Art Movements of the Post WWI Years

Art Movements ofthe Post WWI Years

1919-1939

Kelvin Chin

modernism1916 - 1940

The expression of the Artist’s right to freedom of choice in subject and style.

Departure from literal representation – no longer needed with birth of photography.

“Art for Art’s sake”

Reject tradition and society.

Principles of Modernism

“Modernism” by the Critics“ For the younger artists of France have

completely thrown overboard the ideals of perfection and form, of grace and measure and tranquility, which we are accustomed to think as their most valuable possession.”

“…their (Dadaist’s) manifestos and tracts – with which it is proposed to ‘purge’ French art of its slavish subservience to rules.”

from “The Aesthetic Upheaval in France” by Edmund Wilson Jr., Vanity Fair February 1922

“Modernism” by the Artists“ Seven years ago, I tried to make a painting that would live by its own resources…At the present time I am doing research in art. My conclusions? I cannot explain my present researches until I myself have evolved out of them, that is to say, until I have gone further in my artistic evolution.”

Francis Picabia, quoted from “Francis Picabia and his Puzzling Art (an extremely modernized

academician)”, from Vanity Fair November 1915

dadaism1916 - 1924

Tristan Tzara – founder of Dadaism

“ Freedom : Dada Dada Dada, a roaring of tense colors, and interlacing of opposites and all contradictions, grotesques, inconsistencies: LIFE”

“Dada Manifesto” [1919]

Began in neutral Switzerland in WWI

Also big in Paris.

Reached its peak between 1916 – 1924

“Anti – Art”

A movement against rigidity of society and art, and the barbarity of war – the public didn’t deserve art after the war.

Dadaism

Tristan TzaraBorn in Romania in 1896.

Lived most of his life in Paris.

Wrote the first Dada text, La Premiere Aventure celeste de Monsieur Antipyrine in 1916.

Penned the movements manifestos, Sept manifestes Dada, in 1924.

Became an active member of the French Communist Party in later life.

Characteristics of Dada Art

Nonsensical drawingsPastel and faded colorsUsed collages and layers – to confuse the “unworthy beholder.”“The beginnings of surrealism” – many Dada artists went on to become members of the Surrealist movement.Subjects sometimes mundane, called art as irony. (e.g.– bicycle wheel, flyer.)

Francis PicabiaMachine Turn Quickly1916-1918

Francis PicabiaFeathers

1921

Francis PicabiaChapeau de Paille1921

Kurt SchwittersThe Cherry

Picture1921

Kurt SchwittersMerz 448 (Moscow)1922

Kurt SchwittersKleine Dada Soiree1922

Marcel DuchampMonte Carlo

Bond1924

Marcel DuchampYou Me (Tu-M)

1918

Example covers of Dada Magazine(1917 & 1920)

Example articles from De Stijl and Dada