Modern to Post Modern Art

[cacian]

Modern Art began with enlightenment and depict a political shift in ideas in that the focus is more on the working class rather then gentry/aristocracy.
post modern is as a follow up from modern in that the idea is culturally motivated ie modern living is being the focus.
so my questions are:
is there a difference between Modern and Post modern?
would you say postmodern is more caricaturist and therefore less of it is modern?

[MorpheusSandman]

Er, I think you have both terms completely confused. Modernism started as a reaction to Romanticism, especially Victorian literature. The dominant ideal of Modernism was the invention and promotion of new forms and the destruction of old forms. So, eg, free-verse was emphasized over traditional verse forms. Another major feature of Modernism was the depiction of fractured, fragmented perspectives, styles, and genres, so not only were old forms destroyed, the distinctions between them were blurred, distorted, and synthesized. Perhaps the work that best illustrates this is TS Eliot's The Waste Land, with it's multitude of voices, styles, modes, genres, and literary allusions. Modernism saw this fragmentation as a crisis that needed to be dealt with, that was in need of a solution. TS Eliot, eg, may have thought that the fragmentation of modern life could be resolved through the lens of culture and history, so all of the allusions give an underlying, universal context to everything within the poem. Modernism felt you could create a new, coherent, synthesized "meaning" from all the chaos, while maintaining certain distinctions like, eg, "low" VS "high" art.

Postmodernism employed a lot of the same devices as modernism, but it criticized the notion that fragmentation was a "problem" to be "solved," and, in fact, it sought to show how such a solution was impossible. So while, eg, a PM work might feature the same kind of fragmentation as a M work, the PM would not try to synthesize those fragments into a coherent whole. It would prefer to simply let the fragments exist in all their irreconcilable, paradoxical juxtapositions. In PM there are no ultimate, universal meanings, there are only relative perspectives, and ambiguities within texts and works that disallow for any kind of absolute coherency. PM critical theory sought to show this in several ways. Deconstruction, eg, might take a work and show how certain elements could be read in two mutually exclusive ways, and how this "destabilized" meaning to a point we could not choose between them.

It's not always clear where the line between M and PM is, and it's not always clear when an artist is attempting to synthesize fragments into a greater, coherent, universal whole, and when they're insisting that no greater, coherent, universal whole can be achieved. Eliot said that "these fragments I have shored against my ruins," which sounds M, but Pound (in his Cantos) said "I cannot make it cohere," which sounds PM. We don't always have these clear pointers as a guide, though. Such things tends to be true of artistic movements. It's not entirely clear where the line between Classicism and Romanticism is either, or Romanticism and Modernism. Such things are retrospective, post hoc labels that we assign, even though art tends to evolve artist to artist, generation to generation in increments, rather than clean breaks between movements.

[stlukesguild]

To a great extent you are correct in suggesting that the Modern Era begins with the Enlightenment. We might argue that the real moment of conception coincides with Gutenberg's press. As the center of economic power shifts from the Church and the Aristocracy to the masses of merchants, manufacturers, and tradesmen the arts naturally follow the money.

"Modernism" and "Post-Modernism", however, as distinct artistic movements, are something else altogether. As MorpheusS suggests, these sort of labels (Modernism, Post-Modernism, Neo-Classicism, Renaissance, Baroque, etc...) are largely assigned after the fact... and not so clearly defined. These terms become even more confusing when applied to various art forms. Shakespeare is commonly referred to as part of the English Renaissance, yet the period in the visual arts and music would have fallen under the Baroque. The 18th century in literature becomes the "Late Baroque", the Gallante Style, and Classicism in music and the Rococo, Neo-Classicism, and nascent Romanticism in the visual arts.

As you spoke of Modern "Art" I'll suggest that there are many differences of opinion as to when this began. Some would place its inception with Courbet and the "Realists" who based their art solely upon what the "real" world in which they lived. Others... myself included... place the birth of Modernism in Art with the Impressionists... a period in which the subject matter was drawn from the everyday world... subjects such as nightclubs, cabaret, circuses, brothels, train stations, or the everyday landscapes (as opposed to grandiose Romantic landscapes). The period also saw the impact of new technologies including photography, mass-produced paints sold in tubes, artificial lights, etc... Still others place the birth of Modernism with Picasso... specifically his painting, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon.

Modernism in art is characterized by less of a focus on subject matter and more upon how it is realized or perceived: fragmented in the eyes of the Cubist, as a means of conveying the inner feelings of the artist in the eyes of the Expressionists, etc... Modernism stresses "new" approaches to painting/sculpture, dismisses the long-held notion that the goal of art was to mimic visual reality and argued instead that painting, for example, was essentially an organization of colors and shapes and lines on a flat surface. Modern Art opened the artist to the appreciation of Art that had been long ignored: the art of children, medieval art, folk art, Non-Western Art (the art of China, Japan, the Middle-East, Africa, etc...). The last Hurrah of Modernism is generally thought of as being found in the work of the American Abstract Expressionists.

Post-Modernism is characterized as rejecting many of the values of Modernism. The Post-Modernist artist feels free to appropriate styles from across the whole of art history as opposed to the need to "make it new". Post-Modernism is a Mannerist period. While Modernism was not devoid of humor and satire, Post-Modernism thrives on it... and irony. Modernism retained Romantic aspirations... a belief that they were heading into a brave new world of ever expanding possibilities. Post Modernists tend to be more cynical... careerists rejecting the possibility that art may have any higher calling... any political/social impact. They tend to be more pessimistic in their world view... struggling to come to terms with (and /or deconstruct) the innovations of Modernism as opposed to being stridently forward thinking.

Again, as has already been suggested, such characteristics offer but a rough guideline. Most contemporary artists employ elements of both Modernism and Post-Modernism... as well as those of earlier traditions (the Renaissance, the Baroque, Classicism, etc...).

[cacian]

thank you both for your posts very informative.
if you do have a particular painting of these two eras that you like please could you post it. If not that is fine too :)

[stlukesguild]

Early Modernism

Claude Monet:

http://augrenierdantan.a.u.pic.centerblog.net/22e116b4.jpg

The subject matter was drawn from the everyday world... subjects such as everyday landscapes... the artist's wife and child. The artist makes use of new modern developments such as oil paint in tubes. Painting is still seen as a mirror of reality... but the paint handling begins to fragment this illusion while the exaggerated colors point to the notion that art is "artificial".

