Summary Exercise

• At the start of the twentieth century, an attempt to create a new art from a variety of nineteenth sources was made.


• Art movements emerged as a response to social change, for example Expressionism and Futurism represents the European reception of the modern age.


• There were two responses to the modern age, one view was pessimistic, concentrating on life being controlled by machinery and freedom being an ideology of the past.


• Contrasting with that was a more positive response, for example, from Marinetti, an Italian poet who was a symbolist until he created a new way of responding to this modern age.


• Advances in travel were evident, as before steam-engines were invented, no one had travelled faster than a horse, but then people began flying and racing motor cars.


• There was a third response, relating to the effect on art from the modern world, the development in the time before WW1 was very gradual although in the years after the Great War this development became stronger and dominant.


• Although there was evidence of architecture and machinery, when the third response is taken into account, modernisation was not essentially technological, but social as well, which was shown by the relationships formed between people.


• Expressionism and Futurism were examples of positive and negative artistic responses, of the modern/urban age. However, Cubism was the complete opposite and didn’t take into account what existed beyond the studio.


• In summary, there were two opposites that artists tried to bring together, on one side was the art that decoded the modern world and on the other side was the response that art must renovate itself.

Harrison, C. and Wood, P (1997) 'Art in Theory: 1900-1990', Oxford, Blackwell p 125-129