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In the earlier times, realism was the key focus in the media world, with paintings that represent the realistic elements of life, architecture with focuses of being good to the eye and presenting good service, and literature in a sufficient narrative flow that tells a direct story, but at post WW1, there was an increased awareness of the possibilities to represent without any aspect of realism and to represent any aspects of social life without the need of realism added to it, for this is the modernist era.

The Fountain from 1917 by Marcel Duchamp, Marcel Duchcap was a member of Dada that has anti-rational views aswell as anti-art views, Marcel created The fountain by turning a urinal 90 degrees from it's original position and wrote his name on the side, thus as it's called a fountain it is technically seen as a fountain now, this has introduced the art of representation (without realism) to the art world which claims to be one of the starting points of Modernist art.

Ulysees from 1922 by James Joyce, the book was claimed as the official starting point of Modernist literature to the aspect of a lack of realism, mysticalism as it's key element of story telling and a broken timeline instead of real-time like the books before it, as a quote would put it from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modernist_literature#Overview by T.S. Elliot Ulysees has "a way of controlling, of ordering, of giving a shape and a significance to the immense panorama of futility and anarchy which is contemporary history.... Instead of narrative method, we may now use the mythical method. It is, I seriously believe, a step toward making the modern world possible for art." others used this method afterwards.

The Seagram building from 1958 by Ludwig Miles, in 1932 Philip Johnson and Henry-Russel Hitchcock studying building observed that there is a purpose behind every one of them and how they are developing through time into the purpose they are being built for , and presented their findings at the International Exhibition of Modern Architecture, this lead to the development of purpose-built buildings like the Seagram building observed as an example.

WW2 came and went, and public tastes and sights have changed over the course of time, as most of the modernist work are seen to be of no intrest or blank, art is beginning to lose popularity, architecture is seen as ugly, and books lack the narrative flow to carry on with the story, several artists see this as a problem, and with feeling broke out of the modernist aspects or blend the realism era with the modernist era to maintain purpose and representation and yet have a good eye-sight to it, for this is the post-modern era.

No5, from 1948 by Jackson Pollok, Jackson Pollok was one of the first people to realise the philosophy and possibilities of postmodernism and to dive into new techniques into creating art (like his own special method of "dripping paint" rather than proper painting) and through the 60's experimented with other techniques aswell to represent a message, this leads (among with others) to postmodernist art which it represented a element from society for people to later question about how it is represented.

Despite a lack of definite start (as to when or where it started), postmodernist novels developed wit from the strict rules of the realist or modernist eras of novel making, in which a lack of realism/satire is presented in storytelling (this is seen from one of the first ones to kick-start postmodernist literature which is The Cannibal from 1949 by John Hawkes, despite using his own experiences in the war he was anti-realist and witty throughout the book to represent a point at the same time (especially at the post-war Germany section).

The Vanna Venturi house from 1961 by Vanna Venturi, in the 1960's to 1970's, it has been ealised that functionism is too relevent to architecture, so was the merging of realism and modernism realised to keep a building for it's purpose and yet make it good for the eye to see, Vanna Venturi was at the height of this movement at the time, and noting all aspects of postmodernism and modernism he created the book "Less is a bore" in 1966 as a support of Postmodernism and a attack on medernism, which architects from this day followed.

If remembering what Modernism was in the previous post, then post-modernism is the next stage after it starting somewhere in the 60's and continuing to the present day.
Whilst modernism started out as being more practical and economical (and starting to represent the time period), post modernism is more closer to society after the Second world war after several people felt that the pieces that represent modermism don't tell the truth and lacks the freedom of it's creator, so it's time to be free from all the strict grand theories and ideologies and create any kind of art that's visually interesting (from surreal to strange) to the audience with the message/meaning still being kept.
While some are of intrest of the freedom of art, there came the new awareness of art/items in the past which seem to inspire several people, so also beginning is Retro, in which an originsl concept is re-used but in a completly different way according as to how the artist wants the audience to see it, but keep it's recognition at the same time.

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Tuesday 17 January 2012

Postmodernism

Modernism-Art

Modernism-Novels

Modernism-Architecture

Monday 16 January 2012

Timeline of Modernism to Postmodernism

Thursday 12 January 2012

Post-Modernism

Modernism