The Growing Unrest 3/17/14. Chapter Eighteen Toward the Modern Era: New Subjects for Literature Psychological Insights in the Novel

Transcription

1 3/17/14 Chapter Eighteen Toward the Modern Era: The Growing Unrest Belle époque: beautiful age But also a growing frustration, restlessness Economic disparity, resentment Population growth, urban alienation Capitalism vs. Socialism Suffrage Movement Loss of religious security New Subjects for Literature Psychological Insights in the Novel Marcel Proust ( ) Remembrance of Things Past Evocation of memory Stream of consciousness style New Subjects for Literature Psychological Insights in the Novel Nature of individual existences The subconscious and human behavior Fyodor Dostoyevsky ( ) Concern for psychological truth Human suffering, salvation Crime and Punishment New Subjects for Literature Regionalism and Realism in the Novel Mark Twain ( ) The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn One of the United States most popular storytellers Uses dialects and regional details from his childhood and work experiences Émile Zola ( ) The Ladies Delight Analyzes with scientific precision how modern advertising and marketing work 1

2 3/17/14 Responses to A Changing Society: The Role of Women Family life, society at large Right to vote, marriage ties Henrik Ibsen s A Doll s House (1879) Criticism of anti-feminist social conventions Kate Chopin s The Awakening (1899) Sexuality as liberation from oppression Ludwig Meidner Ich und die Stadt (1913) (I and the city) What emotion is being expressed here? How do you know? Kathy Kollwitz s realist etching, March of the Weavers (1897). What is being represented here? Kathy Kollwitz s realist etching, Riot (1897). What is being represented here? Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche s Philosophy Kathy Kollwitz s lithograph, Conspiracy (1897). This is the third plate in her Weaver s Revolt Cycle Nihilism; argued that the idea of God is dead Critic of judeo-christian culture, nationalism, and all other surrogate gods Asserts will to Power Poses concept of the Übermensch (Superman a Caesar with Christ s soul) 2

3 3/17/14 Look at the representation of depth here. Do you notice anything interesting or odd? The new realism of impressionism and the turn toward abstraction Édouard Manet ( ) Break from classical tradition Assumes view of the artist; shows us how he sees his subjects Le Déjeuner sur l Herbe (Luncheon on the Grass) (1863) Compare and contrast the figure and bottles in the foreground with the reflection in the mirror. How are they different? A Bar at the Folies-Bergére (1882) Impressionism Realism of light, color Fidelity to visual perception, innocent eye Devotion to naturalism; how things really look in nature Realism of light and color Records all colors without trying to blend them together Claude Monet ( ): created the style of impression with the following revolutionary, controversial painting. Impression: Sunrise (1872) Red Boats at Argenteuil (1875) 3

4 3/17/14 4

5 3/17/14 How does Renoir s painting combine realism and impressionism? Le Moulin de la Galette (1876) Impressionism Pierre Auguste Renoir ( ) Beauty of the world, happy activity Women as symbols of life Le Moulin de la Galette (1876) Edgar Degas ( ) Intimate moments as universal experience Psychological penetration Keyhole visions How do Degas s nudes differ from the classical nudes of the Renaissance? Degas s The Rehearsal (1874). Again, how does this differ from classical and romantic art? What does it make ballet look like? Degas looked to represent the ordinary in his nudes. The artist assumes odd angles to give the sense of his subjects being spiedon Post-Impressionism Rejection of Impressionism Personal artistic styles that break with both tradition of classical idealism and with impressionism; every artist is working in his own unique style with his own unique techniques Georges Pierre Seurat ( ) Paul Gauguin ( ) 5

6 3/17/14 Seurat s pointillism up close Seurat s pointillist technique Georges Seurat, A Sunday on La Grande Jatte ( ); Seurat s unique, mathematical pointillist technique produces a rather unique looking image. Gauguin s new study s of everyday life Post-Impressionism Paul Cézanne ( ) Impose order on nature; does not represent things either as they really look or as they ideally should be Priority of abstract considerations; nature as fundamentally geometrical Mont Sainte-Victoire ( ) van Gogh s Starry Night (1889) And his interest in the exotic Autobiographical, pessimistic art Social, spiritual alienation 6

7 3/17/14 A Cezanne still life; geometry and perspective are subtly modified to suit artist s personal sense of order. One of Cezanne s many paintings of Mont Sainte-Victoire. What is the influence of impressionism here? What kinds of shapes does Cezanne use here to impose order on nature? Van Gogh s self portrait. What is the first thing you notice? What is its effect? What do you think the artist is trying to communicate about himself? (we ve come a long way from Albrecht Dürer!) Fauvism Les Fauves : the wild beasts of france Loss of traditional values of color, form Distortion of natural relationships Henri Matisse, The Red Studio (1911) Starry Night. What is Van Gogh communicating about the stars and the night? 7

8 3/17/14 How is Matisse s The Red Studio an example of Fauvism? Matisse s The Joy of Life (1906). What makes things look so joyful here? How is this different from classical realism and impressionsim? Expressionism Alarm and hysteria Edvard Munch, The Scream (1893) Autobiographical, social, psychological Die Brücke (The Bridge), Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) Emotional impact, alienation and loneliness Heckel ( ), Nolde ( ) What is being expressed here in Edvard Munch s The Scream (1893)? An Erich Heckel expressionist woodcut What emotion is being produced here? Emil Nolde s Die Sünderin (Christus und die Sünderin) (1926) 8

9 3/17/14 Nolde s Pentecost. How is this different from the many images of the pentecost found on medieval churches? Cubism Objects viewed as problems to be solved according to the artist s vision and through his analysis Solution to problem of how to represent three-dimensional objects in two-dimensional paintings Break object into different planes and present as if viewed from all sides at once hence the reference to the three-dimensions of the cube Cezanne s geometric paintings of landscapes is one of the inspirations for a new style of modern painting called cubism. Picasso s Reservoir (1907) Note the similarity to Cezanne s geometric technique, especially in the planar composition of the buildings. Picasso s The Guitar Player Cubist artists were affected by the new technologies of film and the concept of a moving image constructed out of frames. Cubist painters, led by Picasso and Braque, fragmented their images into two-dimensional, intersecting geometrical forms. They presented a vision of the subject that showed multiple aspects at the same time. The movement was highly revolutionary and influential. Picasso s Les Demoiselles d Avignon (1907) The evolution of Western human figuration is represnted in this painting, from koure (left), to classical (center) to geometrical (right). 9

10 3/17/14 Picasso, Three Musicians ( 1921) Futurism How has Picasso s cubism changed over time? Balla s Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash (1912) Art of speed, technology, and modernity Umberto Boccioni s Unique Forms in the Continuity of Space (1913) In 1912, Boccioni had attacked the domination of sculpture by "the blind and foolish imitation of formulas inherited from the past," and particularly by "the burdensome weight of Greece." Yet Unique Forms of Continuity in Space bears an underlying resemblance to a classical work over 2,000 years old, the Nike of Samothrace. There, however, speed is encoded in the flowing stone draperies that wash around, and in the wake of, the figure. Here the body itself is reshaped, as if the new conditions of modernity were producing a new man. Severini s Armored Train in Action (1915) Painted during World War I 10