Modernism was a radical shift in art, literature and philosophy in the early 20th century influenced by scientific developments and global events. It questioned what could be truly known about reality and human perception. Major developments in physics with Einstein's theory of relativity and discoveries at the subatomic level challenged traditional views of space, time and matter. The horrors of World War I and developments in psychology with Freud furthered the modernist theme that humans are irrational and reality is ambiguous. Modernist works explored these themes through techniques like stream of consciousness, abstract forms, and nonlinear perspectives that contradicted conventional views of normalcy and perception.

1. Modernism
What is it?
Why did it happen?
Why does it matter?

2. Super Brief History of Thought
• Greeks and Romans
• Middle Ages: church power and the plague
• Renaissance: humanism and exploration
• Protestant Reformation
• Scientific Revolution & Enlightenment:
empiricism

3. What is modernism?
“At the start of the 20th c., continuity snapped”
• radical shift in art, literature and philosophy
• influenced by scientific developments and
global events
• themes
• what do we truly know?

4. What do you see?

5. What do you see?

6. How many legs do you see?

7. Are the horizontal lines
parallel or do they slope?

8. Count the black dots

9. What’s happening?

10. Which line is longer?

11. Modernism in Action
• Significance of images
• Literature
• Art

12. Modernism--Literature
Kafka’s The
Metamorphosis
reality vs
perception
stream of
consciousness
non-linear time

13. William Butler Yeats
“The Second Coming”
“Things fall apart; the centre
cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon
the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is
loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence
is drowned...”

14. Modernism-Art
What is the perception
of normalcy?
abstract: cubism and
surrealism
linear perspective is out

15. Picasso’s Cubism
“Landscape with Bridge” (1909)
“The Guitar Player”

16. Surrealism: Salvador Dali’s
“Persistence of Time (1931)”

17. Dali’s “Face of War” (1940)

18. Fragmentation
M.C. Escher’s “Bond of Union” (1953)

19. M.C. Escher’s “Reptiles” (1943)
What is real?

20. Everything is relative
M.C. Escher’s “Relativity” (1953)

21. Why did Modernism Happen?
• Global Events
• Developments in the “hard” sciences
• Developments in the social sciences

22. Impact of World War I
Disillusion
Why did I
survive? Dehumanization
Mechanized Death
http://www.richthofen.com/france_at_war/premiereligne.jpg

23. Albert Einstein
• theory of relativity (1920)
• space and time relationship
• highway example

24. Uncovering the
subatomic world
• Marie Curie
• atoms are divisible
• radioactivity
• two Nobel Prizes

25. Ivan Pavlov
conditional vs
innate reflexes
no natural laws
sane vs psychotic

26. Development of Psychology
• “father of modern
psychology”
• controversial ideas
• humans are irrational
Sigmund Freud

27. Freud’s Four Important Ideas
behavior is rooted in the unconscious (id)
mind is fragmented into three parts: id,
superego and ego
The Interpretation of Dreams (1900)
competing drives of eros and thanatos

28. Why does it matter?
• Contradicted parts of the Scientific Revolution
• New round: What is human nature?
• Where do we fit in the universe?
• What do I know? Is it possible to know
anything?