European Painting and World War I: Evolution of Modern Era and Beyond.

European Painting and World War I: Evolution of ModernEra and Beyond.

Shazed Ul Hoq Khan Abir

[Abstract] World War 1, famously known as The Great War had a global impact. Itchanged not only the geopolitical equations and alliances amongcountries but it also reshaped both the history and future of art andculture worldwide. European painting, having its grand legacy ofalmost three thousand years (from seven century BC till today) wentthrough a drastic change during this war. Artists changed their wayof looking in to things as well as their artistic expression organism.They could no longer express their emotions and views as glibly asthey did during the romantic or Victorian artistic era. Images theyproduced were mostly fragmented and distorted. This study conductedhere focuses on how the trauma and havoc of the Great War effectedEuropean painters and paintings, Various “Isms”, like Impressionism,expressionism, cubism, Dadaism, surrealism and new wave of figurativepainting was developed by this course.

[Key Words- Modernism, Fauvism, Cubism, Expressionism, Dadaism, TheRoaring Twenties]

“Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;”

W.B. Yeats, in his poem “The Second Coming” drew the picture of moderncivilization with almost prophetic vision. He could foretell that inthe upcoming days anarchy is going to pervade throughout the world and

the history of mankind is going to be reshaped not in a pleasant andfruitful way. With the very first shot on Archduke Franz Ferdinand ofAustria (which is marked as the beginning of the Great war), the fateof world was written to be changed. Whether the change was positive ornegative is still a debatable issue. Group of people were happy withthe development of a fresh new way to look at life which is much moresubjective. Because, when each day idealistic people were dying in thebattlefield, when mutual sympathy was the last thing that one couldask from the very neighboring countries, when the supreme concernafter leaving one’s residence was whether he/she could come back againsafe and sound – peer feelings and some hazy philosophic ideal andquestions like – “who am I? Why I am here? Where will we go afterour death?” were the last things that would infuse in mind. Againthere were other groups of people who were upset with the loss ofinnocence of humanity. However that was the true nature of thatparticular time span that no one can deny.

Artists and scholars from all stream, be it philosophy, be it artsand literature, could not avoid this heat of time. As for literature,M.H. Abrams in the introduction to twentieth century literature in hisedited book The Norton Anthology of English Literature (1993), said-

“Many young writers were more anxious to express their attitudes thanto construct new kinds of art” (1685).

Modernism is something that can be defined from various points ofviews. Nevertheless the way Peter Barry in his book Beginning Theorydefines modernism, is note worthy. He says- “‘Modernism’ is the namegiven to the movement which dominated the arts and culture of thefirst half of the twentieth century.”(78). Then he marks the modernistmovement as an “earthquake in the arts” that “brought down much ofthe structure of pre- twentieth- century practice in music, painting,literature and architecture”. For him, the time span was from 1890 to1910 and countries that brought up famous art movements like Cubism,Dadaism, Surrealism and Futurism were France, Germany, Italy andeventually Britain. Modernism broke through the conventional ideas anddogmatic point of views of life that were on pick during Victorianera. Peter Barry said, -

In all the arts touched by modernism what had been the mostfundamental elements of practice were challenged and rejected: thus,melody and harmony were put aside in music; perspective and directpictorial representation were abandoned in painting, in favor ofdegrees of abstraction. (78)

For art critics and art historians, the Modernist Movement inEuropean art and painting was most inevitable, because it was Europefrom where all the major changes in the history of world have takenplace. In the Middle Ages the West was subjugated by the church andarts had to be on things that happened to be in the Bible. Then camethe renaissance which brought back artists’ focus on the materialisticworld again. Real life places were rendered into three dimensions,convincing use of perspective became wide spread and human body wasshown as it really is.

Then came modern art and the era of isms. The experiences of the GreatWar, the march of technological progress and the popularization of thetheories about the universe and human mind for example by Einstein andSigmund Freud left unchangeable mark on our species. Penelope J. E.Davies et al (2007) has mentioned –

The opening decades of the twentieth century saw the continued marchof modernity. But, as in the preceding decades, artists both embracedand fled from progress. In some instances they even clung to traditionwhile they purveyed the new. (945)

According to them, it was Pablo Picasso and Henry Matisse who-‘successfully knitted the new and revolutionary in style with thefamiliar and enduring subject matter’. (945)

In the aforementioned book it is stated that- “The rise of the Fauvismis the first major style to emerge in the twentieth century”. Thefauvist artists were greatly influenced by their nineteenth centurypredecessors like Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Monet. To mark thecharacteristics of this first artistic pre World War 1 movement ,Kleiner (2009) has pointed at Fauvism as – ‘One of the firstmovements to tap this pervasive desire for expression’ (911)

