Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
Ms. Wilson
English Comp. II
25 February 2007
Less is a Bore
How can one describe and analyze an artistic movement while it is going on?
In the case of postmodernism, history offers no insight as to the scope of the movement
set of complex concepts and abstract premises, not one central idea. What can be
definitively said about the philosophy is that it emerged from the modernist movement
during the 1960’s and continues to this day. Postmodernism is one of the hardest
philosophical and artistic movements to define; however, its many forms can be found in
from which it was born. Many scholars see postmodernism as nothing more than a
revision of the principles of the modernist movement. It can be said that modernism is
fundamentally about order: it seeks to reconcile high and low forms of art, smooth
fragmentation, examine life from a grand perspective, and search for universal meaning.
Modernism also values a love of knowledge and art for their own sake; in other words,
modernism values purity (Klages). With the social upheaval of the 1960’s, modernism’s
claim to universal order was shattered, and a new philosophy was needed.
Postmodernism involves many modernist principles, only its perception of them varies
embraces and celebrates it. Where modernism studies life on a grand scale,
in its approach to linguistics. Modernism holds that what is important is the idea or object
a word represents; postmodernism holds that what is most important is the actual word
itself. Conversely, when dealing with the matter of knowledge, postmodernism asserts
that knowledge is only valuable if it can be put to use (Klages). It can also be said that
rejected: divine meaning, the beauty of nature, and a focus on the human body
observed in the visual arts. Postmodern art grew from the minimalist art movement of the
1940’s and 1950’s, which was deemed elitist and unemotional. With the emergence of
pop artists like Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, a new ironic mixture of high and low
art called Pop began to take hold (Hunter, Jacobus, and Wheeler 358). Pop art was
appealing because, unlike modern art, it integrated art with life, and drew from
philosophy, poetry, and the natural world. Whereas modernism valued art for its own
sake, the new postmodernists examined the cultural environments of their works with an
“art for ideology’s sake” dogma (359). With this new theory-over-practice outlook,
Unlike visual art, where postmodernism simply revises modernist principles, literary
Cosgrove 3
liberal use of satire and irony and a sense of discontinuity, which is celebrated rather than
mourned (Lye). It also explores undesirable and marginal aspects of society, in keeping
with postmodernism’s concentration on the small-scale view of life. Like the visual arts,
postmodern literature also draws heavily from pop culture. However, what critics find
most shocking about postmodern literature is its assertion that to think in novel ways, one
must violate apparent norms and morals of social decency. Only in this way can readers
be taken outside their comfort zones enough to examine the social context in which the
work was written (Lye). An example of this is Chuck Palahniuk’s novel Fight Club, and
popular film of the same name. This violation of norms is also accomplished be mixing
styles of fiction and nonfiction, poetry and prose, and different genres (Lye).
however, nowhere is its effect more pronounced than in architecture. Modern architecture
of the 1950’s was seen as a failure because it failed to consider the human need for
aesthetics in its clean, simple structure and minimal ornamentation (Hunter, Jacobus, and
Wheeler 357). Published in 1966, architect Robert Venturi’s book Complexity and
bore” (Glancey 198). Venturi’s bold statement essentially sums up the postmodern
movement in architecture. In the new postmodern style, architects began to use layering,
unnecessary ornament, and distortion in their works, where once this was considered
unstylish. These architects also added curves and arches to their buildings, and painted
them with vastly contrasting colors (Barford 169). Where modernism favored clear-cut
striking feature of postmodern architecture is its capacity for irony in blending modern
and classical forms, as can be seen in the broken Roman pediment atop Philip Johnson’s
Because scholars and critics alike have such vastly differing views on the
work must always be examined in a cultural context to find its meaning. Third, and most
importantly, it seeks to erase the barrier between art and life. At worst, many consider
postmodernism to be nothing more than incomprehensible academic babble. What all can
agree on, however, is that postmodernism has had a significant impact on visual art,
literature, and architecture of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. And, inevitably,