1. LANDMARKS IN HUMANITIES
Chapter 14
Modernism: The Assault on Tradition
ca. 1890–1950

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New Directions
The New Physics
Modern physics challenges theories of Newton
Michelson and Morley
Planck: quanta
Einstein
Special theory of relativity: time and space complementary and interrelated
Heisenberg
Principle of uncertainty
Quantum physics ushered in atomic age
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New Directions
The Freudian Revolution
Psychoanalysis
Dream analysis; “free association”
Freud’s theoretical model of the human mind became basic to psychology
Id: instinctual drives govern human behavior; libido
Ego: attempts to direct primal urges of the id
Superego
The Interpretation of Dreams; Totem and Taboo
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New Directions
Carl Jung
Psychology of the Unconscious
Unconscious life rested in deeper, universal layer of human mind: the collective unconscious
Archetypes
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War and Revolution
World War I
Originated in militant imperialism
Central Powers vs. Allied forces
Advanced weaponry made WWI more devastating than any other previously fought war
Aftermath of World War I
Europe devastated; U.S. emerged as creditor nation
U.S. economy tied to world conditions
Stock market crash; Great Depression
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War and Revolution
Great Depression inspired descriptions of economic oppression and misery
Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath
Lange, Migrant Mother, Nipomo, California
Hooper, Nighthawks
The Harlem Renaissance
“Rebirth” of African heritage; intellectual and cultural quest for racial identity and equality
Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God
Hughes:
Fusion of everyday speech with jazz rhythm
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War and Revolution
The Russian Revolution
Revolution of 1917 forced abdication of tzar; Leadership seized by Lenin
Installed the Bolsheviks
Lenin, “The State and Revolution”
Anticipated communist victory throughout world
Russia’s Communist Party first totalitarian regime of the twentieth century
Life of individual subordinated to the needs of the state
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War and Revolution
Stalin
Industrialization; collectivization
“The great terror”
Took lives of fifteen to twenty million Russians
Solzhenitsyn, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
Hitler and World War II
Germany in economic decline humiliated by defeat in World War I
Extreme nationalists under Hitler took control
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War and Revolution
“Aryan racial superiority”
Blamed financial distress on “enemies within”
Holocaust
Wiesel, Night
World-wide conflagration ended with U.S. nuclear attack on Japan
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Modern Literature
The Imagists
Imagists used process of abstraction
Verbal compression; formal precision; economy of expression
“Make it new”
Pound
Personae
Cantos
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Modern Literature
Modern Poetry: Eliot, Yeats, and Frost
Eliot
The Waste Land
Written in compressed, complex, cryptic, serious verse
“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”
The Rock
Yeats, “The Second Coming”
Frost
Colloquial direct style
“The Road Not Taken”
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Modern Literature
Modern Fiction and Drama
Proust
Deeply influenced by Freud
Remembrance of Things Past
Role of memory in shaping one’s private life
Kafka
Dream-like; bizarre stories
The Trial
“The Metamorphosis”
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Modern Literature
Joyce, Ulysses
Interior monologue inspired by Freudian free association
Stream-of-consciousness
Images connected by free play of psyche
Twentieth-century literature influenced by Freud and Joyce
Mann; Faulkner; Woolf
O’Neill, Mourning Becomes Electra
Fusion of Greek myth and Freudian concepts of guilt and repression
Stanislavsky, method acting
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Modern Literature
Science Fiction and the Futurist Novel
H. G. Wells, The War of the Worlds
Themes of invasion from outer space and interplanetary travel would come to dominate science fiction throughout twentieth century
Huxley, Brave New World
Influenced by totalitarianism; modern technology
Clarke, “The Sentinel”
Kubrick, 2001: A Space Odyssey
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Modern Art
Picasso and Cubism
Picasso moved to Paris; abandoned traditional modes of pictorial representation
Believed all art must be subversive
Influenced by Cézanne and the arts of Africa, Iberia, and Oceania
Les Demoiselles d’Avignon
Precursor to Cubism
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Modern Art
Cubism offered new formal language
Unconcerned with narrative content
Collage
Georges Braque
Cubist sculpture
Assemblage: three-dimensional fragments built up or pieced together
Picasso, Guitar
Picasso, Guernica
Landmark anti-war image
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Modern Art
Futurism
Technology and art, linked by Modernist mandate to “make it new”
Marinetti, Futurist Manifesto
Glorified technology
Captured the sense of form in motion
Boccioni, Unique Forms of Continuity in Space
Duchamp, Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2
Formative influence on American modernism
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Modern Art
Matisse and Fauvism
Color principal feature of Fauves’ work
Matisse, Madame Matisse: pursuit of color abstraction
Nonobjective Art
Elimination of all subject matter; pure abstraction; art to remedy soullessness of modern life
Kandinsky, On the Spiritual Art
Insights into effects of color on mood
Malevich, suprematism
Mondrian, De Stijl
Search for geometric order in nature
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Modern Art
