If you're seeing this message, it means we're having trouble loading external resources on our website.

If you're behind a web filter, please make sure that the domains *.kastatic.org and *.kasandbox.org are unblocked.

To log in and use all the features of Khan Academy, please enable JavaScript in your browser.

Unit 9: The modern era (1980-present)

About this unit.

Since the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, the Cold War has ended and a new, global era has emerged. What does that mean for the United States?

1980s America

  • Ronald Reagan: Election and domestic policies (Opens a modal)
  • Ronald Reagan: Foreign policy (Opens a modal)
  • The Iran-Contra affair (Opens a modal)
  • Emergence of the AIDS crisis (Opens a modal)
  • 1980s America Get 3 of 4 questions to level up!

1990s America

  • The Gulf War (Opens a modal)
  • The presidency of Bill Clinton (Opens a modal)
  • Globalization (Opens a modal)
  • The election of 2000 (Opens a modal)
  • 1990s America Get 3 of 4 questions to level up!

The United States after 2000

  • The presidency of George W. Bush (Opens a modal)
  • September 11th (Opens a modal)
  • The Great Recession (Opens a modal)
  • The presidency of Barack Obama (Opens a modal)
  • Causation from 1980-2020 (Opens a modal)
  • The United States after 2000 Get 3 of 4 questions to level up!

31 Free Modern Powerpoint Templates for Your Presentation

  • Share on Facebook
  • Share on Twitter

By Lyudmil Enchev

in Freebies

4 years ago

Viewed 845,575 times

Spread the word about this article:

modern era presentation

Updated April 2022: We’ve updated the article with new and fresh free modern PowerPoint templates

As part of Microsoft’s office suite PowerPoint is an absolute standard presentation tool for meetings, conferences, and especially these days online learning and instruction. Its visual nature and the fact that it is easy to use and can create a clear, effective presentation with numerous inbuilt effects and designs means that it lends itself ideally to any almost situation. Whilst the PowerPoint software already has templates that are proven, time-saving and effective, you may want to go for a more customized or specialized look and one way of creating something special is by using a range of alternative templates that are available for free online with a simple download.

In this article, we’ll bring you a great selection of 31 entirely free templates to wow your audience and save you time searching and save time creating, double plus. All are customizable and fully editable, just add your own content and images to suit.

You may also be interested in The Best Free PowerPoint Templates to Download in 2022

1. Zeen Aesthetic Free Powerpoint Template

Aesthetic Free Powerpoint Template

Stand out a cool-looking design that is clean and organized inboxes and yet bold and modern. It screams for attention. It is fully editable and contains slides for images, tables, flowcharts, and graphs.

  • Resolution – high 16:9 widescreen layout
  • Number of slides – 15
  • Color themes – black/white/grey/green

2. Infographic Templates for PowerPoint

PowerPoint infographic template slides

A huge bundle of infographic templates, including 20 free infographic designs in modern style. The slides are compatible with PowerPoint, but also with other popular software solutions, such as Google Slides, Photoshop, Illustrator, and more.

  • 20 free templates – a total of 539 modern templates for data visualization
  • editable in PowerPoint, Google Slides, Keynote, Photoshop, Illustrator
  • well-structured, and organized files

3. Quantities Free Powerpoint Template

Quantities Free Powerpoint Template

Modern crisp template design lets you get your message across in a powerfully direct way. Strongly structural look, that allows plenty of possibilities for a wide range of businesses.

  • Number of slides – 10
  • Color themes – clean white/black pages

4. Nook Minimalist Free Powerpoint Template

Nook Minimalist Free Powerpoint Template

A minimal palette of classic and classy black, white, and gold combinations. Oozes style and elegance.

  • Resolution – high 16:9 widescreen layout
  • Number of slides – 12
  • Color themes – Classy black/white/gold

5. Ailie Free Powerpoint Template

Ailie Free Powerpoint Template

A subtle and effective 15-slide PowerPoint template. A soft, gentle look, yet with strong borders for clear organization.

  • Color themes – grey/white/muted blues

6. Marketing Plan Free Powerpoint Template

Marketing Plan Free Powerpoint Template

A comprehensive business or marketing template. Minimal design with clearly targeted areas including maps, charts, and infographics.

  • Number of slides – 28
  • Color themes – white/blue/grey

7. Free Modern Business Powerpoint Template

Free Modern Business Powerpoint Template

A two-color design choice of light or dark including charts, maps, diagrams, and other useful slides for multipurpose presentations. a smooth, consistent, well-ordered look.

  • Resolution – High 16:9
  • Number of slides – 2 color versions of 34
  • Color themes – white/light blue or dark/blue

8. Aliena Free Powerpoint Template

Aliena Free Powerpoint Template

A stunning futuristic gradient offering in stylish blue and purple. Its isometric illustrations make it ideal for technological themes. Includes a full customization icon family of 80.

  • Resolution- 16:9 also suitable for 4:3
  • Number of slides – 25
  • Color themes – blue/ purple gradient

9. High-Tech Free Powerpoint Template

High-Tech Free Powerpoint Template

Futuristic bright neon colors and sleek graphic illustrations create a modern forward-thinking powerful presentation for business or learning environments.

  • Resolution – 16:9 widescreen
  • Number of slides – 21
  • Color themes – gradient neon blue/pink

You may also be interested in these related articles:

  • 23 Great Free Google Slides and PowerPoint Templates for Teachers
  • The Best Free Infographic Templates in 2022 for Every Software
  • The Best Minimalist Powerpoint Templates for Free Download

10. Juliet Free Powerpoint Template

Juliet Free Powerpoint Template

An ideal presentation template for limited text and heavy on images.  Heavy multicolored painted brush strokes give a flash of entertainment and an artistic feel to each slide. Very creative.

  • Resolution – 16:9 screen layout (can change to 4:3)
  • Color themes – multicolored painted design

11. Watercolor Modern Free Powerpoint Template

Watercolor Powerpoint Template

A superb slideshow to set a calm, peaceful, and creatively artistic mood.  A variety of brushstrokes and painted techniques all held together with a gentle and attractive blue palette. Come with 1000+ icons and Flaticon’s extension for customizing your slides, many with an artistic theme.

  • Resolution – 16:9 widescreen
  • Color themes – blue/turquoise/green with black

12. Gower Free Powerpoint Template

Gower - Green Powerpoint Template

A perfect design to emphasize teamwork in any situation. Friendly and personable, containing graphic illustrations of colleagues involved in a variety of activities.  It also includes a customizable icon family with 80 different icons and a world map.

  • Resolution – 16:9 screen layout (Can change to 4:3)
  • Color themes – white/ green accents

13. Modern Illustrations Free Powerpoint Template

PPT Template with modern illustrations

An interesting style that takes its inspiration from online content. Modern, clear backgrounds allow the illustration to speak for themselves with a mixture of font styles adding extra vitality. Includes 500+ icons and Flaticon’s extension for customizing your slides.

  • Number of slides – 29
  • Color themes – white/grey and pastels

14. Modern Flat Free Powerpoint Template

Free powerpoint slides with flat illustrations

Creative, lively, and colorful. The soft backgrounds really make the text and images pop, giving a modern look. Includes 500+ icons and Flaticon’s extension for customizing your slides

  • Number of slides – 26
  • Color themes – pale blue background, bright accent colors

15. Summer Free Powerpoint Template

free powerpoint template on summer theme

A vintage cool theme of slightly muted colors that work great. A modern mood of active lifestyle choices in an upbeat yet relaxed presentation. Really creates the vibe. Plus it has 1000+ icons and Flaticon’s extension for customizing your slides

  • Resolution – 16:9 widescreen format
  • Number of slides – 11
  • Color themes – muted natural sea/waves

Get a Professionally Designed Presentation For Your Project

16. Minimalist Design Free Powerpoint Template

minimalist style presentation template

Harmony and comfort are the watchwords for this slideshow presentation template. Clean backgrounds with large headings and elegant shapes exude balance and precision. There are also 1000+ icons split up into different themes to custom your slides whilst keeping the tone.

  • Resolution – 16:9 widescreen format
  • Number of slides – 30
  • Color themes – soft browns, beige and natural greens

17. Minimal Mint Free PowerPoint Template

minimalist style powerpoint template with modern colors

Clean, simple, and classy. The mint green accent used sparingly is incredibly effective in attracting and drawing attention to key points.  A modern, minimal and confident slideshow, that can be customized by 1000+ icons provided in themes.

  • Color themes – dark greys/white and mint green

18. Rites Free PowerPoint Template

fashion themed presentation template with modern design

A slideshow that really pulls you in with sensuous, softness.  Visually attractive but subtle enough to make you want to spend time on each slide, nothing should be rushed. Stylish and relaxed.

  • Resolution – 16:9 widescreen layout
  • Number of slides – 30 +
  • Color themes – Soft whites/pinks/blues

19. Rosalind Free PowerPoint Template

Pink and purple colors powerpoint template

Attention-grabbing and full of life, there is nothing to hide with a bright pink background. The contrast white fonts mean it doesn’t overwhelm but it certainly leaves an impression. Come with a customizable icon family of 80 different icons and a world map, so it’s adaptable too.

  • Color themes – vibrant pink/ slight gradient to purple

20. 3D Free Powerpoint Template

Creative presentation template with 3D shapes

With a modern 3d look that is set off by an attention-grabbing gradient background, this PowerPoint presentation can’t fail to impress. Ideal for tech presentations or anything that wants to push toward a bright, bold abstract future. Hundreds of icons are available to enable you to make something very special.

  • Color themes – gradient purples/blues

21. Black Friday Sales Free Powerpoint Template

Presentation template for Black friday with modern neon colors

Soft warm invited colors theme but still fresh and clear. A versatile, modern slideshow template that includes 1000+ icons as extra customizable options.

  • Number of slides – 33
  • Color themes – Soft gradient pink and purple

22. Modern Blue Free Powerpoint Template

Modern blue and green color scheme powerpoint template

Strong colors, clear typography, and organic shapes combine to deliver a rather funky, modern feel. Themes icons will give you the opportunity to add your own style to accompany your content and leave your mark.

  • Color themes – blues/greens

23. Freesia Free Powerpoint Template

Fresh PowerPoint template with yellow tones

A fresh, interesting look that uses bright colors and organic, abstract shapes to lead you from slide to slide. Lots of positive energy and loads of additional free icons for easy customization.

  • Number of slides – 31
  • Color themes – white/yellow/orange

24. Modern Dark Blue Free Powerpoint Template

Free powerpoint template with modern shapes and blue and red color scheme

A dramatic slideshow with dark moody backgrounds and blood-red highlights creates instant visual impact. Add this to the rectangular theme that continues throughout and you get a serious statement piece of design that can really help you get your point across. Comes with over 500 icons and Flaticon’s extension for customizing your slides allowing for huge versatility.

  • Number of slides – 23
  • Color themes – Dark blue/ highlight red

25. Minimalist Newsletter Free Powerpoint Template

Free minimalist presentation template for newsletters

Readable and comfortable to read. a newsletter base that can easily be adapted with the use of your own content and photos. Carefully framed photos as backgrounds and with geometric patterns overlapping create a modern image and create an atmosphere that mixes the photos with the facts.

  • Number of slides – 19
  • Color themes – Available in five colors themes: black, purple, dark blue, red, and green

26. Porto Free Powerpoint Template

Modern clean powerpoint template with white color

Short but beautifully formed. a to-the-point 9-slide PowerPoint template that can but used anywhere for anything. Balanced and unfussy, plenty of breathing space, simplicity, and room for you to be yourself.

  • Number of slides – 9
  • Color themes – light (editable)

Presentation Tip You Wish You Knew Earlier:

The shorter you keep the text, the better. In fact, some specialists suggest that you shouldn’t use more than 5-6 words per slide . And sometimes, a single word combined with a powerful visual is enough to nail the attention of the people sitting in front of you and make them listen to what you have to say.

27. Hexa Free Minimalist Powerpoint Template

HEXA - creative minimal PowerPoint slides

Minimal, modern, and marvelous. Keep the focus on the content as the template design very much works with you on this one. simple and cool, like a breath of fresh air.

  • Color themes – white/beige

28. Minimalist Inversement Free Powerpoint Template

Cool free aesthetic powerpoint template with white, green and black colors

A powerful design, intent on holding that attention span. Strong structural elements and stand-out bold headings mean you will never be lost here. There is a mix of various types of slides including timelines, charts, agenda slides, mockups, and many others, so the world is your oyster.

  • Resolution – 16:9
  • Number of slides – 24
  • Color themes – 3 pre-made variations (mint green/mustard yellow/ sky blue

29. Window Minimal Free Powerpoint Template

Minimal style presentation template for free download

A comprehensive template that allows great variations of presentation including charts, timelines, maps, and all infographic elements. Modern and minimal pushing content to the fore and taking a backseat where necessary. Statement design.

  • Resolution – 16:9 HD
  • Color themes – mainly white with 5 pre-made color variations

30. Pink Pastel Free Powerpoint Template

Fresh Powerpoint template with pastel colors

A gentle PowerPoint presentation that sits back and waits to be viewed. There is nothing forceful here but it is enticing with its soft comforting colors and elegant layout.

  • Color themes – Pastel pink/green/white

31. Fresh Colors Free Powerpoint Template

Colorful free presentation template for PowerPoint

A true whirlwind of a presentation, energetic, lively, wild, and certainly confident. A full selection of well-designed classic infographics, loads of space for explanations, and variety in buckets. What a way to end.

  • Resolution – 16:9
  • Number of slides – 17
  • Color themes – White and bright

Final Words

If you’re going to spend time making something worth presenting why not take a little more time to make it something truly special. These templates will allow you to do exactly that thanks to the help of top PowerPoint designers. Save time for you to concentrate on your content and let the designers do their thing. All are fully editable, play with the colors and use your branding or school colors. add images and photos or use the ones provided  – and best of all they are free, free, free!

modern era presentation

Add some character to your visuals

Cartoon Characters, Design Bundles, Illustrations, Backgrounds and more...

