Early modernists saw industrial city life as demanding a fundamentally new art
Evidence
The belief that the new urban and industrial world required also a new kind of art, very different from Romantic nature-worship, is nowhere more clearly expressed than by the painter David Bomberg in the catalogue of his 1914 show: ‘I APPEAL to a Sense of Force … I am searching for an intenser expression … I look upon Nature, while I live in a steel city. Where decoration happens, it is accidental. My object is the construc tion of pure Form.’ — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism, 143
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to Benjamin’s Passagen-Werk and to the broader modernity debate the reader is tracking against Jameson’s postmodernism thesis. — connects to: Modernism emerged from a field spanning semi-industrial economy, fresh invention, and open revolt — Perry Anderson, The Origins of Postmodernity, 217; Modernism emerged from the risky space between past, present, and political future — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism: A Marxist…, 210; Modernism flowered between a usable past, uncertain present, and open future. — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism: A Marxist…, 180 (+8 more)
Broader Connections
- Avant-garde artists framed their work as needed for an impending new era
#expands(0.80) — J. Hoberman, Everything Is Now, 1519 - Modernism emerged from a field spanning semi-industrial economy, fresh invention, and open revolt
#expands(0.75) — Perry Anderson, The Origins of Postmodernity, 217 - Modernism emerged from the risky space between past, present, and political future
#complicates(0.70) — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism, 210 - Modernism flowered between a usable past, uncertain present, and open future.
#responds-to(0.70) — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism, 180