Modern Era Synthesis- Wylie P1 T2

I can't remember if I already posted this or not... so here it is again.


The Modern Era covered a span of time filled with both tremendous joys and new experiences as well as deep struggles and hidden despair. The artistic styles Picasso greatly contrasted these two sentiments, making a social statement that perhaps the delights of the era were merely a façade, an image of hope to cover an unrelenting depression.

Many of Rembrandt’s works were portraits which were dark, mysterious, and alluring. His use of light and shadow help to smooth of the rigidity of the artwork of his predecessors and help to define the areas of the art he wished to highlight. Often his work included people, bathed in light, surrounded by a dark and very saturated background. Perhaps this was a reflection of Rembrandt’s message that individuality is crucial to survival, and within each person is the potential for greatness or change in a dark world. Rembrandt’s work also includes a menagerie of religious artwork, primarily depicting scenes from the Old Testament furthering his idea that the world is desperate and confusing, on the brink of a rebirth. These philosophies are quite similar to that of existentialism, in which the importance of the individual is stressed and great humanitarian change is within reach.

One of the greatest artists of the modern era and perhaps even of all time is Pablo Picasso, whose unconventional and hypnotizing paintings greatly reflected the sentiments of his time. Although Picasso went through many phases, including the “Blue Period”, his works overall are elaborately colored and filled with geometric shapes, often depicting everyday images in extremely abstract ways. People are reduced to anatomical parts: eyes, ears, hands, breasts. Each part is separated from the whole, warped in design, and then improperly placed back into the picture. This reflects a more nihilistic point of view, that human nature is merely a collection of basic needs that venture no deeper than surface level satisfactions. Perhaps Picasso felt that although many people of the era acted as though their lives served some grand purpose, inside they felt no real attachment to life and therefore it had no genuine purpose. Picasso’s works include many paintings of women, sitting depressed, frustrated, and isolated with their heads in their hands. These images also support an overall sentiment of the era that all people were paralyzed, unemotional and hopeless.

Sara Patterson, Tori Kause, Helen Lee, and Miranda Gontz