Search for Tradition in Modern Art

Abstract

I conducted inter-disciplinary research on the phenomenon of modernity: mainly its economic connotations and its socio-historical impact (primarily in regards to modified social relations) on the creation of several artists. I explored Walter Benjamin's claim that modernity means the loss of traditions. I have studied different modern artists and artistic groups: Charles Baudelaire, Giorgio de Chirico, Italian Futurists, the Situationists International, Jacques Villeglé, Raymond Hains and Gérard Fromanger. I started with the industrial society of the late nineteenth century and finished with the post-war Americanization or Post-Fordism in the 1960s. In my thesis, I argued that modern art maintained a strong connection to traditions; even if at first it seems that the modern artwork’s technique, form, medium, or subject matter does not correspond to that of a traditional artwork – the connection to tradition is nonetheless present in modern art, it is only less explicit and perhaps more difficult to locate.