Abstraction in Early Modern Sculpture
Brancusi, Bird in Space
Calder, mobiles of biomorphic metal shapes
Expressionism
Munch, The Scream
Has become universal symbol of modern condition
German Expressionism
Die Brücke: saw paintings as “bridge” to the future
Violent external form to intense internal feeling
Kirchner; Nolde
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Modern Art
Metaphysical Art and Fantasy
De Chirico pioneered metaphysical style
The Nostalgia of the Infinite
Chagall inspired by folktales and intimate dreams
The Dada Movement
Art that was product of chance, accident, unconventional behavior; response to WWI
Theater of cruelty
Duchamp, Fountain; revised image of Mona Lisa
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Modern Art
Surrealism
Physical expression to world of dreams and unconscious mind
Breton, “Surrealist Manifesto”
Omnipotence of the dream state
Dalí, The Persistence of Memory
Magritte, The Betrayal of Images
Miró; brightly colored biomorphic shapes
Kahlo; self-portraits
Oppenheim; fur-lined cup saucer, and spoon
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Modern Art
Photography and Film
Photography seen by Dadaists and Surrealists as ideal medium to explore layers of unconscious mind
Photomontage: assemblage of freely juxtaposed photographic images
Hausmann
Photography recorded horrors of war and landmark events
Documentary photography
Lange, Migrant Mother
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Modern Art
Film provided permanent historical record of military and political events; political propaganda
Eisenstein: film as political persuasion and fine art
The Battleship Potemkin
Riefenstahl: film as vehicle for state propaganda
The Triumph of the Will
U.S. film served to inform, boost morale, propagandize for Allied cause
Exception was Chaplin’s The Great Dictator
Surrealist film, vehicle of the nonsensical
Dalí and Bunuel, Un Chien Andalou
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Modern Architecture
Wright and Modern Architecture
Revolutionary use of ferroconcrete in combination with structural steel cantilever
Wright
Influenced by trip to Japan; formulated idea of interconnecting interior and exterior space
Subordinated decorative detail to overall design
Structural materials establish personality of building
Crisp, interlocking plains, contrasting textures
Fallingwater, Bear Run, Pennsylvania
Guggenheim Museum, New York City
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Modern Architecture
The Bauhaus and the International Style
Founded by Gropius; fused machine-age technology with principles of functional design
Advocated close relationship between form and function
New, synthetic materials; simple design; standardization of parts
International Style
Formal precision, geometric austerity, use of ferroconcrete, structural steel, and sheet glass
Bauhaus Building, Dessau, Germany
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Modern Architecture
Van der Rohe
“Less is more”
Steel-and-glass skyscrapers
Le Corbusier
Modern buildings should imitate efficiency of a machine
Villa Savoye
Landmark in International Style
Desire to fit form to function generated first urban high-rise apartment buildings
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Music and Dance
Stravinsky
The Rite of Spring
Throbbing rhythm and dissonant harmonies combined with Nijinsky’s choreography offended audience
Pastoral piece, but music lacked conventional calm
Schoenberg
Created first atonal compositions
Serialism: the twelve-tone system
Controversial
Lent emotional expressiveness to cinematic narrative
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Music and Dance
Modern Music-Drama and Opera
Reflected impact of Freudian thought
Salome
Revolutionary in sound, subject matter
Banned in U.S. for thirty years
Bartók, Bluebeard’s Castle
Shoenberg, Pierrot Lunaire (Moonstruck Pierrot)
Stream-of-consciousness monologue; atonal, dissonant; songs performed in Sprechstimme
Berg: Wozzeck, Lulu
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Music and Dance
Modern Music in Soviet Russia and America
Shostakovich, Symphony No. 5 in D minor
Prokofiev, Lieutenant Kije Suite, Peter and the Wolf
Copland
Tonal compositions spiced with harmonies of American folk songs, clarity of Puritan hymns, and syncopated rhythms of jazz and Mexican dance
Appalachian Spring; Billy the Kid; Rodeo
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Music and Dance
Jazz
Performer’s art; improvisational
Wide ranges of rhythm, harmony, melody, tone color
Drew upon blues, ragtime
Ragtime is a form of piano composition with highly- syncopated rhythms, and simple, appealing melodies
Joplin; “Jelly Roll” Morton
Blues began as vocal form of music; emotive form of individual expression
Handy, “St. Louis Blues”
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Music and Dance
Jazz beginnings found in New Orleans
Louis Armstrong, solo improvisation
Scat singing
Hardin and Armstrong, “Hotter Than That”
Ellington, Black, Brown, and Beige
Concert-hall jazz
Bebop
“Ko-Ko”
“Cool” jazz
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Music and Dance
Modern Dance
Nijinsky’s choreography to The Rite of Spring reminiscent of Cubist paintings
Graham, exploration of expressive power in natural movement
Dramatic abstraction; earthly expressiveness
Balanchine
Classical spirit to modern dance
Dunham: “Mother of Black Dance”
Choreographer, anthropologist
Influenced by indigenous Caribbean, African societies
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33. Beyond the West: Mao’s China
Mao sought to reform Chinese society
Used totalitarian practices of indoctrination, exile, purges of opposition
Quotations from Chairman Mao (“little red book”)
Chinese writers directed to produce literature that celebrated creative powers of the masses
Use of vernacular speech
Social Realist visual arts
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