Summary of Text

Harrison, C. and Wood, P (1997) Art in Theory: 1900 – 1990, Oxford, Blackwell, pp 125-9.

Throughout the 1900s there was a new form of art, expressionism, where artists were able to express themselves through the medium.

The start of world war one saw the advent of cubism. As different styles of the European avant-garde’s view of the modern came about, they moved away from the traditional French styles and towards an expressive viewpoint with Cubism. During modernisation the world saw changes in the rise of machinery and the possibilities of production. At the turn of the century the ‘new’ was ousting the old and modernity refers to the social and cultural condition of these objective changes.

Italian poet ‘Marinetti’ brought forward Symbolism and viewed the modern differently and attempted to focus upon change. The responses by artists to modern thinking were all responses to the effects of modernisation. Politics and a century long conflict have ensured that expressionism and Futurism were a response to urban modernity whereas Cubism remained analytical in its style. Cubism developed to post-avant-garde art. Cubism now marks a new era in art, leaving behind 19th century modern art and entering the 20th century with new condition of modern art.