 Cover of the first edition | |
| Author | Peter Gay |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Subject | Modernism |
| Publisher | Random House |
Publication date | 2007 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover and Paperback) |
| Pages | 640 |
| ISBN | 978-0393333961 |
Modernism: The Lure of Heresy is a 2007 book about Modernism by Peter Gay, in which the author discusses art-forms including literature, painting, architecture, music, cinema and sculpture. The work was favorably reviewed.
Gay discusses the history and development of Modernism, considering a broad range of different art-forms (including literature, painting, architecture, music, cinema and sculpture). He examines a mode of cultural creation which is itself highly contentious, dynamic and resistant to precise definition, exploring how it was generated in different fields and how it developed from around the 1840s (specifically the era of Gustave Flaubert and Charles Baudelaire) up to the era of a figure such as Andy Warhol.
Gay's work is influenced by his previous publications, for example his discussion of the Age of Enlightenment or Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis. In particular, he views Modernism through the lens of Freudianism, particularly given Freud's emphasis on the prevalent conflicts between contradictory desires in human life; Gay sees this as crucial within the context of Modernism, particularly whenever culture is in a state of battle with the "aesthetic establishment." [1] Gay's definition of Modernism pivots on two considerations: firstly, that desire to challenge pre-existing orthodoxies (encapsulated by the dictum 'make it new' of Ezra Pound) which lead to the use of the word 'heresy' in the title of the book. Secondly he isolates it to the desire to provide ever deeper portraits of the psychological realities and subjective experiences of human life, encompassing a wide range of manifestations such as the interior monologue of a writer such as James Joyce or the self-portraits of Max Beckmann. [2] Furthermore, Gay challenges the oft-repeated idea that Modernism was a fundamentally elitist development and one that was not in harmony with the middle-classes.
Pound's 'make it new' was only one of the many eye-catching slogans and clarion-calls of Modernism, with others including 'Ornament Is Crime', 'Form follows Function', art being made to be "useless and impossible to justify" or Pablo Picasso's idea that modern art was a "sum of destructions" - many of these slogans have that 'heretical' or revolutionary element to them that forms a central part of the Gay thesis. A final aspect of his analytical framework involves his view that Modernism was challenged by the rise of movements such as Pop art and Conceptualism in the 1960s. [3] Gay also explores whether or not there might be a contemporary resurgence of the Modernist impulse. [4]
Writing for Spiked , Tim Black called Modernism: The Lure of Heresy "authoritative and lively" and "admirably ambitious" in its "attempts to preserve the particularity of the artworks themselves...while gesturing to that general modernist sensibility they embody", but criticized Gay for failing to place the modernists in their "profound historical context." [2]
Writing in The Guardian , Alyssa McDonald called Gay's book an intelligent study that "offers an incredibly broad picture of its subject" and an "intellectually rich...expansive cultural study", [1] and the historian Richard J. Evans described it as a "brilliant account covering all the arts in the 20th century". [5]
Writing in the The Washington Post, Michael Dirda called:
Like a good comparatist, Gay casts a wide net, covering Northern masters such as the Scandinavians August Strindberg and Edvard Munch, along with less familiar figures, such as the Russian Vladimir Tatlin and the German Georg Kaiser [6]
Modernism is a philosophical, religious, and art movement that arose from broad transformations in Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new forms of art, philosophy, and social organization which reflected the newly emerging industrial world, including features such as urbanization, architecture, new technologies, and war. Artists attempted to depart from traditional forms of art, which they considered outdated or obsolete. The poet Ezra Pound's 1934 injunction to "Make it New" was the touchstone of the movement's approach.
Psychoanalytic literary criticism is literary criticism or literary theory that, in method, concept, or form, is influenced by the tradition of psychoanalysis begun by Sigmund Freud.
Eroticism is a quality that causes sexual feelings, as well as a philosophical contemplation concerning the aesthetics of sexual desire, sensuality, and romantic love. That quality may be found in any form of artwork, including painting, sculpture, photography, drama, film, music, or literature. It may also be found in advertising. The term may also refer to a state of sexual arousal or anticipation of such – an insistent sexual impulse, desire, or pattern of thoughts.
In the arts and in literature, the term avant-garde identifies a genre of art, an experimental work of art, and the experimental artist who created the work of art, which usually is aesthetically innovative, whilst initially being ideologically unacceptable to the artistic establishment of the time. The military metaphor of an advance guard identifies the artists and writers whose innovations in style, form, and subject-matter challenge the artistic and aesthetic validity of the established forms of art and the literary traditions of their time; thus how the artists who created the anti-novel and Surrealism were ahead of their times.
Imagism was a movement in early-20th-century poetry that favored precision of imagery and clear, sharp language. It is considered to be the first organized modernist literary movement in the English language. Imagism has been termed "a succession of creative moments" rather than a continuous or sustained period of development. The French academic René Taupin remarked that "it is more accurate to consider Imagism not as a doctrine, nor even as a poetic school, but as the association of a few poets who were for a certain time in agreement on a small number of important principles".
Hilda Doolittle was an American modernist poet, novelist, and memoirist who wrote under the name H.D. throughout her life. Her career began in 1911 after she moved to London and co-founded the avant-garde Imagist group of poets with American expatriate poet and critic Ezra Pound. During this early period, her minimalist free verse poems depicting Classical motifs drew international attention. Eventually distancing herself from the Imagist movement, she experimented with a wider variety of forms, including fiction, memoir, and verse drama. Reflecting the trauma she experienced in London during the Blitz, H.D.'s poetic style from World War II until her death pivoted towards complex long poems on esoteric and pacifist themes.
