the view of modernism as a phenomenon essential for aesthetics and the history of artistic culture at the latest stage of development remains more accepted. The universality of modernism as the only aesthetic system that embodies the “spirit of modernity” is problematic, and the possibility of objectively recreating the picture of the movement of literature and art in the 20th century, based on the priority of modernism as an aesthetics and direction, seems only purely hypothetical to even the most convinced adherents of the doctrine associated with modernism all new features of artistic culture of the last century. In fact, modernism existed as an aesthetic concept and as a movement among other concepts and movements, entering into an interaction with them that often took on a complex and even dramatic character. This is evidenced by the legacy of many major artists 20th century (V. Nabokov, A. Camus, W. Faulkner, G. Hesse, O. Huxley, G. Garcia Marquez, S. Prokofiev, F. Fellini, etc.), in different periods in their creative life, they were closely in touch with the circle of ideas and beliefs of modernism, but on the whole did not belong to it, although one can note the undoubted kinship with the art of modernism, both of the problematics that remained dominant among them, and of a number of aesthetic means used by them. At the same time, the myth about the all-encompassing and overwhelming influence of modernism on modern artistic culture is refuted by the work of some of its most significant representatives, who retained a strong commitment to the tradition associated with classical realism or romanticism (I. Bunin, V. Khodasevich, A. Platonov, J. Steinbeck, P. Lagerkvist, G. Green).

modernism came from French moderne, which means the newest

When they talk about Russian literature of the end XIX beginning XX century, then first of all they remember the three movements that were the brightest: symbolism, acmeism and futurism. What unites them is that they belonged to modernism. Modernist movements arose as a contrast to traditional art; the ideologists of these movements denied the classical heritage, contrasted their trends with realism and proclaimed the search for new ways of depicting reality. In these searches, each direction followed its own path.

Symbolism

The symbolists considered their goal to be the art of intuitive comprehension of world unity through symbols. The name of the current itself comes from the Greek Symbolon, which translates as symbol. Spiritual life cannot be comprehended in a rational way; only art can penetrate into its sphere. Therefore, the symbolists understood creative process as a subconscious, intuitive penetration into secret meanings, which only an artist-creator can do. And these secret meanings can be conveyed not directly, but only with the help of a symbol, because the secret of existence cannot be conveyed in an ordinary word.

The theoretical basis of Russian symbolism is considered to be D. Merezhkovsky’s article “On the causes of decline and new trends in modern Russian literature.”
In Russian symbolism, two stages are usually distinguished: the work of senior and junior symbolists.

Symbolism enriched Russian literature with many artistic discoveries. The poetic word acquired bright semantic shades and became unusually polysemantic. The “Young Symbolists” were convinced that through the “prophetic word” one can change the world, that the poet is a “demiurge”, the creator of the world. This utopia could not come true, so in the 1910s there came a crisis of symbolism, its collapse as a system.

Acmeism

Such a direction of modernism in literature as Acmeism arose in opposition to symbolism and proclaimed the desire for a clear view of the world, which is valuable in itself. They declared a return to the original word, and not its symbolic meaning. The birth of Acmeism is associated with the activities of the literary association “The Workshop of Poets,” whose leaders were N. Gumilyov and S. Gorodetsky. And the theoretical basis of this movement was N. Gumilyov’s article “The Legacy of Symbolism and Acmeism.” The name of the current comes from Greek word acme – highest degree, flourishing, peak. According to theorists of Acmeism, the main task poetry - poetic understanding of the diverse and vibrant earthly world. Its adherents adhered to certain principles:

• give the word precision and certainty;
• abandon mystical meanings and come to clarity of words;
• clarity of images and refined details of objects;
• echoes of past eras. Many consider the poetry of the Acmeists to be a revival of the “golden age” of Baratynsky and Pushkin.

The most significant poets of this movement were N. Gumilev, A. Akhmatova, O. Mandelstam.

Futurism

Translated from Latin, futurum means future. The emergence of Russian futurism is generally considered to date back to 1910, when the first futurist collection “Zadok Judges” was published. Its creators were D. Burliuk, V. Khlebnikov and V. Kamensky. Futurists dreamed of the emergence of super art that would radically change the world. This avant-garde movement was distinguished by its categorical rejection of previous and modern art, bold experiments in the field of form, and the shocking behavior of its representatives.

Futurism, like other movements of modernism, was heterogeneous and included several groups that engaged in fierce polemics among themselves.

• The Cubo-Futurists (or “Gilea”) also called themselves “Budetlyans” - the most influential of the groups. They are the creators of the scandalous manifesto “A Slap in the Face of Public Taste”, and also thanks to their high word creativity, the theory of “abstruse language” - zaumi - was created. This included D. Burliuk, V. Khlebnikov, V. Mayakovsky, A. Kruchenykh.
• Egofuturists, members of the “Ego” circle. They proclaimed man to be an egoist, a fraction of God. They supported selfish views, because of which they could not exist as a group, and the movement quickly ended its existence. The most prominent representatives egofuturists are: I. Severyanin, I. Ignatiev, V. Gnedov and others.
• “Mezzanine of Poetry” is an association organized by several ego-futurists led by V. Shershnevich. During their short existence (about a year), the authors published three almanacs: “Crematorium of Sanity”, “Feast during the Plague” and “Vernissage”, and several collections of poems. In addition to V. Shershnevich, the association included R. Ivnev, S. Tretyakov, L. Zak and others.
• "Centrifuge" - literary group, which was formed in early 1914. Its organizer was S. Bobrov. The first edition is the collection “Rukonog”. Active members of the group from the first days of its existence were B. Pasternak, N. Aseev, I. Zdanevich. Later they were joined by some ego-futurists (Olimpov, Kryuchkov, Shirokov), as well as Tretyakov, Ivnev and Bolshakov, participants in the Mezzanine of Poetry, which had collapsed at that time.

