Beginning roughly at the turn of the previous century, social structures throughout the world were undergoing tremendous change and adjustment. In the Westernized cultures, industry and technology were booming, contributing to the growth of cities at the same time that it was producing various devices that made life in the home easier and more comfortable at more affordable rates, thus birthing the consumer culture. In America, the northern cities expanded with young people and black people seeking higher wages than what could be earned on the farms while the southern farms still struggled in the aftermath of the Civil War.
Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, every aspect of society was transformed by the inventions of the age. “Americans were becoming more diverse, more urban, and more mobile” (“America”, 2006) in action that mimicked what was happening in other nations such as England and France. In this rapidly changing climate, social norms were questioned as large groups of workers came together to earn larger wages within a single location rather than struggle to grow crops out on the farm. This coming together of workers gave rise to the middle class, bringing the women in from the fields and into the homes. The social changes that were taking place necessitated a new system of philosophy to understand it and a new mode of art to express it. To understand how the art of the period, such as that produced by Pablo Picasso, helped to express the more significant ideas of the period, it is necessary to first understand what some of these ideas were.
The concepts of Modernism can be broadly defined as the group of studies investigating the social processes that organize the society we live in while recognizing that this world is in a constant state of flux. Modernist ideas tend to insist that everything can be classified into sharply defined categories and definitions. “Modernity is a project and not only a period, and it is, or was a project of control, the rational mastery over nature, the planning, designing and plotting which led to planomania and technocracy” (Beilharz, 2001: 6). The main question of modernism was the search for the universal truths of the universe, which was believed to be achievable by breaking down elements into smaller elements. Through this process, the world was fragmented into several parts. Clean lines and distinct boundaries were sought as a means of discovering these universal truths. The driving force behind this search was to canonize the discovered universal truths as a means of distilling messages into communications that would apply to all cultures, individuals, and periods. The foundation upon which the theory rested was economic, political, and scientific rationalization (Mourad, 1997). Economic rationalization refers to the process of harnessing the forces of nature within the control of intellectual processes through greater understanding. Political rationalization refers to a similar control of the governing bodies and value systems to bring about a ‘correct’ society. Scientific rationalization held that there was an objective truth that could be discovered through the application of the scientific method (Mourad, 1997). As these concepts were considered to ever greater degrees, they would eventually start to collapse upon each other, giving birth to the Postmodern movement.
As these investigations suggest, it was generally felt that the content of an image could be distinguished from the form of the image, a concept that can also be understood as the sublime and the visual. While the sublime, or the content, of the image, cannot take on a specific universal visual form, the visual form of the image is discovered to be inextricably connected to the content. Even when the artist does not intend any intrinsic
meaning in the forms that he uses, the fact remains that all artistic expression exists in an interactive environment, meaning that the individual within the audience will have their own associations and meanings ascribed to the forms they view in the image. One of the more famous theorists on these ideas is Marshall Berman, who describes modernism as “a mode of vital experience—experience of space and time, of the self and others, of life’s possibilities and perils—that is shared by men and women all over the world today. I will call this body of experience ‘modernity’” (Berman, 1982). The term refers to all the social changes that are constantly occurring in this time period, the way that people experience these changes and the way that the changes are reflected in different circles, such as in the artistic realm. “To be modern is to live a life of paradox and contradiction. It is to be overpowered by the immense bureaucratic organizations that have the power to control and often to destroy all communities, values, lives; and yet to be undeterred in our determination to face these forces, to fight to change their world and make it our own. It is to be both revolutionary and conservative: alive to new possibilities for experience and adventure, frightened by the nihilistic depths to which so many modern adventures lead” (Berman, 1982). For Berman, the contradictions of modernity are characterized by a tendency to order space and time while simultaneously promoting their ruination and failure.
Another way of illustrating this concept of the modern as both ordered and disordered is in its expression through influential artists of the time period, such as Pablo Picasso. Artists working during this period dedicated themselves to the depiction of human emotions as discovered through the colors and lines of their work rather than through the symbols and forms of the photograph and the machine age. In doing so, these artists were attempting to dig deep into the feeling of human experience as a means of discovering the true reality of what being human meant; in other words, to express the sublime. Lyotard (1984) describes this process as an attempt “to make visible that there is something which can be conceived and which can neither be seen nor made visible” (78). This sublime element is brought out as the viewer’s imagination becomes engaged with the various elements that remain visible or understandable. For artists like Picasso, the sublime element was recaptured to the highest degree through the sense of wonder and imagination typically found through the focus on ‘primitive’ geometric forms. As these forms were explored, the fallacy of the concept of a universal truth became increasingly obvious. However, as artists concentrated on the essence of the experience of the art and its creation instead of the symbolic form, they discovered that emotions were generally felt the same universally even when technical elements such as symbols, shapes or colors were understood differently by different cultures. This meant that the process of triggering an emotional response could be approached in the same way almost universally even though the forms might need to be changed.