Like us on Facebook

Subscribe to our newsletter

Be the first to know what’s new in the world of graphic design and illustrations.

  • [email protected]

Browse High Quality Vector Graphics

E.g.: businessman, lion, girl…

Related Articles

50+ free social media icon sets for your designs [vector-based], 50+ free vector infographic templates: multipurpose, business, ecology, 10 last-minute ideas to decorate your website for christmas (+freebies), monster business card template in illustrator (tutorial + freebie), the best free powerpoint templates to download in 2021, 500+ free and paid powerpoint infographic templates:, enjoyed this article.

Don’t forget to share!

  • Comments (0)

modern era presentation

Lyudmil Enchev

Lyudmil is an avid movie fan which influences his passion for video editing. You will often see him making animations and video tutorials for GraphicMama. Lyudmil is also passionate for photography, video making, and writing scripts.

modern era presentation

Thousands of vector graphics for your projects.

Hey! You made it all the way to the bottom!

Here are some other articles we think you may like:

Character Clipart: a Collection for Every Taste & Every Project

Free Vectors

Character clipart: a collection for every taste & every project.

by Iveta Pavlova

modern era presentation

30+ Free Presentation Clipart Graphics and Resources for Great PowerPoint Visuals

by Al Boicheva

36 Free Food PowerPoint Templates For Delicious Presentations

36 Free Food PowerPoint Templates For Delicious Presentations

Looking for design bundles or cartoon characters.

A source of high-quality vector graphics offering a huge variety of premade character designs, graphic design bundles, Adobe Character Animator puppets, and more.

modern era presentation

Advisories | Goldlink | Goldmail | D2L | Safety | A-Z Index

Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University

  • < Previous

Home > OER > OER-TYPE > OER-ANCILLARY-MATERIALS > art-appreciation-oer > 21

Art Appreciation Open Educational Resource

Lesson 19: The Unraveling - Abstraction in the Modern Era

Marie Porterfield , East Tennessee State University Follow

This lesson covers cubism, abstract expressionism, and minimalism. Cubism is discussed with artworks by Pablo Picasso, abstract expressionism by Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Mark Rothko, and minimalism by Donald Judd.

Adapting Materials

For ease of adapting the materials, editable files are provided. Under additional files, you can download the presentation in PowerPoint and the reading list and sketchbook assignment in Word.

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License

This OER is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) ; it is intended for non-commercial, educational purposes.

NOTE: Due to the nature of the course materials, licensing and copyright for images may differ from the CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 licensing of the OER. Further information can be found in the section ‘Copyright Information’ and within the captions of the images.

Acknowledgements

This Art Appreciation OER was adapted from existing resources by Marie Porterfield Barry for the Fall 2019 semester as part of East Tennessee State University’s Open Educational Resources (OERs) Awards Program .

Recommended Citation

Porterfield, Marie. 2020. "Lesson 19: The Unraveling - Abstraction in the Modern Era." Art Appreciation Open Educational Resource . Johnson City: East Tennessee State University. https://dc.etsu.edu/art-appreciation-oer/21

Additional files available below

Since January 24, 2020

Included in

Art and Design Commons , History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology Commons

Advanced Search

  • Notify me via email or RSS
  • Collections
  • Disciplines

Author Corner

  • ETSU Libraries

Sponsored by Charles C. Sherrod Library

Home | About | FAQ | My Account | Accessibility Statement

Privacy Copyright

Got any suggestions?

We want to hear from you! Send us a message and help improve Slidesgo

Top searches

Trending searches

modern era presentation

teacher appreciation

11 templates

modern era presentation

memorial day

12 templates

modern era presentation

9 templates

modern era presentation

55 templates

modern era presentation

summer vacation

24 templates

modern era presentation

islamic history

36 templates

History Presentation templates

Free history google slides themes and powerpoint templates for your presentations. download them and make your cultural projects stand out with the large amount of graphic resources included., related collections.

Pre-K

13 templates

Elementary

67 templates

Middle School

Middle School

139 templates

High School

High School

228 templates

University

86 templates

Winston Churchill Day presentation template

Winston Churchill Day

Download the "Winston Churchill Day" presentation for PowerPoint or Google Slides. The education sector constantly demands dynamic and effective ways to present information. This template is created with that very purpose in mind. Offering the best resources, it allows educators or students to efficiently manage their presentations and engage audiences....

Social Studies & History Subject for Middle School - 6th Grade: Ancient World History presentation template

Social Studies & History Subject for Middle School - 6th Grade: Ancient World History

Learning about our past is the best way of understanding our present. This template is perfect to present your students the different civilizations that emerged in ancient history and make them passionate about history. The slides have an appealing antique look that will take your audience in a trip to...

Vintage Paper History Lesson presentation template

Premium template

Unlock this template and gain unlimited access

Vintage Paper History Lesson

Take your students on a fascinating journey through global history! Speak about human evolution, cultural and religious history, important inventions and political developments with this lovely presentation template with a background of creamy, vintage paper scraps. You can edit the graphs, map and everything else in these slides easily, so...

Papyrus History Lesson presentation template

Papyrus History Lesson

History lessons tend to be boring for students, since they need to remember dates and a bunch of information. Make it entertaining by editing our free presentation template, whose backgrounds based on ancient papyrus rolls take it to the next level.

Powerful Predators presentation template

Powerful Predators

Download the "Powerful Predators" presentation for PowerPoint or Google Slides and teach with confidence. Sometimes, teachers need a little bit of help, and there's nothing wrong with that. We're glad to lend you a hand! Since Slidesgo is committed to making education better for everyone, we've joined hands with educators....

Cinco de Mayo presentation template

Cinco de Mayo

Download the "Cinco de Mayo" presentation for PowerPoint or Google Slides and start impressing your audience with a creative and original design. Slidesgo templates like this one here offer the possibility to convey a concept, idea or topic in a clear, concise and visual way, by using different graphic resources....

April 25th: The Spanish-American War presentation template

April 25th: The Spanish-American War

Download the "April 25th: The Spanish-American War" presentation for PowerPoint or Google Slides. The education sector constantly demands dynamic and effective ways to present information. This template is created with that very purpose in mind. Offering the best resources, it allows educators or students to efficiently manage their presentations and...

Christopher Columbus and the Discovery of America for Children presentation template

Christopher Columbus and the Discovery of America for Children

Download the "Christopher Columbus and the Discovery of America for Children" presentation for PowerPoint or Google Slides and easily edit it to fit your own lesson plan! Designed specifically for elementary school education, this eye-catching design features engaging graphics and age-appropriate fonts; elements that capture the students' attention and make...

Battle of Ayacucho presentation template

Battle of Ayacucho

Download the Battle of Ayacucho presentation for PowerPoint or Google Slides and start impressing your audience with a creative and original design. Slidesgo templates like this one here offer the possibility to convey a concept, idea or topic in a clear, concise and visual way, by using different graphic resources....

Winston Churchill Day presentation template

Writing History Thesis

Are you finishing your writing history thesis and need a good presentation to impress the examination board? We propose you this vintage style template that fits wonderfully with the topic. It has a simple design, beige background and doodle illustrations of books, papyrus, quills, etc. that add sophistication to your...

The Prehistory presentation template

The Prehistory

It is agreed that prehistory is the period of time previous to the invention of writing systems. We all think of people as cavemen, with giant clubs and wearing some kind of clothing made of fur. Prehistory is more than that! Teach all you know, and all your students need...

Art Subject for Elementary - 2nd Grade: Art History presentation template

Art Subject for Elementary - 2nd Grade: Art History

Already at elementary level, you can make your students connect with the beauty and the aesthetic objects. How? By teaching Art History. Have this template as an extra resource for your class and use slides to reinforce the contents of the lesson. The layouts are not complicated at all: there...

The Visigoths presentation template

The Visigoths

Download the "The Visigoths" presentation for PowerPoint or Google Slides and start impressing your audience with a creative and original design. Slidesgo templates like this one here offer the possibility to convey a concept, idea or topic in a clear, concise and visual way, by using different graphic resources. You...

Reconstruction Era and the Gilded Age - History - 11th Grade presentation template

Reconstruction Era and the Gilded Age - History - 11th Grade

In the United States, the Reconstruction Era followed the Civil War and sought to unite the nation and grant civil rights. The Gilded Age brought industrial growth, but also inequality and corruption. Both eras shared the struggle for civil rights and equity. So these are two periods loaded with historical...

Generation of '27 presentation template

Generation of '27

Generation of '27 is a group of avant-garde poets and artists who began to publish their work in the 20s of the 20th century. To help you explain this interesting part of Spanish literature to your students, we propose you this old-style brown template, with different illustrations of books, pens,...

April 25th: East Meets West Day - Elbe Day presentation template

April 25th: East Meets West Day - Elbe Day

Download the "April 25th: East Meets West Day - Elbe Day" presentation for PowerPoint or Google Slides. The education sector constantly demands dynamic and effective ways to present information. This template is created with that very purpose in mind. Offering the best resources, it allows educators or students to efficiently...

Social Studies Subject for Middle School - 8th Grade: Geography and Colonialism presentation template

Social Studies Subject for Middle School - 8th Grade: Geography and Colonialism

How did we all humans get to know each other? Well, it’s a complicated story about colonialism, discoveries and adventures, but it can be easy to understand if you as a teacher use the correct resources. This template includes maps, timelines, charts and tables that will give your history lesson...

  • Page 1 of 64

Great presentations, faster

Slidesgo for Google Slides :

The easy way to wow

modern era presentation

Register for free and start editing online

SlidePlayer

  • My presentations

Auth with social network:

Download presentation

We think you have liked this presentation. If you wish to download it, please recommend it to your friends in any social system. Share buttons are a little bit lower. Thank you!

Presentation is loading. Please wait.

Introduction to Modern European History. The Modern Era time period after the Middle Ages science & technology secularism capitalism materialism individualism.

Published by Philomena Douglas Modified over 8 years ago

Similar presentations

Presentation on theme: "Introduction to Modern European History. The Modern Era time period after the Middle Ages science & technology secularism capitalism materialism individualism."— Presentation transcript:

Introduction to Modern European History

Understanding Western Culture Where did it all begin?

modern era presentation

Essential Question: What were the important themes of Periodizations 1, 2, and 3? What are the important themes of Periodization 4: The Early Modern Era?

modern era presentation

Essential Question: – What were the important themes of Periodization 1: Foundations? – What were the important themes of Period 2: The Classical Age?

modern era presentation

LA Comprehensive Curriculum

modern era presentation

GEOGRAPHY AND HISTORY IN SECONDARY SCHOOL IN SPAIN José Luis Martínez Díez Campo Charro Secondary School (La Fuente de San Esteban, Salamanca)

modern era presentation

SETTING THE STAGE: EUROPE IN THE HIGH MIDDLE AGES.

modern era presentation

■ Essential Question: – What were the important themes of Periodizations 1 and 2? – What are the important themes of Periodization 3: Transition to the.

modern era presentation

Political Ideology Vocabulary Totalitarianism is an ideology reflecting the belief that government should have unlimited power and control over all sectors.

modern era presentation

Patten & Valdner Global History Regents Review

modern era presentation

PERIODIZATION, THEMES, AND ANALYSIS

modern era presentation

Social Studies Course Offerings Grades 7 & 8

modern era presentation

1 Thematic Review Global History II Review. 2 Change Neolithic Revolution (11,000 years ago) –First farmers and settlements Industrial Revolution (Europe.

modern era presentation

Arts & Tech global history JEOPARDY JEOPARDY click here to PLAY.

modern era presentation

Eastern Europe  Cultural Crossroads for people moving between Europe and Asia  Ottoman Empire held this area from 1300s to World War 1. –Many countries.

modern era presentation

Europe Chapter 2 Vocabulary Review. a far-reaching change.

modern era presentation

History Resource Center: World. Gale Digital Collections  History Resource Center: World provides a full range of sources for research: Over 22,000 reference.

modern era presentation

Adventures in World History E-Portfolio Enter your name here. © Jay D’Ambrosio, 2005.

modern era presentation

Cold War in Europe: Midterm Review Origins of Cold War: Impact of WWII (political, cultural, economic, and military realities); Reasons for East/West split.

modern era presentation

Rock-a-bye Baby: Mesopotamia, the Cradle of Civilization.

modern era presentation

A GIANT World History A Review. SSHS-S2C2-01. Describe the development of early prehistoric people, their agriculture, and settlements. Australopithecines,

About project

© 2024 SlidePlayer.com Inc. All rights reserved.

  • Skip to global NPS navigation
  • Skip to the main content
  • Skip to the footer section

modern era presentation

Exiting nps.gov

New contexts: preservation challenges of modern era design.

Ann Dilcher stands at a lectern, presenting.

National Park Service

New Contexts for Mid-Century Modern Structures

I'm excited to come to this conference and I think a lot of what I have to present this morning really follows what we heard from Ghani this morning because my topic looks up some more case studies and some more questions.

I think some of the same questions and new questions.

And its really looking into these topics that we can discuss to day and over the next several days and we are continuing to discuss in our work on mid-century modern structures.

The examples of the work are mostly from the Michigan office of Quinn Evans, also looking a little bit of the DC work.

I'm going to talk about how we discuss and approach the mid-century modern problems and what we grappled with and working on these projects and then to ask questions for the discussion here in terms of what other people are looking at and wondering how they're solving their questions.

Topics: Eligibility, Adaptability, and Materials

All right, were looking at three different areas that we've been working on.

The first has to do with eligibility and documentation and understanding that where are we with the fifty year and exceptional significance or criteria G, and what are the considerations and questions that go along with that in mid-century modern structures.

Next, looking just a little bit about adaptability and what does it mean to adapt to mid-century modern structures. What about them makes it easier or harder to adapt, just looking at one small case study on that question.

And then also looking at material assembly as well and what are the materials involved in the specific materials conservation with the projects.

Contexts: Urban renewal, Modern architecture, Planning, Landscape design. 78 acres, 66 buildings.

Ann K. Dilcher, Quinn Evans Architects

Lafayette Park: Detroit, Michigan

Starting out with a look at Lafayette Park which is in Detroit, Michigan.

