POST 3 MODERNISM

Mariven Diaz
Professor Cacoilo
Art and Women

Post 3: Modernism

          As the years passed well into the 20th century people wanted to bring change, especially with art. "In Western art, movements and "isms" appeared, one after another: impressionism, postimpressionism, fauvism, cubism, futurism, constructivism, abstract expressionism, etc. Put them all together and what do we get? Modernism"(Guerilla Girls, 59). During this time women were still being discriminated against and their work was often credited to their husband's. Although women were still facing difficulty in getting their art out into the world, the 20th century offered more opportunities for women to have a voice in society such as gaining the right to vote. Modernism was a movement that broke the norms of Western society and paved the way for people to convey their ideas and expressions that didn't conform to traditional beliefs. This was the time women could create their own art and step out of their stereotypical roles. 

Sonia Delaunay, “Couverture de Berceau” (1911)
Decorative art influenced by Russian peasant designs

A 'simultaneous' dress by Sonia Delaunay
next to a Citroen B12, the first car she designed (1925)

          Abstraction was the movement in art where the techniques involved shapes, blurs, vivid colors, real life subjects, geometric forms and distorted figures. Since this form of art was abstract, artists used colors and ways of application to imbed various emotions within their work to be able to get across the message and expression they wanted to convey. Sonia Delaunay is an Abstraction artist who worked with textiles and embroidery that allowed her to focus on surface structure. Her husband, Robert Delaunay and herself developed the theory of color in which they called "simultanism". Her work involved "color to design, and made simultaneous fabric, clothing, furniture, environments, and and even cars" (Guerilla Girls, 60). She focused her talents on home decor type of pieces that came from around her house. She then moved on to making simultaneous dresses due to the lack of fashion at the time. "Their patterns of abstract forms were arranged both to enhance the natural movement of the body and to establish a shimmering movement of color" (Chadwick, 262). Her art was always changing and it was important to her to continue innovation in her art so that she can apply it the environment around her.

 Gabriele  Münter, Portrait of Marianne von Werefkin, 1909

          Another movement in the 20th century was called German Expressionism that started in Germany and began before World War I. An artist that exhibited German Expressionism was Gabriele Munter who "took a step toward greater abstraction" (Chadwick, 255). For her this meant "reducing form to simplified color shapes bounded by dark contour lines" and synthesized the expressiveness of Fauve color with an ordered formal organization often based on pyramidal forms" (Chadwick, 255). In her piece Portrait of Marianne von Werefkin, Munter we can see the use of the dark contour lines, blocks of color, and a pyramidal form. 

Hannah Hoch, Dompteuse (Tamer), 1930

          
          The next movement in modernism is Dada which is "an art movement that challenged every convention (except male supremacy) and scandalized bourgeois society" (Guerilla Girls, 66). Hannah Hoch became involved in this movement and was one of the first people to incorporate photomontages in her art. Through this technique she she used existing media and added her personal touch. Her photomontages "helped sever the photograph from its existence as an autonomous artifact and emphasize its role in ideological production" (Chadwick, 270). Subjects of her art would be of "the new women, the German media's glorification of the independent, modern female, free to smoke, wear sexy clothes, vote, and work" (Chadwick, 67). We can see through her art that she was redefining the roles of woman and embodied the Dada movement by breaking conventional gender roles in society by placing women on the same level as men. In the photo on right, it illustrates one of her photomontages called, Dompteuse (Tamer). We can see a woman's head on top of a masculine body as a way to create an androgynous figure. This can infer that she is challenging gender roles and there shouldn't be a large gap between males and females. 
 

Claude Cahun, Self-Portrait, 1928

    Surrealism is another movement during the development of Modernism in which this art form throws rationalism and everything that made sense out the window. This way of thinking opens up one's imagination by contradicting reality. An example of an artist whose art incorporates Surrealism is Claude Cahun. She was one of the first artists to use herself as a subject in her own photography. "Instead of passing herself as a passive object ready to be consumed by a heterosexual male gaze, she defiantly presents herself as both object and subject of her own sexual fascinations" (Guerilla Girls, 63). Through her art, she made it possible for herself to be both object and subject which forced herself out of any stereotype that was placed on to her. As illustrated in one of her works on the left hand side, Self Portrait, we can see that her sexual identity is obscure. She is not a product of the male gaze in which women were subjected to for centuries and she has chosen not to be restricted to those conventions. She is in charge of her body and sexual identity which has not been a thing people made sense out of. 

CITATIONS

Chadwick, Whitney. Women, Art and Society. London: Thames & Hudson, 2007. Print.

The Guerrilla Girls' Bedside Companion to the History of Western Art. London: Penguin, 1998. Print.