Modernism:

Paul Gauguin:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/35/Gauguin_Il_Cristo_giallo.jpg/300px-Gauguin_Il_Cristo_giallo.jpg

Vincent Van Gogh:

http://www.openaccess.edu.au/newsletter/term2_issue4/images/starry-night_sm.jpg

Edouard Vuillard:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-b91yRkPgNW8/TbQ8XnNE89I/AAAAAAAABvM/h_2D1tNx8tI/s400/Vuillard+-+Madre+e+figlio.jpg

By this time artists had even further removed from the idea that painting was essentially a mirror of visual reality. As the painter, Maurice Denis famously declared, "Remember that a picture, before being a battle horse, a nude, an anecdote or whatnot, is essentially a flat surface covered with colors assembled in a certain order." The paintings are flatter. The brush work draws attention to the art as opposed to rendering the subject. Colors are exaggerated even further. The artists are borrowing stylistic elements from Japanese Ukiyo-e prints, Medieval painting and sculpture, Egyptian art, folk art... and other non-traditional/non-Western art sources.

High Modernism:

Henri Matisse:

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5201/5358751785_457530917e_z.jpg

Pablo Picasso:

http://www.nationalgalleries.org/media/_source/exhibitions_2007/pop__still_life_with_a_glass_under_lamplight.jpg

Wassily Kandinsky:

http://www.invisiblebooks.com/KandinskyComposition%20VIISketch913.jpg

There is little or no concern at this point for adhering to visual reality. When confronted by a critic who proclaimed, "Monsieur Matisse, the arm on that woman is entirely too long;" Matisse would respond, "Oh but Madame, I fear you are mistaken, for that is not a woman, but a painting." Painting was seen as having its own interior logic that need not have anything whatsoever to do with visual reality. Picasso freely fragments and reinvents the still life images and figures he paints, while Matisse hasn't the slightest concern for the true local color of the subjects he paints. What matters is how the colors harmonize within the painting. Kandinsky eliminates any attempt at capturing an illusion of reality... or even an allusion to reality. All of these artists were fully aware of their role as Modernists... audaciously and optimistically stretching the boundaries of art.

Late Modernism:

Jackson Pollock:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/fa/Autumn_Rhythm.jpg

Arshille Gorky:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Ti53X5y2074/UBIPHVyPNeI/AAAAAAAAMo8/U2mhrSAqvIE/s640/Gorky_The_Liver_is_the_Cocks_Comb_1944.jpg

Willem DeKooning:

http://www.moma.org/images/dynamic_content/exhibition_page/53598.jpg?1374095343

The "Last Hurrah" of High Modernism was found in the work of the American Abstract Expressionists. These artists built upon idea of allowing the subconscious to take the lead... a concept gleaned from Surrealism and Freud. The idea was to give a permanence of form to the expressive gesture. There was also a love of spontaneity... akin the the jazz music of the age that fueled many of the artists. While Europe dealt with the sense of shock wrought by the war (WWII) America reveled in unrivaled dynamism. The paintings took on a grand or even epic scale concurrent with American aspirations.

Post-Modernism:

Andy Warhol:

https://d44ytnim3cfy5.cloudfront.net/assets/3683510/lightbox/andy-warhol-marilyn.jpg?1307334164

Roy Lichtenstein:

http://blog.modernica.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/roy-lichtenstein-1962-art-oil-con-canvas-91-x-173-cm1.jpg

http://uploads3.wikipaintings.org/images/roy-lichtenstein/yellow-and-green-brushstrokes-1966.jpg

David Salle:

http://classconnection.s3.amazonaws.com/407/flashcards/1249407/jpg/331336075317114.jpg

Eric Fischl:

http://bombsite.com/images/attachments/0001/0071/fischl4_body.jpg

Odd Nerdrum:

http://25.media.tumblr.com/31c94e9d310961f71cc05414d3afd89d/tumblr_mjipauXu3Z1qj9oszo1_500.jpg

Jeff Koons:

http://www.mas-applied-history.uzh.ch/curriculum2012/sem3/modul1-3/broad_inaugural_12.jpg

Takashi Murakami:

http://www.designsigh.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/murakami_brooklyn_museum9.jpg

Lucian Freud:

http://family-values.ru/files/p1690/lusien_freud9_jpg_4614.jpg

Will Cotton:

http://p2.storage.canalblog.com/21/75/462698/34170894.jpg

While Modernism employed a vast array of stylistic elements, Post-Modernism includes such stylistic variety as to be virtually impossible to define. A few common threads include the rejection of the high serious aspirations of Modernism and the willingness to embrace comedy, satire, irony, and imagery drawn from "low culture": Hollywood, Rock Music, comic books, kitsch, and even pornography. Post-Modernism embraces the whole of art history and rather than attempting to "make it new" (which they no longer believe is possible) the Post_Modern artist freely appropriates older styles. Some, such as David Salle or Gerhard Richter freely employ multiple styles.

[JBI]

Visual arts are generally a few decades faster than the rest of the forms when it comes to adapting to a new style. This is followed by music and then by other forms. Literature is generally harder to develop as it has a harder time getting an audience. In truth, the most successful (in terms of sales) English writers and poets tend to be the ones who use existing forms. So, we would say, Shakespeare cashed in more than earlier playwrights, Pope more than Dryden, Byron more than Colerdige, Frost more than Pound, or whatever.

We as an audience take some time to get used to the new forms or movements. The Waste Land would not have been well received published during the First world war, i would wager.

In terms of art this may be true as well, I am not sure, but generally the physical work draws a better history, as art historians look for forerunners. Very few of the mass public will look for forerunner modernist novels or whatever (though they exist). It takes much effort to go through literary works, and people usually just want the most famous. So Henry James' works are regarded more as late realism, despite being very much more like modernism, particularly works like What Maisie Knew.

Still, my understanding of English literature (including the New World) in modernism is one of bitterness and loss, and then Post-Modernism as one of irony about the loss, and generally a cynical lack of meaning. Modernism can be called a great pessimism that starts at the end of the Enlightenment (Schopenhauer) and culminates generally in the displacement, destruction and death of the old world. Post-modernism takes this in an ironic direction, and now post-post-modernism is looking for new "meanings" and cohesion within this chaos.

This is my general understanding of cross world modernism, generally first displacement, then lack of cohesion, cultural trauma, a loss of sincerity, and an anxiety about the world. Someone like Pope could write about the perfection of the world, but I do not think anybody in the modern period could write like that, and certainly in the post-modern period nobody could do so without being totally ironic.

In that sense Rothko seems the perfected embodiment of this negative energy, especially in how eerily his colors meld into each other as a form of visual static. The negativity of experience, and then personal trauma generally carried these painters from destruction through depression, and then into a general cynicism.

