Modernism has failed us
Why do we embrace ugliness now?
Why is it that all the new works in fine art museums are modernist? They’re abstract or “found objects” or deliberately ugly or require commentary to “interpret” them.
Meanwhile, if you are a fine artist that paints “realistic” art, you’re considered “traditional” or quaint.
And why does it seem like literature’s a bit different? Sure, we have modernist experimental literature, but we have plenty of works that use old-fashioned story telling.
These are some questions I try to answer in my latest video:
I also discuss a fascinating book on this topic called The Decline and Fall of Western Art by Brendan Heard.
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I now have watched your video on Modernism. I personally blame the terrible architecture we have now largely on Ayn Rand with her novel “The Fountainhead” (1943). She constantly drives home in the book about a rebellious architect how architecture has to serve its purpose, which people have incorrectly assumed should be all glass and steel or brutalist bureaucratic monstrosities. But architecture does serve an additional purpose besides keeping electricity, plumbing, etc in place. It can enrich our experience of the world and the cultures that inhabit it. To focus so much on the mere efficiency of architecture was such a mistake, one we continue to live through.
This is a comment on your earlier article on top non-Woke contemporary novels (commenting was unavailable). I’m struck by the reoccurring theme of what might have been for a past relationship or the longing for another despite the current person being “better” on paper. The song “Glimpse of Us” by the singer Joji (https://youtu.be/FvOpPeKSf_4) really captures that feeling, along with the end of the movie “La La Land.”