Welcome to LitMovements, a series of
podcasts about American realism,
modernism, and postmodernism. This
three-part series was created by Dr.
Kristin Jacobson at Stockton College. The
Office of the Provost through the Summer
Technology Academy provided the training
and funding for this project.
Episode two: Modernism. Once again the best
starting point is to consider when did
this movement take place? Usually
scholars put the dates 1914 and 1945. And
these dates are based on the beginning
of World War I and the end of World
War II. When I spoke about realism in
the last podcast I talked about it in
relationship to photography. That is,
realism, in essence, tries to take a
picture, tries to create a snapshot, of
the person or the culture. So realism is
to photography what modernism is to
collage. In other words, modernism is
associated with fragments. In fact T.S.
Eliot's famous poem "The Waste Land" ends
with a quote dealing with fragments. "The
Waste Land" was written in 1922, and Eliot
writes, quote "These fragments I have
shored against my ruins." Actually,
modernism really reminds me of the
Humpty Dumpty rhyme, and I'm sure you're
all familiar with this: "Humpty Dumpty sat
on a wall./Humpty Dumpty had a great fall./
All the king's horses/ and all the king's
men,/ couldn't put Humpty Dumpty back
together again." One way to think about
this story from a modernist perspective
is that the moderns for the most part
are really kind of upset about Humpty
Dumpty's fragmented self. So another way
to kind of think about...the two sides you
might say...at least two sides to
modernism..is there's kind of a downer
side and there's more of an upper side.
And one way to think about Eliot is
certainly with "The Waste Land" as being a
representative of the more downer, more
anxious, more alienated self of modernism.
Is this notion of that it's really this
upside-down world, coming out of World War I.
And that the world was a really
different place. And think about the
beginning of Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales."
In the prologue Chaucer writes about
April being one of the sweetest months.
It's a fertile month. Eliot's "The
Waste Land," on the other hand, describes
April like this: quote, "April is the
cruelest month, breeding/ Lilacs out of
the dead land, mixing/ Memory and desire,
stirring/ Dull roots with spring rain./
Winter kept us warm." So, we know that when
we're entering Eliot's "The Waste Land" the
world is really upside down. On the other
hand, there's also this side to modernism
that's really about "making it new." So
these old forms have failed us. Okay, what
are we going to do about it? We're going
to try new forms. We're going to take
these fragments and build something
different out of it. And I think the
Harlem Renaissance, for the most part, is
really about this sort of very
productive and fertile aspect of
modernism. Before we turn to jazz as
quintessentially modernist form, let's
quickly review realism and consider its
differences from modernist. What is this?
It's a tree, right. How did you know this?
The form is familiar to you. And while we
wouldn't really say this is a realist
tree--it's not exactly like a
photograph--but it's fairly close. We can
look at this and immediately identify
this is what the writer was trying to
present: a tree. In the same year, the
artist creates a very different kind of
tree. And here's, I think, a really
fundamental way to think about modernism
and jazz and jazz being a modernist form.
And trying to help us think about jazz
music as well as the visual art that
we're looking at here as a way to
understand what's modernism. What are
these writers trying to do? So let's
listen to
example of maybe what this first--the
1908 "Red Tree" looks like. We're not going to
listen to a piece of jazz. We're going to
listen to something different. [singing]
"Raindrops on roses and whiskers on
kittens. Bright copper kettles and warm wollen mittens..."
Clearly, Julie Andrews is not singing
jazz. She hit each note precisely. Her
voice, like the picture of the tree, is
clear and straightforward. Now let's
listen to the jazz version of "My
Favorite Things." [John Coltane's "My Favorite Things" playing]
John Coltrane's version of my favorite
things breaks up the song into fragments
and reconstructs it again in ways that I
think are frankly far superior to the
original version--certainly more
interesting. Sure, it's going to take a
little bit more work to hear the song, to
understand what the song is all about,
but the payoff is John Coltrane's "My
Favorite Things." [song playing] Let's shift here a bit
to look at a visual representation of
modernism. Here's our modernist tree and
probably its best form painted in 1911.
And you can really see here how the
artist is pushing the form. The elements
of the tree are still there: the branches.
But there's fragmentation and the reader
or the viewer must participate more
actively in the construction of this
tree. And that's a modernist element
that's fundamental to the artwork, to the
literature as well as to the musical,
modernist form of jazz. Let's peek ahead
here a little bit. Wow! What's this? Now
I've already established a pattern with
all of the other pictures. So, if you've
guessed it's a tree, you're right. And
part of the reason that you knew that
was a tree was precisely because of this
pattern that I've set out. But that's
really a way that the moderns can get
away with playing with form. Plus it's a
way for the moderns to assure active
participation. The work requires active
participation and attention. And we as
listeners or viewers or readers are
rewarded when we find that pattern. So
here the artist is even pushing the form
we might say to the absolute limit.
There's only the barest fragments, the
merest suggestion of the core branches
that formed that tree--where we know, okay,
I know what I'm looking at. I know this
is a tree. It takes a lot more viewer
participation. And, in fact, we may say
that here the artist has pushed the form
so far that he's actually creating a new
form. That he's actually creating postmodern
form. But we'll save that for the next
podcast. So visually here we might say we
have representations from realism--that
sort of photographic image of reality--to
modernism to postmodernism. And the
common themes that much modernism
invokes are issues like fragmentation. So
just as the artwork is fragmented, the
authors talk about a fragmented world.
Think back to T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land."
Common themes also include: a sense of
loss, disillusionment, alienation. And then
the ways in which many of those writers
and artists try and cope with that
feeling. That's coming out of a post-World
War I experience. To cope with those
feelings they look to experimentations
with form, such a stream of consciousness.
Or they used elaborate myths and symbol
systems to try and create new orders, new
ways, or borrowing from old ways to put
those fragments back together again to
create some kind of cohesive whole. How
are we going to put Humpty Dumpty back
together again?
Our world has fundamentally changed. What
are we going to do with those fragments? Those
are the kinds of questions that moderns
ask of themselves and try and deal with
in their artwork. So when we go back to
this image that played a key role in the
first podcast about realism, we can begin
to think about this question of what it
means to be American and how are our art
reflects and shapes what it means to be
American in the realist period, in the
modern period, and even--a short five
years later from that last piece of art.
Look at how this idea or the
representation of self has changed.
So in about 40 years there's a lot about
people and representation. This is, this
is last piece of artwork I want you to look
at because I think it's a good example of
the kinds of challenges that modern art--
whether it's American or European--asks
of its readers or viewers or listeners.
What is this? What do you need to do to
figure out what this a painting of? Can
you find the form? Can you put together
those fragments to create a cohesive
whole? The author does help you out a
little bit through the title. So if you
can get that title...the author's placing
that form there: through the title. But
then as soon as you know that this is
supposed to be a nude descending a
staircase, then you can say: oh, I can kinda
see the legs now. Or maybe this is
where a head is or an arm or here are
the steps. So to really enter a
modernist text, you need to become a
co-author. Modernism is not a passive art
form.
 
 