Post-modernism tries to find a sort of cohesion through irony and humor. But even then, it is difficult to read such a decadent form. Underworld as a novel is interesting in idea more than in execution. Pynchon is generally hard to get through, and his irony gets tiring very quickly as all irony gets.

I think generally these past 30 years have shown a public desire for sincerity. Certainly authors have already picked up on it. The best example being Chabon, who has done an about face of modernism and returned to a sort of Romanticism. We are heading in a sense, to a rejection of post-modernist pessimism and irony in favor rather of positivity. I guess knowing how awful the world is, and was (and believe me, any historian will tell you the world was god awful even 50 years ago) is rather disheartening, and now people want to know firstly how positive things are, and how good the world either can be, or is. That generally marks our preoccupation with the simple arcs of love stories, or even the current mass fascination with super-heroes. They aren't just eye candy, they are meant to show a sort of sincere heroism on the screen that can tell somebody, I am proud to believe in American ideals, and I am proud to make a difference and belong to a world where good exists.

[MorpheusSandman]

...the most successful (in terms of sales) English writers and poets tend to be the ones who use existing forms. So, we would say... Byron (cashed in more) more than Colerdige...Byron cashing in more than Coleridge had far more to due with his celebrity than the fact that he used existing forms, since Coleridge used existing forms too. What's more, Byron wrote in so many different forms and genres, some classical and well-established, others more modern/radical, that I think it's impossible to attribute his sales/popularity to that.


Post-modernism tries to find a sort of cohesion through irony and humor.I don't think PM thinks that irony and humor creates cohesion, but rather I think irony and humor is their reaction to the realization that cohesion is impossible. It's more of a "let's not stress about this fragmentation, let's just play with it." In a way, PM strikes me as a reversion to childlike sensibilities, one in which all of the weighty concerns of M are replaced with a "kids in a sandbox" mentality. Irony and humor are, after all, the effects of putting yourself outside of the concerns of what's being observed, an "I refuse to be bound up in the emotional/philosophic plights of those I'm depicting."


Pynchon is generally hard to get through, and his irony gets tiring very quickly as all irony gets.I don't think it's the irony itself as it is the way the irony is handled. I don't find, eg, that the irony in Jane Austen, Shakespeare, or, to use a different medium, Hitchcock gets old because they tend to be more subtle about it. So much of PM seems to beat the audience over the head with the irony, like they're scared to death the audience won't get it. It creates the affect of a laughing doofus beside you screaming "isn't it ironic? It's so ironic! Because it's not serious or literal! See how ironic it is?! Please see it!" Austen allows a reader to read her novels as romance novels, and obviously so many do this if adaptations are anything to go by, but her irony becomes apparent as soon as one stops to reflect on it. The problem with PM irony is that it thrusts irony onto the reader/viewer rather than letting the reader/viewer pick up on the irony in retrospect or upon close consideration.


I think generally these past 30 years have shown a public desire for sincerity. Certainly authors have already picked up on it. The best example being Chabon, who has done an about face of modernism and returned to a sort of Romanticism. We are heading in a sense, to a rejection of post-modernist pessimism and irony in favor rather of positivity. There is a term called Transmodernism that seeks to reconcile M, PM, with preM. I don't know too terribly much about it, but I know that it criticizes PM's nihilism, pessimism, and belief that we cannot find new universal meanings; and it criticizes M's rejection of old forms and traditions. It definitely seems to harken back to the sincerity of Romanticism. From what little I know, I rather like it in general, though I'd have issues with its emphasis on religion/spirituality and rejection of relativism. I think we can create coherent meanings and integrate systems without resorting to magical thinking or ignoring the fact that most things are relative to some degree.

[JBI]

In general we can say for the west, the last major earthshaking crisis was the Vietnam war. There has been nothing so destructive to the establishment in the past 40-odd years than that conflict. For the generation before, you had two world wars back to back. You had the idea of growing up without parents, or with war or death eminent. I get the feeling that the post 80s generations generally did not have this experience. This sort of negative world, dominated by a preoccupation with mutually assured destruction and war simply did not direct our thoughts.

You get something similar in China - the general population did not have the traumatic experience of Maoist era floods, famines and cultural purges. The post 1980 generations have generally lived in the most optimistic country and time perhaps in history, and being the only child in their families, got all the love and opportunities. Most don't even know what happened in the cultural revolution.

So in a sense, I see in the old generation of Chinese authors, exemplified by Mo Yan, who grew up with nothing, and made their careers breaking into taboo subjects and redeeming culture from the clutches of tyranny. Yet the new generation is not capable of understanding. The new generation does not know what happened to them - it's as if they were struck completely from history. To the new generation, we have the typical Asian my country is the best, regardless of the government. You've got the mass chanting and exercises in front of the flag every morning, and the oaths of allegiance that come with it, yet none of the irony behind that.

If we take the united states as a counter example, I don't think you could convince the intellectual base of the country (lets say anyone over 40) anything about how these oaths and anthems are anything but a form of propaganda. And the general younger population has carried on a sort of distrust of government and institutions, and a general fear of having their freedoms violated.

You get the sense that the idea of post-modernism is one of growing up, realizing the big world is richer and more terrible in culture and experience than your own insignificant place within it. Reading history books for me was an experience of utter bitterness, knowing that the death, famine, violence, poverty, disease and cultural madness have been and are in many places accepted as a natural phenomenon. Auden I think gets around this the most in terms of literature, with the idea that Achilles shield is actually an instrument of terror. Owen gets around nationalism well, but doesn't end up reapplying it the way late modernists do (Yeats does it quite well in Leda and the Swan).

We live in a rather terrible world, and in many ways, literature is used as a coping mechanism. The general idea of the novel is one of unifying, and mass reception. It's no surprise that the novel generally killed all local culture in many countries (certainly in China, most of Europe, North America, Japan etc) and created national cultures. Post-modernism in a sense was a rejection of this for nothing, with a deep distrust of the simple fact that nations are murderers, the bigger and powerful more so than others.

As for my comment on using irony to form cohesion, I meant in the sense that when there is no meaning left, irony creates a stand in medium. Lack of cohesion actually takes on a meaning of itself. This is different than something like Jane Austen's irony, in that Austen relies on established norms and attitudes to ironize into - she will ironically mock Mr. Collins, but he in a sense is given a narrative positivity by the fact the book is as much a celebration of people's flaws as it is of marriage and the institutions that govern social norms. The same way a comedy of manners in general does not take it to the level where we say manners are all nonsense. It is generally the biggest sticklers for these manners and norms that like this kind of irony - the rich social elite watching a Wilde play, or the hopeful unmarried women reading an Austen novel.