We are working with the Michigan SHPO and this was in preparing a national historic landmark nomination.

The nomination is still in draft form but in the context, here are looking at urban renewal, modern architectural planning, and landscape design.

This project, really the significant stakes on it we have this from 1956 to 1957, the involvement of Reese Vanderough, Herbert Greenwald, his developer; Lidwig Simmer, his planner and Alfred Caldwell, his landscape architect to understand the importance of this as a land mark within Detroit.

Lots of the buildings here have already been listed individually.

Black and white photo of Lafayette Park, scraped clean.

Separate Historic from the Lost

And I think it's really part of this is to try and understand the questions the integrity of the national register and of our landmarking and understand where do we separate what we might call truly historic with what is merely old and those questions.

I think here is one that people are pretty clearly are really feeling is truly historic.

But, also it's that question of what came before and what was lost in that.

With the urban renewal movement and with the areas that were just completely scraped clean.

Is there a fabric or a history that we need to recognize, think about our comment on, hear the black bottom neighborhood, or thriving business that actually were what went away to build this landmark today?

A black and white photograph taken of the urban landscape and concentrating housing beside the park.

Here's the images of it recently built.

This site has the townhouses.

It's very interesting on how the vehicular traffic has really kept in edges of the site.

And the overview gives you a sense of the super block concept that makes this so important with the integration of the landscape and the buildings.

Three towers and the townhouses, by standing in a row.

And this new idea of really concentrating your housing so that your also gaining the park and the landscape with the concentrated housing on it.

And just a couple more images recently of how it is today.

Photos of the outside and inside of one of the newly conserved Lafayette Park Towers.

So look at this.

It's the last project in terms of the case study and materials in the work that we have done in the towers at the building.

But towers in some ways are similar with what we saw with Ghani with the plaza with the inside.

Outside curtain wall at that lobby and how you deal with the glazing on structures going up.

Fiberglas Tower, River View

Fiberglas Tower is also known as River View. This is another urban redevelopment project in Toledo.

It's one that we have recently nominated on the National Register now.

Fiberglas Tower. Location: Toledo, Ohio. Client: Building Owner. Scope: National Register Nomination. Contexts: Urban Renewal, Toledo Architecture, Glass Industry. Size: Approximately 2.3 acres, 2 buildings, one site.

We determine it to be exceptionally significant locally.

It's the only urban renewal project that happened in downtown Toledo. It's the only part of a plan that was developed by [inaudible] that actually was completed here in terms of an urban renewal project.

And then, Harrison and Obramavitz from New York were the architects on the tower and parking garage.

This again, I think is interesting because its bringing in the urban landscapes and thinking about the urban landscapes as part of the mid-century modern landscapes with the plaza and the tower and the parking garage on here.

This the same team was sort of brought in to do this project who had just completed an [inaudible] project in Cleveland.

So it was the same planning and architectural team building off of that.

Here again, you see just the recognition of the fabric that was taken down and cleared.

A historic photo of the recently opened parking garage by Fiberglas Tower.

In this case something was cleared, I think something was built.

I think its may be the history more in spots were actually the demolition from the urban renewal program was done and the funds were never there to build that we may have lost more.

Showing this as it recently opened parking garage is on the left and that tower is on the right.

It's Fiberglas Tower because it was done through Owen's Corner Fiberglas on that and the plaza has always been owned and maintained by the city.

So it was a project with several owners in it as it was completed.

And here's a view.

I think this is also an interesting one to talk about and to think about how we determine things significant or not, and the impact of those.

Left shows a historic office view, on the right Fiberglas Tower, and on the left, vacant space today. Fiberglas Tower today requires tax credits to make it a viable development project.

Because this tower has been vacant for many years and in part of it that is the importance of the tax credits that will go in and be used to make this a viable development project.

That's something in the Detroit, Toledo area that we look at.

A struggle with a lot [going] on.

Is it just merely old?

Or is it significant?

Or in deeming it really significant with the tax credit dollars?

Does that then allow us to leverage those and actually redevelop a site and start to redevelop a part of the city that might otherwise not get redeveloped?

And it's those sort of pressures that we look at and talk about.

So this is scheduled, hopefully to start design work on residential at the top of the building and office or residential down below.

I don't know if that's been decided yet.

It's originally all office.

FBI Headquarters. Location: Washington, DC. Client: General Services Administration. Contexts: FBI History, Brutalist Architecture, Planning in DC. Size: Approximately 2 million square feet.

FBI Headquarters

Next project is the FBI Headquarters.

I think this leads in some of the panel discussion later this afternoon of people thinking about old buildings and what buildings are loved or not loved from this era.

Let's say the important things here on this is the project that we brought in to look at the determination of the eligibility for this project for the GSA on it and in the end this was determined to not be eligible.

Project that was started in the '67 and not completed til '75.

So we are looking at the 50 year role.

We're looking at the uses of it were it was fairly obsolete when the building was built.

Already with physical file storage and finger printing and how it was set up that even by '75, the FBI and technology were changing so fast. So, what kind of a floor plate you have and what was the use.

Overhead view of FBI Headquarters and the double-block it occupies.

It is named after J. Edgar Hoover which gives us a very prominent person. He did die before the completion of the building.

And then it's also: what's really important as part of this planning for the Pennsylvania Advisory Council plan along Pennsylvania Avenue where its located?

This shows you the double block it does occupy.

But throughout the process of this, it really seems the history seems that it was truly a building by committee, and committee and committee.

And I think there were some thoughts that really so much was compromised from what was the original designed and original part of the planning that was never realized in the project.

I think it one interesting case study because I think it brings up a lot of voices from both sides of the project. So here's the exterior and the interior courtyard view.

In a round Poured concrete stools in a circle with showers and changing stalls.

Bald Mountain State Recreation Area

Next, moving from a very big to a very small project.

This is at Bald Mountain State Recreation Area in Michigan, north of Detroit.

Mid-Century Modern Michigan.

You can come and be a tourist in Michigan and you can go visit this at a state park.

This is just a small bath house on a lake that was commissioned by the state parks.

It's designed by Gunnar Birkerts and Associates, a very important name in mid-century modern architecture and a very important name in Michigan modern, inspired by the Mission 66 and this has been listed on the National Register.

Holistic Design: Building, site, interior, lighting, and fixtures are all taken into consideration during a study of adaptive reuse. A series of photos showing the Contact Station, Concession Stand, interior  light fixtures, furnishing, and restrooms.

The question with this really is the idea of adaptability and here we move from we've determined its eligible but what and how can we use or reuse these buildings.

When you come to the park, this is your Contact Station.

This is were the person stayed and suppose to stay inside and then come out and get to the car, the wrong side of the car and just in terms of running a Park, it has never worked well.

But you can see what a whimsical and fun structure it is.

Once you get past this, another few miles on the road you come to the actual bath house complex.

It has two bath houses that have enclosed toilet room, open shower, changing room areas and a concession stand.

The concessionaire worked and you'd walk up and order your hot dog, your popsicle, what you needed.

Bald Mountain State Rec Area: Scope: Prepare a facility assessment. Client: MSHDA, Michigan State Housing Development Authority.

So its just this fun design that in the 70s everyone went to the beach, laid on the beach, slathered up and it was towel to towel, but as recreation uses have changed, they get very few visitors here a year.

And structures while very interesting and unique in mid-century modernism are out in the park and are subjected to vandalism.

I do think it's interesting that the original drawings did call for brick, and this as an alternate on the drawings for the poured concrete. It think if they were brick, they might have crumbled sooner and not be here to be a question of how do you reuse as much for the parks.

So this is one of the bath houses. Here you see what you go in for a changing room. Again, it's an interesting architecture. It's a balance between what is the intent of the thought of the fun design versus the practicality of getting yourself between these little concrete walls. There's another little concrete stool to use to change within these cubbies. It's just not a friendly design for people.

So I was thinking about how we can find a new use. A building is something that's used. We need to find something here how can we make this work. It's not out on this park in Michigan. It's going to be hard to have it stay as a jewel of design with no use for it.

Here some photos from the site. And one of those are important and how do we keep them or not. The desks, the integrated light fixtures, the pie-shaped toilet stalls maybe not, that are concrete. But it's exciting- small but interesting problem on what to do and make this viable.

Black and white photo of students reading within and beside the reflecting pool.

McGregor Center

Next, looking at the McGregor Center which is in Michigan.

This is sort of going more to the materials and what are the questions with the materials.

This is at Wayne State University its the reflecting pools and site restoration that we're involved in.

You can come [inaudible] where the crowd is getting an award there at it.

This a historic photo and I think here the important thing is to understand it's a black and white photo but to understand the black and white of it.

The black of the reflecting pool and the white of those islands and walkways. It was really an important part of the original design.

A photo showing a drained reflecting pool with stones, islands, and statuary.

When we got there on the project, this is what it looked like.

The pools had always leaked.

This is the Yamasaki project, I forgot to note. For those who don't know it...it's very important. We are working on landmarking this building and the site.

It was important as one of his first reflecting pool designs that he went on to do more work on.

But it had leaked often.

Those beautiful white islands were chipped marble that everyone kicked in to the pool.

They gummed up the works even more.

But its that clean look with that plastic...boulders that were picked and selected.

The laser scan was important as it aided discovery of original intent.

More and more our work involves laser scanning the projects before we start to really understand it.

It helps us understand the problems and it understands how to document where things get put back.

Part of the importance of this scan, was those boulders and we want things to go back where they were, and how they were placed by Yamasaki when the project was initially created.

What we found out though was as we started the project, the concrete of the pool was dissolved. It was not a material that we could keep and restore.

And so then the fourth of this laser scan was very important because this project was a complete recreation of the pools. So it's there looking at is the concrete of the pool that's important or is it the intent, and the design intent of the project.

And this project, it was really the design intent that we felt was the most important to bring back.

So much of this is a complete recreation but its going back to the white look.

This time the marble chips are adhere into the pavers so that it should stay and function well. It's going back to the black look of the pools and reflecting and making this a very wonderful serene space to be in and enjoy. It's just a wonderful spot on the campus, if anyone's in Detroit.

Two towers parallel with a pool and rec area central to the plaza and a parking garage between.

Lafayette Towers

And finally, look at Lafayette Towers.

We started looking at Lafayette Park. Here the building owner asked us to look at the plaza restoration, window restoration.

We also did a complete MAPU replacement in these buildings.

There are the two towers with the parking garage between on Lafayette Park.

A later muse project where I think he worked out a lot of the details from his earlier projects and how to execute them here.

The coverings up into the materials and that looking at the aluminum.

And what kind of mockups do we got do to try and understand how to clean in this case the aluminum.

And the different options you're studying and testing to try and understand what works best on these mid-century modern structures.

Photo shows testing of aluminum cleaning with seven different cleaners.

And then it was also a question of the windows, and doing an energy replacement you are asked to looked at the windows and shouldn't you replace the windows and what can happen.

In this case, we deem that it really wasn't to keep the look, it really wasn't possible to replace the windows.

And the windows were not that bad condition.

It did involve abating around every window where we had to abate and reseal every window but keeping the original fabric on these buildings.

And the very last kind among this project in my presentation is looking at the plaza.

In this I think is a plaza where it's sort of the opposite take of Yamasaki's reflecting pools.

In here, it was looking at not the design intent, the aesthetic intent of the plaza but looking what is the functional intent of this plaza.

A top-down architectural drawing of the Lafayette Towers Plaza plan to include more green space.

This was a plaza meant for people to come and gather and recreate and have the pool here.

The plaza was leaking, the other picture of concrete spalling on the cars below.

So it was the complete replacement of the plaza and the plaza's system.

And in here, there were a lot of discussions and it was really decided that it was the intent of the plaza as a place to gather.

And that it would be redone with the pool and with some of the significant features, but rebuilt very differently with a lot more green space and different areas to try and give people what they want to use today: to come and enliven the space and to gather how people do today not in the past.

So this is hard to see the plan but a lot more of the green roof in it.

Looking at where we could putting curves to signify and have ghosts of what the original had been but really its bringing a lot more green space and opportunities for some other activities that they don't have on the plan.

This presentation is part of the Mid-Century Modern Structures: Materials and Preservation Symposium , April 14-16, 2015, St. Louis, Missouri. Visit the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training to learn more about topics in preservation technology.

You Might Also Like

  • gateway arch national park
  • ann k. dilcher
  • architecture
  • conservation
  • preservation
  • materials conservation
  • mid-century modern structures
  • mid-century modern structures materials and preservation symposium
  • mid-century modern

Gateway Arch National Park

Last updated: November 9, 2023

Department of History

Themes in early modern history c.1450-c.1800 (hi992), directed by professor peter marshall, context of module, module aims, outline syllabus, intended learning outcomes, illustrative bibliography.

This is a core module for the Early Modern History MA degree. It addresses key themes and historiographies, drawing on the expertise of a wide range of the early modernists at Warwick. Each session will be led by a different expert, ensuring that students are exposed to as many different viewpoints and approaches as possible. You will find a listing of early modern staff in the department here and some of their publications are included in the illustrative bibliography below. The module will cover the period c.1450-c.1800, and although much of it will focus on Britain and European countries it will also seek to place them in their wider global and colonial context.The module will help to prepare students for term 2 modules, which take a more thematic approach.

To widen and deepen students’ understanding of themes in the study of early modern history; to help students develop a conceptual and practical understanding of the skills of an historian of the early modern era; to help students hone their ability to formulate and achieve a piece of critical and reflective historiographical writing; to support students in developing the ability to undertake critical analysis; to help students develop the ability to formulate and test concepts and hypotheses.

