OUGD401 Context of Practice Lecture Modernity and Modernism

This lecture, as you can probably tell, detailed Modernism as an art and design movement by focussing on the social, political and cultural context that the ideals sprung from. This focus on the context of the design movement really interested me and was closely related to the subject of my essay for the first part of this context of practice module. The close relationship (some might say symbiotic relationship) between society in general and the creation of art is fascinating and provides great depth of meaning to design. 

Modernity- the quality of being modern, up to date and contemporary.

Modernism- Early 20th century movement in the arts.

Modernism is mostly found in western culture and grew from a society governed almost entirely by its religions and monarchies. Nobody questioned the church because it was such an accepted part of the social hierarchy of the time. 
1750-1789
Industrialisation, caused by the development of technology, led to mass production which in turn changed the dynamic between the working man and those who owned the businesses.

The enlightenment signalled the dawn of modern philosophy, research and science. Political upheaval especially in France (revolution) sparked the challenging of the status quo and widely accepted beliefs. Secularisation and democratisation start to occur and these new beliefs filtered into and were represented by art and design. 

For example, the development of impressionism (turner) signalled an urge for freedom and did so by depicting not only meaningful images but in such a style as to clearly suggest the thoughts and feelings behind  the piece and how they relate to society at the time.
The development of photography allowed art to become a documentary method. because of the widening gap between the classes often the subjects for this documentation was the poor. In this way art has shown a direct reaction to the cultural awareness of the growing class divide. 

Industrialisation also gave birth to consumerism which many saw as sucking the life out of society. this becomes a great focus for much art and design (Edvard Munck). 

As art became more and more abstract, modernism started to blossom. The designs of the Modernist movement tried to follow the rule 'form follows function' and advocated a great truth to materials and honesty of design. The 'international style' initiated by the bauhaus was created with the thought of uniting the world in design, in the hope that the rest might follow. These beliefs spread from Germany as many designers and thinkers left during and before the war.

Designers following the Modernist doctrine wanted to harness technology to improve people's lives, yet the movement started to become a set of ridged rule. That designers blindly followed. The harnessing of new mass production methods meant that this set of beliefs spread very fast, dragged along by the designed pieces which carried them. Architecture took a prominent role in conveying these ideals because of the way a living space dictates the way you live. Le Corbusier was at the fore front of this.  These ideals became tied up in the hopeful concept of utopia and creating a better if not perfect world through the responsible application of design.

The international style is very minimal and all the design decisions are in the detail and finish. In this way it is easy to see why type is regarded as a modernist obsession.

Arguably the morals that originally made the foundations of the movement have become lost in the face of consumerism. The attention to detail and the expensive materials often used meant that eventually the modernist aesthetic was only available to the rich, possibly showing the failure of the movement.

Really it all comes down to the fact that Modernism is highly idealistic and very difficult to put into practice.