The eye of modernity

Abstract

Georg Simmel's concise definition of modernity was also a description of the leading style of perception at the turn of the twentieth century. However, in comparison to Simmel their main focus is not on modern sculpture but on objects, pictures and buildings from all classical epochs in art history. With the appearance of rhythm in German art history around 1900 those long-established visual styles became slowly outdated, but that is not to say that rhythm simply and entirely wiped out the former conventions of detached, ocular-centric observation, but rather grew alongside and incorporated them, before eventually overruling them. The rhythmic energy of Beauvais' late Carolingian basilica stays comparatively low but, as a starting point for Pinder's extensive studies on the history of rhythm in medieval Norman architecture, the church plays nonetheless an essential role nonetheless. The sweeping rhythm-obsession of turn-of-the-century German art and art history was not destined to endure.