1. Post WWI Disillusionment –
Art & Society
Adapted from various ppts from pptpalooza.net and Ms. Gilmore’s ppt

2. Essential Question
Why is it that people became disillusioned after WWI, and how did that disillusionment allow for the rise of totalitarian dictators across Europe?

3. Theory Behind Disillusionment
Sigmund Freud
Austrian
Psychologist
Freud argued that the state had failed to live up to the moral standards it had set for its people.
This realization by the people is what we call, “disillusionment.” (OR loss of trust)

4. How People React
People begin to take life into their own hands now that they realize they cannot wait for the state to take care of them.
Their actions are seen in:
Art
Philosophy
Women’s Suffrage
Communism
Jazz Age
Hollywood
George Grosz – Grey Day

5. modernism

6. Principles of Modernism
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.

7. Art movements in Modernism
Dadaism (1916 – 1924)*
Bauhaus (1919 – 1933)
Art Deco (1920 – 1935)
Surrealism [early] ( )*

8. dadaism

9. Dadaism Began in neutral Switzerland in WWI
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.

10. Dada Principles Ridiculed contemporary culture & traditional art forms
The collapse during WW I of social and moral values
Nihilistic
Nonsensical drawings
Pastel and faded colors
Used 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.)
Marcel Duchamp – Fountain (1917)

11. bauhaus

12. Bauhaus
Began in 1919
Wanted to create new art to reflect the new times they were living in after WWI.
Believed in machines and industrialization to create beautiful art
A utopian quality.
Based on the ideals of simplified forms and unadorned functionalism.
The belief that the machine economy could deliver elegantly designed items for the masses.
Used techniques & materials employed especially in industrial fabrication & manufacture  steel, concrete, chrome, glass.

13. Characteristics of Bauhaus
A lack of recognizable objects – wanted to find the true meaning of art through disassembling it.
Clean lines, geometric shapes layered
In architecture: clean, functional
Wassily Kandinsky- On White II (1923)

14. art deco

15. Art Deco Reached its high point in the mid ’20s – mid 30’s
A new kind of decorative and elegant art
Reaction to the forced austerity caused by WWI

16. Tamara de Lempicka
Portrait of a Young Girl in a Green Dress
1929

17. early surrealism

18. Surrealism Inspired by new psychology of two men:
Sigmund Freud & Carl Gustav Jung

19. Basic Principles Sigmund Freud C. G. Jung
Human development based on sexual desire
Desires are repressed and emerge from the subconscious in “accidental” bursts – Freudian slips.
Neuroses are caused by repressed memories and unconscious conflicts.
ID, Ego and Super Ego
C. G. Jung
Neuroses are caused by conflicts between individuals subconscious and greater world.
Sexual desire not as important as Freud says
Need a healthy relationship between the conscious and unconscious – balance between them

20. Surrealism Late 1920s-1940s. Came from the nihilistic genre of DaDa.
Salvador Dali – The Persistence of
Memory (1931)
Late 1920s-1940s.
Came from the nihilistic genre of DaDa.
Influenced by Feud’s theories on psychoanalysis and the subconscious.
Confusing & startling images like those in dreams.

21. Existentialism
a philosophy that focuses on the existence of the individual as free and responsible, determining his own development through acts of the will

22. Existentialism is a Humanism (1945)
Jean Paul Sartre –
Existentialism is a Humanism (1945)
And when we say that man takes responsibility for himself, we say more than that - he is in his choices responsible for all men. All our acts of creating ourselves create at the same time an image of man such as we believe he must be. Thus, our personal responsibility is vast, because it engages all humanity…
The existentialist declares that man is in anguish, meaning that he who chooses cannot escape a deep responsibility for all humanity. Admittedly, few people appear to be anxious; but we claim that they mask their anguish, that they flee it.

23. Women’s Rights During WWI, the men fought and women filled their jobs.
But the war ends. What happened to those women?

24. Women’s Suffrage Suffrage = the right to vote
After WWI, women get the right to vote in: UK US
Sweden
Germany
Austria

25. … And they let loose!