  Week 1: Introduction Link opens in a new window – Peter Marshall

Week 2: The State, Government and Politics Link opens in a new window – Sarah Johanesen

Week 3: Early Modern Encounters: Travellers and Travel Writing – Aysu Dincer

Week 4: Cultural Turns: The History of Emotions - Natalie Hanley-Smith  

Week 5: Early Modern Material Culture – Sarah Johanesen  

Reading week

Week 7: The Reformations and Religious Change – Peter Marshall  

Week 8: The Public Sphere and Communicative Practices Link opens in a new window – Mark Knights

Week 9: Gender and Sexuality Link opens in a new window – Natalie Hanley-Smith

Week 10: Conceptualising Early Modernity: A Recapitulation Link opens in a new window – Peter Marshall

Each seminar will address current historiographical debates as well as the skills and sources necessary to investigate them. We also have a companion moodle site for specific tasks like module feedback.

All MA students are strongly encouraged to attend History Department research seminars and expected to participate in those (co-)hosted by our ' Early Modern and Eighteenth Century Centre '. Many may also be interested in taking the skills training (palaeography, Latin for research) offered by the Renaissance Centre.

By the end of this module, students will be able to demonstrate:

  • a conceptual and practical understanding of the skills of an historian of the early modern era;
  • the ability to formulate and achieve a piece of critical and reflective historiographical writing;
  • a capacity to undertake critical analysis;
  • the required skills to formulate and test concepts and hypotheses.

NB: For availability of / access to resources see the library's HI992 Talis Aspire reading list  

P. Burke, What is Cultural History? (2nd edn, Cambridge, 2008)

Bernard Capp, England’s Culture Wars: Puritan Reformation and its Enemies in the Interregnum, 1649-1660 (2012)

Giancarlo Casale, The Ottoman Age of Exploration (Oxford UP, 2010).

William Doyle, The Oxford Handbook of the Ancien Regime (Oxford, 2012)

Josef Ehmer, ‘Quantifying mobility in early modern Europe: the challenge of concepts and data’, Journal of Global History 6: (2011), 327-338.

Rebecca Earle, The Body of the Conquistador: Food, Race and the Colonial Experience in Spanish America, 1492-1700 (2012).

Mary Floyd-Wilson, English Ethnicity and Race in Early Modern Drama (Cambridge, 2003).

Laurence Fontaine, The Moral Economy: Poverty, Credit and Trust in Early Modern Europe (2014)

John-Paul Ghobrial, “Stories Never Told: The First Arabic History of the New World,” Journal of Ottoman Studies 40 (2012), 259-82.

Jack Goldstone, “The Problem of the Early Modern World,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 41 (1998), 249-84.

M. Greengrass, Christendom Destroyed: Europe 1517-1648 (London, 2014)

Joanna Innes and Mark Philp, Re-imagining Democracy in the Age of Revolutions: America, France, Britain, Ireland 1750-1850 (2013)

D. Jütte, The Strait Gate: Thresholds and Power in Western History (New Haven, 2015)

Steve Hindle, Alexandra Shepard and John Walter, eds., Remaking English Society: social relations and social change in early modern England (2013)

B. Kaplan, Religious Conflict and the Practice of Toleration in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge MA, 2010)

Mark Knights, The Devil in Disguise: Deception, Delusion and Fanaticism in the Early English Enlightenment (2011)

Beat Kümin (ed.), A Cultural History of Food in the Early Modern Age (Oxford: Berg, 2012)

Noah Millstone, ‘Seeing Like a Statesman in Early Stuart England’ Past and Present (2014) 223 (1): 77-127.

Douglas North, John Joseph Wallis and Barry Weingast, Violence and Social Orders A Conceptual Framework for Interpreting Recorded Human History (2013)

David Parker, Class and State in Early Modern France (2014)

Andrew Pettegree, The Book in the Renaissance (2010)

Penny Roberts, Peace and Authority During the French Religious Wars c.1560-1600 (2013)

Giorgio Riello, Cotton: The Fabric that Made the Modern World ( 2013)

Massimo Rospocher (ed) Beyond the Public Sphere. Opinions, Publics, Spaces in Early Modern Europe (2012)

Baki Tezcan, The Second Ottoman Empire: Political and Social Transformation in the Early Modern World (Cambridge UP, 2012).

Jan de Vries, The Industrious Revolution: Consumer Behavior and the Household Economy, 1650 to the Present (Cambridge, 2008).

Charles Walton, Policing Public Opinion in the French Revolution: The Culture of Calumny and the Problem of Free Speech (Oxford, 2009).

Phil Withington, Society in Early Modern England: The Vernacular Origins of Some Powerful Ideas (2010)

Assessment for this module comprises two elements:

1) 1500 word Review Essay (30% of module mark). Further details of assignment here .

2) 4500 word Essay (70% of module mark).

This essay can explore any aspect of the module. You will be encouraged to formulate your own question under the guidance of one of the tutors. This essay is normally based on one of the module’s weekly themes. Students interested in writing on different topics should consult with the module convenor well before the essay deadline .

clio_muse_of_history_washington_dc.jpg

Clio - The Muse of History. US Capitol, Washington D.C.

Our HI992 channel on MS Teams for any module-wide communications and online seminars / activities can be found here .

  • Online Now: 2611

Operation Sports Logo Header

  • FOF Central
  • Archived Reviews
  • Press Releases
  • Screenshots
  • Like OS on Facebook
  • Follow OS on Twitter
  • OS Amazon Link
  • OS Staff Blogs
  • OS Radio Shows - Tune in!
  • OS Real Time

Presentation needs to be updated for older ERAS PLEASE!

This is a discussion on Presentation needs to be updated for older ERAS PLEASE! within the NBA 2K Basketball forums.

  • World History
  • Image Libraries
  • Historic Film Collection
  • Colonization to Reconstruction: US History Review
  • Colonial Era
  • The American Revolutionary War
  • The New Nation: Washington to John Quincy Adams
  • First Industrial Revolution in America: 1790-1860
  • Westward Movement
  • Slavery in America
  • Expansion and Reform: The United States from 1829-1860
  • Causes of the Civil War
  • The Civil War
  • Reconstruction: 1863-1877
  • The West: Miners, Ranchers, Farmers, and Native Americans
  • Rise of Industrial America, 1865-1900
  • Response to Industrialism: Protest Movements, Unions, and the Agrarian Revolt
  • America Becomes a World Power: Imperialism
  • Immigration & Urbanization
  • The Progressive Era
  • World War I
  • The Great Depression and the New Deal
  • Causes of World War II
  • World War II
  • US Foreign Policy in the Cold War Era: Truman to Kennedy
  • US Foreign Policy in the Cold War Era: Johnson to the Fall of the Berlin Wall
  • The Civil Rights Movement
  • Late History Overview: 1970s, 1980s, 1990s
  • America's Smaller Wars: 1798-2001

U.S. HISTORY CLASSROOM GAMES

  • Kingdoms and Empires of the Fertile Crescent: Sumer to Persia 3000–300 BCE
  • Ancient Egypt
  • Aegean Civilizations: Neolithic Greece to the Hellenistic Age
  • Ancient Rome
  • Medieval Europe
  • The Black Death and other Pandemics
  • India and Southeast Asia
  • History of Africa
  • Mesoamerica and Andean Civilizations
  • Islamic Civilization
  • China: Ancient Civilization to Communist Revolution
  • The Renaissance
  • The Age of Exploration
  • The Conquest of Mexico
  • Early Modern Era: 1400-1700
  • The Enlightenment
  • The Industrial Revolution
  • The French Revolution
  • European Imperialism: 1800–1914
  • European Nationalism: 1814-1848
  • Europe Between the Wars
  • The Modern Era: 1945-1970
  • The Modern Era 2: 1971-2009
  • The Judiciary
  • The Presidency
  • The Congress
  • The Bureaucracy
  • Constitutional Underpinnings
  • US History Image Library - Pre-20th Century
  • US History Image Library - 20th Century
  • World History, Part 1
  • World History, Part 2
  • Historic Film Collection, Part 1
  • Historic Film Collection, Part 2
  • Historic Film Collection, Part 3
  • Historic Film Collection, Part 4
  • Sign Up / Log In

Create a free profile to get unlimited access to exclusive show news, updates, and more!

The History of the Olympic Games, From Ancient Greece to the Modern Era

Take a trip back to 776 B.C.E. with this fun look back at the sporting event started by the ancient Greeks.

modern era presentation

The Olympics are back for another summer of record-breaking, historic Games.

Come July 2024, millions will descend upon Paris, France to attend the Summer Games. Some attendees are hoping to see their favorite athletes take home the gold in their respective sports, while others are merely excited to see skateboarders like Nyjah Huston do an ollie at the Place de la Concorde. In short, there's something for everyone, an aspect of the Games that has made it an enduring institution in the modern era. 

However, while the Games have changed pretty drastically in the centuries since the Greeks first established the event, many of its traditions date back to 776 B.C.E. 

RELATED: Find Out Which New Sports Will Debut at the 2024 Paris Olympics

When were the first Olympics?

Though historians can't be totally sure, it's believed the first Ancient Olympic game was recorded in 776 B.C.E., according to Olympics.com . Games were subsequently held every four years from then until 393 C.E.

It wasn't simply an athletic competition when it began, but instead a "religious festival held in a religious sanctuary," Paul Christesen, professor of Ancient Greek History at Dartmouth College, told Olympics.com. Olympia, after all, was the mythical home of the ancient Greek gods such as Zeus, and the earliest Games were undertaken with religion front and center. For more than two centuries, races would conclude at the sacred olive tree of Zeus, and the victory wreaths awarded to the winners were cut from that same tree. 

The Games were even given a divine origin in Greek mythology, which held the Gods competed in the first-ever Games. According to the legend, Herakles, also known as Hercules, created the Olympics and was one of its strongest competitors. Zeus is also said to have competed against his father, Kronos, for the throne, according to the Metropolitan Museum of Art .

Olympics Panathenaic Prize

Why were the Ancient Olympic Games created?

The Gods were the focal point of the Games, which provided an opportunity for the Greek to come together and celebrate their deities for five days straight. Amid the games, they sacrificed cows to honor Zeus in particular, an occasion that saw famed boxer Milon of Croton show off his brute strength in fabulous fashion. "As part of the big sacrifice (to Zeus held during each Games) he carried a cow into the sanctuary on his back, killed it and then ate the whole cow himself in a single day," Christesen told Olympics.com .

Ancient Olympic Sports and Rules

At the time, all Greek males were allowed to compete in the event and attend, regardless of rank and status. Women, on the other hand, were forbidden entirely from the Games.

Though this limited the amount of spectators in attendance, records show that the stadium in Olympia once fit 40,000 people, according to Olympics.com. Other Grecians and people from around the Mediterranean also gathered outside the stadium, which was eventually transformed from a wheat field into a massive stadium. There was food, music, and vendors selling souvenirs to the people who came from near and far. 

As for the sporting events, there were foot races, jumping, discus throwing, javelin throwing, wrestling, the pentathlon, and a form of hand-to-hand combat known as pankration — a mix of boxing and wrestling. Later, chariot races and other events would be added to the program.

Much like today, athletes rigorously prepared for their respective sports, working with trainers for weeks before the Games began.

RELATED: What is the Route for the 2024 Paris Olympic and Paralympic Torch Relays?

When the day finally came for the competitors to take center stage, they had to strip down. That's right — in the Ancient Olympics, all athletes competed entirely naked, even for the hand-to-hand combat events, as music played in the background. To make it more competitive, the wrestlers and pankration athletes were also covered in oil, according to Olympics.com. 

There were few rules governing the Games themselves, creating a violent spectacle for those in attendance. In pankration, the only restrictions were that athletes couldn't gouge each other in the eyes or bite, while boxers were merely advised to avoid hitting their opponent's genitals.

The view of the stadium at the 1896 Olympic Games

And since there were no time limits or points being taken, the matches could be long. One competitor, Sostratos, was nicknamed "Fingertips" because he'd start off the match by breaking his adversary's fingers, according to The Met. Then, there was Melankomas of Caria, who is reported to have won his matches without dealing a single blow. Per the Met, his tactic was to dodge hits and exhaust his competitor until they signaled defeat by raising their index fingers. Christesen told Olympics.com that some athletes would die if they didn't raise their index fingers and surrender in time. 

Though medals did not yet exist, victors were awarded the aforementioned wreaths cut from the olive trees of Olympia in the early games. Other prizes largely depended on the location of the games. For example, in one of the ceremonies, winners were gifted a hydria, also known as a water jar. Some of these water jars had the names of the presiding official and the Greek God honored by the event, as seen in photos from The Met.

When did the Ancient Olympics end?

Most historians agree that the Ancient Olympics drew to a close in 393 C.E., when Roman emperor Theodosius I banned cities from hosting games because of its paganist roots. However, historian Tony Perrottet writes in  The Naked Olympics that some cities in Greece continued to host the Games, as discovered in ancient inscriptions and writings. 

The start of the 100 meter race in Athens Greece at the 1896 olympicsModern Olympics

When did the Modern Olympics start?

Centuries later, Baron Pierre de Coubertin — the designer of the now iconic Olympic rings — and others organized the Olympic Congress, held at the Grand Amphitheatre at the Sorbonne University in June 1894. The sporting events held that week would serve as a template for future iterations of the Games and allowed organizers to formalize decisions surrounding the first official Games, which would be held in Athens, Greece two years later. With a date set and venue chosen, the International Olympic Committee was established and work got underway. 

To prepare for the Games' resurrection, the Panathenaic stadium in Athens, where the ancient games were believed to be held, had to be renovated to accommodate the crowds of tourists and athletes. Nearly 80,000 people are estimated to have attended, according to the National Endowment for the Humanities , while athletes from 13 nations competed in 43 different sporting events.

According to early reports from  The Guardian , the June 1896  Opening Ceremony included a speech by the Greek Crown Prince Constantine. At the end of the Games, the Royal Family returned to the stadium to crown the victors, a majority of whom were Americans, and held a banquet in their honor.

"Let me express the pleasure that all feel in seeing you come here to take part in the Olympic games. Your reception shows how the Greek people rejoiced to receive you.  I seize this occasion to extend my warmest congratulations to the victors… Keep us close in your remembrance and do not forget the enthusiastic welcome we have given you," King George I told the winners, the New York Tribune  reported.

And since then, the Games have been held regularly, becoming both a sporting competition and cultural exchange for the world community.

