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Modernism: Art and Literature

1920s: From Gatsby to Picasso

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Essential Questions

Unit EQ: How and why do American values shift?

Today’s EQ: How were the political, economic, and social factors of the era responsible for hastening the art and culture revolutions of the 1920s?

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By the end of class today, students will be able to: define Modernism (a relatively complex idea in the

world of art) in your own words

learn some of the important Modernist artists

understand the link between Modernism, Gatsby, Dadaism, Surrealism, and Cubism

learn the names of some important artists

analyze modernist paintings (good luck--they’re wacky), and in so doing review some techniques of interpretation

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What is modernism?

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Some Characteristics of Modernistic Thought

Rejection of “tradition” as being outdated in a changing world (“Make it new!”)

Rejection of rationality, harmony, and coherence

Separation of the past as being “different” from the modern age

Recognition that the world is complex

Assertion that the old “final authorities” (God, government, science, and reason) were subject to intense critical scrutiny

Approval/Embracing of discontinuity

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Link to Unit EQ:

All of these notions were reactions to a rapidly changing, post-WWI America.

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Influences Contributingto Modernism:

The 1920s = the first time more people lived in urban areas than rural areas (in America) Characters move from the West to the East.

West = Rural America: traditional spirit of hard work, self-reliance, religion, and independence.

East = Cities and changes that threaten old values—Modernists say that life will never go back to “what it was”

Americans—because of communal living in cities as well as reactions to WWI—lose faith Eyes of Dr. Eckleburg

Americans losing faith in God

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Influences Contributingto Modernism:

In the past, there was a belief that Americans were making steady moral progress. The horror of WWI and trench warfare blew this

notion out of the water

Harsh, mechanical rationality of new technological weapons in WWI The fusion of the mechanical with the

seemingly senseless slaughter of human beings left “morality” and “realism” pretty bankrupt

Think of the “death car” in Gatsby

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FYI:

MANY Americans were NOT on board with Modernism!!

Art exhibitions, theatre, cinema, books, and even new buildings of this time all served to cement in the public view the perception that the world was changing, but Many reacted hostilely! People spat on paintings Riots organized at openings Political figures denounced modernism as

“unwholesome” and “immoral”

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Dada

Begins in Switzerland during WWI and spreads– peaks during early 20s

Includes visual arts, literature, theatre, and graphic design

Was anti-war Expressed anti-war politics through “anti-art” Dadaists wanted to ridicule what they considered

meaningless in the modern world. Usually also anti-bourgeois and anarchistic Basically, they were pissed off at a world that

allowed WWI to happen.

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Dada The Dada movement was not a movement

Its artists were not artists

Its art was not art

…because art (and everything else in the world) has no meaning anyway.

Even the name “Dada”—which some say means “hobby horse” in French and others just say is baby talk—was chosen because it was the catch phrase that made the least amount of sense.

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What the Dadaists did:

Used: Mild obscenities Weird humor Visual puns Everyday objects renamed as “art”

Examples: Painting a mustache on the Mona Lisa and scribbling an

obscenity underneath Putting a toilet on display and naming it “Fountain,” and

putting a fake signature on it

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Marcel Duchamp

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Marcel Duchamp

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Sophie Taeuber

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Man Ray “The Misunderstood”

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Man Ray– “A Night at Saint Jean-de-Luz”

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Francis Picabia– “Hera”

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Surrealism

Born out of Dada thought Andre Breton, the “leader” of the surrealist

movement, said Surrealism was a revolutionary movement.

Surrealist works feature: the element of surprise unexpected juxtapositions non sequitur

Most surrealists regarded their work as an expression of PHILOSOPHY--the work itself was merely an artifact of that philosophy

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FYI:

Andre Breton (the “leader” of Surrealism) served in a neurological hospital where he used the psychoanalytic methods of Sigmund Freud (more on him later) with soldiers who were shell-shocked.

Surrealism = defined as: Dictionary: Surrealism, n. Pure psychic automatism, by which one

proposes to express, either verbally, in writing, or by any other manner, the real functioning of thought. Dictation of thought in the absence of all control exercised by reason, outside of all aesthetic and moral preoccupation.

Encyclopedia: Surrealism. Philosophy. Surrealism is based on the belief in the superior reality of certain forms of previously neglected associations, in the omnipotence of dream, in the disinterested play of thought. It tends to ruin once and for all other psychic mechanisms and to substitute itself for them in solving all the principal problems of life.

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Andre Masson: Pedestal Table in the Studio

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Salvador Dali– “The Persistence of Memory”

Dali: “Rhinoceros Disintegration of Ilissus of Phidias”

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Dali– “Metamorphosis of Narcissus”

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Dali—”Soft Construction With Boiled Beans (Premonition of Civil War)”

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Dali— “Accommodations of Desire”

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Max Ernst-- “The Elephant Celebus”

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Cubism An earlier movement– 20s are “Late Cubism,” but it

doesn’t emerge in America until then Backlash to Impressionism, which focuses on light and

color In Cubist artworks, objects are:

Broken up Analyzed Re-assembled in an abstracted form

Instead of depicting objects from one viewpoint, the artist depicts multiple viewpoints of a subject in order to represent the subject in a greater context

Often, surfaces intersect at seemingly random angles, removing a coherent sense of depth

Space = shallow and ambiguous

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Pablo Picasso

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Pablo Picasso: “Le Guitariste”

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Picasso– “Three Musicians”

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Georges Braque– “Woman with a Guitar”

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Review and Discuss

Without looking at your notes! What is modernism? What is Dada? What is Surrealism? What is Cubism? How are Dadaist, Surrealist, and Cubist art works

representative of Modernist thought? Why do these art forms flourish in America in the 20s?