The riddle of modernity

The concern for being modern, for being trendy, it's not only a human life condition; it also happens in literature, for example all the novels with the same subject that came out after the success of a best-seller or even the fan-fics are a prove of that. But that concern can also be found in art subjects. That's how the different art movements arise: someone inspired tries to be original and changes the rounded arches for the highest lancet arches giving way from the Romanesque to the Gothic architecture; Edouard Monet started to paint outside instead of being closed in his study, his fellow contemporaries liked it and copy it. Originality becomes trendy and that is only break again when someone else original appears. That explains why we remember the virtuous who generate changes but most of artist who copy the new style just remain anonymous forever. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

African masks/ a portrait by Pablo Picasso

But also at the same time in art, like in trends, everything is cyclical. The bell-bottom trousers are back, or the thick plastic frame glasses... The old stuff that once was left aside is now original again. Otherwise what is vintage fashion? Well then in art it happens exactly the same: the Renaissance raises the balance and harmony typical of the Greece-Roman classic art, afterwards it comes the Baroque filling up everything with ornaments and recharged compositions that will only stop with the Neoclassicism, a new return to Greece-Roman art. Thus century after century, cycle after cycle, we arrive to contemporary art, which seems to ignore the cycle: everything is innovation and every new change looks like a complete break with all previous art. Precisely “break with everything” was the idea that contemporary artist had in mind; but intentionally or not it all still feels like a return to earlier periods. Art feeds itself. Pablo Picasso's cubism is inspired in the African traditional masks while Andy Warhol's works, despite the innovation of the technique, are just new interpretations of the portrait and the still-life, two of the main topics in Baroque paintings.

The physical impossibility of death in the mind of someone living, Damien Hirst (1991)

And that's how we get to Damien Hirst, a very controversial British artist in recent decades for his work with dead animals preserved in formaldehyde. Death, the main topic in Hirst's artworks, has always been deeply laden with symbolism and a strong personal meaning. A lot of artworks talk about death, but if we use death as a tool and not only as a theme: outrage! A lot of people would say “that is not art”. Aberrations of contemporary art! But, oddly, Damien Hirst hasn't been the first one in using corpses to express himself artistically. To prove it we invite you to go to Rome and visit Santa Maria della Concezione dei Capuccini's crypt. The brave who dare to go in will discover a peculiar 17^th Century decoration which the Cappuccin monks made with the bones of its ancestors: skeletons turned into statues, altars made entirely with skulls, barrel vaults decorated with tibias and pelvis... It has nothing to envy to Hirst's shark in formaldehyde.

That is the riddle of modernity: what it's now modern is what it used to be old. Two opposite poles which are touched by the tips. So now we invite you to play a little game with the comments. Help us find more examples of modern art that can be linked with ancient art.

Ricard Gispert

@ricardgispert