Baudelaire makes some interesting comments on the idea of contemporaneity as it applies to our idea of what is modern. If we are painting today, doesn’t that make whatever we create a ‘modern’ work of art? We did not create something 200 years ago, we created it now, which gives it a status of contemporary at the very least. Why does what we create determine the status of the creation? According to Baudelaire, if I create a picture of the last supper and put all the people in contemporary clothes, that would be a modern work of art; but if I were to paint a picture of boys playing, and put the subjects in 17th century clothing, that would not be a modern work of art because it does not reflect the modern period, even though I painted it in the modern period.
So how do we give a definition to what is modern? Is it only things that reflect the current society? or can it be a reflection of what the current society thinks. If we believe that our own fashion is terrible, and wear nothing but 60’s style clothing, we are ‘living in the past’, even though we are quite obviously living along side our more ‘fashionable’ critics.
In order to be considered modern, a person must embrace the fast-paced world around them. Baudelaire says that modernity is transient, fleeting and contingent. SO perhaps the only requirement for being modern is that a person must have no regrets. If you live with a forward outlook, never looking back, and embracing change, maybe that is what modernity truly means.
Annaliese
