Postmodernism
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This article is about the movement. For the condition or state of being, see Postmodernity. For other uses, see Postmodernism (disambiguation).
Postmodernism
preceded by Modernism
Postmodernity
Hypermodernity Hypermodernism in art Metamodernism Posthumanism Post-materialism Post-postmodernism Post-structuralism
Postmodern...
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Criticism of postmodernism
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Postmodernism is a late-20th-century movement in the arts, architecture, and criticism that was a departure from modernism.[1][2] Postmodernism articulates that the world is in a state of perpetual incompleteness and permanent unresolve. Postmodernism promotes the notion of radical pluralism; that there are many ways of knowing, and many truths to a fact. From a postmodern perspective knowledge is articulated from perspectives, with all its uncertainties, complexity and paradox. Thus knowledge is relational and all realities are woven on local linguistic looms.[3] Postmodernism includes skeptical interpretations of culture, literature, art, philosophy, history, economics, architecture, fiction, and literary criticism. It is often associated with deconstruction and post-structuralism because its usage as a term gained significant popularity at the same time as twentieth-century post-structural thought.
The term postmodernism has been applied to a host of movements, mainly in art, music, and literature, that reacted against tendencies in modernism, and are typically marked by revival of historical elements and techniques.[4]
Contents [hide]
1 History
2 Influence on art
2.1 Architecture
2.2 Urban planning
2.3 Literature
2.4 Music
2.5 Graphic design
3 Influential postmodernist philosophers
4 Deconstruction
5 Postmodernism and structuralism
6 Post-postmodernism
7 Criticisms
8 See also
9 References
10 Further reading
11 External links
History[edit]
The term postmodern was first used around the 1880s. John Watkins Chapman suggested "a Postmodern style of painting" as a way to depart from French Impressionism.[5] J. M. Thompson, in his 1914 article in The Hibbert Journal (a quarterly philosophical review), used it to describe changes in attitudes and beliefs in the critique of religion: "The raison d'etre of Post-Modernism is to escape from the double-mindedness of Modernism by being thorough in its criticism by extending it to religion as well as theology, to Catholic feeling as well as to Catholic tradition."[6]
In 1921 and 1925, postmodernism had been used to describe new forms of art and music. In 1942 H. R. Hays described it as a new literary form. However, as a general theory for a historical movement it was first used in 1939 by Arnold J. Toynbee: "Our own Post-Modern Age has been inaugurated by the general war of 1914–1918".[7]
Portland Building, an example of Postmodern architecture
In 1949 the term was used to describe a dissatisfaction with modern architecture, and led to the postmodern architecture movement,[8] perhaps also a response to the modernist architectural movement known as the International Style. Postmodernism in architecture is marked by a re-emergence of surface ornament, reference to surrounding buildings in urban architecture, historical reference in decorative forms (eclecticism), and non-orthogonal angles.
Peter Drucker suggested the transformation into a post modern world happened between 1937 and 1957 (when he was writing). He described an as yet "nameless era" which he characterised as a shift to conceptual world based on pattern purpose and process rather than mechanical cause, outlined by four new realities: the emergence of Educated Society, the importance of international development, the decline of the nation state, and the collapse of the viability of non-Western cultures.[9]
In 1971, in a lecture delivered at the Institute of Contemporary Art, London, Mel Bochner described "post-modernism" in art as having started with Jasper Johns, "who first rejected sense-data and the singular point-of-view as the basis for his art, and treated art as a critical investigation."[10]
More recently, Walter Truett Anderson described postmodernism as belonging to one of four typological world views, which he identifies as either (a) Postmodern-ironist, which sees truth as socially constructed, (b) Scientific-rational, in which truth is found through methodical, disciplined inquiry, (c) Social-traditional, in which truth is found in the heritage of American and Western civilization, or (d) Neo-romantic, in which truth is found through attaining harmony with nature and/or spiritual exploration of the inner self.[11]