The Quest for Meaning:Culture in the Mid-Twentieth Century

Can humanity still believe that progress is positive?

Can you be rational when you are haunted by the past?

Can your life have meaning when you are alienated from reason and God?

EXISTENTIALISM: The Most Influential

Philosophical Movement of the 20th Century

*We are what we choose to be because we create both ourselves and our freedom by every choice we make

*Humans have no fixed nature and they are not by nature rational; they are condemned to be free

*Denies existence of a supreme being

PHILOSPHY

EXISTENTIALISMJean-Paul Sartre (French)

-leading existentialist

-fought in WWII; resisted German occupation of France

-humans cannot use excuses such as “the Devil made me do it” or “the ghetto turned me into a criminal” because we alone are responsible for our actions—he called this existential “anguish”

PHILOSPHY

CHRISTIAN

EXISTENTIALISM*God does exist, but he challenges humans to act freely and responsibly

*Karl Jaspers (German)-started as a psychiatrist-wrote about German

government after fall of Nazis-believed philosophy must be guided by faith because faith is the origin of human

transcendence

PHILOSPHY

Samuel Beckett’s (Irish) Waiting for Godot-Two tramps await Godot who never arrives

-Theater of the Absurd-outgrowth of Dada and Surrealism; drama that lacks progression, direction, and resolution; the characters go through little or no change; dialogue may contradict actions; events can be in an illogical order; it may include gallows humor and grotesque situations; it captures the anguish of modern society; it usually does not come to a satisfying end because situations remain unresolved

Beckett was an unhappy, depressed man whom the women could not resist

He idolized James Joyce (remember Ulysses and stream of consciousness)

He resisted German occupation of France during WWII and had to flee with his French wife

He was stabbed in the lung by a “tramp” asking for money When his play was performed in front of 1400 prisoners at

San Quentin, it was a great success because inmates know about waiting

LITERATURE

T.S. Eliot’s (American) excerpt from The Rock-The crisis of the modern world is loss of wisdom

and godliness due to passage of time and ease of information

-Born in America, became British citizen

-Wanted to rid poetry of its romantic qualities

-Theme of alienation permeates his poetry

LITERATURE

Dylan Thomas’ (Welsh) “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night”-Villanelle that takes an exuberant approach to the

quest for meaning: take life-affirming action even in the face of death

-Published just after the death of his father, who suffered both a loss of vision and a denial of god

-Igor Stavinsky (remember The Rite of Spring) used this poem as the basis for a song, In Memoriam, Dylan Thomas

-Claimed himself a Welshman first and a

drunkard second

LITERATURE

Rabindranth Tagore’s (Indian) “The Man Who Had No Useful Work”-Narrative poem that deals gently with the

existential responsibility for individual choice

-Questions the value of the practical, goal-oriented pursuits that drive society

-Shows ironic truth that art may be both meaningless and essential

-Asian who saw spiritual

deterioration in the world

-Believed the crisis of modern

society was misplaced values

-Published 60 volumes of literature

-Won the Nobel Prize for Literature

LITERATURE

Muhammad Iqbal’s (Indian/Muslim) “Revolution” and “Europe and Syria”-Both poems show difference between Eastern and

Western culture

-Both poems show the soul

killing power of secular life

-Muslim who said Islam

had a civilizing role in

modern life

-Wanted to move passive contemplation and withdraw from society of traditional Islam to action and choice, thus making Islam a leading moral force in the world

-Most eminent writer of Muslim India

-Wanted an independent Muslim state in Hindu India

LITERATURE

Iqbal: The manwho dreamed Pakistan.

Judith Wright’s (Australian) “Eve to Her Daughters”-An extension of the biblical story of Adam and Eve

-We know we exist when we have faults; to have no faults is to not exist

-Adam turns himself into a god and stops existing

-Wright condemned the

Australian educational system

and blamed it for failing to

teach the students the art and

pleasure of poetry.

