Lecture 05 movements in modernism

Theory of Architecture I – Modernism
Movements in Modernism
The University of Lahore
School of Architecture
Lecturer – Awais Aqdus

Introduction
The starting of the 20th century was a time filled with change. Mainly, the way in which people
started to perceive and re-interpret civilization as a whole and its overall goal. The outbreak of World
War I (supposedly, “War to End All Wars”) and the unprecedented devastation that happened due to
it, challenged the foundations of many cultures’ belief systems, which led to a great deal of
experimentation and exploration by artists with morality and in defining what exactly The Arts should
do for a culture. What followed from this was a long list of artistic movements that tried to find their
places in the drastically changing world.

Movements in Modernism
• Realism
• Impressionism
• Fauvism
• Cubism
• Symbolism
• Surrealism
• Expressionism
• Futurism
• Dadaism
• Constructivism
• Suprermatism
• De Stijl
The Scream, 1893 (Edward Munch)

Realism
Realism began in France in the 1850s, following
the French Revolution. Realists was seen as a
revolt against Romanticism with its emphasis on
intense emotions and dramatic effect. The aim
of the realist artistic movement was to depict
ordinary, 'real' people and events with
objectivity.
The Realists attempted to portray the lives,
appearances, problems, customs, and mores of
the middle and lower classes, of the
unexceptional, the ordinary, the humble, and
the unadorned. Indeed, they conscientiously set
themselves to reproducing all the ignored
aspects of life and society back then (its mental
attitudes, physical settings, and material
conditions).
The Third Class Carraige, 1862 (Honore Daumeier)

The Stonebreakers, 1849 (Gustave Coubet)

Pugin’s Rectory, Dorset, 1845 (A.W.N.Pugin)
The effect of this was that gothic
revival architects responded to the-
then prevalent low standards of
construction by emphasizing the
constructional role and physical
qualities of the materials they used.
This meant in practice that brick and
stonework replaced stucco or
cement render in the design of
quality buildings, and in the best
cases details from eaves to door
handles were especially designed to
form a coherent set for each project.

Impressionism
Impressionism began in France in the 19th century
during the Industrial Revolution. The Impressionists
were a group of young painters who came together in
Paris in the 1860s.
There were a lot changes taking place in France at this
time due to the Industrial Revolution and the
Impressionists felt that it was their duty to record and
document the changing landscape. They were very
interested in the effects of light on an environment.
They did this through various experimentation with
colour. Advances in science also influenced the
Impressionists' painting technique.
The most notable Impressionist painters were Claude
Monet, Pierre Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro, Alfred
Sisley, Berthe Morisot, Armand Guillaumin, and Frédéric
Bazille, Paul Cézanne, Georges Seurat and Vincent van
Gogh are considered as Post-Impressionists.
Poppies, 1873 (Claude Monet)

Impressionism
Style and technique
• Painted outdoors – plein air
• Paint was applied in small, visible brushstrokes
– the mixing was done by the retina of the eye
• Black was not used as black does not exist in
nature – tones of colour used instead
The Starry Night, 1889 (Vincent Van Gogh)

Fauvism
This famous avant-garde movement is credited with
being one of the first of its kind to prosper at the start of
the 20th century. Pioneered by Henri Matisse, Fauvism
owed a significant debt to Impressionism, as it
exhibited vibrant colors in order to capture landscapes
and still-lifes. However, it became its own movement as
Fauvists, such as Matisse, instilled a heightened sense
of emotionalism into their paintings, often utilizing crude
and blatant brushstrokes and vivid colors straight from
their tubes that at first appalled audiences. It was the
overly expressiveness of these raw and basic
techniques that led art critic Louis Vauxcelles to
christen such painters fauves (“wild beasts”). Other
notable Fauvists include André Derain, Maurice de
Vlaminck, and Georges Braque, the latter evolving from
the unclad emotionalism of Fauvism to create the more
structured and logical focuses of Cubism, which is
viewed as being a direct descendent of Fauvism.
Charing Cross Bridge, 1907 (Andre Derain)

