Clive Bell Modernism Summary

Occurring out of the rebellious mood at the beginning of the twentieth century, modernism was a radical approach that desired to revive the way modern civilization viewed life, art, politics, and science. Modernist wants to reject the current European culture. For the Establishment, the result would be catastrophic; the new emerging culture would undermine tradition and authority in the hopes of transforming contemporary society. Modernism rejected all religious and moral principles. They felt that the rules of conduct were restrictive and a limiting force over the human spirit.

One of the causes for this desire to change was the fact that technology was rapidly re-inventing societies, with many discoveries and innovations taking place. This put pressure on culture to re-define itself in order to keep pace with modernity. Artists questioned academic art for its lack of

(756) He explains that modernism takes elements of art and focuses on those elements, one of the most important being emotional or specific experience ( ). Every piece of art produces a different emotion and this emotion is called the aesthetic emotion. Bell continues by stating that he is not interested in the quality of the art piece but the emotions that come from it ( ). If art is not a constant source of passionate emotion, than it has no reason for being.

Greenberg describes the essence of modernism as the use of characteristic methods of a discipline to criticize the discipline itself (754). It is not negative but rather, reflective. Greenberg states that in order for art to be “pure” it has to demonstrate exclusivity to itself. It has to justify itself by providing an experience that no other art can (754).

One of the most important characteristics of modernism is its uniqueness to pictorial art (756). Modernism’s flatness is noticed before the art content (756). It focuses on opticality by abandoning 3D space