Chapter Twenty-One Between the World Wars

Chapter Twenty-OneChapter Twenty-OneBetween the World Between the World

WarsWarsCulture and Values, 6th Ed.

Cunningham and Reich

The Great War and Its Significance

Drastic loss of lifeSociopolitical consequences

October RevolutionHitler’s National Socialist movement

Cultural consequencesTransportation, communicationEntertainment

Literary ModernismModernist temperT.S. Eliot (1888-1965)

Necessity of cultural continuityThe Wasteland Four Quartets

James Joyce (1882-1941)Cultural stability found through artEpiphany, autobiographyAlienated artist

Literary ModernismFranz Kafka (1883-1924)

“Kafkaesque”Guilt, loss, oppression, violence

Virginia Woolf (1882-1941)Writer, critic (Bloomsbury Group)Social, economic, and intellectual

discrimination against women

Revolution in Art: CubismAnalytical Cubism

Geometric qualities, flat planes, 2-d linearityPicasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907)Braque’s Violin and Palette (1909-1910)

Synthetic CubismPost-war color, vitality, expressivenessPicasso’s Three Musicians (1921)

Revolution in Art: Cubism

Piet Mondrian (1872-1944)Marc Chagall (1889-1985)Rufino Tamayo (1899-1991)

Women of Tehuantepec (1939)Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944)

Expressionist, non-objective art

Freud, the Unconscious, and Surrealism

Interpretation of Dreams (1900)Id, ego, superegoDreams and the unconscious mind

Psychoanalysis as philosophyHuman and cultural behaviors

SurrealismBreton’s Manifesto of Surrealism (1924)

Freud, the Unconscious, and Surrealism

Dalí’s The Persistence of Memory (1931)

Kahlo’s Self-Portrait (1937)René Magritte (1898-1967)Influence of film

Dalí and Buñuel, Jean CocteauPaul Klee (1879-1940)

Cubist, Expressionist, Surrealist

The Age of JazzAfrican-American experience,

heritageIntonations, rhythmsSpirituals“Blue note” / the BluesRagtime

From New Orleans to ChicagoBlack Jazz in Anglo culture

Symphonies, operas, swing

The Age of JazzGeorge Gershwin (1898-1937)

Jazz in symphonic, operatic worksRhapsody in Blue (1924)Porgy and Bess (1935)

Duke Ellington (1899-1974)Orchestra virtuoso, prolific composerExtended jazz idiom to larger arena

The Harlem RenaissanceAfrican American writers, artists,

intellectuals, musiciansThemes of African American

experienceRoots, racism, culture, religion

W.E.B. Dubois (1868-1963)African American self-identity, cultural

identity, racial identity

Ballet: Collaboration in Art

Artistic integration:setting, movement, music, narrative

Serge Diaghilev’s Ballet Russe (1909)Vast musical commissionsParade (1917):

Diaghilev, Cocteau, Satie, Picasso

Art as Escape: DadaProtest against war

Nonsense language, dissonant music, anarchic irreverence

Tristan Tzara’s Dada manifesto (1918)

Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968)Mobiles, ready-madesL.H.O.O.Q. (1919)

Art as Protest: GuernicaPicasso’s protest against

inhumanityHope in the face of horror

Inspired by destruction of warSocial, pivotal document

Expressionistic, CubistTechnical experimentation

Art as Propaganda: FilmPropaganda as high art

Radio, filmEducate, persuade, shape public opinion

Sergei Eisenstein (1898-1948)Strike! (1924), Ivan the Terrible (1944, 1946)Class struggle, the working class, socialismAlexander Nevsky with Prokofiev (1938)Potemkin and the October Revolution (1925)

Art as Propaganda: Film

Leni Riefenstahl (1902-2003)Triumph of the Will (1936)

Documentary of 1934 Nazi congressGlorification of Nazi virtues

Olympia (1938)Documentary of the 1936 Berlin

OlympicsHomage to Hitler vs. beauty of sport

PhotographyIncreased mobility, immediacy of

imageMan Ray (1890-1976)László Moholy-Nagy (1895-1946)The “f/64 Group”

Direct, nonmanipulative picturesImages from the Great Depression

Commissioned by FSA and USDA

Art as Prophecy: From Futurism to Brave New

WorldFuturists

Valued industrialization, urbanizationFilippo Tommaso Marinetti (1876-1944)

Lewis’s Babbitt (1922)“a chicken in every pot…”Mindless materialism

Huxley’s Brave New World (1932)Technology as tool for totalitarian

control

Chapter Twenty-One: Discussion Questions

What aspects of the “modernist temper” can be found in the works of the Harlem Renaissance writers and African American Jazz musicians? What are the personal and cultural expressions found behind these artistic forms? Explain, citing specific examples.

In light of the “modernist temper,” why were Freud’s theories so popular? In what sense does psychoanalytical theory abandon the explanation of human motivation that has been long held by Western Europeans? What does this shift in understanding signal about the twentieth century? Explain.

Consider the ways in which film was used in the early twentieth century as propaganda. In what ways does the cinematic medium continue to serve in this way? What types of cultural, social, and political values are asserted through popular film and other visual media of the twenty-first century? Explain.

To what extent do you agree or disagree with Huxley’s assertion that technology makes individuals dependent on totalitarian forces? Do you feel that our dependency on technology puts us at risk as a culture? …as a free people? Explain.