Cubism
Cubism is recognised as a style of painting invented by Georges Braque
(1882-1963) and Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) in the 20th century. Inspired
by Cezanne’s theory of reducing form to its geometric shapes, these
artists used collage and paint to make 2D images of 3D objects, and
places, from multiple viewpoints.
The central aims of Cubists were to discard the conventions of the past
to merely mimic nature and to start in a new vein to highlight the flat
dimensionality of the canvas. This effect was achieved through the use of
various conflicting vantage points the paint pictures of common objects
such as musical instruments, pitchers, bottles, and the human figure. As
they progressed in their work, Braque and Picasso adopted the use of a
monochromatic scale to emphasize their focus on the inherent structure
of their works. Though commonly associated with painting, Cubism had
lasting effects on many sculptors and architects of the time.
The initial influence was African art, particularly African masks.
Picasso’s, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, 1907 is often cited as the first
Cubist painting.
Girl with a Mandolin, 1910 (Pablo Picasso)

Cubist House in Prague, 1914 Mendelsohn Factory in Luckenwalde, Germany

Symbolism
A 19th century art movement rejecting Realism
and Impressionism and their representation of
the visual and concrete world. The Symbolists
sought to express mystical and spiritual ideas
through colour and line. They used these
elements to express emotions and thoughts that
were beyond literal descriptions.
The Scream, 1893 (Edward Munch)

Surrealism
Surrealism can be understood as the art of the imagination and
dreams. The Surrealists was wanted to create art based on or
using their subconscious thought. They were greatly inspired
by the philosophical writings of Sigmund Freud, (The
Interpretation of Dreams, 1900).
Leaping off from the absurdist inclinations of the Dadaists and
the psychoanalytical writings of Sigmund Freud, André Breton,
a well-known poet and critic of his time, published “The
Surrealist Manifesto” in 1924, in which he declared the group’s
intention to unite consciousness with unconsciousness so that
the realms of dream and fancy could merge with everyday
reality in an “absolute reality, a surreality.”
The Surrealists also used art-making techniques such
as automatism, whereby the artist would draw freely, allowing
his hand to move with minimum conscious control. This kind of
unconscious art was also achieved by throwing paper on the
floor or allowing the paint to drip from the brush.
Persistence of Memory, 1933 (Salvador Dali)

Expressionism
Expressionism is a term used to describe art that uses
line, shape, and colour to express emotions. German
Expressionism was a movement that lasted from about
1905-30. The German Expressionists were against
materialism. They chose to live a more primitive lifestyle,
often moving out to the countryside in order to experience
nature. They experimented with a variety of different
materials. It was the expression of ideas and emotions
that counted, not artistic skill or aesthetic appearance.
Their aim was to create a more honest art form.
Abstract Expressionism was an American post World War
II art movement, developed in New York in the 1940s. It
glorified the spontaneous or gestural mark of the
individual artists. The Abstract Expressionists used paint
in order to express their inner emotions. They were more
concerned with the art making process than with the final
outcome
Large Blue Horses, 1911 (Franz Marc)

Monument to the March Dead, 1921 (Walter Gropius, Weimar)Chapel of Notre Dame du Haut, 1955 (Le Corbusier, Rohnchamp)

Futurism
The Futurists followed a manifesto written by the poet Marinetti. They
wanted to break from the past and all traditional art forms. They
glorified the machine and the fast moving pace of the modern world.
Futurism—coined in a 1909 manifesto by Filippo Marinetti—was not
limited to just one art form, but in fact was embraced by sculptors,
architects, painters, and writers. Paintings were typically of
automobiles, trains, animals, dancers, and large crowds; and painters
borrowed the fragmented and intersecting planes from Cubism in
combination with the vibrant and expressive colors of Fauvism in
order to glorify the virtues of speed and dynamic movement. Writers
focused on ridding their poetry of what they saw as unnecessary
elements such as adjectives and adverbs so that the emphasis could
rest on the action of infinitive verbs. This technique in conjunction
with the integration of mathematical symbols allowed them to make
more declarative statements with a great sense of audacity. Although
originally ardent in their affirmation of the virtues of war, the Futurists
lost steam as the devastation of WWI became realized.
Unique forms of Continuity in Space, 1913 (Umberto Boccioni)

Radia Tower, Barcelona (Santiago Calatrava)Quadracci Pavilion, Milwuakee Art Museum (Santiago Calatrava)