-Worked at her father’s sheep

station during WWII due to a

shortage of labor

-Awarded Queen’s Gold Medal

for poetry

LITERATURE

ABSTRACT

EXPRESSIONISM*One of the first art movements to begin in America (New York City); started by Europeans who fled to the U. S. to escape Nazi occupation and war-torn areas of Europe*The style embraced randomness; sought balance between choice and chance*Usually nonrepresentational*Process was as important as product*Paintings were so large they couldnot be purchased for living rooms

V I SUALARTS

ABSTRACT

EXPRESSIONISM*Willem de Kooning (Dutch)

-applied paint in a loose, free, instinctive manner that

emphasized the act of painting

-used large canvases and oversized brushes

*Woman and Bicycle-took 18 months of laying

on, scraping away and restoring color-inspired by Earth Mother

figures

VISUALARTS

ABSTRACT

EXPRESSIONISM*Jackson Pollock (American)

-best known abstract expressionist-strapped canvas to the floor and dripped, splashed, poured and spread paint across it-sometimes layered paint would be mixed with sand, nails, matches, cigarettes, glass shards, etc.-his technique was inspired by Navaho sand painting and was dubbed “action painting” becauseyou had to be “in” the painting to create it

VISUALARTS

ABSTRACT

EXPRESSIONISM*A Jackson Pollock Painting-Number 1, 1950 (Lavender Mist)

-Pollock used the patterns caused by the separation and marbling of one enamel wet in another,

the tiny black striations in the dusty pink, to produce an infinity of tones.-Critics say it is impossible to forge a Pollock painting.

VISUALARTS

ABSTRACT

EXPRESSIONISM*Mark Rothko (Russian/Latvian)

- moved to America as a boy-a founding member of the Ten, a group of artists sympathetic to abstraction and Expressionism-painting style developed from simple flat shapes inspired by primitive art to his mature style,in which frontal, luminous

rectangles seem to hover on the canvas

-wanted people to look at his paintings close-up from about 18”

-committed suicide

VISUALARTS

ABSTRACT

EXPRESSIONISM*Mark Rothko Painting, Untitled

-

-This is one of Rothko’s “color field paintings,” a kind of total abstraction of large, often transparent layers of paint in soft-edged blocks that float on the surfaces of other fields of color and seem illuminated.-he said the subject matter was “tragedy, ecstasy, and doom”-he said if you’reonly moved by color relationships, you miss the point

ABSTRACT

EXPRESSIONISM*Helen Frankenthaler (American)

-Considered a “color field painter” like Rothko-Poured thin washes of

paint directly from coffee tins onto unprimed canvas -Created abstract shapes that tended to swell and expand like flowers -She is still aliveVISUAL

ARTS

ABSTRACT

EXPRESSIONISM*Helen Frankenthaler Painting

Before the Canes

-This is one of Frankenthaler’s “color field paintings”

-Most of her paintings were called “heroic” due to the enormous size, this one is 8’ 6’’ by 8’ 8’’

REGIONALISM*Regionalism was an outgrowth of Realism that was popular in specific geographic regions*The messages from these paintings centered on bleak reality and the lack of meaningful relationships and communication

V I SUALARTS

REGIONALISM*Edward Hopper (American)-His paintings simulate film stills that are oddly cropped and artificially lit-He preferred urban and business subjects, but it sometimes took him months to decide on a subject to paint-He would sketch before painting

-Nighthawks-Hopper depicts a

harshly lit all-night diner, whose occupants share the same space, but there is little intimacy as his characters seem isolated or estranged.

