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Modernism Defined Via Common Denominators

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By KEVIN WALKER

Published: December 16, 2007

"Modernism: The Lure of Heresy," by Peter Gay (Norton, $35)
Peter Gay answers my first question with the first line of the introduction: "Modernism is far easier to exemplify than to define." Something that includes artists Charles Baudelaire, Claude Monet and Andy Warhol, writers Oscar Wilde and Marcel Proust; architect Frank Lloyd Wright; playwrights George Bernard Shaw and Henrik Ibsen - that's something that is going to be difficult to define.

Gay doesn't even try, at least not in the conventional sense.

Instead, he seeks definition through commonalities among modernist artists, particularly their motivations and "most characteristic expressions."

Gay, a National Book Award winner in 1967 for "The Enlightenment: An Interpretation of the Rise of Modern Paganism," particularly notes two findings: "First, the lure of heresy that impelled their actions as they confronted conventional sensibilities; and, second, a commitment to a principled self-scrutiny."

Gay also clears up a misconception about the bohemian lifestyle of "the starving artist": "By mid 19th century, few painters or composers were still eking out a picturesque, penniless existence in fifth-floor walk ups, living in unmarried bliss. In reality, there never had been very many of them, and most avant-garde artists grew comfortable, some of them even prosperous."

Another sacred cow killed!

This book is far more than anecdotal history. Studious readers will find themselves understanding how art evolved in the last 100 years and how its influence helped shape the fractured culture we live in today.

Kevin Walker writes for the Tribune and TBO.com.

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