Irony itself as a coping mechanism didn't hold out long - maybe 30 or 40 years. I suspect that is responsible for the dry spell in literature. In the US you basically have utter shock and revulsion to the First World War, then a second Trauma on its back in the Second world war, then for the next generation you draft them to go die again in an even less meaningless war - the conclusion of which rather than add to their sense of accomplishment of overcoming foes, is generally looked at as a dark and pessimistic experience of murder. We have the soldier reduced to the position of mass-murderer, and the government as not much better. The dignity of the death at war (and there is a dignity of serving for your country, regardless of the lack of dignity of the war) is muffled by the cries of a country, establishment and culture that basically looks down in shame and revulsion of anything relating to Vietnam.

That generation is still around, yet their numbers are dwindling. The new generation lacks this. They grew up on fast food, rap music and the internet. I think it is not so much that life has no meaning, but that the have generation does not like the cynicism of their have not fathers. Readers to seem to share the sentiment - could you even sell Vietnam era works and fiction today? I doubt it. Nobody wants to here it, they think it's ugly.

[stlukesguild]

In terms of art this may be true as well, I am not sure, but generally the physical work draws a better history, as art historians look for forerunners.

To an extent, this may be true. An artist such as Cezanne becomes central to art history because he is central to the narrative of Modernism... the precursor to Cubism. But in reality, Cezanne had nothing whatsoever to do with Cubism and had Cubism never happened he still would have been a marvelous painter. The merits of his paintings don't lie in their establishing the precursor to later innovations.

There is an article by the critic Peter Schjeldahl which relates his experience of happening upon Carl Andre's Equivalent VIII:

http://wlal.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/carl-andre-equivalent-viii.jpg?w=584

This notorious Minimalist work was "constructed" of nothing more than a pile of bricks. Schjeldahl happens upon the work in a gallery and thinks nothing of it... until he has a sudden epiphany. He thinks: "This may just be my moment!" Just as Greenberg has "discovered" Abstract Expressionism, and Lawrence Alloway and Leo Castelli had "discovered" Pop Art, Schjeldahl wonders if he has not been the first to recognize a truly new artistic style. His whole essay is about himself... his delusions of grandeur... and have little to do with any aesthetic merits one way of the other in Andre's work.

Being the forerunner, however, is of limited importance. The fact that Rembrandt, Rubens, Velazquez, and Vermeer build upon earlier innovations in the Baroque in no way undermines their work or keeps them from being recognized as the greatest practitioners of Baroque painting.

Very few of the mass public will look for forerunner modernist novels or whatever (though they exist). It takes much effort to go through literary works, and people usually just want the most famous.

Honestly, how many fans of Impressionism can really identify the precursors of the movement? And if we ask the average person about Pop Art they will likely know Andy Warhol... who was a latecomer and one of the least original figures of the movement. Indeed, most will not recognize that this very American art movement actually began in Britain.


This is my general understanding of cross world modernism, generally first displacement, then lack of cohesion, cultural trauma, a loss of sincerity, and an anxiety about the world... In that sense Rothko seems the perfected embodiment of this negative energy, especially in how eerily his colors meld into each other as a form of visual static. The negativity of experience, and then personal trauma generally carried these painters from destruction through depression, and then into a general cynicism.

There is a great deal of trauma, depression, etc... in Modernist literature. This is surely true if one thinks of Kafka, T.S. Eliot, Hemingway, Faulkner, etc... There's the whole "Lost Generation" thing. But I don't see this as having a great of an impact on the visual arts. Rothko is a true latecomer to Modernism... coming of age at the very moment of the shift toward Post-Modernism in the form of Pop Art and the Neo-Duchamp/Neo-Dada work of Johns and Rauschenberg. But Dada was really a minor movement... and along with the Post-WWI German artists of the New Objectivity Movement offered one of the few world views marked by trauma, cynicism, horror, etc... The central Modernists: Picasso, Matisse, Klee, Kandinsky, etc... may have had moments of negativity... but this is not the main feeling one gets from their work which in many ways is very optimistic and forward-looking.

I don't think it's the irony itself as it is the way the irony is handled. I don't find, eg, that the irony in Jane Austen, Shakespeare, or, to use a different medium, Hitchcock gets old because they tend to be more subtle about it. So much of PM seems to beat the audience over the head with the irony, like they're scared to death the audience won't get it. It creates the affect of a laughing doofus beside you screaming "isn't it ironic? It's so ironic! Because it's not serious or literal! See how ironic it is?! Please see it!"

I don't think PM thinks that irony and humor creates cohesion, but rather I think irony and humor is their reaction to the realization that cohesion is impossible. It's more of a "let's not stress about this fragmentation, let's just play with it." In a way, PM strikes me as a reversion to childlike sensibilities, one in which all of the weighty concerns of M are replaced with a "kids in a sandbox" mentality. Irony and humor are, after all, the effects of putting yourself outside of the concerns of what's being observed, an "I refuse to be bound up in the emotional/philosophic plights of those I'm depicting.

Yes... there is a good deal of this to Post-Modernism. In one of the first books on Post-Modernist Art and Architecture there was an essay... I believe it was by Umberto Eco... in which he contrasts the older tradition with Modernism with Post-Modernism. The lover of the older tradition simply says to his loved one, "I love you." The Modernist needs to find a new way to say the same thing. The Post-Modernist says "As the bard once said, 'I love you.' "

In other words, the Post-Modernist wants to say "I love you"... but that would be cliche... even if put into a new Modern form. Thus he has to be ironic... not say what he wants to say directly but rather appropriate the words of another. But even this is not enough. He must let the audience in on the fact that he is appropriating these words... and that the sentiment he is expressing is clearly cliche. Ultimately, the Post-Modernist does indeed come off as a doofus... a well-educated doofus that is overly proud of his knowledge and who thinks entirely too much.

[cacian]

Stlukes I have to say I feel the pile of bricks as anything but art. minimalist expressionism should not be about a shape and its visual. it should be about the interior feelings and how it draws people to realise that less is nothing and not less is more.

[JBI]

Stlukes I have to say I feel the pile of bricks as anything but art. minimalist expressionism should not be about a shape and its visual. it should be about the interior feelings and how it draws people to realise that less is nothing and not less is more.

Says a poster who cannot write a coherent sentence. Oh the irony, quite post modern of you.