Pablo Picasso was inspired in his approach by the works of French impressionist painter Paul Cezanne and the pointillist painter Georges Seurat. Other influences include the intellectual works of the Fauves and African primitive art. Within his work, Picasso continued to focus on the picture plane by breaking up images into fractals. His works were characteristic of the modern abstractionists in that they focused on presenting graphic representations of emotions while freeing himself from the true representation of objects. In his paintings “Figures on Beach” (1931), for example, each figure is presented by Picasso as an abstract collection of geometric shapes. These shapes are arranged to suggest the specific emotions and feelings his figures are experiencing as they participate in their activity. His use of color is intended to convey the emotions of the moment just as the relative nature of the lines establishes the relative strength of the feelings. Picasso also strives to portray motion or action in his art by depicting more than one viewpoint at a time on the same picture plane.
In “Figures on Beach” (1931), the idea of movement is depicted through Picasso’s placement of the eyes and nostrils of the figures in various places, as if their faces are moving all around. Picasso also seems to have placed the woman’s breasts in random places to make them more accessible and interesting. There is a confusion of body parts in which the arms and legs become almost interchangeable and reflects the idea that the people are entangled in a passionate, active, moving embrace. The only truly recognizable shape discovered in the painting is the shaded upper thigh and buttock of the woman, which thus automatically become the most stable element of the scene to an eye seeking recognition. The two figures and the beach area are filled with warm but soft colors and gentle shading as a means of denoting a fully mature, loving embrace rather than the lurid pulsing tones one might associate with sudden uncontrolled passion. These concepts are reinforced by Picasso’s use of smooth curved lines and his general avoidance of any hard or sharp angles. The dominant warm tones used for the figures and the beach are cooled by the gently sloping blue ocean and sky found in the background. Excitement is introduced in the image with the triangular-topped white tower, introducing diagonals as a means of invoking energy as well as a pyramid to invoke a mathematical sense of stability.
In Picasso’s work, his use of colors and shapes are important in conveying the emotional content that is the subject of this piece. However, these shapes are broken down into the most geometric shapes or primitive forms as a means of reaching the universal emotion. Solid blocks of color and careful attention to detail refine and define the impressions Picasso was struggling to convey, yet he was fully conscious of the Modern conception that his interpretations of color and form would forever be different from what others would discover within his work. While Picasso’s focus was an attempt to convey the emotions felt within his painting, he was not necessarily able to completely shut out references to his contemporary world as his entire approach was set by the Modernist movement that was sweeping his society.
References
“America After the Civil War.” (2006). Education. Albany, NY: Albany Institute of History and Art.
This source gives helpful information regarding the state of affairs of the world as the Modernist movement began. It is useful in discovering some of the shifting social ideals that characterized the movement.
Beilharz, Peter. (2001). The Bauman Reader. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.
This source is a presentation of the ideas of Zygmunt Bauman in a condensed, easier to understand format. It covers Bauman’s thoughts regarding culture and intellectualism, ethics and morality and modernity and postmodernity.
Burgin, Victor. (1982). Thinking Photography. New Jersey: Humanities Press Intl.
This book presents many of Victor Burgin’s philosophies regarding the image and representation. He helps to make the concepts of modernism and the sublime understandable.
Lyotard, Jean-Francois. (1984). The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Trans. Geoff. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
In presenting his understanding of the concept of postmodernism, Lyotard helps to define Modernism as it was different from and introduced the concepts of postmodernism.
Mourad, R.P. (1997). “At the Forefront: Postmodern Interdisciplinarity.” The Review of Higher Education. Vol 29, N. 2, pp. 115-140.
Like Lyotard, Mourad helps to define the concepts of modernism by setting it off as something different from and antecedent to the concepts of postmodernity.
Picasso, Pablo. (1931). “Figures on Beach.” Oil on canvas. Online Picasso Project. Web.
This source is the visual image of Picasso’s painting discussed in the essay as it is presented on the internet. It provides the image as well as the technical details of the painting such as dimensions, media and ownership.