Modernism Historical Context World War I The Great

Modernism

Historical Context World War I – “The Great War” introduced technology of destruction Communism 1. Stalin’s industrialization of the Soviet Union 2. 20 million dead 3. Social realism in the arts Fascism – nationalism and racism: Hitler’s institutionalization of genocide, radio and film used for propaganda

Mass Media in the U. S. Documentary arts: Commercial film Radio programs Posters Photography

Science Einstein’s Theory of Relativity Quantum mechanics

Picasso Mastered traditional techniques 1. blue period 2. rose period Abandoned Renaissance tradition – new rules Developed cubism with Georges Braque – it was an attempt to shatter previous ideas about form Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (fig. 21. 3)

Influences on Picasso Cézanne’s work African and Polynesian masks Iberian sculpture

Cubism Revolutionary departure from representational art. The area around painted objects became part of the abstract geometric forms. Presented the object from many angles simultaneously An attempt to present an object in a “perceptual” way – idea that as we look at something, we “see” one side, but “perceive” its other sides (and interiors) as well.

Stages of Cubism Analytical phase: browns and grays, colors should not distract from lines and planes Synthetic phase: collage

Abstraction Pure line, shape and color – nonrepresentational (no recognizable objects) Sculpture: Brancusi’s Bird in Space (fig. 21. 18) Painting: Piet Mondrian’s Composition in Red, Yellow, and Blue (fig. 21. 17)

Anti-Art Dada: rejection of reason and order in art Marcel Duchamp’s “ready-mades: ” The Fountain (fig. 21. 12) Later influenced performance art, pop art

Expressionism German Expressionism: Die Brücke (The Bridge) and Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) Inspired by Fauves (Matisse) Color caused “vibrations in the soul (Kandinsky in Concerning the Spiritual in Art). ” Emil Nolde’s Dance Around the Golden Calf (fig. 21. 18) Wassily Kandinsky’s Improvisation No. 30 (Warlike Theme) (fig. 21. 19)

Freud The Interpretation of Dreams influenced the humanities of the Twentieth Century Psychoanalysis: freeing unconscious desires repressed by parental and societal taboos

Surrealism Ideas supported by a willful misinterpretation of Freud André Breton: automatism Surrealist painters sought to release the images of the subconscious Joan Miró: Painting (fig. 21. 14) Salvador Dalí: The Persistence of Memory (fig. 21. 15)

Modernism in Literature Poetry: 1. 2. 3. meter and rhyme discarded complexity, historical allusions poetry should reflect the difficulty of experience 1. Prose: 1. stream of consciousness narrative 2. conveyed characters inner selves 3. complexity, historical allusions

Modernist Literature T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land: new hero – ironic, frustrating, disappointing, self-doubting, anxious Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis: character becomes a giant insect Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway: interior monologues occurring throughout a single day James Joyce’s Ulysses: a single day in the life of Leopold Bloom Ernest Hemingway’s In Our Time: depicts the realities of war

Music/Stravinsky’s music introduced multiple meters, or polyrhythm, and multiple simultaneous keys or polytonality, disturbing dissonance Le Sacré du Printemps shocked the music world 1. Russian folk tradition 2. Diaghilev: artistic director 3. Nijinsky: dancer/choreographer

Music/Schoenberg Rejected the classical tradition of orchestral music Atonal music: not composed in a key – expressionistic Twelve-tone method: not popular with audiences Pierrot Lunaire

Modernist Architecture Bauhaus School (German) – Walter Gropius: clean, functional design Le Corbusier (French) functional glass and metal designs Art deco: sleek, simple shapes with decorative forms, like the “gargoyles” of the Chrysler Building

American Artists Georgia O’Keeffe: Yellow Calla (fig. 21. 25) Edward Hopper: Nighthawks (fig. 21. 35) Dorothea Lange: Migrant Mother; Nipomo, California (fig. 21. 30) William Faulkner: The Sound and the Fury Flannery O’Connor

American Dance Modern Dance: freedom from classical ballet – Isadora Duncan Modern Ballet: classical training/freer expression – George Ballanchine, Martha Graham

American Music Aaron Copland: Appalachian Spring Charles Ives: 114 Songs George Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue, Porgy and Bess

American Architecture Frank Lloyd Wright – organic design that works with the environment Fallingwater (fig. 21. 23) Furniture designed by Wright in his homes

Jazz! Improvised melodies, “swing” rhythm African-American origins George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, Rhapsody in Blue Large dance bands Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Charlie “Bird” Parker, John Coltrane, Miles Davis