Modernism

I thought this lecture was interesting because it had a lot of social, political and historical topics incorporated into it as well as the discussion based on modernism itself. Modernism is a philosophical movement combined with cultural trends that appeared in Western society in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. We learnt about various different topics throughout the lecture and it appears that the word Modernism has a number of different connotations and meanings.

• Modernity, Industrialisation, Urbanisation
• Modern artists
• Psychology and subjective experience
• Modern art and photography
• Modernism in design

A lot of what was talked about referenced France and Paris in particular. In terms of art, artists at the time started focusing less on people and using them as subjects, but rather focusing on their environment and the setting they were in. This was to highlight the social changes within society, and to try and capture the ever evolving society that they were based in. By capturing the environment around them, artists were subconscious capturing aspects of society such as the difference in wealth across various people. This kind of detail was captured by artists paining clothes and of people featured in their work as well as other subtle details such as who owned a vehicle, which were incredibly rare at the time, and the types of places different people would visit or be able to afford. In terms of relating these ideas back to present day, trends happen all the time, whether it's fashion or food, or decoration. We all notice it and are consciously aware of the movement and forwarding of these aspects, but on the most part society accepts them and embraces them.

Overall the modernism movement is about moving forward and being conscious of changes within society and amongst people. But more importantly, to be accepting of the changes. I think this movement is also based around free thinking and expression. This is complimented by the fact that during the early 20th century when modernism was emerging, a lot of modernists rejected things such as religious, which was heavily considered a fundamental value at the time.