Postmodern art is a body of art movements that sought to contradict some aspects of modernism or some aspects that emerged or developed in its aftermath. In general, movements such as intermedia, installation art, conceptual art and multimedia, particularly involving video are described as postmodern.
Modernist poetry in English started in the early years of the 20th century with the appearance of the Imagists. Like other modernists, Imagist poets wrote in reaction to the perceived excesses of Victorian poetry, and its emphasis on traditional formalism and ornate diction.
Peter Joachim Gay was a German-American historian, educator, and author. He was a Sterling Professor of History at Yale University and former director of the New York Public Library's Center for Scholars and Writers (1997–2003). He received the American Historical Association's (AHA) Award for Scholarly Distinction in 2004. He authored over 25 books, including The Enlightenment: An Interpretation, a two-volume award winner; Weimar Culture: The Outsider as Insider (1968), a bestseller; and the widely translated Freud: A Life for Our Time (1988).
Postmodern literature is a form of literature that is characterized by the use of metafiction, unreliable narration, self-reflexivity, intertextuality, and which often thematizes both historical and political issues. This style of experimental literature emerged strongly in the United States in the 1960s through the writings of authors such as Kurt Vonnegut, Thomas Pynchon, William Gaddis, Philip K. Dick, Kathy Acker, and John Barth. Postmodernists often challenge authorities, which has been seen as a symptom of the fact that this style of literature first emerged in the context of political tendencies in the 1960s. This inspiration is, among other things, seen through how postmodern literature is highly self-reflexive about the political issues it speaks to.
Confessional writing is a literary style and genre that developed in American writing schools following the Second World War. A prominent mode of confessional writing is confessional poetry, which emerged in the 1950s and 1960s. Confessional writing is often historically associated with Postmodernism due to the features which the modes share: including self-performativity and self-reflexivity; discussions of culturally taboo subjects; and the literary influences of personal conflict and historical trauma. Confessional writing also has historical origins in Catholic confessional practices. As such, confessional writing is congruent with psychoanalytic literary criticism. Confessional writing is also a form of life writing, especially through the autobiography form.
Others: A Magazine of the New Verse was an American literary magazine founded by Alfred Kreymborg in July 1915 with financing from Walter Conrad Arensberg. The magazine ran until July, 1919. It was based in New York City and published poetry and other writing, as well as visual art. While the magazine never had more than 300 subscribers, it helped launch the careers of several important American modernist poets. Contributors included: William Carlos Williams, Orrick Johns, Wallace Stevens, Marianne Moore, Mina Loy, Ezra Pound, Conrad Aiken, Carl Sandburg, T. S. Eliot, Amy Lowell, H.D., Djuna Barnes, Man Ray, Skipwith Cannell, Lola Ridge, Marcel Duchamp, and Fenton Johnson (poet).
Adam Phillips is a British psychoanalytic psychotherapist and essayist.
Literary modernism, or modernist literature, originated in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and is characterized by a self-conscious separation from traditional ways of writing in both poetry and prose fiction writing. Modernism experimented with literary form and expression, as exemplified by Ezra Pound's maxim to "Make it new." This literary movement was driven by a conscious desire to overturn traditional modes of representation and express the new sensibilities of the time. The immense human costs of the First World War saw the prevailing assumptions about society reassessed, and much modernist writing engages with the technological advances and societal changes of modernity moving into the 20th century. In Modernist Literature, Mary Ann Gillies notes that these literary themes share the "centrality of a conscious break with the past", one that "emerges as a complex response across continents and disciplines to a changing world".
American modernism, much like the modernism movement in general, is a trend of philosophical thought arising from the widespread changes in culture and society in the age of modernity. American modernism is an artistic and cultural movement in the United States beginning at the turn of the 20th century, with a core period between World War I and World War II. Like its European counterpart, American modernism stemmed from a rejection of Enlightenment thinking, seeking to better represent reality in a new, more industrialized world.
Shi Zhecun was a Chinese essayist, poet, short story writer, and translator in Shanghai during the 1930s. He was known for his poetry and essays, but is most known for his modernist short stories exploring the psychological conditions of Shanghai urbanites. From the 1940s onwards, he translated western novels into Chinese and worked as a scholar of classical Chinese literature.
The creation of art in the geographic area now known as Brazil begins with the earliest records of its human habitation. The original inhabitants of the land, pre-Columbian Indigenous or Natives peoples, produced various forms of art; specific cultures like the Marajoara left sophisticated painted pottery. This area was colonized by Portugal in the 16th century and given the modern name of Brazil. Brazilian art is most commonly used as an umbrella term for art created in this region post Portuguese colonization.
In the visual arts, late modernism encompasses the overall production of most recent art made between the aftermath of World War II and the early years of the 21st century. The terminology often points to similarities between late modernism and postmodernism, although there are differences. The predominant term for art produced since the 1950s is contemporary art. Not all art labelled as contemporary art is modernist or post-modern, and the broader term encompasses both artists who continue to work in modern and late modernist traditions, as well as artists who reject modernism for post-modernism or other reasons. Arthur Danto argues explicitly in After the End of Art that contemporaneity was the broader term, and that postmodern objects represent a subsector of the contemporary movement which replaced modernity and modernism, while other notable critics: Hilton Kramer, Robert C. Morgan, Kirk Varnedoe, Jean-François Lyotard and others have argued that postmodern objects are at best relative to modernist works.
Hanns Sachs was one of the earliest psychoanalysts, and a close personal friend of Sigmund Freud. He became a member of Freud's Secret Committee of six in 1912, Freud describing him as one "in whom my confidence is unlimited in spite of the shortness of our acquaintance".