THE PERSONAL AND UGLY ISN'T ART:

Artistic rebels and psychological explorers in music, art and literature: a review of MODERNISM: The Lure of Heresy From Baudelaire to Beckett and Beyond By Peter Gay (Michael Dirda, December 23, 2007, Washington Post)

What is modernism? For Gay, the modernists shared two defining attributes: "first, the lure of heresy that impelled their actions as they confronted conventional sensibilities; and, second, a commitment to a principled self-scrutiny." In other words, the modernists were artistic rebels and psychological explorers: They broke with established or conventional forms and they probed deeply into their inner selves. Their work explodes with a libidinal, swashbuckling energy, unbounded by the constraints of 19th-century realism. The resulting novels and paintings and ballets shocked genteel sensibilities not only by making art new, but often by making it ugly, noisy and rude. In this, the modernists would argue, they were reflecting the character of the industrial age.

The most delicious irony of Modernism is that while it claimed to make a daring challenge the security of the bourgeoisie, it is itself merely a function of the insecurity of the intellectuals.

Posted by Orrin Judd at January 14, 2008 12:00 AM