[JBI]

St. Lukes, do you think the fact that the US never got hit really, in terms of physical violence (Pearl Harbor being an isolated example) had something to do with the optimism that you claim prevailed within the cultural transition from First through post 2nd world war? I have a gut feeling that in terms of post-modernism as the ironizing of all grand visions, the US has rather held on quite tightly to an inherent cultural sense of identity - in that the country as a whole, and the culture in general seems to still take itself seriously. This confidence in superiority and in a nationalist mythology seems to have really taken a beating elsewhere.

In China for example, the modernist period is incredibly negative, and iconoclastic. Strangely Mao is one of the greatest cultural protectors in comparison, in that he actually gave a new vision to a people beaten by time, war, and famine, and converted it into a cultural sense of purpose comparable to the US after the American Civil War.

Japan's modernist transition basically shifted to a form of intense military fascism in keeping with all the modern demons of imperialism and war that catch onto national emergence. But like the United States they somehow retained their sense of international isolation, and went full circle back to a nationalist mythology of clean superior, modern, advanced, civilized.

I think as a culture in general, the American public actually believes in a sort of significance of the "Shot heard Around the World" and all other images of the American cultural legacy. The tarnishing of the history by violence, racism, and many other horrors seems to have not actually eroded the resolve of the established myth. The criticism we find in the US is not the sort of criticism we see as anti-establishment, or iconoclastic, but rather a covering up, and a shifting of cultural responsibilities. In that sense, the public of the US, from my understanding sees something like the Vietnam war from a "Bring our sons home, they should not be dying there in the jungle for no reason" which is true, but not as post-nationalist (or post-modern) as "get out of Vietnam, we are killing innocent civilians to a toll of 5+million".

The first one, has a sort of redemption for the culture of war, in that it ignores the true victims, and instead makes something heroic and tragic of the means of the perpetration. This enables a sort of self-centered culture to continue, without actually having the sympathy for the rest of the world. This in a sense is the end of a myth of the benevolence of government, perhaps, but not of an American myth of purpose, which is what it should have been.

As a mainstream movement, we are still completely romantic in perspective and understanding of our artistic world. We see art, regardless of age, through a romantic lens, however jaded we are. Post-modernism should probably just be dismissed as a gimmick from the cold-war that didn't really work well. A sort of bad cultural experiment.

Now, that being said, in this post-modern era we totally see the emergence of world literatures that are more or less nationalist in perspective. Marquez, for instance, is very much held as a cultural, or area specific author, rather than a local author. In that sense we could say the cohesion that was supposed to come with globalization did not really relieve borders, but rather allowed us to peak over the fence. Marquez is very much a modernist author, in line with what Faulkner started. His world is very much the same as Faulkner's Mississippi in a different setting and time. Something like Midnight's Children is also very much a modernist continuation of the same form of story. These are all good authors, mind you, but they never "post" modernized.

In that sense, I am waiting for an American novelist who is not an American novelist. The country seems to hover over every book, and every author. The same can be said for Canada, and much of Europe, and surely China as well. We live in a world where ardent nationalism is making a big comeback. The gimmicks of post-modernism essentially evaporated.

I am very curious how somebody now could write as an international author, since all I have seen has indicated the opposite as a trend. Even something like the Nobel prize has become a nationalized contest, with Mo Yan not winning, but China winning, or Turkey, or Sweden, or France, or wherever. All this is rooted in the great nationalist novels of history, the most successful being undoubtedly War and Peace - the Prokofiev Opera, however brilliant, is even more so nationally proud.

So in my estimate, novel post-modernism, or literary post-modernism is very much a rebounding of nationalism, especially as it transpired from the late 70s. It seems the Regan years, or in Canada's case, the Trudeau years, or the Thatcher years, or the Deng Xiaoping years really hit home with the message that the nation is back and heavily present in the background. Post-colonialism could be argued to be doing something very similar in the post-empire world. Surely we as readers seem to be looking for as much.

A somewhat off topic question for American posters, but do American school children actually recite the pledge of allegiance every day?

[MorpheusSandman]

Ultimately, the Post-Modernist does indeed come off as a doofus... a well-educated doofus that is overly proud of his knowledge and who thinks entirely too much.Do you find any exceptions to this? I can think of a few, yet most of them seem to me now, upon reflection, perhaps more Transmodern than PM. I've often heard James Merrill referred to as PM. Specifically, people point to a relatively early poem (The Butterfly, IIRC) in which he breaks off mid-way to discuss his habit of turning everything into "allegory and symbolism," and what he wouldn't give to be plain-spoken. So people often say that "that fractured self-awareness is very PM." Yet I found the tone of it distinctly different to most PM. In Merrill it felt quite organic, as if he was using this awareness to seriously analyze himself and his art. There's a wonderful study on Merrill called Knowing Innocence that suggests something along the lines of finding a balance between the "knowing" world of PM and the "innocent" world of, say, romantic sincerity. Maybe that's why I find myself drawn to him more than most PMists.


I think I find something similar in the PM of Godard. Godard may have been the exemplar of PM techniques and tones, but he also clearly cared very deeply about cinema and politics, so when he's using cinema to critique cinema, it feels, strangely, both sincere and ironic, or perhaps one could say it's sincere and ironic on different levels; ironic in what's being depicted, but sincere in what's being said through that irony. Yet even in Godard there is often too much of that "well-educated doofus... who thinks too much." He hated, eg, allowing the audience to indulge in any emotional catharsis and wanted them constantly aware that they were watching a work of fiction that had "designs" on them.

One thing that occurred to me is that perhaps this PMist attitude towards irony is intended to shield them from criticisms of unoriginality? A way to say "see, I know where all this comes from, so you can't call me unoriginal!"? Call it a kind of proleptic artistry.

[cacian]

Says a poster who cannot write a coherent sentence. Oh the irony, quite post modern of you.

what is it you do not like about what I said?
I may not write a coherent sentence but I do initiate coherent threads such as this one for you to get the opportunity to criticise me.
I may not be an artist but I have an opinion when it comes to a pile of bricks. from where I am standing it looks like someone has come to the end of a road or shall I say the pavement. art is not a formality it is a statement.
concrete does not have a statement. it has hard labour written on it.
minimalism according to my understanding is something that indulges in minimalist ideas to encourage creativity and not halt it. this pile of bricks sends the idea that art is a visual manuscript upon which weight is thrown upon.
minimalism should initiate small overtures/steps that lead to a different level of artistic thinking. for example use a single colour to portray a single idea. minimalist is a miniaturist.
a single stroke of brush to convey a single thought. that is minimalism for me.
in other word small but precise or small but intensive.