Related Stories

Kevin Durant and his mother Wanda Durant attend Apple TV+ "Swagger" New York premiere at Brooklyn Academy of Music

All About Kevin “KD” Durant’s Close Bond with Mom Wanda

Olympics 2024 art work.

Where to Watch All the Olympic Trials on Peacock & NBC

Split of Sha'Carri Richardson and Cardi B

Sha'Carri Richardson and Cardi B Bond Over Manicures

Carissa Moore smiles before surfing in Heat 3 of the Quarterfinals at the MEO Pro Portugal

Pro Surfer Carissa Moore's Journey to Her Final Olympics

Split of Jimmy Fallon and Travis Kelce

Jimmy Fallon and Travis Kelce Hung Out with a Puppy

Aly Raisman and an athlete pose together

Aly Raisman, Michael Phelps Gift Athletes Trip to Paris (VIDEO)

Bronx Zoo '90 Key Art

Mayhem of 1990 Yankees on Display in Peacock Doc

Tiger Woods being interviewed by host Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon Episode 1963

Tiger Woods Talks Golfing and Kids with Jimmy Fallon

Jockey Sonny Leon rides Rich Strike as they win the 148th running of the Kentucky Derby

What Are the Latest Kentucky Derby 2024 Odds?

Nyquist, ridden by Mario Gutierrez, and Gun Runner, ridden by Florent Geroux, come out of the fourth turn during the 142nd running of the Kentucky Derby

How to Watch the 2024 Kentucky Derby on NBC and Peacock

Shalise Jones and Katie Ladecky model the 2024 Olympics Opening Ceremony Uniforms

See Team USA's Stylish Olympic Uniforms

A split of Kevin Hart and Kenan Thompson

Kevin Hart, Kenan Thompson to Host Olympic Highlight Show

Recommended for you.

Captain Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) appears in Season 22 Episode 1 of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit

2-Year-Old Mariska Hargitay Appears on the Merv Griffin Show

Ryan Gosling on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon Episode 1686

Ryan Gosling and Jimmy Fallon Deserve Oscars for Playing Identical-Looking Tough Cops

Scarlett Johansson

Scarlett Johansson Matches Katie Britt's SOTU Energy in SNL Parody: Watch

  • CBSSports.com
  • Fanatics Sportsbook
  • CBS Sports Home
  • Triple Crown 
  • Champions League
  • Motor Sports
  • High School

mens-brackets-180x100.jpg

Men's Brackets

womens-brackets-180x100.jpg

Women's Brackets

Fantasy Baseball

Fantasy football, football pick'em, college pick'em, fantasy basketball, fantasy hockey, franchise games, 24/7 sports news network.

cbs-sports-hq-watch-dropdown.jpg

  • CBS Sports Golazo Network
  • PGA Tour on CBS
  • UEFA Champions League
  • UEFA Europa League
  • Italian Serie A
  • Watch CBS Sports Network
  • TV Shows & Listings

The Early Edge

201120-early-edge-logo-square.jpg

A Daily SportsLine Betting Podcast

With the First Pick

wtfp-logo-01.png

NFL Draft recap

  • Podcasts Home
  • The First Cut Golf
  • Beyond the Arc
  • We Need to Talk Now
  • Eye On College Basketball
  • NFL Pick Six
  • Cover 3 College Football
  • Fantasy Football Today
  • My Teams Organize / See All Teams Help Account Settings Log Out

Anthony Edwards' playoff surge elevates his rank among No. 1 recruits in modern era

Edwards is one of the best no. 1 high school prospects in the 247sports era.

anthonys.jpg

Minnesota Timberwolves star Anthony Edwards has his team on the cusp of franchise history. The Timberwolves took a 2-0 series lead in the second round of NBA playoffs with a 106-80 win over the Denver Nuggets on Monday to bring Minnesota two wins closer to reaching the Western Conference Finals for the first time since 2004.

Edwards' leap during the 2024 NBA Playoffs has been undeniable. The former No. 1 overall prospect by 247Sports in the 2019 recruiting cycle and the top pick from the 2020 NBA Draft out of Georgia is in his fourth season in the NBA . Edwards is moving up the all-time No. 1 overall recruit leaderboard because of his performances in the postseason -- he had a ho-hum-for-him 27 points Monday night. Edwards is part of the new guard of young talent taking over the NBA postseason and is positioning himself as one of the faces of the league going forward. 

In Game 1 against the Nuggets, Edwards scored 43 points to become the fourth player in NBA history with three consecutive playoff games with at least 35 points. Edwards joined Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, LeBron James, and Kobe Bryant. Edwards also joined Bryant as the only player with back-to-back 40-point games at age 22 or younger in NBA playoff history.

In the 247Sports era (2010-), Edwards is one of five former top recruits who were the No. 1 pick in their respective drafts, joining Anthony Davis , Andrew Wiggins , Ben Simmons , and Cade Cunningham . Edwards, Davis, and Simmons are the only players who have already been named multi-time all-stars.

Edwards' path from top recruit to NBA superstar was anything but conventional. Edwards reclassified from the 2020 cycle to what would become a star-crossed 2019 class to join Georgia one season early. Edwards averaged 19.1 points, 5.2 rebounds, and 2.8 during the 2019-20 season at Georgia that was cut short due to COVID-19. 

"Ant's natural scoring ability, combined with his physical gifts, all-around skill set and long-term upside make him a special prospect,"  said then-247Sports Director of Scouting Evan Daniels .

During the pre-draft process in 2020, there were question marks surrounding his  desire to play basketball. Edwards was a Pop Warner football star in his younger days and expressed before the start of the 2023-24 NBA season his hopes of  one day playing in the NFL.

"Yeah," Edwards told Marco Summers on his talk show Open Thoughts. "I might be the first one (to play in the NFL and NBA.)"

While Edwards may have the tools and athleticism to make a run as a multi-sport athlete, his charisma, high-flying dunks and friendly trash talk have gravitated basketball fans toward the 22-year-old rising star. 

Here are the No. 1 overall recruits in the 247Sports era, ranked by NBA success.

Note:  The parenthesized year denotes when the player was ranked as the No. 1 overall recruit in his respective class. PER stands for Performance Efficiency Rating, which is an all-encompassing metric used to judge player performance.

anthonyedwardsanthonydavis.jpg

1. Anthony Davis (2011)

All-Star appearances: 8 Best PER: 30.8 (2013-14)

When Davis is at his best, he's in the conversation for the best big man in the NBA. In his lone season at Kentucky during the 2011-12 campaign, The Brow put up monster numbers that also have him in the conversation as the best one-and-done prospect in modern college basketball history. Davis was drafted first by the New Orleans Hornets (now the New Orleans Pelicans) in 2012 and spent the first seven years of his career there before being traded to the Los Angeles Lakers in 2019. Davis averaged 28 and 10 during the Lakers' championship run in the 2020 Bubble. He is an eight-time NBA All-Star, made the All-NBA First Team four times, and appeared on the All-Defensive Team four times. Davis appeared in a career-high 76 games during the 2023-24 campaign for the Lakers. 

2. Anthony Edwards (2019)

All-Star appearances: 2 Best PER: 19.7 (2023-24)

Edwards averaged a career-high 25.9 points during the 2023-24 campaign and made the NBA All-Star team for the second consecutive season. Edwards is one of the most entertaining players in the league to watch because of his frequent highlight reel plays. Edwards ranked ahead of James Wiseman and Cole Anthony in the 247Sports rankings. Edwards assumed the top spot in his class after reclassifying. 

He is well on his way toward earning more accolades at the next level.

3. Ben Simmons (2015)

All-Star appearances: 3 Best PER: 20.4 (2019-20)

Simmons' NBA career is complicated. The former No. 1 pick in the 2016 NBA Draft quickly rose to stardom after helping the Philadelphia 76ers reach the NBA Playoffs. Simmons reached the NBA All-Star Game three consecutive seasons between 2019-21 and was considered one of the best defenders at his respective position. It's been downhill since. Simmons has appeared in 57 games in the last two seasons due to injuries.

4. Andrew Wiggins (2013)

All-Star appearances: 1 Best PER: 16.5 (2015-16)

A change of scenery was the best thing for Wiggins' career. Once considered a bust on the Timberwolves, Wiggins proved his ability to be an elite two-way player during Golden State's playoff run in 2022. He is a major reason why the Dubs were able to beat the Celtics in six games after falling behind 2-1 in the series. Wiggins is part of one of the most notable NBA trades to happen this century. The Cavs traded away Wiggins in exchange for Timberwolves star big man Kevin Love to pair with LeBron James and Kyrie Irving, which paid off for Cleveland. Wiggins is coming off one of the worst statical seasons of his career.

5. Chet Holmgren (2021)

All-Star appearances: 0 Best PER:  20.4 (2023-24)

After missing the entire 2022-23 season with injury, Holmgren helped the Oklahoma City Thunder earn the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference. Holmgren finished behind San Antonio Spurs star Victor Wembanyama in Rookie of the Year voting but is having a rookie campaign to remember. Holmgren starred at Gonzaga during his lone college season during the 2021-22 campaign and is working his way up the list as one the best all-time No. 1 recruits. His Thunder tip off Round 2 against the Mavericks on Tuesday night. We expect Holmgren to have a loud NBA playoffs. 

6. Cade Cunningham (2020)

All-Star appearances:  0 Best PER: 17.1 (2023-24)

The first three picks of the 2021 NBA Draft were in the exact order as the final 247Sports rankings from the 2020 recruiting cycle. Cade Cunningham went No. 1 to the Detroit Pistons, Jalen Green was drafted No. 2 by the Houston Rockets, and the Cleveland Cavaliers selected Evan Mobley with the No. 3 pick. Cunningham has flashed some of the tools that made him the top high school recruit and the first pick of the draft, but he is currently part of a Pistons team that just finished with the worst record (14-68) in the league.

7. RJ Barrett (2018)

All-Star appearances:  0 Best PER:  16.4 (2023-24)

Like Wiggins, a change of scenery may be the best thing for Barrett's career. Barrett was part of a star-studded recruiting class at Duke that included Zion Williamson, Cam Reddish and Tre Jones. After being drafted by the New York Knicks with the No. 3 pick in the 2019 NBA Draft, Barrett was traded this past December to the Toronto Raptors in the OG Anunoby trade. Back in his native Canada, Barrett averaged a career-high 21.8 points in 32 games with Toronto.

8. Marvin Bagley lll (2017)

All-Star appearances:  0 Best PER:  19.4 (2023-24)

Before Bagley became the top-ranked player from the 2017 class, current Denver Nuggets star Michael Porter Jr . occupied that spot before Bagley reclassified up. The Kings famously, stupidly, passed on Luka Dončić with the No. 2 pick in the 2018 NBA Draft and instead went with Bagley. The Kings traded the former Duke star to the Pistons at the 2022 NBA Trade Deadline.

9. Nerlens Noel (2012)

All-Star appearances:  0 Best PER:  20.4 (2016-17)

Once projected as the No. 1 overall pick in the lackluster 2013 NBA Draft, Noel fell all the way to No. 6. Noel played for six different NBA teams during his career and was most recently cut by the Sacramento Kings before the start of this past season. Noel only averaged double-digit points once during his time in the league.

10. Emmanuel Mudiay (2014)

All-Star appearances:  0 Best PER: 14.6 (2018-19)

Mudiay is the only player on this list that didn't play in college. After committing to SMU, Mudiay elected to play overseas before being drafted by the Nuggets with the No. 7 pick in the 2015 NBA Draft. Mudiay averaged a career-high 15 points in one of his final seasons during the 2018-19 campaign.

11. Josh Jackson (2016)

All-Star appearances:  0 Best PER: 14.1 (2019-20)

After a standout season at Kansas, Jackson was selected by the Phoenix Suns with the No. 4 pick in the 2017 NBA Draft. Jackson's pure athleticism and shotmaking made him an intriguing project. Jackson never lived up to the hype and last played in the NBA during the 2021-22 season.

12. Nick Smith Jr . (2022)

All-Star appearances:  0 Best PER: 8.1 (2023-24)

Smith was drafted by the Charlotte Hornets with the No. 27 pick last summer. Smith appeared in 59 games and averaged 5.9 points. While there is still plenty of time for the 20-year-old guard to improve his standing, he is the defacto last-ranked player on this list due to his lack of experience in the NBA. Smith last summer spoke vulnerably about his disappointing year at Arkansas. 

Our Latest College Basketball Stories

jordanpope.jpg

Ranking college basketball's top 80 transfers of 2024

David cobb • 27 min read.

NCAA Basketball: Big East Conference Tournament Quarterfinal-St. John's vs Seton Hall

St. John's lands ex-Seton Hall star Kadary Richmond

David cobb • 1 min read.

calipari-pope.jpg

Kentucky vs. Arkansas: Who wins if they played today?

Cameron salerno • 4 min read.

omaha.jpg

Transfer portal flush with former prized recruits

Isaac trotter • 5 min read.

kyletraskprism-2.jpg

2024 Duke basketball: Blue Devil transfer updates

Cbs sports staff • 3 min read, 2024 north carolina basketball: unc transfer updates, share video.

modern era presentation

No. 1 overall recruits, ranked by NBA success

modern era presentation

Who wins Kentucky vs. Arkansas if played now?

modern era presentation

Transfers help Baylor rise in rankings

modern era presentation

Transfer portal flush with top recruits

modern era presentation

St. John's lands Seton Hall star Kadary Richmond

modern era presentation

Arkansas lands Kentucky transfer Adou Thiero

modern era presentation

Alabama adds Rutgers star Clifford Omoruyi from portal

modern era presentation

Ohio State lands Duke transfer Sean Stewart

modern era presentation

Brunson trolls Smith over 2016 title after Knicks win

EWU Digital Commons

  • < Previous Event
  • Next Event >

Home > STUDENT_RESEARCH > SRCW > 2024 Symposium > Creative Works > Music Composition and Film Presentations > 6

Music Composition and Film Presentations

Weezer Sucks (As Told By A Weezer Fan)

Ranne Mitchell Meloy Follow

Faculty Mentor

Pete Porter

Presentation Type

Creative Work

5-7-2024 5:20 PM

5-7-2024 6:00 PM

Studio, Theatre Building

Primary Discipline of Presentation

Weezer is an alternative rock band formed in 1992 and currently consists of lead singer Rivers Cuomo, drummer Patrick Wilson, lead guitarist Brian Bell, and bassist Scott Shriner. Perhaps most well known for their 1994 self-titled album, known by most as "The Blue Album", Weezer has continued to see popularity into the modern era, still releasing albums as recently as 2022. However, their continued success is not without its backlash.