Modernism in Russian literature gave the world a whole galaxy of great poets: A. Blok, N. Gumilyov, A. Akhmatova, O. Mandelstam, V. Mayakovsky, B. Pasternak.

Details Category: Variety of styles and movements in art and their features Published 07/21/2015 14:07 Views: 3089

The concept of “modernism” is ambiguous; it is used in a broader and narrower sense.

Translated from French, this term means “modern art” (French modernisme, from moderne - modern).
1. The first, broader meaning of the term is the designation of new phenomena in art and culture from about the second half of the 19th century to the first half of the 20th century. This is very long period, including numerous movements and styles, starting with symbolism. This includes newest directions not only in art, but also in culture, and in humanitarian thought, i.e. essentially it is avant-garde.

“Modern” monument to N.A. Gogol Andreeva - “magnum opus” (1909). Moscow, Prechistensky Boulevard
Magnum opus is the best, most ambitious work of a writer, artist or composer.
In Russian-Soviet aesthetics, the concept of “modernism” was most often used precisely to designate all avant-garde-modernist phenomena from the position of conservatism in relation to everything innovative, that is, with a negative assessment. Modernism has mainly been criticized for its departure from traditional culture(first of all, traditions of the XIX V.).
2. In a narrower sense, the term “modernism” means one of three main Art directions of the 20th century: avant-garde, modernism and postmodernism.
What are the differences between these terms when they essentially mean the same thing?
Modernism, of course, inherits the achievements of the avant-garde, but does not accept its shockingness, rebellion and scandalousness. In this regard, modernism appears to the avant-garde as academicism: accepting the creative findings of the avant-garde (cubism, abstractionism, constructivism, expressionism, etc.), it presents them as classics, naturally continuing the history of world art.

Modernism in the visual arts

The most significant modernist movements were impressionism, expressionism, neo- and post-impressionism, fauvism, cubism, futurism, abstract art, dadaism, surrealism. You can learn about each of these movements to one degree or another on our website, so we will not dwell on them in detail.
The date of the birth of modernism is often called 1863 - this year the “Salon of the Rejected” was opened in Paris. This should be said in a little more detail, because... this exhibition opened the way to the viewer of paintings by little-known innovative authors.

"Salon of the Rejected"

The Paris Salon is the most significant French art exhibition. The paintings were selected for her by a special jury, mainly focused on traditional art and traditional tastes of the public. Presentation of works at the Paris Salon, especially if there was positive feedback in the press, was for artists important point: this led to recognition of their creativity and to financial success– it was easier to find a buyer.
Naturally, innovative artists had little chance of getting into the exhibition, although many of them had already boldly declared themselves: C. Monet, E. Manet, P. Renoir, J. Bazille, A. Sisley, etc. There were many complaints about organizers of the salon.
In 1863, Napoleon III (Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, nephew of Napoleon I) visited the exhibition. He was shown some of the rejected works and felt that they were not much different from those accepted by the jury. The Emperor made a statement in the newspaper on this matter and decided that the rejected works would be displayed in another part of the Palace of Industry. This exhibition will be voluntary, and those who do not wish to take part in it will only need to notify the administration, which will immediately return their work to them. This is how the “Salon of the Rejected” took place.
It exhibited three canvases and three engravings by E. Manet, three canvases each by C. Pissarro, Ya.B. Yonkind, works by P. Cezanne, A. Guillaumin, A. Fantin-Latour and others. “The Salon of the Rejected” began its work earlier than the official salon, and from the very beginning the exhibition attracted many visitors, more than the official salon. The press also paid a lot of attention to the Salon of Rejects, although most of the articles were negative. The reaction of the public was basically the same. An example would be E. Manet’s painting “Luncheon on the Grass.”

E. Manet “Breakfast on the Grass”

E. Manet “Luncheon on the Grass” (1863). Oil on canvas, 208 x 264.5 cm. Orsay Museum (Paris)
The painting was originally called "Bathing". It was intended for the Paris Salon, but was not allowed to be exhibited along with three thousand other paintings.
This picture caused misunderstanding and accusations of decadence (decline, cultural regression), starting with its plot: two clothed men with a naked woman in nature. The public was also outraged that the naked woman was shamelessly looking directly at the viewer. In addition, the woman and both men were recognizable by their contemporaries; they had certain life prototypes (the woman’s model was Victorine Meurant, a French artist and favorite model of Edouard Manet). The picture created the impression of what was happening not in nature, but in a studio - the light cast almost no shadows.
The style of the painting breaks with the academic traditions of the time. What were they like? The answer is given by a picture with the same plot. This picture does not raise any questions or doubts.

James Tissot, Luncheon for Four (1870)

Modernism in architecture

Architectural modernism includes the following architectural directions: functionalism of the 1920-1930s; constructivism and rationalism of the 1920s in Russia; the Bauhaus movement in Germany, architectural Art Deco style, international style, brutalism (from the French “béton brut” - “raw concrete”), organic architecture (organic architecture sees its task in creating buildings and structures that reveal the properties of natural materials and organically integrated into the surrounding landscape).

Bauhaus school building in Dessau

National royal theater in London (architect D. Lasdan) in the brutalist style

"House Over the Falls" (architect F. L. Wright, 1936-1939). This country house was built in southwestern Pennsylvania (USA)
Frank Lloyd Wright, Walter Gropius, Richard Neutra, Ludwig Mies van Der Rohe, Le Corbusier, Alvar Aalto, Oscar Niemeyer and others are considered representatives of architectural modernism.