Dadaism
Perhaps best summed up by the famous Dadaist poet Hugo Ball, the
Dadaist goal of art was not to have art be “an end in itself, but [to be] an
opportunity for the true perception and criticism of the times we live in.”
And surely enough the times of Dadaism were filled with grief, destruction,
and chaos, as they witnessed the rampant mass devastation of WWI.
Dadaists were not connected by their styles, mediums, or techniques.
Instead, they were connected by their uniform practices and beliefs. They
saw themselves as crusaders against rational thought, which they
believed to be responsible for the declination of social structures, the
growth of corrupt and nationalist politics, and the spread of violence and
war. They challenged and mocked the definition of art and its elitist
establishment with such works as Marcel Duchamps Fountain (1917),
which was a porcelain urinal, and they utilized photomontages, as well as
a plethora other artistic mediums, in their public meetings to protest
against the nascent Nazi party in Germany. Dadaists fought strongly
across the globe against such repressive social institutions, though were
written-off by some as merely absurdist and inconsequential based on
their plentiful antics and scattered network.
Fountain, 1917 (Marcel Duchamp)

Constructivism
As Cubism and Futurism spread west to Russia at
the end of the 1910s, they were absorbed into the
utopian spirit of the October Revolution, thus creating
a new art movement known as Constructivism, which
embraced theory that art should be “constructed”
from modern industrial materials such as plastic,
steel, and glass in order to serve a societal purpose
instead of merely making an abstract statement.
Most Constructivists, thought painting to be a “dead”
art form, unless it was to serve as a blueprint for
something to be physically built. Therefore, they
worked mainly with ceramics, fashion design,
graphics, and in architecture. As Soviet opposition to
their movement increased, many Constructivists fled
from Russia and inspired the movement is Western
countries such as Germany, France, and England,
where they gained a great deal of significance.
Monument to the Third International, 1920 (Vladimir Tatlin)

Moscow Planetarium, 1929 (Barsh & Sinyavsky) Zeuv Worker’s Club, 1927

Supermatism
Another uniquely Russian Modernist movement was Suprematism,
started conjointly with Constructivism, though with a stronger
emphasis and embracement of the abstraction capable by painting
on a canvas. It is denoted as the first movement to utilize pure
geometrical abstraction in painting. Kazimir Malevich is viewed as its
founder, as he, along with the input of many of his contemporaries,
authored the Suprematist manifesto. The movement’s name
originated from a quote of Malevich’s, in which he stated that the
movement would inspire the “supremacy of pure feeling or perception
in the pictorial arts.” His central goal was to break art down to its bare
bones, often employing basic shapes, such as squares, triangles,
and circles, as well as primary and neutral colors. As he progressed
in his work, Malevich included more colors and shapes, but he
epitomized the movement in his “White on White” paintings in which
a faintly outlined square is just barely visible. Suprematism was often
imbued with spiritual and mystic undertones that added to its
abstraction, and, as was the case with Constructivism, the movement
essentially came to complete end as Soviet oppression increased.
White on White, 1918 (Kazmir Malevich)

De Stijl
The name De Stijl (Dutch for “The Style”) adequately sums up this
movement’s aim while also characterizing their intentions on how to
achieve that aim: with a simple, direct approach. Founded by a cohort of
Dutch artists in Amsterdam that included Theo van Doesburg (who
founded the group’s periodical De Stijl), Piet Mondrian, and Jacobus
Johannes Pieter Oud, De Stijl was infused with a great deal of
mysticism resulting primarily from Mondrian’s devotion to Theosophy.
The movement also had a great deal of influence from Parisian Cubism
They, like Suprematists, worked mainly in an abstract style and with
unadorned shapes—such as straight lines, intersecting plane surfaces,
and basic geometrical figures—and the primary colors and neutrals.
With these techniques, they sought to investigate the laws of equilibrium
apparent in both life and art. Although the movement comprised
painters, sculptors, typographers, poets, those in the decorative arts, it
was the architects, most prominently Oud with his Worker’s Housing
Estate in Hoek van Holland (1924–27), who were able to best capture
the austere and harmonic essences of the movement.
Composition II Red Blue Yellow, 1930 (Piet Mondrian)

Rietveld Schroder House, 1925 (Gerrit Rielveld), Uterich, Netherlands

Lecture 05 movements in modernism

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