The band Weezer is one of those bands that even their own fanbase loves to hate. Debatably, for as long as the band has been around, there has been a steady stream of backlash targeted toward them. This is typical for any band, but in Weezer's case, it strikes a strange balance between ironic jokes and genuine hatred. Where does this backlash stem from? Is it at all justified? As a Weezer fan, these questions always illuded me. In this video essay, I attempt to find answers to these questions while also raising my love of Weezer into concern.

Recommended Citation

Meloy, Ranne Mitchell, "Weezer Sucks (As Told By A Weezer Fan)" (2024). 2024 Symposium . 6. https://dc.ewu.edu/srcw_2024/cw_2024/mus_2024/6

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License

This document is currently not available here.

Since April 25, 2024

Advanced Search

  • Notify me via email or RSS
  • Colleges, Departments, and Programs
  • Disciplines

Author Corner

  • Student Research and Creative Works Symposium Website
  • EWU Libraries
  • Contact EWU Libraries

509.359.7888 | Email

Home | About | FAQ | My Account | Contact | Accessibility | EWU Libraries | EWU Home

Privacy Copyright

slide1

The Modern Period

Oct 24, 2014

1.6k likes | 7.22k Views

The Modern Period 1900-1961 Lecture 22 History of English Literature COMSATS Virtual Campus Islamabad. The Modern Period. Brief introduction of the modern period

Share Presentation

  • twentieth century
  • modern literature
  • nineteenth century
  • influenced modern literature
  • early twentieth century began

braima

Presentation Transcript

The Modern Period 1900-1961Lecture 22History of English LiteratureCOMSATS Virtual Campus Islamabad

The Modern Period • Brief introduction of the modern period • In the second half of the 19th century and the early decades of the 20th century, both natural and social sciences in Europe had enormously advanced.

The Modern Period • Their rapid development led to great gains in material wealth. But when capitalism came into its monopoly stage, the sharpened contradictions between socialized production and the private ownership caused frequent economic depreddions and mass unemployment. • The gap between the rich and the poor was further deepened.

The Modern Age in English Literature started from the beginning of the twentieth century, and it followed the Victorian Age. The most important characteristic of Modern Literature is that it is opposed to the general attitude to life and its problems adopted by the Victorian writers and the public, which may be termed ‘Victorian’.

The young people during the first decade of the present century regarded the Victorian age as hypocritical, and the Victorian ideals as mean, superficial and stupid.

This rebellious mood affected modern literature, which was directed by mental attitudes moral ideals and spiritual values diametrically opposed to those of the Victorians. Nothing was considered as certain; everything was questioned. In the field of literary technique also some fundamental changes took place. Standards of artistic workmanship and of aesthetic appreciations also underwent radical changes.

What the Victorians had considered as honourable and beautiful, their children and grandchildren considered as mean and ugly. The Victorians accepted the Voice of Authority, and acknowledged the rule of the Expert in religion, in politics, in literature and family life.

They had the innate desire to affirm and confirm rather than to reject or question the opinions of the experts in their respective fields. They showed readiness to accept their words at face value without critical examinations. This was their attitude to religion and science.

They believed in the truths revealed in the Bible, and accepted the new scientific theories as propounded by Darwin and others. On the other hand, the twentieth century minds did not take anything for granted; they questioned everything.

Another characteristic of Victorianism was an implicit faith in the permanence of nineteenth century institutions, both secular and spiritual. The Victorians believed that their family life, their Constitution, the British Empire and the Christian religion were based on sound footings, and that they would last for ever.

This Victorian idea of the Permanence of Institutions was replaced among the early twentieth century writers by the sense that nothing is fixed and final in this world.

H. G. Wells spoke of the flow of things and of “all this world of ours being no more than the prelude to the real civilisation”. The simple faith of the Victorians was replaced by the modern man’s desire to prob and question, Bernard Shaw, foremost among the rebels, attacked not only the ‘old’ superstitions of religion, but also the ‘new’ superstitions of science.

The watchwords of his creed were: Question! Examine! Test! He challenged the Voice of Authority and the rule of the Expert. He was responsible for producing the interrogative habit of the mind in all spheres of life.

He made the people question the basic conceptions of religion and morality. Andrew Undershift declares in Bernard Shaw’s Major Barbara: “That is what is wrong with the world at present.

It scraps its obsolete steam engines and dynamos; but it won’t scrap its old prejudices and its old moralities and its old religions and its old political institutions”. Such a radical proclamation invigorated some whereas others were completely shaken, as Barbara herself: “I stood on the rock I thought eternal; and without a word it reeled and crumbled under me.”

The modern mind was outraged by the Victorian self-complacency. The social and religious reformers at first raised this complaint, and they were followed by men of letters, because they echo the voice around them.

Of course, the accusation of self-complacency cannot be rightly levelled against many of the Victorian writers, especially the authors of Vanity Fair, David Copperfield, Maud, Past and Present, Bishop Blouhram, Culture and Anarchy, Richard Feveral and Tess.

But there was felt the need of a change in the sphere of literature also because the idiom, the manner of presentment, the play of imagination, and the rhythm and structure of the verse, of the Victorian writers were becoming stale, and seemed gradually to be losing the old magic. Their words failed to evoke the spirit.

Thus a reaction was even otherwise overdue in the field of literature, because art has to be renewed in order to revitalise it. The Victorian literature had lost its freshness and it lacked in the element of surprise which is its very soul. It had relapsed into life of the common day, and could not give the reader a shock of novelty.

At the end of the Victorian era it was felt that the ideas, experiences, moods and attitudes had changed, and so the freshness which was lacking in literature had to be supplied on another level.

The Victorians believed in the sanctity of home life, but in the twentieth century the sentiments for the family circle declined. Young men and women who realised the prospect of financial independence refused to submit to parental authority, and considered domestic life as too narrow.

Moreover, young people who began early to earn their living got greater opportunity of mixing with each other, and to them sex no longer remained a mystery. So love became much less of a romance and much more of an experience.

These are some of the examples of the disintegration of values in the twentieth century. The result was that the modern writers could no longer write in the old manner. If they played on such sentiments as the contempt for money, divine love, natural beauty, the sentiments of home and life, classical scholarship, and communication with the spirit of the past, they were running the risk of striking a false note.

Even if they treated the same themes, they had to do it in a different manner, and evoke different thoughts and emotions from what were normally associated with them. The modern writer had, therefore, to cultivate a fresh point of view, and also a fresh technique.

The impact of scientific thought was mainly responsible for this attitude of interrogations and disintegration of old values. The scientific truths which were previously the proud possessions of the privileged few, were now equally intelligible to all. In an age of mass education, they began to appeal to the masses.

The physical and biological conclusions of great scientists like Darwin, Lyell and Huxley, created the impression on the new generation that the universe looks like a colossal blunder, that human life on our inhospitable globe is an accident due to unknown causes, and that this accident had led to untold misery.

They began to look upon Nature not as a system planned by Divine Architect, but as a powerful, but blind, pitiless and wasteful force. These impressions filled the people of the twentieth century with overwhelming pity, despair or stoicism. A number of writers bred and brought up in such an atmosphere began to voice these ideas in their writings.

Twentieth century has become the age of machine. Machinery has, no doubt, dominated every aspect of modern life, and it has produced mixed response from the readers and writers. Some of them have been alarmed at the materialism which machinery has brought in its wake, and they seek consolation and self-expression in the bygone unmechanised and pre-mechanical ages.

Others, however, being impressed by the spectacle of mechanical power producing a sense of mathematical adjustment and simplicity of design, and conferring untold blessings on mankind, find a certain rhythm and beauty in it. But there is no doubt, that whereas machinery has reduced drudgery, accelerated production and raised the standard of living, it has given rise to several distressing complications.

The various scientific appliances confer freedom and enslavement, efficiency and embarrassment. The modern man has now to live by the clock applying his energies not according to mood and impulse, but according to the time scheme. All these ideas are found expressed in modern literature, because the twentieth century author has to reflect this atmosphere, and he finds little help from the nineteenth century.

Another important factor which influenced modern literature was the large number of people of the poor classes who were educated by the State. In order to meet their demand for reading the publishers of the early twentieth century began whole series of cheaply reprinted classics.

The twentieth century literature which is the product of this tension is, therefore, unique. It is extremely fascinating and, at the same time, very difficult to evaluate, because, to a certain extent, it is a record of uncoordinated efforts. It is not easy to divide it into school and types.

It is full of adventures and experiments peculiar to the modern age which is an age of transition and discovery. But there is an undercurrent in it which runs parallel to the turbulent current of ideas which flows with great impetuosity.

Though it started as a reaction against ‘Victorianism’ in the beginning of the twentieth century, it is closely bound up with the new ideas which are agitating the mind of the modern man.

I. Historical, social and cultural background • 1.Historically • Modernism rose out of skepticism and disillusion of capitalism. The First World War and the Second World War had greatly influenced the English literature. • 2. Economically • The Second World War marked the last stage of the disintegration of the British Empire. Britain suffered heavy losses in the war: thousands of people were killed; the economy was ruined; and almost all its former colonies were lost. People were in economic, cultural, and belief crisis.

Conti. • 3. Ideologically • The rise of the irrational philosophy and new science greatly incited modern writers to make new explorations on human natures and human relationships.

II. Literary history of the period • 1.Literary trends • After the First World War, all kinds of literary trends of modernism appeared: symbolism, expressionism, surrealism, cubism, futurism, Dadaism, imagism and stream of consciousness. • (1)Modern English poetry:It is, in some sense, a revolution against the conventional ideas and forms of the Victorian poetry. • (2) Modern English novels:The first three decades of 20th century were golden years of the modernist novel. • (3) The development of 20th century English drama:The most celebrated dramatists in the last decade of the 19th century were Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw, who, in a sense, pioneered the modern drama, though they did not make so many innovations in techniques and forms as modernist poets or novelists

2. Artistic features of modern peroid • (1) Modernism • Modernism was a complex and diverse international movement in all creative arts, originating about the end of the 19th century. It provided the greatest renaissance of the 20th century. After the First World War, all kinds of literary trends of modernism appeared: symbolism, expressionism, surrealism, cubism, futurism, Dadaism, imagism and stream of consciousness. • (2) The basic characteristics of Modernism in literature:Modernism takes the irrational philosophy and the theory of psycho-analysis as its theoretical base. One characteristic of English Modernism is "the dehumanization of art". The major themes of the modernist literature are the distorted, alienated and ill relationships between man and nature, man and society, man and man, and man and himself.

3.Major figures of this period George Bernard Shaw(1856- 1950) Mrs. Warrant’ Profession John Galaworthy(1867- 1933) The Man of Property William Butter Yeats(1865- 1939) The Land of Heart’s Desire Thomas Stearns Eliot(1888- 1965) Murder in the Cathedral David Herbert Lawrence(1885- 1930) Sons and Lovers James Joyce(1882- 1941) Ulysses

1.Biography 1885–David Herbert Lawrence was born at a mining village in Nottinghamshire. His father was a coal-miner with little education; but his mother, once a school teacher, was from a somewhat higher class, who came to think that she had married beneath her and desired to have her sons well educated so as to help them escape from the life of coal miners. The conflict between the earthy, coarse, energetic but often drunken father and the refined, strong-willed and up-climbing mother is vividly presented in his autobiographical novel, Sons and Lovers (1913). Literary works The Rainbow Women in Love Lady Chatterley's Lover III. Representatives of this periodD. H. Lawrence

2.     Major theme • In his writings, Lawrence has expressed a strong reaction against the mechanical civilization. • In his opinion, the bourgeois industrialization or civilization, which made its realization at the cost of ravishing the land, started the catastrophic uprooting of man from nature and caused the distortion of personality, the corruption of the will, and the dominance of sterile intellect over the authentic inward passions of man. • Under the mechanical control, human beings were turned into inanimated matter, while the inanimated matter should be animated to destroy both man and earth. • It is this agonized concern about the dehumanizing effect of mechanical civilization on the sensual tenderness of human nature that haunts Lawrence's writing.

3. Analysis of his masterpiece • (1)Brief introduction of Sons and Lovers: • Sons and Lovers is largely an autobiographical novel told by means of straight-forward narrative and vivid episodes in chronological sequence. The story starts with the marriage of Paul's parents. Mrs. Morel, daughter of a middle-class family, is "a woman of character and refinement", a strong-willed, intelligent and ambitious woman who is fascinated by a warm, vigorous and sensuous coal miner, Walter Morel, and married beneath her own class. • (2)   Theme • Lawrence was one of the first novelists to introduce themes of psychology into his works. He believed that the healthy way of the individual’s psychological development lay in the primacy of the life impulse, or in another term, the sexual impulse. Human sexuality was, to Lawrence, a symbol of life force .by presenting the psychological experience of individual human life and of human relationships, Lawrence has opened up a wide new territory to the novel

(3)Character analysis • Gertrude Morel - The first protagonist of the novel. She becomes unhappy with her husband Walter and devotes herself to her children. • Paul Morel  -  Paul Morel takes over from his mother as the protagonist in the second half of the book. After his brother William's death, Paul becomes his mother's favorite and struggles throughout the novel to balance his love for her with his relationships with other women. • (4)Artistic features • Lawrence’s artistic tendency is mainly realism, which combines dramatic scenes with an authoritative commentary. And the realistic feature is most obviously seen in its detailed portraiture. With the working-class simplicity and directness, Lawrence can summon up all the physical attributes associated with the common daily objects.