[mortalterror]

A somewhat off topic question for American posters, but do American school children actually recite the pledge of allegiance every day?

They did when I was in school. It's a nice little ritual that reinforces principles and binds a community together. Reminds me a lot of how we used to say the Lord's Prayer in Sunday school. Just replace the cross with a flag, and forgiveness with liberty and they might as well be the same thing. The Muslim thrice daily call to prayer must create a rock hard sense of cultural identity. Singing a national anthem at the occassional ball game probably can't begin to compare.

[JBI]

Modern Art began with enlightenment and depict a political shift in ideas in that the focus is more on the working class rather then gentry/aristocracy.
Meaning that modern art began as an enlightened movement, or the Enlightenment - what does it mean to be enlightened? and depict - what depicts modern art? a political shift in ideas that the focus is more on the working class rather than gentry/aristocracy - are we talking about the enlightenment here, or about modern art? IS this political shift of modern art actually even concerned with the gentry or aristocratic classes?


post modern is as a follow up from modern in that the idea is culturally motivated ie modern living is being the focus.

Post modern (as in post modernism?) from modernism? in that the idea is culturally motivated (what cultural movement is not culturally motivated?) what art form in any time period does not focus on modern living, and do you leave articles out and use the passive tense to confuse people? a rewrite of a still mediocre point would be "post modernism was a follow up to modernism, shifting its focus from (unknown) to modern living."


so my questions are:
is there a difference between Modern and Post modern?

Didn't you just say there was? Also, remember, either use an article such as the, or switch the word to an ism to indicate the movement. An adjectival phrase such as post modern does not behave well when used as a noun. It confuses.


would you say postmodern is more caricaturist and therefore less of it is modern?
Post modernism again, and caricaturist is a noun, meaning somebody who draws caricatures. The sentence as a whole lacks cohesion in the lack of connectivity between caricature and a concept (which you did not define, and questioned if it could be defined) such as modernism. You did not say how caricature as a form, genre, or approach has any bearing on the nature of a work being "modern" or "post modern", or even how such a thing is mixed with a change to a focus on modern living, or a movement away from focusing on gentry or aristocratic classes. There is no agreement between any of your sentences, and the points they make, grammar and diction forgiven, lack any logical cohesion. I am not trying to insult you, merely point out this is something you have in common with quite a few so called "post modern" authors.

I assume my esteem for such authors comes out clearly in my post. But critical judgment aside, lack of cohesive structure, meaning, and form are very much post-modern ideas. The Pynchon world is that of the static on the TV screen, and the dislocation of people within a setting that isolates them. The lack of meaning, cohesion, or form is something that pretty much comes out as an idea in modernism, particularly in T. S. Eliot, though Eliot himself would not only at least rely on form for some sort of cohesion (he didn't break fully with form) and eventually about face and return to formal work (using his Waste Land structure to create the greatest triumph in my eyes of his career, his Four Quartets). If we wish to talk about shifts in thoughts and attitudes, I think these two works would in general be a pretty good place to start, as a contrast between Scattered Images (regardless of the lame ending of the Waste Land and the underserved Shantihs) and the coming together of the Fire and the Rose.

I think in general narratives of loss, and trauma seem to be redeemed through a sort of revelation. This theme is constant at least through Canadian literature, where the post-modern idea is essentially to rewrite history through historical fiction, as a way of reclaiming the power over narrative. I see the ending of Roth's The Human Stain, and to an extent American Pastoral as something similar.

The English modernist preoccupation seems to me about loss. Eliot, Woolf, Joyce (Portrait of the Artist and Dubliners), Fitzgerald, Hemingway etc. all seem to be focusing on this theme. To an extent culturally, regardless of whatever turn of phrase we choose, we are still reliant on a classical idea of overcoming loss, and hope, which is generally the main trend of Western literature (be it Sophacles, Jesus, Milton, Shakespeare or whomever).

It is an interesting idea to think of western literature without a sort of solace at the end - a form of happy conclusion, or movement beyond the trauma into catharsis. As readers throughout Western literature, public and critical tastes have always shown a preference for positive resolution. That probably is why Post-modernism cannot fully embrace lack of meaning - Vonnegut in a sense is more gimmick than novel. Cat's Cradle is not a moving or even enjoyable piece of literature. The Crying of Lot 49 in a sense understands that in the actual idea of Crying for lot 49 - we need a sense of purpose and resolution to keep us going in a bleak and meaningless world.

I guess to an extent we can say modernism and post-modernism really are just continuations of their forerunners, with evolution in liberalizing form rather than in changing our focus. The backbone of Western culture seems to have been laid out in Greece and the Middle East, and not changed much. That's why you can call Shakespeare post modern, or modern, or classical, or romantic, or whatever other phrase you choose. We as a civilization are incredibly unoriginal.

[cacian]

pedantic is an art form only those concerned quiz over it.
I admire your indepth knowledge and your dedication to such a wide subject that is art. and I am no way near informed as you as are with arts and its rendition. you dedication is outstanding.
how do you get to chose between what you think is art or ought to be and what they tell it is?
and thank you for taking time to go through my posts and clarifying your concerns. It helps me understand the English speaker more. :)

[stlukesguild]

JBI- In general we can say for the west, the last major earthshaking crisis was the Vietnam war. There has been nothing so destructive to the establishment in the past 40-odd years than that conflict. For the generation before, you had two world wars back to back. You had the idea of growing up without parents, or with war or death eminent. I get the feeling that the post 80s generations generally did not have this experience. This sort of negative world, dominated by a preoccupation with mutually assured destruction and war simply did not direct our thoughts.

You get the sense that the idea of post-modernism is one of growing up, realizing the big world is richer and more terrible in culture and experience than your own insignificant place within it. Reading history books for me was an experience of utter bitterness, knowing that the death, famine, violence, poverty, disease and cultural madness have been and are in many places accepted as a natural phenomenon.

I've long had a sense that this lack of exposure to the truly horrific (whether it be the two world wars, Korea, Vietnam, the Cold war and the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Great Depression, etc...) has resulted in a generation that has little grasp of history, the larger world, and real politik, and in some ways strike me as adolescent in mentality... believing continually in their own exceptionality and the exceptionality of the era. I just happened to browse on the comments on a story concerning the current American involvement in Syria and came across several posters ranting of the military superiority of Iraq to the US. I don't know how many times I have come upon comments regarding the current recession that proclaim it as the end of Capitalism, the end of the West, the worst event in the whole of history.

