MODERN art, design and landscape architecture

If this is NOT modern and NOT contemporary THEN what is it?

If this is NOT modern and NOT contemporary THEN what is it?


Having long argued that ‘Modern’ is obsolete as an adjective for the art and design of the twentieth century, I was interested to read today that ‘Modern’ (modernus) was used for the first time in the late fifth century in order to distinguish the present, which had become officially Christian, from the Roman past… the term ‘modern again and again expresses the consciousness of an epoch that relates itself to the past of antiquity, in order to view itself as the result of a transition from the old to the new’. By ‘again and again’ the writer is thinking of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Walpole’s famous 1771 essay, for example, was ‘On modern gardening’. Thankfully, we have new names for the art and culture of times further past. But what other name to we have for the art, design and landscape architecture of the twentieth century? Since I was told recently that ‘Andy Warhol and many contemporary artists are dead’, I do not see Contemporary as a useful candidate.
Image courtesy icstefanescu

11 thoughts on “MODERN art, design and landscape architecture

  1. Christine

    Perhaps Modern is not an era, a period in time with a beginning and an end, but a turning point in history not unlike BCE and CE (previously BC and AD)? Contemporary is much more likely to designate a sub-category of modern.

    Although of course it is possible for art works to be modern or contemporary as a designator [ http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Designator ] rather than a descriptor. [ http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/descriptor ]

    The interest non-traditional Asian art has its parallels in previous eras, for example the rise of Chinoiserie in garden design, art and decoration. [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinoiserie ] Except in this instance it is more like a reversal of this phenomenon ‘Euroiserie’ – Chinese art assimilating and expressing Western influences.

    Reply
    1. Tom Turner Post author

      I agree that ‘Modern’ is an era but do not think it is the best possible name for the era in question. In a thousand years time, is it still going to be the Modern Era. I doubt it. Names are usually allocated to art history periods in retrospect (eg Renaissance and Baroque) and I am thinking that it could be time enough for naming the work of 1910-1960.
      The distinction between descriptor and designator is valid but I don’t think it solves the problem.

      Reply
  2. Christine

    Well yes, twentieth century modern, or mid-century modernism are certainly valid designations. Since postmodernism followed modernism it is certainly true, that modernism has been assigned a temporal period.

    But the attributes of modernism, the philosophy of modernism, the modern sensibility are all beyond this.

    Perhaps, modern, as you first noted it describes an awareness of a radical break with the past rather than a sense of continuity with it (ie. a transition from old to new)?

    Reply
    1. Tom Turner Post author

      Definitely, modernism was ‘a radical break with the past’. So was the Renaissance. It is usually dated from c1350 to c1750 but, as Wiki states, ‘The word Renaissance was first used and defined by French historian Jules Michelet (1798–1874), in his 1855 work, Histoire de France. So if historians of the 20th century are to work an an equally glacial timescale ‘we’ will have to wait until 2310 for Modernism to have a good name. Just in case anyone then researches the opinion of fuddy-duddy landscape architects in 2014, I’d like to record my view that the movement should be called Abstractionism. For me, the desire to ‘abstract’ captures a key strand in Modernism. It was a period when scientists were ‘abstracting’ the laws of nature from empirical observation and artists, inspired by their success, were trying to abstract the principles of art from the historicist sentimentality of the nineteenth century: the truths of line, shape, colour, composition, structure, time, experience and so forth.

      Reply
  3. Christine

    The modern period is characterized as the machine age, hence Corb’s famous description of his houses as ‘machines for living’. The new task of the time was to accommodate that new fangled contraption the car into our cities. [ http://frozenmusicstudio.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/corbu.jpg ] This image of Corb with the model of Villa Savoye should be a icon of modernism.

    The image the model conveys is an obsession with the built form, while his sketch conveys quite a different relationship to the natural world. [ http://www.plataformaarquitectura.cl/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/640286582_ville-savoye.jpg ]

    It would seem in California Modern the pool played much the same role as the car in revolutionizing the garden space as shown in this image of the Donnell garden. [ http://tclf.org/sites/default/files/microsites/pioneers/berkeley/images/trieb_intro.jpg ]

    I am not sure if the modernist garden had the same impact in the UK?

    Reply
    1. Tom Turner Post author

      The relationship between Corb’s model and drawing deserves an article, a PhD or a book, or all of them. I think of Corbusier as an ‘objects man’. The sketch is very much of a space but a very special kind of space: a ‘room outside’. It is composed by walls and paving, not by the other elements of landscape and garden design: landform, water and vegetation. The Donnell Garden (great to see a photo of it in use) uses four of the compositional elements (no use is made of buildings).

      Reply
  4. Christine

    Well yes. The sketch by Corb is of a space inside the Villa Savoye. If you consider that the residence was designed at the very beginning of the twentieth century it is easier to see how revolutionary his design was. And for that matter still is. We are only beginning to see architectural spaces with dissolved and connected to that degree that they could be considered a ‘room outside’.

    Similarly with the Donnell Garden – females in swimsuits are something of a twentieth century phenomena also! Without this radical change in lifestyle and the introduction of leisure for the upper and then middle classes I am sure the pool would not have gained such prominence as an element of landscape and garden design to be used rather than contemplated.

    Reply
    1. Tom Turner Post author

      The Romans had pools in gardens which were likely to have been used for bathing (eg Poppea’s antics at the Villa Oplontis) but the idea fell from favour after that and I think you are correct that it returned in the 20th century. Pools were always used for bathing in Indian gardens.

      Reply
    1. Tom Turner Post author

      I have not researched swimming pools in gardens but think they have two roles (1) in sacred gardens they are for ritual cleansing – not unlike the wuḍu which takes place outside a mosque (2) in pleasure gardens – they are for pleasure.
      Christianity and the long period of medieval austerity, together with its aftermath, put a ‘dampner’ on outdoor bathing, especially in northern Europe. This had many aspects: the idea that luxury was an indulgence, the thought that the human body should be kept from view, the thought that gardens were places to grow food. These thoughts were substantially overturned in the twentieth century.

      Reply

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