Instituto Superior de Formación Docente y Técnica Nº 5

Trabajo Práctico Nº1:

Art and the Post War “Crisis of Meaning”

Sección: Profesorado en Inglés

Curso: 1er Año Año: 2013

Espacio curricular: Language and Culture I

Profesor: Griselda Luchessi

Integrantes: Bonacalza, M. Belén

Ortiz, Ana Clara

Lecture five: Art and the Post War “Crisis of Meaning” Language and Culture I

Introduction:

The 19th. century was an era of invention and discovery. The horrors of the First World War led to widespread social trauma. People found consolation in art and literature, and used it as a way to express their outrage caused by the war. People demanded a form of expression that was honest, realistic, and critical of political and social behaviours.This Disillusionment following the war manifested itself in a number of ways, sparking artistic, literary, philosophical, musical, and cultural movements. In contrast to pre-war artistic movements, such as Impressionism, post-war art became bleak and cynical, changing the rules, abandoning tradition. Literature mirrored the artistic movements in exposing the atrocities committed during the world war.Some people were revolted by nationalism and what it had caused; so, they began to work towards a more internationalist world through organizations such as the League of Nations. Pacifism became increasingly popular. Others had the opposite reaction, feeling that only military strength could be relied on.

FUTURISM

Futurism was an artistic and social movement originated in Italy in 1909.The Futurists admired speed, technology, youth and violence, the car, the airplane and the industrial city, all that represented the technological triumph of humanity over nature, and they were passionate nationalists. Futurist’s members wished to destroy older forms of culture and to demonstrate the beauty of modern life. Although the movement did foster some architecture, most of its adherents were artists who worked in traditional media such as painting, sculpture and ceramics. The Futurists were fascinated by new visual technology, in particular chrono-photography, a predecessor of animation and cinema that allowed the movement of an object to be shown across a sequence of frames. This technology was an important influence on their approach to showing movement in painting, encouraging an abstract art with rhythmic, pulsating qualities.

Characteristics:

Important use of colour (more than Cubism) Rejecting of everything old , dull Compositions full of movements

In theatre, futurism has a nonsensical humour, and it discredits the deep rooted traditions via parody and other devaluation techniques.

Bonacalza M. Belén – Ortiz Ana Clara 1ºProfesorado de Inglés 2

Lecture five: Art and the Post War “Crisis of Meaning” Language and Culture I

In literary the movement managed to create a new language free of syntax punctuation, and metrics.

In music the movement introduced experimental sounds inspired by machinery. The traditional music was rejected

In Architecture the city was a backdrop onto which the dynamism of futurist life is projected. Futurist Architects were sometimes odd and they thought that a city was not meant to last, and each generation was expected to build their own city.

Key figures:

Filippo Tommaso Emilio Marinetti (1876 –1944) Italian poet and editor, the founder of

the Futurist movement.

Carlo Carrà (1881 – 1966) Italian painter, a leading figure of the Futurist movement

Giacomo Balla (1871-1958) Italian futurist painter, sculptor and designer. He loved photography.

Dadaism

Dada or Dadaism was a post-World War I cultural movement in visual art as well as literature (mainly poetry), theatre and graphic design. The movement was originated in Zurich and Trace in 1916. This movement was a protest against the barbarism of the War. Its works were characterized by a deliberate irrationality and the rejection of the prevailing standards of art. There was also a rejection of war politics and social organization.

Characteristics: Dada artworks allow the viewer to interpret artworks in a variety of ways.

It was an artistic revolt and protest against traditional beliefs of a pro-war society, and also fought against sexism/racism to a lesser degree.

It was an anti-war movement created by artists around Europe as a way to express the troubles and traumas within societies affected by the war itself.

Influences by Futurism, Cubism and Expressionism

Collage

Bonacalza M. Belén – Ortiz Ana Clara 1ºProfesorado de Inglés 3

Lecture five: Art and the Post War “Crisis of Meaning” Language and Culture I

Technique of cutting pieces of paper items and including items such as transportation tickets, maps, plastic wrappers, etc. to portray aspects of everyday life.

PhotomontageDadaists used scissors and glue rather than paintbrushes and paints to express their views of modern life through images presented by the media. Photomontage utilized actual or reproductions of real photographs printed in the press.