We live in a rather terrible world, and in many ways, literature is used as a coping mechanism.

I've always had the feeling that Dickens was right: "It was the best of times; it was the worst of times." World War I, World War II, the Great Depression, the American Civil War... these all strike me as terrible times. Honestly... if we look at the Renaissance it was a rather horrific period. You had the Inquisition, the Expulsion of the Jews from Spain, the Black Death, the Witch Hunts, the Sack of Rome, the 100 Years War, etc... These events are not ignored by the artists or the time... but neither do they fixate upon the negative.

The dignity of the death at war (and there is a dignity of serving for your country, regardless of the lack of dignity of the war) is muffled by the cries of a country, establishment and culture that basically looks down in shame and revulsion of anything relating to Vietnam.

That generation is still around, yet their numbers are dwindling. The new generation lacks this. They grew up on fast food, rap music and the internet. I think it is not so much that life has no meaning, but that the have generation does not like the cynicism of their have not fathers. Readers to seem to share the sentiment - could you even sell Vietnam era works and fiction today? I doubt it. Nobody wants to here it, they think it's ugly.

I think you have missed a several generations here. The so-called "Greatest Generation" that came to age during the Great Depression and WWII knew of ultimate struggle and sacrifice. They built the post-war world of great affluence that their children came of age in. You are speaking of the generation of the 1950s and 1960's. They grew up with new cars every two years, big houses in the suburbs, TV, Rock n Roll, etc... In some ways they were incredibly spoiled. In some ways they questioned the assumptions of their parent's generation with regard to issues of race, sex, and the government. By the 1970s you get Watergate, the fuel shortage, the unraveling of Vietnam, the Iranian hostages... and the result is an incredible cynicism with regard to the Government... and maybe even the whole ideals of America. This cynicism turns to pure avarice and greed in the 1980s... the "me generation". We are now living in a world that is played on an increasingly international scale. The US no longer has the advantage of being the sole industrial/technological nation not in ruins (as it had following WWII). In spite of recognizing that we need to educate our populace to compete on an international scale, we continue to spend more on the military than the next 7 or 10 nations combined. Many younger... and even middle-class citizens recognize that they are likely to have a lower standard of living than their parents.

[mal4mac]

In general we can say for the west, the last major earthshaking crisis was the Vietnam war.

Not for the UK, Harold Wilson kept us out of that one. The Falklands War, Iraq, Suez, Afghanistan, N. Ireland... all of these were far more important to the UK.

[Lykren]

Reading this thread I have got the idea that self-reference is the hallmark of postmodernism. Is that so? If it is, is Annie Hall postmodern?

[JBI]

I meant the war generation is dwindling. How many authors do we have who experienced vietnam left? We have a few, sure, but they are getting on in years. the Second World War generation is even older right now.

Culturally these major world-changing events tend to define generations. Music, art, literature, etc. all seem to have embodied generational crisis. This is true of modern times, as it is true in ancient times.

Take the Chinese tradition as an example, almost every single major author in the classical tradition (not counting the 4 great novels, which were always regarded as populist garbage) seems to have been hit hard by the violence and upheaval of his generation. Qu Yuan, Sima Qian, Cao Zhi, Ruan Ji, Ji Kang, Tao Qian, Wang Wei, Du Fu, Li Yu, Su Shi, Li Qingzhao, Gao Qi, etc. As a tradition, the later dynasties always looked at these troubled and plagued times (the politics of the Tang being the most unstable) as Golden Ages. Critics would sometimes even criticize certain poets for not having a broad enough range of personal experience. So the major poet Meng Haoran has been called by Su Shi too shallow because he never had a political career, and didn't really experience much in terms of bitterness.

It's an interesting question, does a culture, or artists in distress create better artwork. Is some sort of a zeitgeist required for art to be successful? How much of an engagement with the contemporary is required?

[MorpheusSandman]

Reading this thread I have got the idea that self-reference is the hallmark of postmodernism. Is that so? If it is, is Annie Hall postmodern?I don't think self-reference is all there is to it. As Stlukes suggested in another thread, it's the ironic stance that PM takes on allusions, of reminding the audience that someone else has said what they're saying. I think self-awareness is part of that, but not all there is to it. As for Annie Hall, I do know that Allen has a habit of breaking the 4th wall and stuff, but I find most of his films play pretty straight-forward most of the time. When Allen alludes to culture it's usually to make some humorous quip about it, rather than to proleptically fend of criticisms of unoriginality. Allen, unlike most PMists, does seem genuinely concerned about the big questions, and his stylistic allusions seem more like a nod to his inspirations more than a "let me show off how much I know" attitude.

[JBI]

I don't think self-reference is all there is to it. As Stlukes suggested in another thread, it's the ironic stance that PM takes on allusions, of reminding the audience that someone else has said what they're saying. I think self-awareness is part of that, but not all there is to it. As for Annie Hall, I do know that Allen has a habit of breaking the 4th wall and stuff, but I find most of his films play pretty straight-forward most of the time. When Allen alludes to culture it's usually to make some humorous quip about it, rather than to proleptically fend of criticisms of unoriginality. Allen, unlike most PMists, does seem genuinely concerned about the big questions, and his stylistic allusions seem more like a nod to his inspirations more than a "let me show off how much I know" attitude.

There's also the problem that the film has a clear anti-postmodern stance. Like when he is in line for the movie and the post-modernish professor is "pontificating like that in public." Or when there is the flashback to his second wife, and he quips, "it's amazing how you can be absolutely brilliant but have no idea what actually is going on." Manhattan shows a clear distaste for this sort of cultural post-modernism as well.

In general Allen's works in that stage, and certainly more into the contemporary stage, seem thematically closer to Romantic visions of experience regardless of the "technique" or genre devices. Something like Bananas is far more post-modern, but even that is also borrowing heavily from the works of the Marx brothers. By the late 70s I see his films being heavily European, despite the subject matter being heavily aimed at New York and America. Manhattan is essentially a European film made about New York.

So in that sense, are we going to call European Modernist and Art films (neo-realism through experimentalism) post-modern? Allen was not particularly "original" in this sense, but he did bring to it a sort of comedy, that changed the tone of something like 8 1/2 or La Dolce Vita into a more comedic, laugh out loud piece of cinema. In essence though Cinema had remained incredibly "romantic" in sentiment though.

[cacian]

We live in a rather terrible world, and in many ways, literature is used as a coping mechanism

I think you mean to say the human machine is terrible the world is another matter.
you mention literature being a coping mechanism. what is it initiating to help anyone cope let alone the world?

