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Post by Maolsheachlann on Jan 20, 2022 10:40:01 GMT
I think it would be good to have a thread about artistic modernism and what relation (if any) this has with political, social or cultural conservatism.
There are many examples of creative people who were modernist in the artistic sense, but conservative (sometimes extremely so) in other ways. A few examples, which I'm sure could be expanded almost indefinitely:
T.S. Eliot
Saunders Lewis (Welsh writer and nationalist)
D.H. Lawrence
Salvador Dali
W.B. Yeats (often lumped in with modernism, although I think that's very debatable)
Wyndham Lewis (I've never read him)
I thought it would be good to have a discussion about artistic modernism in general. I know some conservatives are very keen on notions of timeless and classical standards of beauty and consider any departure from this to be relativism.
When it comes to visual art, I admit, I'm partial to early modernism, such as Piet Mondrian and Marc Chagall. I'm not talking about Turner Prize nonsense, obviously.
I remember fulminating about Samuel Beckett here, and kj defended him and recommended the novel "Malone Dies", which I read and thought was very good.
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Post by kj on Jan 20, 2022 11:13:48 GMT
I'm really glad you enjoyed it, Maolsheachlann!
Ezra Pound is someone I've never read, but feel I should have a look at him.
Dali is another one that comes to mind, becoming a Catholic after the Spanish civil war (and a staunch Franco supporter).
There was a South African poet named Roy Campbell who took a similar path.
Oh and I nearly forgot: Andy Warhol! Most people seem unaware of the fact Warhol was a devout Byzantine Catholic who spent his Christmas days serving in soup kitchens. He also paid for his nephew to go to Seminary.
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Post by kj on Jan 20, 2022 11:17:48 GMT
As for Modernism generally, I don't really get the kind of conservative who fulminates against it. Art evolves and changes, plus there is nothing to force an artist or a reader/viewer/listener to create or "consume" it. If you don't like it, just avoid it!
The Modernists had plenty of traditions to attack/modify/mutate. Postmodernists and contemporary "avant garde" proponents have nothing to blow up against, hence, in my view anyway, the vacuity of much contemporary art. I agree with Anthony Cronin's characterisation of Samuel Beckett as "The Last Modernist".
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Post by Maolsheachlann on Jan 20, 2022 12:00:43 GMT
I do think that there are timeless standards of beauty, but I don't think it's as simple as that. I do think "new" forms of beauty can be discovered, or perceptions of beauty can change. For instance, before the Romantics, people saw wilderness and mountains as completely unappealing. It's nothing new that these notions would develop. I don't think it implies a complete relativism; people still find some a lot of things beautiful in every era. Pretty girls never lose their popularity, although it's notable that, even within the timeline of modern pop culture, there's a different "look" that's prized- not just in clothes and hairstyle, but actual physical features. Or so I would contend.
And anyway, art isn't just about beauty. It's also about expression and meaning and all that other stuff.
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Post by Maolsheachlann on Jan 20, 2022 16:26:45 GMT
Seán Ó Riada might be another example.
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Post by Séamus on Jan 22, 2022 8:57:39 GMT
There's been a lot of fusing old and new music through the years;I became of an American pop-violinist Lindsey Stirling recently...her 2014 album might be worth a mention due to Mr Maolsheachlann's past poetic interest in snow globes. In her case the tracks on the record thread together to an imagery of a ballerina locked in a glass globe on a music box which she shatters and escapes from...some titles 'Shatter Me'- 'Take Flight'- are chosen to tie with this theme.
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Post by Maolsheachlann on Jan 22, 2022 10:44:12 GMT
There's been a lot of fusing old and new music through the years;I became of an American pop-violinist Lindsey Stirling recently...her 2014 album might be worth a mention due to Mr Maolsheachlann's past poetic interest in snow globes. In her case the tracks on the record thread together to an imagery of a ballerina locked in a glass globe on a music box which she shatters and escapes from...some titles 'Shatter Me'- 'Take Flight'- are chosen to tie with this theme. I'm against all shattering of snow globes. Speaking of snowg lobes, I noticed yesterday that somebody wrote an article for the Burkean with the interesting pen-name An Cruinneog Sneachta, which actually means Snow globe. Sadly it received no comments either on the main website or Facebook. That person was probably disappointed, the poor fool. |
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Post by Maolsheachlann on Jan 22, 2022 12:17:23 GMT
Another example of someone who is artistically modern while being socially conservative, though it's a relative one: Patrick Pearse.
Pearse was such a traditionalist that he absolutely refused to let women in the G.P.O. participate in the fighting.
In literary terms, however, he was something of a modernist, insisting that Gaelic literature had to adopt to developments in European literature. He didn't want to just reproduce the literary models of the Gaelic past.
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Post by Tomas on Jan 22, 2022 21:30:10 GMT
H.H. Benedikt XVI also a prime example of a socially conservative who understood the depths of modernism (the better of it). His well-known personal love for Mozart's works of genius, its artistic wonder, despite the "unorthodox" masonic side etc. Appreciating things like he did shows music/art must come first.
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