http://www.emohr.com/ww2_out.html
Return to Pre Modern Styles and Genres
An excellent explanation of the term is in “Art Speak,” published in 1990. Writer/art historian Robert Atkins (not the diet doctor) explains that postmodernism represents a return to pre-modern art styles and genres [18th century and before]. These include, “landscape and history painting, which had been rejected by many modernists in favor of abstraction” and other modern movements.
“Some people say that postmodern means ‘after modern’ or that it is a reaction against modern art. Art critics and aficionados often use the term. But many people do not easily understand it, including artists who create in a postmodern fashion.”
Atkins adds that a new aspect of this trend “is the dissolution of traditional categories.” He explains that in postmodern art, divisions no longer exist between:
- art
- popular culture
- the media
Hybrid Art Forms are Examples of that Dissolution.
Postmodern art becomes hybrid (fusions of different forms) when it blurs the traditional distinctions between:
- painting
- sculpture
- film
- performance
- architecture
- dance
These art forms can include other disciplines as:
- natural and physical sciences
- industry
- technology
- popular culture
- words, literature and poetry