VISUALARTS

REGIONALISM*Grant Wood (American)-His paintings depicted the American midwest-He was fired from teaching when they found out he was homosexual-He died at age 51 of liver cancer

-American Gothic-One of the most famous

paintings ever—many parodies have been made (Short North has one)-The models are his sister and

his dentist which represent a farmer and his spinster daughter

-He came up with the idea after seeing the farmhouse depicted in his painting in Iowa

-Has repeated patterns (stripes/calicos) and traditional gender

roles

VISUALARTS

REGIONALISM*Grant Wood’s American Gothic(The original and our parody in the Short North by Steve Galgas and Mike Altman)

VISUALARTS

ABSTRACT

EXPRESSIONISM IN

SCULPTURE*Reflected the existential anxiety of the time with a “geometry of fear” that was evident in both figurative and nonfigurative*Figurative pieces reflected the bleak reality of the human condition*Nonfigurative pieces explored the chance and randomness of their counterparts in the painting realm such as Pollock

V I SUALARTS

SCULPTURE*Alberto Giacometti (Swiss)-His figures are spindly creatures that symbolize the existential solitude of individuals-Jean-Paul Sartre admired his work-He designed the set for Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot-He mostly used his brother as his model

-City Square (La Place)-Symbolizes the

existential solitude of individuals in a large city

-Figures are together, but isolated from one another

VISUALARTS

SCULPTURE*George Segal (American)-His figures were life-sized plaster casts of his friends and family-He created “assembled environments” when he added the casts to ordinary objects, such as chairs-He is a link between Realism and the Pop Art we’ll see in Unit Six

-Bus Riders-Comments on alienationand failure of

communication

-Figures are together, but isolated from one another-White plaster gives a

ghostly appearance

VISUALARTS

The Holocaust-Arrangement of figures gives both a sense of solidarity and alienation-Shows individual and mass suffering

SCULPTURE*David Smith (American)-His nonfigurative art exploited the industrial materials such as welded iron and steel-He learned to weld during a summer job at auto factory and learned other industrial processes while working in a wartime locomotive factory-Tried to give optimistic spirit in postwar America

Cubi XIX-Made of stainless steel -Boxlike forms are burnished and scraped toreflect the colors of theirsurroundings-Movable piece; has beeninstalled in varied places

VISUALARTS

SCULPTURE*Alexander Calder (American)-His art consisted of whimsical wire constructions that were motorized or hung from ceilings-Ranged in size from a few feet to enormous proportions-Air currents made the piece vary in look, creating the “chance” effect that made constantly changing relationships between volumes and voids-Most were brightly coloredpainted aluminum or sheet metalBig Red (Sheet metal and steel wire)

VISUALARTS

Little Spider-paintedsheet metaland wire

ORGANIC STYLE-A reaction against the international style that

advocated unadorned interchangeable parts and machinelike housing where “form followed function”

-Subjective, personal, and romantic buildings that used cast concrete to make organic shapes

-Eero Saarinen’s (Finnish) Trans World Airlines Terminal, Kennedy Airport, New York

ARCHITECTURE

-Drew bomb dismantling illustrations for the US during WWII-He also designed interior furniture like this tulip chair he created with his father

ORGANIC STYLEFrank Lloyd Wright (American)

-Had a reputation for womanizing; stole his

friend’s wife when he designed a house for them; abandoned his own wife and six kids

-Hired a servant who burnt down his house and

murdered seven people in his house, including

the wife he stole from his friend

ARCHITECTURE

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York

Falling Waters, Pennsylvania

ALEATORY*Music based upon chance and randomness*Tried to have balance between freedom and control, meaninglessness and purposeful actionJohn Cage (American)

-He believed everything we do is music-Process is central to composition, not

the product-Began Fluxus, neo-dada movement which involved minimal works that

required audience to complete them*In 4’33’’ the piano player sits motionless for four minutes and 33 seconds—the music is the breathing, shuffling, etc. of the audience

*In “Imaginary Landscape No. 4” twelve radios with two performers at each randomly turn the dials

MUSICMUSICMUSICMUSICMUSICMUSIC

*Experimental or innovative choreography that sometimes included mixed media, such as slide shows

*Merce Cunningham (American)-Separated dance from music; dance no longer told the story of the music-Music can accompany the dance, but it does not determine the rhythm of the dancers-All body movements, including falling down, are considered dance -Ignored staging whereby a dancer was assigned to a specific space—allowedimprovisation-Dancers move confidently in different directions

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