But I Was So Much Older Then, I'm Younger Than That Now

In this post I just want to reflect upon the significance of the Stravinsky selection and the Duchamp painting to Modernist thought.  Both display characteristics that would be common to Modernist thinking, and so consequently give us some insight into how Modernists viewed the world.

 

Igor Stravinsky, 1920

One reason why Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring (Le sacre du printemps 1913) interests us is the story about the premiere in Paris (a story which may be apocryphal).  The legend is that at the premiere, the audience was so stunned and perturbed by it that not only did many walk out, but arguments and even fist fights broke out among patrons who thought that the ballet was either a cutting edge artistic event for the young century, or an immoral piece that violated the most sacred truths of great music.  While the audience reaction was volatile, not everyone agrees that it was the music that caused the problem.  Some historians suggest that it was Stravinsky who manufactured this story to give his music some street creds (at least on the streets the intellectuals and avant-garde lived), and that the audience reacted violently more towards the dancing.

Whatever the case might be, the music itself nonetheless can tell us much about Modernist perceptions of art.  For one thing, you do have music that is shockingly different from the more melodic, tonal and structured music that dominated the classical music landscape.  Notice the frequent time shifts, the sometimes spastic nature of the music, the frequent volume changes.  This is not ear-candy music, or music meant to bring one’s soul into harmony with the universe.  This is jarring.  Also notice how heavily percussive and brassy the music is; the more melodic strings are downplayed in favor of thumping percussions (in keeping with the dark sexual theme of the piece) and harsh horns.  This is a music that is intentionally trying to deconstruct the civilized and replace it with the primitive.  For Modernists, primitivism was often a cherished value.  We’ll deal with issues of primitivism a little later; for now, suffice it to say that the Modernist quest for primitivism was an active rejection of stagnant (white) civilization and attempt to re-connect with the Freudian id.

 

Nude Descending the Staircase, No. 2

The first question you may want to ask yourself here (well, maybe not want to ask) is how in the world is this related to the title of the piece?  If it were not for the title, would your first thought be “oh, yeah, that is one righteous descending nude; I only wish I could see number 1”?  My guess would be no, and that’s a more significant point than you might suspect.  For one thing, it should tell you that the “reality” of the painting—what the painting supposedly represents—only comes into existence when the artist uses words (the title) to alter your perceptions.  (Remember the Heisenberg quote?  Sure you do.)  In other words, the figure is a nude only because that’s what you perceive, and you perceive it only because the artist manufactured that perception.  As I mentioned before, for a Modernist absolute truth and objective reality don’t exist.

You also might notice that this figure of a nude (we’ll call it that for convenience) actually seems to be multiple figures.  So did some crappy editor leave out an “s”?  Nope—it is one figure—at multiple points in time.  What Duchamp has done is scorned the notion of linear time (A happened, then B happened—which means A is done and gone—then C happened—which means B is done and gone) in favor of all things happening simultaneously.  Past, present and future aren’t separate events; they co-exist.  This would be an important principle for cubist art.  What you are seeing with Duchamp is a visual rendering of quantum theory, which itself dismantles, in true Modernist fashion, traditional, linear perceptions of the world.