[JBI]

I think you mean to say the human machine is terrible the world is another matter.
you mention literature being a coping mechanism. what is it initiating to help anyone cope let alone the world?

No I do not mean to say the human machine. Human experience is necessarily negative, in that it culminates in a foreseen, inevitable demise. Literature, or art, or any other form of representation seems to be rooted in such anxieties. We as a species need something to believe in beyond the nihilistic certainty of our own demise. Be it religion, or art, or traditions, or nationalism, or whatever, there seems an urge toward coherence, seemingly driven into our psyche. I admit, this post is coming out very, very German in perspective, but I could make a case for these same anxieties in South Asian traditions (such as seen in Sanskrit works) and Chinese works (the Dao De Jing being a classic example).

There is, in a sense, a certain will to live coded into our genetics. We merely reinvest these attitudes into other things as our consciousness changes.

I remember reading something, interestingly enough, on how societies lacked understanding in the male process of birthing, and therefore had a stronger impulse to invest religious, or ritual significance on females. I cannot remember where I read this, but it makes a sort of sense - the idea of the birthing as the primal sort of artwork.

So in that sense, reproduction is the first artwork, or "creation". All other feelings or sentiments seem closely linked with this. Our sentiments to each other, coming through our process of evolution, from simpler to more complex, are in essence designed for our own perpetual survival. We adapted to feel these things, as a way of overcoming our destruction.

Now, art in that sense will always need to believe in something. These isms we toss around are just an evolved form of the primal drive for continuation.

[MorpheusSandman]

In essence though Cinema had remained incredibly "romantic" in sentiment though.American cinema, certainly, but that's because it reflects populist attitudes because it still attracts mass audiences. When you get outside the mainstream things aren't as clear-cut. Cinema has had its PMists ever since Godard, and Godard has many significant descendants. That said, I think there could be more depending on what aspect of PM we're talking about. If we're talking about certain tones and themes, like pervasive irony (Coen Brothers); or if we're talking about techniques, like pervasive references and blurring/mixing of genres (Tarantino, eg); then I think one could include many more filmmakers than you might otherwise. I mean, not much besides irony makes The Coens all that PM. They have very clear "big question," even existential thematic concerns (certainly in their more recent films) and they tend to work in clearly defined genre boundaries... but their ironic viewpoint is very PMist. Tarantino seems utterly oblivious, however, to any and all thematics and just uses cinema history as a kid would a sandbox, which is also very PMist, but lacking the intellectual bent. A film like Blade Runner, which is often cited as being an exemplar of PMism in film, is really only such if one considers how it also blurs genre boundaries; yet, thematically, it's thoroughly rooted in existentialist questions of being.

I agree with you about Allen not being PM, yet one could call his allusions, irony, and self-awareness devices of PM without the philosophy, so, like I said, it depends on what we're talking about. I find it much easier if one doesn't treat such labels (PM, I mean) as an all-or-nothing, you either are or aren't, category.

[JBI]

Well, in essence I think I am just waiting for something larger than our romantic perceptive experience. We are still very much creatures of a 19th century (with 18th century forerunners) mentality. What I mean to say is, we are, culturally on mass, very similar to the Wordsworth, or Goethe understanding of the world. Regardless of questions of modernity, or of meaning, or anything to do with crumbling of genres.

Take Wordsworth as an example, he pretty much broke down genre rules as he understood them within his time. He still keeps iambs as a rough form for his work, but he has all but done away with all previous notions of art to create in his terms something quite similar to what T. S. Eliot tried to do, and later someone like Rita Dove would try as well.

Our so called philosophical inquiries, bladerunner included, all seem to be contained within Romantic era forerunners. The same way we have philosophically been dominated by Nietzsche throughout the 20th century and into the 21st century. Modern mythology simply adapted a new Nietzsche, ad did other movements like Existentialism, Post-Structuralism, or any French "post-modern" movement. Politically, senses of nationhood have only been on the rise in the 20th century, and are making a pretty big reassertion of where they stand currently where I am in the world.

The general myth of history seems to be that there is a great break in movements based on changing political spheres. Yet, if we look at the Renaissance, once we rejected 19th century romanticizations of it, we merely discovered it to be a continuation of developments already put into motion during the middle Ages, with not so much a rebirth as a development culturally and scientifically - something that is always happening. When we look for these big shifts, and these new understandings of awareness, we generally seem to lose coherency - we have a general sense of the idea, yet even after history it becomes quite difficult to historicize anything.

If we take the great "modernizers" in thought, for instance, Darwin, Marx, Freud, etc. we realize they all seem to have a firmly strong romantic tinge to them. Communism is called often a modern movement, or a development of modernism/modernity, but it in essence, in its core is a form of Hegelian romanticism, like everything else we seem to come up with.

Romantic grand vision seems to be the only form we can take seriously as an audience - we do not like to not like things, and what we like must, necessarily, have a sort of ubermenschian undertone. Heroism, morality, love, any real forms of ideals, all these things are required by the audience now.

We have authors who have tried to break away from these things, but generally the attempts don't work, and certainly don't sit well. Modernism can be seen as a footnote to romanticism, and post-modernism to me seems just to be a footnote to literature itself. I think that's why most readers, or I would say, virtually all readers neither identify nor enjoy post-modern works, in the sense of no meaning, or in the sense of moving beyond romanticism in form and content. Cat's Cradle does not encourage enjoyment when it is watched.

Pulp Fiction is a good question about Post-modernism, because the film does work, but for what I can see as a strange reason. It works in that it is in itself a parody of life itself. I guess if we want to say "post-modern" it is this form of parody that relies on an informed viewer to understand, or "get" the idea being parodied, or ironized, or caricatured.

[cafolini]

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[mande2013]

As for the younger generations suffering from intellectual atrophy due to a lack of exposure to major conflagrations like the two World Wars and the Great Depression, I'd say it's still too early to tell whether or not that'll have much of an effect on their artistic output. The average Millennial is still only in his or her early twenties. So they still have their whole lives ahead of them. If you think of someone like Proust, who was born in 1870, you'll notice World War 1 was probably the first "major" event he lived through, and he was already in his forties. And many of the writers who were part of the 1880s generation had to wait until their thirties more or less to experience a major international catastrophe. The late nineteenth and early twentieth century was a relatively stable period in history. Now if you want to propose that Gen Xers currently in their mid-forties have missed the boat you may be right. But I also feel it's wrong to propose the younger generations haven't lived through stressful times. The Bush years and 9/11 were bad enough I would think, especially if you were in middle school and within the five boroughs when 9/11 happened.