Richard Pennycuick on post-modernism: >... I keep seeing the word used as if it's taken for granted that >everybody knows what it means. I once spent some time on the web in >search of an explanation until I admitted defeat. Enlightenment, someone, >please! The expression should refer to a bunch of (historically; & philosophically) post Modernist schools which sidebar the limitations of Modernism by co-opt pre-existing (often popular) devices into new aesthetics forms. It is primarily an academic description of an artistic philosophy, so that just about anything can be approached in a postModernist manner; which is why the philosophy is often confuses with eclectism aka synergism, which is a completely different (& historically much older - you can find eclectic principles in Herodotus) philosophy. The devil's dictionary defines postModernism as the academic version of if you can't beat 'em, join 'em; & this cynical view of the philosophy is actually fairly helpful, because it explains the rational & mechanics of the school fairly well. Modernism was philosophically the art of the machine; & the various post Modernist approaches began to appear when it became clear that the audience by & large preferred hearts & flowers to mechanistically ogranised tone rows. True postModernism's most recognisable branch is Pop Art (with Andy's soup cans almost defining another version of the philosophy); although many of the new romantic schools of composition - in particular, the so-called New York school & related philosophies (a fairly big umbrella which includes conventional names like Cage & less conventional names like Glass) & the holy minimalists such as Gorecki - are true postModernists in both spirit & execution. In a different sense, Bernstein was a postModernist as well; but Ives (like Glenn Gould after him) was a maverick romantic who occasionally foreshadowed some elements of the later approach. The two big problems with the expression is that hardly anyone ever agrees what Modernism was, making defining post Modernism a particularly inventive challenge (i take the mechanistic line; differentiating the school quite explicitly from the late romantic school known as Progressivism - there are other differentiations; & some ambiguity: Schoenberg certainly should be viewed as a Modernist because he accentuated to the mechanical process of composition through his version of tone-row organisation but his philosophy is often Progressivist; while Ives's writings often parallel Progressivist philosophy chapter & verse yet he rejected just about Progressivist (& Modernist, for that matter) principle of composition); & because postModernism is often confused with eclecticism. As i've said before, though, the expression is pretty much on its last legs; & will soon be relegated to that great Academia in the sky as a useful aesthetic terminology. Hope this has confused you even further... if not, i'll try harder next time.... Live in peace [log in to unmask] endeavour2 project <http://www.geocities.com/robtclements/endeavour2.html>