Day 8 Modernism -- Assignment

Today we are going to be doing something a little different. Below are four interpretations of the historical significance of the modernist culture that developed in Paris in the last decades of the 19th century. Each team will take one of these interpretations and evaluate its validity using material from today's readings and from relevant material that we have covered earlier.

Each team should:

  • Explain what propositions must be demonstrated for this interpretation to be true

  • Present arguments and evidence both supporting and questioning the validity of the interpretation that your team is evaluating.  In most cases the evidence will be drawn from material from earlier in the course, as well as from Day 8. (If you find it absolutely impossible to find evidence or arguments that supports or that attacks this interpretation, then only present one side and explain why you are doing so.  But try your best to find ways to support both sides.)

  • After considering the evidence, decide whether the interpretation is credible. Feel free to agree entirely with the interpretation that you are working on, to reject it entirely, or to agree with it partially, but with reservations. Note the members of a team do not necessarily have to come to the same conclusion about the validity of the interpretation, and it is fine if different individuals within the team present different points of view.)

Interpretation 1

Modernist culture in late 19th century Paris represented the kind of breakdown of order in the world of art that the Academy had been designed to prevent.  Without a shared set of values and training, the quest for beauty was replaced by an amateurish attempt to gain attention based on little or no technical skill or sense of a higher purpose.
Interpretation 2

The culture of modernism, in general, and, of Montmartre, in particular. was an expression of the same drive to consumerism that shaped everything in Parisian life from the department store to the international expositions. The increased buying power and leisure of many Parisians led them to seek out new ways to amuse themselves. For all its cultural pretensions Montmartre was simply another place for bored Parisians to spend their money.


 Interpretation 3

Modernism and the culture of Montmartre represented a fundamental challenge to both middle class and aristocratic notions of respectability and social order.  This was particularly true in the area of gender and sexuality where traditional norms were flaunted openly in a manner that was unprecedented.
 Interpretation 4

As capitalism and democracy erased many of the distinctions that had defined social classes, modernist culture was attractive to elites because it provided them with new ways to set themselves apart.  Modernist culture gave them a way of distinguishing themselves from the "masses" by embracing esoteric cultural forms that were much more difficult to understand than the culture of the Academy. Ironically, they could also set themselves apart by visiting lower class establishments in Montmartre that most members of the new middle classes would shun.  By such cultural "slumming" they could convince themselves (and possibly others) that they were so superior to working class and lower middle class for whom these cabarets and cafes had been originally created, that they could enjoy the "quaint" customs of their "inferiors" without being contaminated.