Friday, April 16, 2010

the evolution of modern art in a chart

in 1936, alfred barr (moma director from 1929-43) charted the evolution of modern art by hand (see the original here) demonstrating how each independent style was a reaction to past style. enjoy the print version below:

6 comments:

Heaven said...

I love this. It's pretty useful.

orangeshrum said...

One should be made to include today's art.

Ellie K said...

This is excellent! I'm a statistician with a peculiar little hobby: I like tracking down what I consider aesthetically appealling flowcharts. Other graphical representations of data are good, but I prefer flow. And yeah, that means I like infographics, stop giggling...

But I also know my Art History, and this is great, thank you so much for posting it. I agree with @Feisty Orange, it'd be cool to see some other genres, charted by an expert such as MOMA's Barr, as it then becomes a valuable reference aid.

n vincent said...

it's worth considering that this chart shows one (limited) perspective on modern art that promotes the masculinist myths of modernism.

as art historian Griselda Pollock aptly points out , "The schema which decorated the cover of Alfred H. Barr’s catalogue for the exhibition Cubism and Abstract Art at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 1936 is paradigmatic of the way modern art has been mapped by modernist art history. Artistic practices from the late nineteenth century are placed on a chronological flow chart where movement follows movement connected by one-way arrows which indicate influence and reaction. Over each movement a named artist presides. All those canonized as the initiators of modern art are men. Is this because there were no women involved in early modern movements? No. Is it because those who were, were without significance in determining the shape and character of modern art? No. Or is it rather because what modernist art history celebrates is a selective tradition which normalizes, as the only modernism, a particular and gendered set of practices? I would argue for this explanation. As a result any attempt to deal with artists in the early modern history of modernism who are women necessitates a deconstruction of the masculinist myths of modernism."

food for critical thought, indeed. see more at http://nvincent.wordpress.com/2010/04/13/modernity-and-spaces-of-femininity/

SUNNYSIDE 916 said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
SUNNYSIDE 916 said...

Interesting !!
I actually find where "Post-Modern Architecture"is. I am confident here shown the beginning of the Post.It has been known and long before changing
Also, the era was before "De-constructivism" architecture.

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