HUM 2033: Intro to the Humanities II Okpala

Guide for Jude Okpala's Intro to the Humanities II course.

Modernism: The Assault on Tradition

Picton, John. “Ch. 16: Modernism and Modernity in African Art.” A Companion to Modern African Art, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, 2013, pp. 311–29. Wiley Online Library, doi:10.1002/9781118515105.ch16.
ISBN: 9781444338379

Offering a wealth of perspectives on African modern and Modernist art from the mid-nineteenth century to the present, this new Companion features essays by African, European, and North American authors who assess the work of individual artists as well as exploring broader themes such as discoveries of new technologies and globalization. A pioneering continent-based assessment of modern art and modernity across Africa Includes original and previously unpublished fieldwork-based material Features new and complex theoretical arguments about the nature of modernity and Modernism Addresses a widely acknowledged gap in the literature on African Art

Modernism
This article provides an overview of Modernism: modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Uncertainty: Modernity and Art
Watch segments 2 (:56), 5 (01:17), 4 (01:32) & 12 (01:10).
"Instead of offering an idealized or ennobled vision of humankind, modern art—an instrument of the tumultuous 20th century—communicates chaos, anxiety, and above all, uncertainty. In this program, Matthew Collings contrasts the works of Pablo Picasso with the abstracts of Paul Klee and Piet Mondrian and the architecture of Le Corbusier; tells how the Nazis tried to eradicate modern art’s uncertainties with some crushing certainties of their own; and shows how modern art’s relationship with modern life changed—first with the rise of Abstract Expressionism, then with Pop Art. The program also stretches into contemporary art to ask: What can we still believe in? And is Western civilization nearing its end?"

An introduction to the Modernist period.