Lecture Notes

CTCS 200
9.20.10

I. What is modernism?
A. An umbrella term categorizing shared traits underlying a number of artistic
movements dating variable from the later 1850s or 1880s through the 1920s or
early 1930s
B. Move from figurative or illusionistic representation to more abstract or non-
representational forms
C. Rupture with Romanticism and Naturalism (19th century movements) and a
move towards a self-conscious questioning of form
1. Self-conscious manifestation of process of creation or representation
2. Modernist artists question the rationale behind attempts to represent the
world in realistic terms
3. Sought to reveal the falseness behind such attempts and expose the
constructed-ness of artworks
4. Romanticism -- emphasis on individualʼs imaginative power and
subjective perspective
5. Naturalism -- downplay embellishment or interpretation (ie Salisbury
Cathedral from the Bishopʼs Grounds (1825), John Constable)
6. Sought essentialist purity of medium: distinctive/exclusive properties of
the medium/form
7. Focus on process over content
D. Modernist works criticize dominant artistic theories and artistic practices
1. This is not a theoretical critique
2. Artists literally, verbally attack earlier artistic movements
E. Modernism & Modernity
1. Modernity -- the condition of oneʼs relation to the present
2. Modernism -- the art form that suits or represents our age
F. Perhaps begins with the opening of Museum of Modern Art, when it loses its
radical, experimental edge and becomes institutionalized (1930s)
1. It is a historical period
2. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) is the first modernist film
G. 1900-1920
1. Film
a. Developing as narrative art
b. 19th century literary principles
c. Classical staging & visual design
d. Emulating traditional arts
2. Other arts
a. Period of modernist experimentation
b. Abandoning classical principles
c. Breaking with tradition
d. Not until 1920 does film catch up and begin to dialogue with
these other movements
 H. Classicism -- values originality; a conception proscribing a set of universal
ideals that define an exemplary work of art within a particular medium
1. Classical artist (ie Billy Wilder) aspires to create a work of art that is
both an original contribution to the genre or medium
2. While still adhering to or exemplifying the ideal principles and practices
of the particular genre or medium
3. Manet Gare Saint-Lazare (1873)
a. Lack of depth and detail
b. Foregrounds application of paint by the artist, the properties of
the medium
4. Degas Absinthe (1876)
5. Monet Impression: Sunrise (1872)
6. Monet The Railroad Bridge at Argenteuil (1874)
7. Monet Saint-Lazare Station -- fleeting nature of modern life
8. Van Gogh The Sower after Millet (1890)
I. Modernism values originality by breaking traditions and principles
J. Move to abstraction
1. Manipulation of form reveals truth
2. Implicit critique of classical form as a misleading or false set of
conventions and tradition
3. Cubism (Braque)
4. Picasso
5. Duchamp
6. Pollack Lavender Mist (1950)
K. Modernism is a theory with assumptions:
1. Mass art determines monolithic responses by passive spectators
2. Liberation comes via:
a. Avant-garde artistic practices
b. Critical discernment (eduation or taste)
L. The modernist tradition
1. The modernist work seeks a formal and material (medium) purity
2. The modernist work often retains overt traces of the process of its
creation
a. Visible evidence of the artistʼs act of creation remains in the
finished work
b. Self-reflexive: the act of creation; the nature of the medium
3. The modernist work criticizes dominant artistic theories and artistic
practices
M. Formalist
1. Belief that aesthetic values remain primarily autonomous and self-
sufficient and that the evaluation of art can be detached from other
considerations, for example, ethical and social ones
2. In painting, for example, a formalist work might emphasize the flatness
of the picture surface and reject any kind of illusionistic or mimetic
modeling
 3. The formal properties of an artwork refers both to the creative elements
of an artwork (the color, the angle, etc.) and to the materials/medium (film,
sculpture, paint, etc.
