How do we react to this?

“I’m interested only in expressing basic human emotions: tragedy, ecstasy, doom, and so on.” ---Mark Rothko

Mark Rothko, Self- Portrait, 1936 Modernist artists respond to the inadequacies of representational art to convey emotion directly.

 Sacrifice of Iphigenia, Marc Rothko, 1942 Pasiphae and the Bull, Jackson Pollock, 1943  Modernists also return to myth as a means of making sense of present catastrophe and potential annihilation.

Jean-Michel Basquiat, Self-Portrait, 1980s Other important sources included primitive art, the art of children, and the art of the insane  closer to “the source” of life  reassuring

 primitive   modern

Historical Context One catastrophic world war over, another about to begin Inhuman horrors British losses in WWI: Dead - 750,000, Seriously Injured - 1,500,000, Claiming Disability - 2,500,000, Shell Shock Victims - 65,000 (Counting casualties from the entire British empire (India, etc.) the death toll rises to 947,023.)

Gas attack

The Battle of the Somme, 1916

Dystopia A society characterized by human misery, loss, oppression, deprivation, often created by a tyrant or tyrannical government. Usually futuristic. Although The Lord of the Rings creates a fictional past, Tolkien repeatedly emphasizes a future “falling,” and a passing of goodness that cannot be replaced.

To be “modern” is to be fully aware of the present and distanced from the collective unconscious/the spiritual This is alienating to the modern man Science has destroyed our faith, even in ourselves, and made even our own unconscious minds disgusting---but unavoidable--- to us We seek comfort, and we can look to the artist, who often intuitively represents oncoming changes in the collective psyche The Spiritual Problem of Modern Man In The Spiritual Problem of Modern Man, Carl Jung hypothesizes the following: