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The Age of Discovery:
Seeing the advantages of sponsoring Navigators to discover new lands, the various kingdoms
of Europe began sending their sailors, ships & explorers in quest of new colonies - the prize
target being India. This was made even more necessary as the rising power of the Ottoman
Empire at Constantinople had closed off all land routes. Thus began this European race for
gaining Global hegemony. As was bound to happen geographical knowledge of the World notonly increased with discovery of new lands and expansion of known boundaries, but also
brought huge land masses under the control of the Europeans both to get rid of their unwanted
population and to exploit and ravage the resources of these colonies, making them immensely
rich and powerful. The Age of Discovery never actually ended, but began overlapping other
Ages. It continues till date with Space and Deep sea Exploration missions.
The Age of Reformation;
As the Renaissance reached it's peak, the Holy Roman church began undertaking huge
construction projects, specially St.Peter's at Rome. The Popes began to use their authority in a
most indifferent and commercial manor. To recoup expenses the Church began a most
loathsome practice - interference in the daily lives of people, of selling simony and indulgences;
a practice that eventually split it into two factions - Catholics against Protestants.
John Wycliffe (1320-1384) in England;
Jan Huss (1369-1415) in Czechoslovakia;
Martin Luther King (1483-1546) in Germany;
John Calvin (1509-1564) in France and
Cornelius Jansen (1585-1638) in Holland
spoke out against these evils and started, what we call today, The Age of Reformation. To make
matters worse Henry VIII of England severed all connections with Rome and was responsible
for establishing The Anglican Church. And while the Holy See was undergoing these
cataclysmic changes, a new Age was dawning all over Europe; more people were becomingliterate with the advancement of printing techniques and with the discovery of a New World by
Columbus in 1492 - The Age of Exploration and Discovery.
The Age of Reason or enlightenment
It was a cultural movement of intellectuals to reform society using reason and logic; challenge
the "existing order" grounded in tradition and faith and advance knowledge through scientific
methods. It acted as a catalyst for many new scientific and engineering ideas, overturning many
traditional concepts and introducing a fresh perspective on nature and mankind's place within it.
It was a period of emancipation of human consciousness from an immature state of ignorance
and was a general period of rationalisation and secularisation.
Copernicus, Poland (1473-1543); Astronomy
Galelio, Italy (1564-1642); Astronomy
Isaac Newton, England (1642-1727); Physics
Charles Darwin, England (1809-1882); Anthropology
Spinoza, Switzerland (1632-1677); Theology
Emmanuel Kant, Germany; Theology,
Voltaire / Rousseau, France, Political philosophy
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Benjamin Franklin / Thomas Jefferson, USA. Political philosophy,
John Adams, England; Economics,
The age of Romanticism or counter reformation
An artistic and intellectual movement originating in Europe in the late 18th C and characterisedby a heightened interest in nature, emphasis on the individual's expression of emotion and
imagination, and rebellion against social rules and conventions. It embodied a new and restless
spirit, seeking violently to burst through old and cramping forms, a longing for the unbounded
and the indefinable, for perpetual movement and change
William Wordsworth,
P B Shelley
John Keats,
Samuel Coleridge
Emmanuel Kant
The Great Revolutions:
* The American Revolution; 1776
* The French Revolution; 1789
* The Industrial Revolution; 1845
* The Russian Revolution; 1919
A new social awareness about human rights, ownership of property, division of labour,
distribution of wealth, rapid uncontrolled urbanisation and growth of cities system of
representation in Government,
Neo Classicism;Avant Garde; Vanguard or advance guard
Art noveau;
Art Deco;
Cubism:
Was an artistic movement in France beginning in 1907 that featured surfaces of geometrical
planes. It inspired related movements in music, literature & architecture. Primary influence was
the representation of 3D form . In Cubist artwork, objects are analysed, broken up &
reassembled in an abstracted form. Instead of depicting objects from one viewpoint, the artist
depicts it from a multitude of viewpoints to represent the object in greater context.
George Braque,
Paul Cezanne,
Pablo Picasso,
La Maison Cubiste
Impressionism:
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A school of late 19th Century French painters who pictured appearances by strokes of unmixed
colours to give the impression of reflected light.
Futurism:
Artistic movement in Italy around 1910 that tried to express the energy and values of the
Machine Age. It was an off-shoot of Cubism.
Imagism:
A movement by American & European poets early in the 20th Century in reaction to Victorian
sentimentality, used common speech in free verse with clear concrete imagery.
Modernism / Structuralism / Minimalism: "Less is More".
Arose from wide scale and far reaching changes within European society in the late 19th & early
20th centuries. In particular the development of modern Industrial societies and the rapid growth
of cities, followed by the horrors of WWI, were among the factors that brought about Modernism.
Modernism was like an architectural revolution. It liberated architectural vocabulary from stylistic
exercises through the consistent elimination of excess ornamentation and redundant form,
allowing pure concepts and spaces to emerge. This revolutionary movement gradually
degenerated as the liberating mantra and became a starvation of the imagination, turning the
freedom from style into a stylistic straightjacket itself. The result was a relentless repitition of
identical anonymous boxes dominating vast areas of contemporary cities and also making all of
them look alike.
It explicitly rejects the idea of Realism & encompasses the works and outputs of those who felt
the "traditional" forms of art, music, architecture etc., were becoming outdated in the new social,
political and economic order of an emerging fully industrialised world. A salient characteristic of
Modernism is self consciousness, that often led to experiments with form and work that draws
attention to the processes of materials used, leading to Abstraction.Ezra Pound, writer
Theodor Adorns, composer
Georgeii Krutikov, architect
Constructivism / Neo Modernism in art and architecture
Constructivism was an artistic and architectural philosophy that began in Russia during 1919,
being a rejection of the idea of autonomous art. The movement was in favour of art as a practice
for social purposes. It had a great effect on modern art movements of the 20th Century,
influencing major trends such as Bauhaus and De Stijl movement. It influenced architecture,
graphic and industrial design, theatre, film, dance, fashion and music. It advocated pure
abstraction and universality by a reduction of the essentials of form and colour, simplifying
visual compositions to vertical and horizontal directions, sometimes also referred to as Neo
Plasticism. De Stijl influence on architecture remained long after 1931. Mies Van der Rohe was
among the most important proponent of it's ideas. (Refer RIETVELD SCHRODER HOUSE -
1923/24). Industrial materials were used to construct non- representational objects. Scientific
observation has established that education is not what the teacher gives; It is a natural process
spontaneously carried out by the individual & acquired not by listening to words but by
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experiences upon the environment. The task of the teacher becomes that of preparing a series
of motives of cultural activities spread over a specially prepared environment and then refraining
from obtrusive interference. Doing so they will witness the rising of a New Soul who will not be a
victim of events. Like Futurism, this was also an off shoot of Cubism. Constructivism began as a
derisive term in 1917, but received a positive connotation in Naum Gabo's 'Realistic Manifesto'
in 1920. Constructivism was a combination of faktura - the particular material properties of anobject and tektorrika, it's spatial presence. (Faktura is visual demonstration of properties
inherent to materials. The surface of the object had to demonstrate how it had been made,
exhibiting it's own distinct property.
Expressionism:
Was an art movement in early 20th Century; the artist's subjective expression of inner
experiences was emphasised; an inner feeling was expressed through a distorted rendition of
reality.
Fauvism:
Was an art movement launched in 1905 in which the works were characterised by bright and
non natural colours and simple forms; it had a great influence on the Expressionists.
Dadaism:
Was a nihilist art movement, especially in painting, that flourished in Europe early in the 20th
Century; It was based on irrationality and negation of the accepted laws of beauty.
Existentialism:
Was a 20th Century philosophical movement chiefly in Europe; It assumes that people are
entirely free and thus responsible for what they make of themselves.
Jean Paul Sartre - 'I think, therefore I am'.
High style Vernacular
Post or Neo Modernism / Post Structuralism / Post Constructivism: "Less is a bore".
This was a variant of constructivist thinking that claims that there is no neutral viewpoint from
which to assess the validity of analytical & ethical knowledge claims.
It was a transitional architectural style that existed in the USSR in the 1930s (typical early
Stalinist architecture before WW2). Term coined to describe product of avant Garde artists.
(began at 3.00 PM on 16 March 1972).
As a counter revolution against the limited choice of vocabulary for the orthodox modern
architect, Robert Venturi and Denis Scott Brown started looking at the contemporary city outside
the realm of modern architecture. They reintroduced symbolism and signs in the architectural
palette, offering "complexity and contradiction" in place of simplicity and consistency. The
counter revolution against the monotony of strictly functional modern architecture, in turn led to
it's own epidemic of indistinguishable Post Modern towers no more varied nor interesting than
their Modern siblings.
Bohemianism:
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Practice of non conventional life style; often in company of like minded people, with few
permanent ties; like vagabonds.
Philistinism:
Is an anti intellectual who undervalues and despises art, beauty, spirituality and intellect. A
person who is singularly narrow minded & of conventional morality and whose taste indicate anindifference towards culture and aesthetic values.
Deconstructivism: More and more
It began in the late 1980s, influenced by the theory of Deconstructivism, which is a form of
semiotic analysis. It is characterised by fragmentation, an interest in manipulating a structure's
surface or skin, non rectilinear shapes which appear to distort and dislocate elements of
architecture, such as it's structure and envelope. The finished visual appearance of buildings
that exhibit deconstructvist 'styles' is characterised by unpredictability and controlled chaos.
Deconstructivism in contemporary architecture is opposed to the ordered rationality of
Modernism and Post Modernism. It took a confrontational stance to architectural history,
wanting to 'dissemble' architecture, while Post Modernism returned to embrace the historical
references that Modernism had shunned, possibly ironically.
Deconstructivism rejected the Post Modern acceptance of such references, as well as the idea
of ornament as an after thought or decoration. It argues against the purity, clarity and simplicity
of Modernism, overturning functionalism and rationalism. Functional aspects of buildings were
called into question. Geometry was to deconstructvist what ornament was to Post Modernists,
the subject of complication and this complication of geometry was in turn applied to the
functional, structural and spatial aspects of deconstructvist buildings. One example of
deconstructvist complexity is Frank Gehry's Vitra Design Museum, which takes the typical
unadorned White cube of Modernist art galleries and reconstructs it, using geometries
reminiscent of Cubism and abstract Expressionism.