N. Self-reflexive -- artwork (or part of an artwork) that refers to itself, to its status
as an artwork, to its construction or creation
II. German Expressionism
A. Modernist, historical movement that occurs in the first decade of the 20th
century, gone at the cusp of WWI, and revitalized in the period of The Cabinet of
Dr. Caligari
B. Expressionist painting -- reaction against late 19th century art movements
Naturalism and Impressionism
C. Painting, sculpture, literature, drama, music, poetry, film
D. Edvard Munch, The Scream (1893) -- precedent, influence
1. Exterior evokes the interior
2. This is definition of expressionism
3. Continuation of romanticism in a way
4. Form is content
5. Munch, Death in the Sick Room (1892), Puberty (1895)
E. Kandinsky: “Form is the outer expression of inner content”
1. “... to give material form to that inner spiritual form”
2. “Form reflects the spirit of each artist. Form bears the imprint of
personality”
F. Die Bruke (1905) -- Ernst Kirchner, Heckel
G. Der Blaue Reiter (1911) -- Franz Marc, Wassilly Kandisky
H. Cultural/historical background
1. Nietsche: “the great disengagement”
2. William Worringer (1907) - modernism = a symptom of disturbed minds
3. Oswald Spengler, The Decline of the West (1918 &1922)
4. Einstein & the new physics
5. George Simmel, “The Metropolis and Mental Life” (1903)
6. Freud (& Baauer), Studies in Hysteria (1893)
7. Freud, The Psychopathology of Everyday Life
8. Germanyʼs Wiemar Republic: 1919-1933
a. 1918 -- protests/revolts against monarchy
b. Nov. 9, 1918 -- German Republic declared -- abolish monarchy
c. Nov. 11, 1918 -- armistice
d. 1919 -- Versailles Treaty
i. Limits size of German army
ii. Reparation payments
e. Jan. 1919 -- Spartakist Rising -- Communists led by Rosa
Luxemburg
f. Weimar Republic -- precarious political position
i. Liberal policies: business and culture
ii. Loosening of censorship codes
I. Ernst Kirchner, The Red Cocotte (1914-1925)
J. German Expressionism -- “Second Wave” -- Post-WWI:
 1. Socio-political commentary (replaces spiritual dimension)
2. Otto Dix, Cardplaying War-Cripples (1920)
K. George Grosz, Metropolis (1917) -- seeming signs of progress are depicted as
signs of madness
L. Max Beckmann, The Night (1918-1919)
M. Cinematic modernism
1. Naturalism as the normative and dominant stylistic paradigm
2. (From theater to narrative films)
3. Modernist cinema rejects/reacts to this norm
4. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari draws on expressionism for its themes --
uncertainty and anxiety about the modern world,
a. Critique of 19th century literary principles (do we ever really meet
the title character?)
b. Introduced film to modernism and modernists to film
5. Murnauʼs Nosferatu (1922) -- shadows of expressive form becomes
motif of expressionism in 1920s and way of Hollywood plucking
techniques from Expressionism in less radical form than Dr. Caligari
6. Murnauʼs The Last Laugh (1924) [clip] -- distortion through optical
effects
7. Murnau brings it to Hollywood [Fox]: Sunrise (1927), where it becomes
somewhat naturalized
8. Fritz Langʼs Metropolis (1927) -- might be last Expressionist film
O. The Legacy of German Expressionism
1. Light, psychology, mood
2. Shadows, space, characters -- Citizen Kane (interior state of the scene
as well as the character)
3. My Darling Clementine -- Ford learned strongly from Expressionist
cinema, was on set with Murnau
4. Hans Drier, set designer, Sunset Blvd.
a. The house is part of her character, naturalized in that the set is
filled with a lot of detail
b. Chiaroscuro
c. Fragmented camera angles
P. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
1. Themes resonate strongly with expressionist drama and literature
a. Madness
b. Reason
2. Framing story is new technique of calling into question the narrator
(unreliable) -- strong device in late 19th, early 20th century literature
3. Theses are two strong ways in which the screenplay itself speaks to
modernism