Henry Matisse (1869-1954) and Andre Derain (1880-1964) were twopioneer painters in the Fauvist tradition. Being very much aware ofthe aesthetic tradition they belonged to, both Matisse and Derain tookthe free and expressive use of color to a newer height. Kleiner (2009)refers to an essay written on Matisse by his contemporary critics. Theessay was published in a Paris journal La Grande Revue , where this greatfauvist painter talks about his style of painting –

What I am after, above all, is expression, expression for me does notreside in passions glowing in a face or manifested by violentmovements. The entire arrangement of my picture is expressive: theplace occupied by the figures, the empty spaces around them, theproportions, everything has its share. Composition is the art ofarranging in a decorative manner the diverse elements at the painterscommand to express his feelings (912)

In the same essay, Matisse clarifies his stance on using color –

Both harmonies and dissonances of color can produce agreeable effects…The chief function of color should be to serve expression as well aspossible…My choice of colors does not rest on any scientific theory;it is based on observation, on sensitivity, on felt experiences… Isimply put down colors which render my sensation (912)

Painting 1:’ Femme au chapeau’ or ‘woman with a hat’ (1905), Fauvistpainting, Henry Matisse

Matisse became too much influenced by the post use of color and pushedthe independence of color further. Some of the quintessential examplesof Matisse’s art works are Femme au chapeau (woman with a hat) and LaBonheur de vivre (The joy of life) and ‘The Red Studio’. Andre Derain, thefauvist painter who was contemporary to Matisse, considered paintingas an intellectual rather than emotional medium. One of his veryfamous paintings is ‘Mountains at Collioure’. Kleiner (2009) hasmentioned about a famous art critic contemporary to the fauve painters– Louise Vauxcelles who was shocked by the “orgy of colors” (911) inthe works of Matisse, Derain and their colleagues at Salon d’ Automne .He declared their pictures fauves or “wild beasts” (911).

Painting 2: ‘Mountains at Collioure’ (1905), Fauvist painting, AndreDerain.

After fauvism, the next major emerging style in European painting wasCubism. It emerged under the leadership of Pablo Picasso and GeorgesBraque.

Painting 3: ‘Les Demoiselles d’ Avigno’ (1907), Pablo Picasso

Pablo Picasso started working on his renowned painting Les Demoiselles d’Avignon by the spring of 1907 and finished drawing it by the end ofthat year. However, he did not put it in any exhibition for manyyears, as mentioned by Kleiner (2009). He tells that, Picasso used toshow this particular painting only to fellow painters. Georges Braque,who was deeply influenced by the fauvists in his early works, is oneof the first fellow painters to see it. Braque found it so challengingthat he started rethinking of his own style. Kleiner (2009) mentions –‘Using the paintings revolutionary ideas as a point of departure,together Picasso and Braque formulated cubism around 1908’ (921).Later on, French writer and theorist Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918), summarized the core concepts of cubism in this single paragraph–

Authentic Cubism [is] the art of depicting new wholes with formalelements borrowed not from the reality of vision, but from that ofconception. This tendency leads towards a poetic kind of paintingwhich stands outside the world of observation; for, even in a simplecubism, the geometrical surfaces of an object must be opened out inorder to give a complete representation of it…everyone must agree thata chair, from whichever side it is viewed, never ceases to have four

legs, a sit and a back, and that, if it is robbed of one of theseelements, it is robbed of an important part. (921)

Picasso’s ground laying work to Cubism – Less Demoiselles owed nothingdirectly to the highly structured and methodical paintings of PaulCezanne, but Picasso carefully studied Cezanne’s later works. InCezanne’s abstract treatment of volume and space Picasso thefundamental units from which Picasso draw the faceted shapes. Later onthat became analytical cubism, says Davies et al. (2007) .

Painting 4: ‘The Portuguese’ (1911), Analytic cubism in practice byGeorges Braque

Picasso and his intellectual partner Georges Braque developed theirstyles from ‘representational pictures of fractured forms’ as we seein Less Demoiselles, to ‘shimmering evanescent of mirages of abstract linesand brushworks’ in between 1908 to 1910. The Portuguese painted byBraque is a perfect example of which was later named – analyticcubism. Davies et al (2007). said- ‘Gone is the emotional terror andchaos of Les Demoiselles. Braque arranged a grid of lines following theshape of canvas and an orderly geometric pattern of diagonal lines andcurves, all recalling Cezanne’s vision of a tightly structured world.”(952-953)

Painting 5: ‘Guitar, sheet music and wine glass’ (1912), syntheticcubism, Pablo Picasso.

Later on, Picasso and Braque developed another style of paintingfamously known as synthetic cubism. Kleiner(2009) has defined it as away of painting in which- ‘artists constructed paintings and drawingsfrom objects and shapes cut from the paper or other materials torepresent parts of an object.’ (922) Picasso’s ‘Guitar, sheet musicand wine glass’ (1912), and Violin (1915) are examples of syntheticcubism.

