1.1 World War II

World War II

Art 109A: Art Since 1945Westchester Community College

World War II (1939-1945)World War II began in 1939 with the German invasion of Poland

German troops parade through Warsaw, Poland. PK Hugo J.ger, September 1939Image source: http://www.archives.gov/research/ww2/photos/

World War II (1939-1945)In 1940 Paris (which had been the center of the European avant garde) fell to the Nazis

Adolf Hitler in Paris, June 23, 1940Image source: http://www.archives.gov/research/ww2/photos/

World War II (1939-1945)The Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941 brought the United States into the conflict

Sinking of the USS Virginia, Pearl Harbor, 1941Image source: http://aboutjapan.japansociety.org/content.cfm/pearl_harbor_attack

World War II (1939-1945)The US bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki brought the war to an end in 1945

Mushroom cloud of smoke billowing 20,000 ft. in the air after atomic explosion over the city of Hiroshima, August 6, 1945 Image source: LIFE

Hiroshima before the bombingImage source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki

Hiroshima after the bombingImage source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki

Europe lay in ruins

Aftermath

Herbert Mason, St. Paul’s, London, during the Blitz, 1940Wikipedia

William Vandivert, Dresden after the Allied bombing, 1946Image source: LIFE

AftermathRussia and the United States emerged as opposed superpowers with competing claims to world dominance.

Harry S. Truman, President of the United States 1945-1953Image source: http://www.presidentialtimeline.org/html/record.php?id=100

Joseph Stalin, political leader of the Soviet Union, 1924-1953

AftermathUnder the “Truman Doctrine” Russia and the United States entered the Cold War

Harry S. Truman Delivering the Truman Doctrine Speech, 1947Image source: http://www.trumanlibrary.org/photographs/displayimage.php?pointer=14687

AftermathThis took the form of an arms race

Image source: http://www.darkgovernment.com/news/cold-war-espionage-and-computer-security/

Image source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_arms_race

AftermathAnd the advent of the “nuclear age”

Image source: http://www.conelrad.com/books/print.php?id=267_0_1_0

AftermathThe end of the war also brought revelations of the Nazi extermination camps

Buchenwald Concentration Camp, April 16, 1945Image source: LIFE

AftermathThe most shocking discoveries were made by British troops at Bergen-Belsen in April 1945

The Liberation of Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp, April 1945. A British bulldozer pushes bodies into a mass grave. Wikimedia

“As they explored No.1 Camp, the liberators encountered scenes reminiscent of Dante's Inferno - a living example of hell on earth. They discovered 20,000 emaciated naked corpses lying unburied on the open ground or in the barrack blocks. Some inmates had literally starved to death where they lay, too weak even to drag their wasted bodies away from the typhus-infested corpses that surrounded them.”Dr. Stephen A. Hart, “Liberation of the Concentration Camps,” BBChttp://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwtwo/liberation_camps_04.shtml

AftermathThere were so many corpses it was necessary to use a bulldozer to move them to a mass grave

The Liberation of Belsen Concentration Camp April 1945: A British Army bulldozer pushes bodies into a mass grave at Belsen. - 19 April 1945 Imperial War MuseumImage source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bergen_Belsen_Liberation_03.jpg

Aftermath3,000 lives were lost in the World Trade Center attack

The northeast face of Two World Trade Center (south tower) after being struck by plane in the southwest face. Image source: Wikipedia

AftermathAn estimated 6 million jews were killed in Nazi concentration camps

A British soldier at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, May 1945. The camp was burned. The sign was put up to tell the world about the horrors that went on there.Image source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/primaryhistory/world_war2/the_war_ends/teachers_resources.shtml

AftermathWhen General Dwight G. Eisenhower led his troops into the Nazi concentration camp at Dachau he wrote: “The things I saw beggar description.”

General Dwight Eisenhower and other high ranking U.S. Army officers view the bodies of prisoners who were killed during the evacuation of Ohrdruf, while on a tour of the newly liberated concentration camp. National Archives. Image source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ohrdruf_Eisenhower_04649.jpg

AftermathMany others referred to the “unspeakable,” “indescribable,” or “un-representable” nature of what they had seen

The Liberation of Belsen Concentration Camp April 1945: Former guards are made to load the bodies of dead prisoners onto a lorry for burial. - 17-18 April 1945 IWMImage source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bergen_Belsen_Liberation_01.jpg

Bearing WitnessAlthough Eisenhower thought that what he saw was indescribable, he did do so anyway – sensing the necessity of bearing witness for future generations

General Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1945Image source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:General_Dwight_D._Eisenhower.jpg

Bearing WitnessThe necessity of “bearing witness” to the trauma of war was the most compelling concern for the postwar generation of artists

George Grosz, Painter of the Hole I, 1947

Bearing WitnessThe challenge they faced was to represent something that was unrepresentable

Walter E. Cummings, Buchenwald Ohrdruf CorpsesImage source: Image source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Buchenwald_Ohrdruf_Corpses_63512.jpg

Bearing WitnessMany of them chose an abstract style, believing it was the only way to represent what could not be described by more conventional means

Pablo Picasso, Charnel House, 1945Museum of Modern Art

Postwar AbstractionIn the immediate aftermath of the war, artists on both sides of the Atlantic arrived at abstract styles independently

Arshile Gorky, Charred Beloved II, 1946National Gallery of Canada

Postwar AbstractionWhile abstract expressionism was emerging in the United States in the 1940’s, its European counterpart, l’art informel, was developing in France

Jean Fautrier, Nude, 1943 (from the Otages series)Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles

Postwar AbstractionNew approaches to figuration also registered the trauma of war

Alberto Giacometti, Man Pointing, 1946 Museum of Modern Arthttp://www.moma.org/collection/works/81779?locale=en

Jean Dubuffet, Triumph and Glory (Corps de dame series), 1950. Guggenheim Museum

Postwar AbstractionOur study of postwar art will begin in Europe, but it is important to keep in mind that American Abstract Expressionism was emerging at the same time

Nina Leen, The Irascibles, 1950LIFE Magazine

Web Resources

Audio Slideshow of the Liberation of Belsen, with the original BBC radio broadcast http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/4445811.stm

Liberation of the Concentration Camps –BBChttp://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwtwo/liberation_camps_01.shtml

United States Holocaust Museumhttp://www.ushmm.org/