Cultural Innovations of Modernism: Influence on Art, Music, and Literature

1. Modernism

2. Historical Context • World War I– The Great War: Technology of destruction • Communism—Stalin’s industrialization of the Soviet Union: 20 million dead Social realism in the arts • Fascism-Nationalism and racism: Hitler’s institutionalization of genocideRadio and film used for propaganda

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

4. Science • Einstein’s Theory of Relativity • Quantum mechanics

5. Picasso • Mastered traditional techniques“blue period”“rose period” • Abandoned Renaissance tradition: new rules • Les Demoiselles D’Avignon

6. Influences on Picasso • Cézanne’s Bathers • African and Polynesian masks • Primitivism

7. 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. • Georges Braque

8. Stages of Cubism • Analytical phase: browns and grays. Colors should not distract fromlines and planes • Synthetic phase: collage

9. Abstraction • Pure line, shape and color: non-objective • Sculpture: Boccioni’s Unique Forms of Continuity in Space Brancusi’s Bird in Space • Painting: Piet Mondrian’s Broadway Boogie Woogie

10. Anti-Art • Dada: rejection of reason and order in art • Marcel Duchamp’s ready-mades: L.H.O.O.Q.mobile sculpture, urinal • Later influenced performance art, pop art

11. Expressionism • Henri Matisse: fauvism • The Blue Window, Issy-les-Moulineaux • German Expressionism: Die Brücke • Emil Nolde’s Dance Around the Golden Calf • Der Blaue Reiter • Wassily Kandinsky’s Improvisation 28 (Second Version) • Paul Klee’s All Around the Fish

12. Freud • The Interpretation of Dreams influenced the humanities of the Twentieth Century • Psychoanalysis: freeing unconscious desires repressed by parental and societal taboos • Georgio de Chirico’s The Mystery and Melancholy of a Street

13. Surrealism • André Breton: automatism • Surrealist painters sought to release the images of the subconscious • Joan Miró’s The Birth of the World • Salvador Dalí’s The Persistence of Memory

14. Modernism in Literature • Poets discarded meter and rhyme: vers libre • Prose: Virginia Woolf’s interior monologues or stream of consciousness reveal the characters’ inner thoughts. • Mrs. Dalloway: A single day • James Joyce’s Ulysses: A single day

15. 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

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

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

18. 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

19. Bertolt Brecht • Epic theater • The Threepenny Opera • The disparity between the ruling class in Germany and the working classes

20. Political Paintings • Orozco, Siqueiros and Rivera: murals on public buildings in Mexico • Rivera’s The Enslavement of the Indians: criticism of Spain’s oppression of the indigenous people • Picasso’s Guernica: decimation of the town of Guernica by German bombs during Spanish Civil War

21. Cinema • D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation • Silent film: Charlie Chaplin • Soviet film: Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin • Montage technique: “Odessa Steps” • Leni Riefenstahl’s The Triumph of the Will, Nazi propaganda

22. The U.S.A./ N.Y. • Photography: Alfred Stieglitz • Painter: Georgia O’Keeffe • The Harlem Renaissance:Countee CullenLangston HughesZora Neale Hurston

23. U.S.A/Other Artists • Edward Hopper Nighthawks • Willa Cather • William Faulkner: Absalom, Absalom!

24. American Dance • Modern Dance: freedom from classical ballet Isadora Duncan • Modern Ballet: classical training/freer expressionGeorge BallanchineMartha Graham

25. American Music • Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring • Charles Ives’ Three Pieces in New England

26. Architecture • Frank Lloyd Wright: incorporate nature • “Fallingwater”

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