Key figures:

Tristan Tzara (1896 - 1963) was a Romanian avant-garde poet, essayist and performance artist. Also active as a journalist, playwright, literary and art critic, composer and film director, he was known best for being one of the founders and central figures of the anti-establishment Dada movement. Hannah Hoch (1889 - 1978) was a Germán Dada artist. She was one ofthe originators of photomontage.

Francis Picabia (1879 - 1953) was a French painter, poet, andtypographist, associated with Cubism, Abstract art, Dada and Surrealism.

Surrealism

Surrealism is a cultural and artistic movement that began in the 1920’s in Paris. It is best known for its visual artworks and writings. The movement spread around the globe, eventually affecting the visual arts, literature, film, and music of many countries and languages, as well as political thought and practice, philosophy, and social theory. The aim was to "resolve the previously contradictory conditions of dream and reality." Artists developed painting techniques that allowed the unconscious to express itself.

The goal of Surrealist artists was not to produce lifelike replications of people or objects, nor were these artists concerned with creating works of delightful abstract beauty to delight the eyes. They were instead focused upon using all forms of art as a means to express the real functioning of the human mind.

Freud's work with free association, dream analysis, and the unconscious was of utmost importance to the Surrealists in developing methods to liberate imagination. Surrealism in all its forms is highly concerned with dreams and the subconscious mind. Surrealist art does not shy away from shocking, sexual or violent imagery; artists within this school actively sought to push the boundaries of what was considered socially acceptable and artistically valid.

Bonacalza M. Belén – Ortiz Ana Clara 1ºProfesorado de Inglés 4

Lecture five: Art and the Post War “Crisis of Meaning” Language and Culture I

Surrealist literatureLittérature contained automatist works and accounts of dreams. Examples of Surrealist literature are Artaud's Le Pese-Nerfs (1926), Aragon's Irene's Cunt (1927), Péret's Death to the Pigs (1929), Crevel's Mr. Knife Miss Fork (1931), Sadegh Hedayat's the Blind Owl (1937), and Breton's Sur la route de San Romano (1948).

Surrealist filmsEarly films by Surrealists include:

Un Chien Andalou by Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí (1929)

L'Âge d'Or by Buñuel and Dalí (1930) Music by SurrealistsJazz and blues music were very important during this movement ..

Key figures:

Salvador Dali was an Spanish painter and filmmaker whose melting clocks and five-legged stick animals are easily recognized throughout the world. Like the other Surrealists, Dali sought to explore the nature of the artist's true self by embracing the marvelous, irrational, subconscious areas of the mind.

The Persistence of Memory is a painting by the famous Spanish surrealist artist Salvador Dali. The original title of this painting is "La persistencia de la memoria" and it depicts a fetus-like head lying on the ground, like a fish that was washed ashore and now decaying after a lost struggle gasping for air. There are four watches in this painting, three of which appear to be molten, as if made out of cheese. The only watch whose structure doesn't appear to be malformed - unlike other watches it is orange in colour - is sitting on a desk-like object. The ants seem to have found a point of interest in the centre of the orange watch.It possibly derives its meaning from Sigmund Freud's work on psychoanalysis because Dali painted it during his psychoanalytical era of painting.Interpretation 1: The persistence of memory meaning theme: the drooping pocketwatches possibly suggest the irrelevance of time during sleep. In other words, when we are asleep, or not conscious, the time does not persist, but memories do.

Interpretation 2: Yet another interpretation of this painting may, through the use of symbolism, suggest Einstein's theory that time is relative and is not fixed.

Conclusion

Bonacalza M. Belén – Ortiz Ana Clara 1ºProfesorado de Inglés 5

Lecture five: Art and the Post War “Crisis of Meaning” Language and Culture I

Art movements are born out of the need for people to express their reactions to social, political and religious changes. Whether they accept them or openly disdain them the goals are equal in velocity: To promote their perspective of current changes.

In most situations, new movements will gradually appear on the art scene. As the movement grows it will offer the artists an opportunity to explore new philosophies while extending an invitation for them to enlist among the ranks, adopt some of the ideas or continue to remain loyal to their current trend.

The new movement will no doubt meet with resistance from critics and patrons alike, who usually perceive the new movement as nothing more than an unsolicited crusade with little or no hope of survival. The artists, on the other hand, adamant that the message conveyed through their art is critical, will continue to push forward with their movement until it gains acceptance or has reached its apex and has nothing new to offer in the way of ideas.

Bonacalza M. Belén – Ortiz Ana Clara 1ºProfesorado de Inglés 6