A Culture in Conflict
1919-1939
Physics
• Marie and Pierre Curie begin experimenting with radioactivity
Science
• Einstein advances his theory of relativity
Psychology
• Freud pioneers psychoanalysis (lying on the couch) and develops theories about unconscious and subconscious
Art Movements
• Fauvist Movement, 1905-1908• Cubist Movement, 1900s-1930s• Dada Movement, 1916-1922• Surrealist Movement, 1920s-
1960s• Social Commentary Movement,
1900s-1950s• Bauhaus/International Style,
1920s-1930s
Fauvism
Cubism
• Shows artist’s conception of a new world with own system of order
• reduces nature to basic shapes
Georges Braque
• Considered by some art historians to precede Picasso in coining term and movement
• focuses on simultaneous views of object
Picasso
• Most famous cubist artist
• has Blue Period & Rose Period
• influenced by African tribal art
• synthetic and analytic cubism
Dada
• Short movement• focuses on
machine-produced utilitarian articles as art
• Bauhaus Movement grows out of this, as well as modern art
Marcel Duchamp
Hans Arp
Max Ernst
Abstract Art
• Paul Klee
Vasily Kandinsky
Surrealism
• Mocks the rationalist views of Western Civilization
• focuses on dreams and irrational thoughts
• Movement is still in evidence today
Surrealism
• Salvador Dali, Persistence of Memory, 1931
Rene Magritte• Considered first surrealist• attempted to show dream experiences in which
recognizable forms appear in surprising combinations
Joan Miro
• surrealist• borders on
modern art due to lack of common ground with viewer
• also produced ceramic works
Miro’s Works
Social Commentary Movement
• Points out injustices through artwork
• Examples of Spanish Civil War, World War I, and Latin American problems
Picasso’s Guernica 1937
Kathe Kollwitz
Architecture
• Frank Lloyd Wright – function should determine form
The Guggenheim
Hollyhock House
Marin County Civic Center
Weltzheimer House
Bauhaus
• Follows Dada Movement in art• Focuses on idea of “art follows function”• No need for ornamentation• lays groundwork for Modern Architecture
Movement
Literature
• “Loss of faith” writers: T.S. Eliot and Ernest Hemingway
• Stream of consciousness writers: James Joyce and Virginia Woolf
Radio
• The new invention of the radio creates mass culture
Jazz
• Pioneered by African Americans, combines Western harmonies with African rhythms
Women and Society
• Flappers shocked their elders
• Some progress was made: suffrage, higher education, more acceptance into new fields such as science and art