Let us end the discussion on this with a quote of Picasso on what wascubism to him. Kleiner(2009) has given an abstract of Picasso’sinterview in which the great painter says –

‘Cubism is no different from any other school of painting. The sameprinciples and the same elements are common to all… Many think thatcubism is the art of transition, an experiment which is to bringulterior results. Those who think that way have not understood it.Cubism is not either a seed or foetus, but an art dealing primarilywith forms, and when a form is realized it is there to live its ownlife…’ (924)

Fauvism and Cubism had such an impact on contemporary Europeanpainters that it influenced German and Austrian Expressionism. Germanexpressionism as a creative movement began at a dawn of World War 1and reached its peak in late 1920s. Kleiner(2009) said – “although itencompassed a range of issues and styles, it can be characterized astortured, anguished, brutally primitive or passionately spiritual,reflecting elemental cosmic forces.” (955)

Dadaism is an artistic movement that took place in between the GreatWar. Dada formally began in neutral Zurich in 1916, where a largenumber or artists gathered to seek refuge from the war and dedicatethemselves in order to – ‘remind the world that there are independentmen, beyond war and nationalism, who lived for other ideals’, asmentioned by J.E. Davies et al (2007).

This movement had a sad background. Artists should be allowed tofunction independently. During any war a nation or its politicalleaders can ask the artists to serve their nations by composingpatriotic art works. After that, if any artist voluntarily wants tofight in the battle field, then it would be his/her independentdecision. What we see during the Great War is, as mentioned by Davies(2007) –

‘The great war halted much art making, as many artists were enlistedin their countries military service. Some of the finest were killed,such as German expressionist Marc and Italian futurist Boccioni.’(985)

These suppressed artists initiated the movement called Dada, which isa French word meaning “hobbyhorse”. Davies (2007) says- ‘The wordsassociation with childishness as well as the random violence of thepoets’ act of word choice fit the postwar spirit of the movementperfectly’ (985)

Painting 6: ‘Never Again War’ (1924), Berlin Dada, Kathe Kollwitz

Dadaism had flourished during the First World War around Europe andAmerica. So, there was a Zurich Dada with Jean Arp (of “The Entombmentof the Birds and Butterflies” fame) as its mouthpiece, there was a NewYork Dada with Marcel Duchamp (of “Fountain” fame) as its mouthpiece,there was a Berlin Dada with Kathe Kollwitz (of “Never Again War”fame) and Hannah Hoch (of “Cut with the Kitchen Knife” fame) as itsmouthpiece.

Painting 7: ‘The Persistence of Memory’ (1931), surrealism, SalvadorDali

After the Great War came the new wave of painting which is called–‘The Roaring Twenties’. The artists considered it as a time forexperiment. Surrealism, Baha’ism, and narrative abstract painting werein their pick. Shape, splash, blocks of colors, weeping women,florescent lights, urinals and untidy beds all could be considered asart in this brave new world. Art today can be considered as a manyheaded creature. Artists need to create what is nearly part of thehuman nature, an unquenchable desire which is as old as our speciesand probably embedded in our DNA.

Most importantly it has turned out in to a big business after the endof World War 1. We are equally likely to see an art work on a mug, tshirt as well as in painting exhibition galleries. The rise of cinema,television and the internet has lead to a dissemination of commonvisual culture into every corner of the globe. While arts and artistsare getting into the pace of technologies ceaseless progress hasdemocratized the entire means of artistic production, meaning now wecan plug into an all encompassing worldwide new stream of informationanytime we like.

This never ending discussion could be forcefully brought into an endby quoting from Danny Boyle’s movie “Trance” where the male lead actorsays pointing to a nude painting by Goya –

“If you look at the Sistine chapel there’s tons of flesh but there isno hair. The hair serves to remind us of our biology, our origin. Butwithout it there is perfection, unattained. Anyway, art moved on as itmust it has to. But no, actually it was Goya’s fault. ‘The Naked Maja’– after this, it is always there, the hair… That’s modern art. Noperfection anymore.”

That is what modern painting is all about. There is no perfection, nowearing masks, no wrapping and hiding things underneath, ratherpresenting everything as it is. The frustration, depression,fragmentation, suppressed emotions in our sub conscious all thesestarted becoming the ingredients of modern art.

Works cited:

Abrams, M.H. ed. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 6th ed. Vol. 2. NewYork: Norton and Company. 1993. Print

Janson, Horst Woldemar. Janson’s History of Art: The Western Tradition. 8th ed. Ed.Penelope J. E. Davies. London: Laurence King Publishing Limited, 2007.

Kleiner, Fred. Gardner's Art through the Ages: A Concise History of Western Art.13th ed. Boston: Thomson Wordsworth press, 2009.

Barry, Peter. Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory. Print. (Year)

Trance. Director: Boyle, Danny. Performance: James McAvoy, Rosario Dawson. 2013. Film