James Joyce 1.Biography 1882 James Joyce was born into a Catholic family Dublin, got his education at Catholic schools where he passed through a phase of religious enthusiasm but finally rejected the Catholic Church and started rebellion against the narrowness and bigotry of the bourgeois Philistines in Dublin. Influenced by Ibsen, Joyce finally decided to take the literary mission as his career. Joyce is not a commercial writer. In his lifetime, he wrote altogether three novels, a collection of short stories, two volumes of poetry, and one play. The novels and short stories are regarded as his great works, all of which have the same setting: Ireland, especially Dublin, and the same subject: the Irish people and their life.Literary works Dubliners A Portrait of Artist as a Young Man

2. Major theme • He changed the old style of fictions and created a strange mode of art to show the chaos and crisis of consciousness of that period. • From him, stream of consciousness came to the highest point as a genre of modern literature. •  In Finnegans Wake, this pursue of newness overrode the normalness and showed a tendency of vanity.

3. Analysis of his masterpiece • (1)Brief introduction of Ulysses: • Ulysses gives an account of man's life during one day (16 June, 1904) in Dublin. The three major characters are: Leopold Bloom, an Irish Jew, his wife, Marion Tweedy Bloom, and Stephen Dedalus, the protagonist in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. The whole novel is divided into 18 episodes in correspondence with the 18 hours of the day. . • (2)   Theme • Ulysses is widely regarded as the most "revolutionary" literary efforts of the twentieth century if only for Joyce's "stream of consciousness" technique. In his efforts to create a modern hero, Joyce returned to classical myth only to deconstruct a Greek warrior into a parody of the "Wandering Jew." Joyce set a flawed and endearing human being. Joyce devoted considerably detailed passages to the most banal and taboo human activities: gluttony, defecation, urination, dementia, masturbation, voyeurism, alcoholism, sado-masochism and coprophilia and most of these depictions included the hero, Bloom.

(3)   Character analysis Bloom, Leopold "Poldy": The protagonist of Joyce's mock-epic. Bloom is a "modern" hero in contrast to the HomericUlysses. Throughout the novel, Joyce exposes Bloom, an ad-canvasser, as an outsider and as a Christ-like figure. Bloom, Molly (Marion Tweed): The wife of Leopold Bloom who has an affair with fellow singer, Blazes Boylan Boylan, Blazes: a Dublin singer who has sex with Molly Bloom on the afternoon of June 16, 1904. (4)   Artistic features Ulysses has become a prime example of modernism in literature. It is such an uncommon novel that there arises the question whether it can be termed as a "novel" all; for it seems to lack almost all the essential qualities of the novel in a traditional sense: there is virtually no story, no plot, almost no action, and little characterization in the usual sense. The events of the day seem to be trivial, insignificant, or even banal. But below the surface of the events, the natural flow of mental reflections, the shifting moods and impulses in the characters' inner world are richly presented in an unprecedentedly frank and penetrating way.

  • More by User

Modern Period 1750-1900

Modern Period 1750-1900

Modern Period 1750-1900. Societies changed quickly Political revolutions in America and France sparked a move towards democracy. Invention of the steam engine started the Industrial Revolution. Many different styles of art developed

1.71k views • 14 slides

The Early Modern Period

The Early Modern Period

Period of Revolution (Change) and Reform. This period of culture and literature may be described as one of revolution and reform: religious, philosophical, and political. Until the year 1200 C. E., almost all of the world's literature was composed in the elite languages, employing literary devices

489 views • 18 slides

Lecture 12 : The Early Modern Period Overview

Lecture 12 : The Early Modern Period Overview

Lecture 12 : The Early Modern Period Overview. INTRODUCTION EUROPE The English Sweats Typhus Syphilis AMERICAS Yellow Fever Malaria. The English Sweats. Epidemics in 1485, 1506, 1517, 1528, 1551 and 1571.

353 views • 15 slides

The Modern Period: 1900-1950

The Modern Period: 1900-1950

The American Dream. Three basic principles:America is a new Eden, a promised land" of beauty, unlimited resources, and endless opportunities.The American birthright is one of ever-expanding opportunity. Progress is a good thing, and we can optimistically expect life to keep getting better and be

1.51k views • 24 slides

The Modern Period in British Literature

The Modern Period in British Literature

The Modern Period in British Literature. ~1901 to ~1939 but who’s certain about these things?. “ Beyond the Pale ”. Literally means outside unacceptable Metaphorically means standing outside of conventional boundaries (law, behavior, class, gender, etc.)

1.75k views • 18 slides

Modern Period

Modern Period

Modern Period. CH 511. Industrial Age – 19 th Century. Mass movements of people seeking employment in industrial centers Mass immigration to North America Traditional extended family gives way to emphasis on nuclear family

693 views • 41 slides

The Modern Period

The Modern Period. 1900-1950. Impact of Great War. WWI 1914-1918 America entered 1917 America came out as “victor,” but the country was changing Evolution (and disillusionment) of American Dream. History of American Dream.

698 views • 18 slides

Modern Period

Modern Period. Era of Western Hegemony ~ Industrialization, Capitalism, &amp; their Effects ~. Periodization…up to interpretation. ________________ 1707 CE. c1750 CE ________________ . ________________ 1762 CE. c1770 CE ________________ . ________________ 1789 CE.

495 views • 33 slides

The Modern Period

The Modern Period. 1914-1945. Historical Events. World War I (machine guns, trench warfare) 1920’s Economic Boom (Roaring Twenties) Prohibition The Great Depression (25% out of work) became a state of mind Roosevelt’s New Deal ended the depression World War II (bombers) The Holocaust.

302 views • 8 slides

The Early Modern Period

The Early Modern Period. Part IV 1450-1750. Remember the Periods. 8,000 B.C.E.-600 B.C.E 600 B.C.E.-600 C.E. 600 C.E.-1450 1450-1750 1750-1914 1914-Present (Though in the future, they will, I predict, have a period 1914-2001). 1450: A Turning Point.

712 views • 43 slides

Welcome to the early modern period

Welcome to the early modern period

Welcome to the early modern period. Literary Division Anglo-Saxon or Old English Literature Middle English Literature The Early Modern Period, aka The Renaissance The Elizabethan Age: reign of Elizabeth I (1558-1603) Jacobean Age: Reign of James I (1603-25)

695 views • 25 slides

The Modern Period

The Modern Period. (1914-1945). Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961).

823 views • 22 slides

The Early Modern English Period

The Early Modern English Period

The Early Modern English Period. C.M. Millward: A Biography of the English Language John Algeo: Origins and Development of the English Langauge Michael Cheng National Chengchi University. Key Historical Developments. The Printing Press The English Renaissance The Protestant Reformation

3.27k views • 71 slides

The Modern Period

The Modern Period. (1914-1945) By: Justin Goldberg and Kristen McGuffin. World War I. 1917- the US entered the war, followed by Woodrow Wilson’s 14-point plan to create peace amongst the nations Before the war- was a sense of optimism, resulting in Roaring 20’s after the war.

552 views • 31 slides

leaving the early modern period…

leaving the early modern period…

leaving the early modern period…. Dynasties founded by virtuous rulers; corrupt heirs lose Mandate of Heaven; conquered by foreign invaders or peasant rebels

580 views • 39 slides

THE EARLY MODERN PERIOD

THE EARLY MODERN PERIOD

THE EARLY MODERN PERIOD. “Renaissance” 1500-1700. Contents. Related and alternative designations Changing conditions Chronology Important Dates Outstanding Persons Major Atributes of the Language. RELATED AND ALTERNATIVE DESIGNATIONS. EARLY MODERN ENGLISH ENGLISH RENAISSANCE

2.06k views • 136 slides

Russia During the Early-Modern Period

Russia During the Early-Modern Period

Russia During the Early-Modern Period. Review of Russian History. Kievan Rus Dominated by Kiev, but various other principalities throughout Ties with Byzantine Empire Adopted Orthodox Christianity in 900’s Fell under Mongol rule in the 1220’s Remained under Mongol rule until late-1400’s.

425 views • 25 slides

The Modern Period 1914-1945

The Modern Period 1914-1945

The Modern Period 1914-1945. By: Alex Clement, Ashley Pluckter, Jennifer Sohl. Harlem Renaissance. During the 1920’s Increased awareness of and pride in African-American Heritage Appreciation of African-American artistic talents and literary and musical contributions

2.53k views • 27 slides

Chapter 5 The Modern Period

Chapter 5 The Modern Period

Chapter 5 The Modern Period. Brief introduction of the modern period In the second half of the 19 th century and the early decades of the 20 th century, both natural and social sciences in Europe had enormously advanced.

646 views • 13 slides

Introduction to the Early Modern Period

Introduction to the Early Modern Period

Introduction to the Early Modern Period. English Renaissance 1550s –1660. From Tudor England under Elizabeth I  to Stuart England under James I; Includes the English Civil War (1642-1648), beheading of King Charles I and Interregnum, including the Commonwealth (1649-1653) and

419 views • 13 slides

Early Modern English Period

Early Modern English Period

Early Modern English Period. end of the 15 th – beginning of the18th century The formation of the National English Language. Historical background. 1485 - ? Henry Vll (Tudor) crowned king (1485-1509). Absolute monarchy

389 views • 13 slides

The Early Modern Period 1450 - 1750

The Early Modern Period 1450 - 1750

The Early Modern Period 1450 - 1750. Ch. 23 Transoceanic Encounters and Global Connections. KEY POINTS:. What motivated exploration to take place?. What factors facilitated exploration?. What impact did exploration have globally or what changes took place as a result of this exploration?.

467 views • 8 slides

Arts | Review: When Japan became modern: Meiji-era art…

Share this:.

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on X (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Music and Concerts
  • The Theater Loop
  • TV and Streaming

Things To Do

Arts | review: when japan became modern: meiji-era art and artifacts are now at smart museum.

Woodblock print by Watanabe Nobukazu (1899) shows families in Ueno Park, Tokyo, the nation’s first such public space. Subjects wear a mix of Western and Japanese garments, from traditional kimono and geta sandals to top hats and button-down coats (Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art image). The exhibition “Meiji Modern: Fifty Years of New Japan” is at the Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago.

That might seem like a silly way to put it, but it’s also true. After two centuries of isolationist policy, Japan was forcibly opened up to foreign visitors and trade. What ensued was an era of modernization in architecture, fashion, industry, government and art like no other, gloriously evidenced in “Meiji Modern: Fifty Years of New Japan,” a building-wide exhibition currently on view at the Smart Museum of Art.

The Emperor Meiji, restored to power in 1868 after more than half a millennium of shogunate rule, wore radical change on his very being. He suited up in European military dress for his official photographic portrait, an image that appears here in the guise of a hand-colored photograph pasted into a U.S. consular report. The Empress Haruko, though depicted early on in layered kimonos, issued a memorandum in 1887 proclaiming that traditional Japanese garments were unsuited to modern life. From then on, she and her entourage sported only the frilly, French-style dresses seen in a war print illustrating an imperial visit to a field hospital during the First Sino-Japanese War. Not everyone agreed, however, that Western customs were the way to go. “Temptation,” a large hanging scroll, is of unclear authorship but has an unmistakable message: in it, a filthy foreign devil leads a blindfolded Japanese woman, enveloped in flowing obi-tied robes, off a cliff toward hell.

Much of the most exciting material on view in “Meiji Modern,” curated by Chelsea Foxwell and Bradley M. Bailey, falls somewhere in between these extremities, exhibiting a fusion of old and new, traditional and modern, Japanese and foreign. Cloisonné artisans like Hattori Tadasaburo innovated the already complex decorative technique to achieve new effects of translucence, relief and color blending, elegantly demonstrated in a phoenix-and-paulownia patterned globe lamp and a vase enveloped in leaves of bok choy. Kobayashi Kiyochika’s moody prints capture the bowler-hatted crowds, gas-lit streets, and devastating fires that defined Tokyo in the late 1870s and early 1880s, updating the old-fashioned medium of woodblock to produce new effects like chiaroscuro, sketchiness and shading. A wastewater bowl by Shibata Zeshin appears to be made of metal alloy but instead is lacquerware, rendered featherlight due to his decision to replace its traditional wood substrate with paper.

Zeshin also contributes a simple bowl for serving sweets, turned from conifer wood and minimally decorated with three exquisitely rendered poem cards, imitated in lacquer. A couple of objects throughout “Meiji Modern” are decorated in a similarly clever, picture-in-a-picture sort of way: a sake ewer from the Kinkozan Studio of Kyoto features four overlapping landscape paintings superimposed atop a glitzy array of patterns, while a large ivory-colored vase by Kintozan illustrates 110 individual types of vessels produced throughout the country, like a ceramics catalog — made of ceramic! These wares feel almost postmodern, in the uncanny way of certain artworks of the past, as if they’ve somehow slipped through dimensions to fit with contemporary visitors.

Not everything on view is so exquisitely refined. Much of what isn’t falls into the category of ephemera — woodblock prints and lithographs made quickly and cheaply, to provide ordinary Japanese viewers with news and entertainment, not unlike the illustrated press of today. Dozens are on display throughout “Meiji Modern,” and they make for fascinating viewing, bursting with the hairstyles, political exploits, famous buildings, popular pastimes, theater stars and trendy accessories of the times. Umbrellas were the travel mugs of 1882.

Harder to appreciate are all the tchotchkes. Crystal balls held aloft on minutely rendered metal waves, a trompe-l’oeil incense burner of a hawk on a perch, a finely carved ivory of a god sitting on a lotus riding a boar — these are small objects of incomparable quality but, in my view at least, about as much aesthetic interest as Royal Doulton figurines or Patek Philippe watches.

Far better natural and unnatural scenes can be found in the many folding screens that are a highlight of the show. Utagawa Kokunimasa’s sprawling “Hell Courtesan” is as witty as it is macabre, scattering across its silver-leafed panels anatomically correct skeletons who promenade, play music and board games, even get acupuncture treatment. A pair of golden screens by Takeuchi Seiho renders a white heron on a branch and a trio of black crows pecking at the ground with brushwork of extraordinary deftness and grace. Noguchi Shohin paints a monumental vista of poets gathered amid craggy mountains in a style associated with the Chinese literati, evidence that not all influences during the Meiji era came from Europe and America. The first female painter to become an Imperial Household Artist, Shohin is also the only woman creator named in the exhibition, though many more had a hand in producing the workshop wares on display throughout.

