Sunday 22 May 2011

Modernism & Post-modernism


From what I have gathered through research modernism can be applied to a wide range of topics, religion, politics, architecture, art and so on! Some would say a broader definition is that Modernism is basically ‘modern thought’. It began roughly around the 1850’s up until just after 1945. A period when Freud and Marx where thinking a lot!

Modernists rejected the idea of enlightenment thinking and the existence of an all powerful creator, though not all modernists rejected religion and enlightenment, merely assessing the ways of the previous age. Agricultural elements have a huge impact on social mentality. At the end of the 19th century, western society was growing through the age of the industrial revolution. Some artists were at differences with the ideals it presented such as those of discipline, temperance and structure. It is arguable to think that modernists were a reaction to the harsher reality that had been lived before the industrial revolution.

As each era is modern to its’ own time, it could be said that we are all modernist’s. As we can only define a time period once it has passed who decides that we begin a new age?

Post-modernism is largely a reaction to the assumed certainty of scientific, or objective, efforts to explain reality

Postmodernism is a broad term used to describe movements in a wide range of disciplines, including art, philosophy, critical theory and music. Many view postmodernism as a response to the preceding modernist movement, but where modernism simply reacts against classical concepts, particularly in the arts and literature, postmodernism takes this reaction to its extreme conclusion, some see postmodernism not as a separate movement, but simply as a continuation of the modernist struggle. From what I can tell post-modernists don’t think religion, science or truth is what defines a person, but more so the social and mental aspects of their life and their independent thought that make a person who they are. Just to take a stab at it anyway!







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