A Brief Lesson in History Part II: The Twentieth Century Avant Garde

Hello again, 

Before the Twentieth Century Avant Garde movements, art was nothing more that depictions of antiquated Catholic lore captured in stark realism. Thousands of versions of: the Madonna, the Christ, the Holy Sacraments, the Crucifixion (and subsequent Resurrection), angelic visitation, and other Biblical accounts abound: commissioned and propagated by the Church (the wealthiest and often, only patron of the arts). It was this strict, dogmatic institutionalization of art that the Twentieth Century Avant Garde artists attempted to deviate from. Artistic compositions went from being called: “The Last Supper,” to “Composition with Yellow, Blue and Red.” They believed that a universally accepted and celebrated form of art and architecture devoid of historic, religious or cultural context could theoretically unite the world.    

These new ideals spread quickly throughout Europe prompting like-minded artist to create. It started small with artistic movements, like those discussed in the previous entry, but quickly grew to encompass architecture as well. Like the art that came out of this period, the architecture was severe and austere completely defying the conventions of the preceding millennia. The crossover of Avant Garde Ideals from art to, its three-dimensional counterpart: architecture is clearly depicted below in Figure 1 and 2.

[Fig. 1]“Composition with Large Red Plane, Yellow, Black, Grey and Blue”
by Piet Mondrian, 1921

[Fig. 2] “The Schroder House” by Gerrit Rietveld, 1924

As one could imagine, this new, rather abrupt, form of art had its share of critics, but these determined artists worked unabated toward a better tomorrow.

By now these ideas had gained traction and were becoming accepted amongst the masses and some of the design world’s greatest innovator rose to prominence during this era. The latter part of the Ninetieth Century and into the early half of the Twentieth saw Victor Horta,  F.L. Wright and C. R. Macintosh pioneer “Gesamptkunstwerk” the idea of a building as a “Total Work of Art:” or designing a structure and everything in it as a one-of-a-kind piece of art, Tony Garnier and Le Corbusier were busy working to reinventing the city as we know it, even by today’s standards, Peter Behrens and Walter Gropius institutionalized the art form by founding the Bauhaus, and Ludwid Mies van der Rohe along with Philip Johnson helped bring Chicago to the forefront of architectural history and redefine the American metropolis.

Hundreds of great artists and innovators working over the course of a century ravaged by war and civil unrest, endeavored to make the world a better place through their art. The question of their success is almost moot, when one considers the exhibition of the human spirit in all of its tenacious, uncompromising and endlessly compassionate glory when seeking the betterment of all mankind. This writer would hazard to say that: where it not for these men and women, the world would be a vastly different place.   

Until next time