The exhibition “Meiji Modern: Fifty Years of New Japan” is...

The exhibition “Meiji Modern: Fifty Years of New Japan” is at the Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago. Folding screen in the foreground by Noguchi Shohin. (Michael Tropea)

“Fireworks at Ikenohata” (1881) from Kobayashi Kiyochika’s series of nighttime...

“Fireworks at Ikenohata” (1881) from Kobayashi Kiyochika’s series of nighttime views of Tokyo. Modern elements include the bowler hats in the silhouetted crowd, the many lights across the pond and the artist’s innovations of the traditional woodblock medium, including suppressed outlines and shading (Minneapolis Institute of Art image). The exhibition “Meiji Modern: Fifty Years of New Japan” is at the Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago.

The exhibition “Meiji Modern: Fifty Years of New Japan” is...

The exhibition “Meiji Modern: Fifty Years of New Japan” is at the Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago. (Michael Tropea)

The exhibition “Meiji Modern: Fifty Years of New Japan” is...

The exhibition “Meiji Modern: Fifty Years of New Japan” is at the Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago, including a pair of folding screens by Takeuchi Seiho and a cloisonnée vase with peacock feathering by Kawade Shibataro. (Michael Tropea)

In addition to painted screens, “Meiji Modern” also features a rare surviving hand-embroidered example. Produced by Nishijin Studios, its idyllic woodland grove emerges from hundreds of thousands of stitches in colored silk floss, the effect part Romantic landscape painting, part photographic realism. Not on view at the Smart but included in the traveling exhibition’s first installment at the Asia Society in New York was an even more astonishing screen by Hashio Kiyoshi that used some 250 shades of blue and grey thread to translate a photograph of waves into a stunningly realistic tapestry.

Kiyoshi’s screen won a Medal of Honor at the San Francisco Panama-Pacific Exposition in 1915, one of many successes achieved by Japan at the world fairs that at the time were so important to a nation’s global standing. “Meiji Modern” contains numerous items associated with these events, interspersed among artworks created for both the export and domestic markets, as well as all the print ephemera of modern daily life; together they form an exceptionally well-rounded vision of an era, all of it now belonging to American collections.

Lori Waxman is a freelance critic.

“Meiji Modern: Fifty Years of New Japan” runs through June 9 at the Smart Museum of Art, 5550 S. Greenwood Ave., 773-702-0200, smartmuseum.uchicago.edu/exhibitions

More in Arts

Called an Archaeopteryx, museum officials say it's their most important fossil acquisition since Sue the T. rex.

Arts | Field Museum has a new fossil of an avian dinosaur, unveiled at an event Monday

The changeover in the department came just before the summer festival season. Hedspeth says she's still formulating her own goals.

Arts | Who is DCASE’s new commissioner? A few questions for Clinée Hedspeth

Gov. J.B. Pritkzer and his wife, M.K., donated a key document from the Civil War to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum.

Politics | Gov. J.B. Pritzker and wife donate key Civil War document to Lincoln presidential library

A portrait of a young woman by Gustav Klimt that was long believed to be lost was sold at an auction in Vienna on Wednesday for 30 million euros ($32 million).

Entertainment | A portrait by Gustav Klimt has been sold for $32 million at an auction in Vienna

Trending nationally.

  • Photos: Best and worst looks from the 2024 Met Gala
  • Appalachian Trail hiker found dead was N.J. man, coroner says
  • Cardi B shuts down Met Gala red carpet in showstopping gown
  • One of California’s largest home insurance companies is raising rates by 15% on average
  • Summer movie guide: Virtually all the movies coming to theaters and streaming from May to Labor Day

IMAGES

  1. PPT

    modern era presentation

  2. The Modern Era by Connor Tompkins

    modern era presentation

  3. PPT

    modern era presentation

  4. PPT

    modern era presentation

  5. PPT

    modern era presentation

  6. The Modern Age by motadesantos on Genially

    modern era presentation

VIDEO

  1. monyet modern era jaman now

  2. IT ERA (Presentation Activity)

  3. The Magic of Poetry

  4. Lecture

  5. Lecture

  6. Elevating Style in The Digital Realm: VIRTUAL INFLUENCERS ~ Reginald Goff Ampomah at GDIW

COMMENTS

  1. The modern era (1980-present)

    The modern era (1980-present) Unit 10. Surveys of history. Unit 11. Primary documents. Course challenge. Test your knowledge of the skills in this course. Start Course challenge. Arts and humanities; US history; Unit 9: The modern era (1980-present) 300 possible mastery points. Mastered. Proficient. Familiar. Attempted. Not started. Quiz.

  2. Modern era

    What is Modern Art? It is a elastic term, which can be accommodate a variety of meaning. "Modern Art" means works produced during 1870- 1970. This "Modern era" dominated by Renaissance-inspired academic art, and network of European Academic of Fine Art. "Contemporary Art", which is called "Postmodern Art".

  3. The Modern Era: 1945-1970

    The Modern Era: 1945-1970 310 slides. Beginning with postwar Europe and Asia, this presentation covers the Cold War and end of colonialism, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the changes in population, art, science, and technology.

  4. 31 Free Modern Powerpoint Templates for Your Presentation

    FREE DOWNLOAD. 7. Free Modern Business Powerpoint Template. A two-color design choice of light or dark including charts, maps, diagrams, and other useful slides for multipurpose presentations. a smooth, consistent, well-ordered look. Resolution - High 16:9. Number of slides - 2 color versions of 34.

  5. DOMAIN V: The Modern Era

    EOCT Study Cards DOMAIN V: The Modern Era. 2 A huge growth in the population that occurred from the 1940-1960. Birthrate increased quickly This is the largest generation in American history Baby Boom. 3 Levittown First master-planned community in America. It occurred because of the need for home for families that were growing rapidly Led to the ...

  6. Free Modern Google Slide themes and PowerPoint templates

    Modern Presentation templates Make your presentations more atractive with these free Modern templates and themes featuring simple shapes, lines and basic colors. Use them in Google Slides or download them as PPT files to work in PowerPoint. Related collections . Neon. 274 templates. Futuristic. 350 templates ...

  7. 20 Characteristics of the Modern Era

    The modern era saw the rise of democracy as a dominant political system and the introduction of liberty, rights and freedoms. The American Revolutionary War and French Revolution of the late 18th century shook the world with new possibilities of liberty and democratic rule. Absolute monarchies were overthrown or reformed to become ...

  8. Lesson 19: The Unraveling

    19-The-Unraveling-Abstraction-in-the-Modern-Era-Sketchbook-Assignment.docx (11 kB) Lesson 19 Sketchbook Assignment in Word. This lesson covers cubism, abstract expressionism, and minimalism. Cubism is discussed with artworks by Pablo Picasso, abstract expressionism by Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Mark Rothko, and minimalism by Donald ...

  9. Modern Powerpoint Templates and Google Slides Themes

    These modern presentation templates are suitable for professionals in various industries who want to create visually appealing and engaging presentations. They can be used by business executives, marketing professionals, educators, and anyone looking to make a strong impact with their presentations. Create contemporary and stylish presentations ...

  10. Free History Google Slides themes and PowerPoint templates

    Reconstruction Era and the Gilded Age - History - 11th Grade In the United States, the Reconstruction Era followed the Civil War and sought to unite the nation and grant civil rights. The Gilded Age brought industrial growth, but also inequality and corruption. Both eras shared the struggle for civil rights and equity.

  11. Introduction to Modern European History. The Modern Era time period

    The Modern Era - Subdivision Early modern ( ) Renaissance - before liberal revolutions exploration, scientific rev., tech. change, secularized politics, authoritarian states, mercantilism + nascent capitalism Modern (1800-present) Liberal revolutions - present what's new: democracy, full-fledged capitalism, communism + totalitarianism

  12. PPT

    The Modern Era. The Modern Era. Presidents. Truman 1945-1953 Eisenhower 1953-1961 Kennedy 1961-1963 LBJ 1963-1969 Nixon 1969-1974 Ford 1974-1977 Carter 1977-1981 Reagan 1981-1989 Bush Sr. 1989-1993 Clinton 1993-2001 Bush Jr. 2001-2009 Obama 2009-present. Cold War. Communism-Basic Terms. 594 views • 47 slides

  13. PDF The Modern Period in American Literature 1915-1945

    Follow the link below to view the video…if it does not play, go to Quia to view. The Modern Period in American Literature 1915-1945. Many historians argue that America's cultural coming of age occurs during this time. The artistic innovations of Modernism are viewed as a response to dramatic historical, cultural, and economic events.

  14. PPT

    Presentation Transcript. Modern Era 1910-1945. The Modernist movement was • New and innovative • In literature, • In Painting • In Music • And other arts. Caused by • Disillusionment with traditions that seemed to become no longer true or relatable.

  15. New Contexts: Preservation Challenges of Modern Era Design

    This presentation is part of the Mid-Century Modern Structures: Materials and Preservation Symposium, April 14-16, 2015, St. Louis, Missouri. Watch a non-audio described version of this presentation on YouTube. Visit the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training to learn more about topics in preservation technology.

  16. PPT

    Presentation Transcript. The Modern Period (1914-1945) Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) • Born in Oak Park, Illinois, Hemingway played football for his high school team. In 1918, during WWI, he joined the Red Cross and went to Italy where he was injured, but found much insight for his writings; thus came "A Farewell To Arms", his most well ...

  17. The Modern and Postmodern Periods

    George Orwell (1903-1950) A political novelist (real name: Erik Blair) best known for coining the phrase "big brother" when describing the oppressive, totalitarian government in his most famous work, Nineteen Eighty-Four, and for attacking the oppressive communist government of Russia years before the outbreak of the cold war in Animal Farm.

  18. Modernism

    Modernism, in the fine arts, a break with the past and the concurrent search for new forms of expression. Modernism fostered a period of experimentation in the arts from the late 19th to the mid-20th century, particularly in the years following World War I.. In an era characterized by industrialization, the nearly global adoption of capitalism, rapid social change, and advances in science and ...

  19. The modern period ppt

    The modern period ppt. Jan 18, 2014 • Download as PPTX, PDF •. 1 like • 2,686 views. E. eliaqurniasih. Education. Download now. The modern period ppt - Download as a PDF or view online for free.

  20. KIU Modern Literature Presentation on Literary Movements 1901-1960

    KIU Modern Literature Presentation on Literary Movements 1901-1960. This Presentation is about Modern Century literaure, Modernism, Poetry and Modern Novel. and Stream of Consiousness. also discuss about Poets and Novelists. This era started from 1900 to 1961.

  21. Modern period of literature by Helen Urquilla on Prezi

    Modern Period of Literature LITERATURE MODERN PERIOD (1910 to 1945) Modernist literature was a predominantly English genre of fiction writing, popular from roughly the 1910s into the 1960s. ... Understanding 30-60-90 sales plans and incorporating them into a presentation; April 13, 2024. How to create a great thesis defense presentation ...

  22. Themes in Early Modern History c.1450-c.1800 (HI992)

    Outline Syllabus. Week 1: Introduction - Peter Marshall. Week 2: The State, Government and Politics - Sarah Johanesen. Week 3: Early Modern Encounters: Travellers and Travel Writing - Aysu Dincer. Week 4: Cultural Turns: The History of Emotions - Natalie Hanley-Smith. Week 5: Early Modern Material Culture - Sarah Johanesen.

  23. Presentation needs to be updated for older ERAS PLEASE!

    OVR: 2. Join Date: May 2011. Presentation needs to be updated for older ERAS PLEASE! For 2k25 can we finally get updated presentation for older Eras🙏🙏🙏🙏. I'm so jealous of modern era presentation but I love older Eras gameplay better. I'm so conflicted 🤦. shaqfu9, Lagoa and STLRams like this.

  24. The Early Modern Period

    The Early Modern Period. This PowerPoint covers European history from the 15th to the 18th centuries. It includes the major social changes and the many long, protracted conflicts such as the thirty Years' War. How governments transitioned from feudalism to constitutional monarchies is explored along with changes in Christianity marked by the ...

  25. The History of the Olympic Games

    The History of the Olympic Games, From Ancient Greece to the Modern Era. Take a trip back to 776 B.C.E. with this fun look back at the sporting event started by the ancient Greeks.

  26. Anthony Edwards' playoff surge elevates his rank among No. 1 recruits

    Here are the No. 1 overall recruits in the 247Sports era, ranked by NBA success. Note: The parenthesized year denotes when the player was ranked as the No. 1 overall recruit in his respective class.

  27. EWU Digital Commons

    Weezer is an alternative rock band formed in 1992 and currently consists of lead singer Rivers Cuomo, drummer Patrick Wilson, lead guitarist Brian Bell, and bassist Scott Shriner. Perhaps most well known for their 1994 self-titled album, known by most as "The Blue Album", Weezer has continued to see popularity into the modern era, still releasing albums as recently as 2022. However, their ...

  28. modern architecture

    Feb 19, 2016 • Download as PPTX, PDF •. Modern architecture emerged in the early 19th century due to the Industrial Revolution. It is characterized by simple geometric forms, minimalism, and an emphasis on form following function [1]. Some key highlights of early modern architecture include the Crystal Palace built in 1851 and the Eiffel ...

  29. PPT

    Presentation Transcript. The Modern Period 1900-1961Lecture 22History of English LiteratureCOMSATS Virtual Campus Islamabad. The Modern Period • Brief introduction of the modern period • In the second half of the 19th century and the early decades of the 20th century, both natural and social sciences in Europe had enormously advanced.

  30. Review: When Japan became modern: Meiji-era art at Smart Museum

    What ensued was an era of modernization in architecture, fashion, industry, government and art like no other, gloriously evidenced in "Meiji Modern: Fifty Years of New Japan," a building-wide ...