He Was Modernist When Modernist Wasn't Cool
The Wifeösphere was looking at a book about El Greco last night, and while looking over her shoulder I was struck once again by how modern his paintings look. Perhaps the effect is exaggerated by pigment deterioration; the odd flesh tones add to the surreal look, but may not have been as the artist intended. Nevertheless, the bodily distortions look like nothing from the old masters, as far as I am aware.
In poetry, I have spotted a similar weird prescience in the poem Blaise Pascal kept sewn into his coat (which was found after his death). I don't see how reading the poem in translation can completely explain the poem's modernist discontinuities. Perhaps Pascal did not intend the writing -- a description of a vision of God -- to be read as poetry, but it looks like poetry to the modern eye:
This begs a few questions, namely: can anyone think of other examples of pre-modern modernists? Better yet, can anyone think of examples of pre-modern modernist composers? I confess I am stumped. The best I can think of is a certain odd liturgical tradition from the Eastern Orthodoxy. There, you find "cross-eyed" chord progressions that are wrong according to common practice in the West. I don't consider that a good example, however, because to my ear the "wrong" chords don't sound modern, they just sound ... wrong. However, I admit to little knowledge of that music, so I'm open to other opinions.Fire God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob...
Certitude. Feeling. Joy. Peace.
God of Jesus Christ...
Greatness of the Human Soul.
"Righteous Father, the world hath not known Thee,
but I have known Thee."
Joy, joy, joy, tears of joy...
Renunciation, total and sweet...
Anyone got suggestions? A Renaissance architect who really loved glass and steel? A Gregorian chanter who wondered why the Devil had all the good tritones? We'll take them from any art form.
Umie the Umlaut says, "ask your doctor about the Fredösphere!"
4 Comments:
In architecture there are tons of examples.
Gaudi was crazy modern (before it became established...or post-modern?) when he designed buildings like Casa Balto- and other works. They could of been produced last year and still been daring and cutting edge architecture.
Another Spaniard, Goya, did some amazing stuff in his late period which transcend any thing of the period.
And more prominent is Turner, who in the late 1840-50s was basically doing abstracts. His last paintings are incredibly abstract, and again, could of been done last year and not looked at all old-fashioned.
Gesualdo, of course.
I heard a very very startling thing done in two tuning systems. A product of some obscure French composer under Louis 14th, and he wrote music for a horn and orchestra, but the "hunting horn" uses a different tuning system than the orchestra and other woodwinds, so it sounded incredibly strange. meant to give it a "rustic" sound, it just sounded very deliberately painfully out-of-tune.
Im sure i could dream up more, but its late.
Yes, the Knight of the Burning Pestle - violently post-modernist for a play that is 400 years old.
See here.
Henrietta
Well, how about Skriabin? He was also crazy, but still...
Hieronymus Bosch: I should have mentioned his surreal monsters in my post. Add him to the list.
Guadi and Skriabin/Scriabin are a liiiiitle late for what I had in mind, but still, all good suggestions. Thanks to my commenters for getting into the spirit. Gesualdo ... I better look him up; it's been years since I last gave him any thought, to be honest.
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