Arts 330

Without exaggeration one can say Modern art was born in America in 1913 at the Armory Show. From that date onwards, the American art scene, in both the performing and fine arts, would take giant steps forward until New York City rivaled, even surpassed, Paris as the art center of the world. Two things made this possible: the desire, talent, and ingenuity of Americans and the two World Wars. Escaping artistic and personal oppression and economic hardship, many artists flooded out of Europe and onto the shores of America. In America, greater personal freedoms were enjoyed (as compared to, say, the Weimar Republic in Germany where Nazism began as early as 1920). Greater personal freedoms in turn meant that artists had more artistic freedom. Many of these European transplants, like Fernand Léger, Piet Mondrian, Walter Gropius, Salvador Dalí, André Breton, Marc Chagall, Oskar Kokoschka and literally hundreds of European filmmakers, became teachers and mentors to generations of American artists thereby communicating the best of the Old World to the brightest of the New World.

Perspective, continued

In this module, we will take a closer look at the fine arts in New York City with special attention paid to Alfred Stiegltiz, the skyscraper, and distinctly American artists, O’Keeffe and Hartley. We will travel to Harlem and explore Jazz and the paintings of Jacob Lawrence. Finally, we will explore the filmmaking industry in California and, specifically, Surrealist Film. As you study, think about what European sensibilities are present in the arts at this time and what traits seem to be inherently American.

Chapter 36 in The Humanities: Culture, Continuity, and Change by Sayre, H. M.

Stieglitz and Armory Show

 

When Harriet Monroe, Chicago poet and founder of Poetry, was sent on assignment by the Chicago Tribune to cover the 1913 New York Armory Show, her reaction was one of shocked disgust. Monroe was no hidebound traditionalist; yet, the avant-garde works of Matisse, Picasso, Picabia, Duchamp, and others were so stunning she wrote that the paintings represented "the most hideous monstrosities ever perpetrated in the name of long- suffering art.”

 

Yet by the time the Armory Show came to Chicago a month later, Monroe was urging the public to see the show. After overcoming her initial shock, she realized how revolutionary and brilliant the work was. She wrote, "In a profound sense these radical artists are right. They represent the revolt of the imagination against nineteenth century realism...They represent a search for new beauty...a longing for new versions of truth."

Monroe’s conversion was not unusual. It is precisely because so many shared Monroe’s experience (shock followed by acceptance) that the Armory Show became the most important event to happen in the history of American art. It was the first time avant-garde European art flooded the consciousness of the American public and as a consequence American art, indeed the whole of Western art, was never thereafter the same

The Skyscraper

The 1920s represent a period of unprecedented growth in New York City, as downtown skyscraper after skyscraper rose to ever greater heights, and the promise of the machine became a driving force in culture. Artists and photographers saw in both the skyscraper and the machine the revelation of a geometry and form underlying all existence. The New York building boom of the 1920s, dominated by the highly ornamented and decorative architecture epitomized by Cass Gilbert's neo-Gothic Woolworth Building and William van Alen's Art Deco Chrysler Building, was countered by the modernist purity of a newly International Style that emphasized geometric simplicity and directness.

Jazz: Bessie Smith

Novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald coined the phrase Jazz Age and it stuck as the label for this period. Jazz descended from the blues and was characterized by its syncopation and its blue notes (bent or flattened 3rd, 5th or 7th notes of the scale). Ma Rainey (1886–1939), Blind Willie Johnson (1902–1947), and Bessie Smith (1892–1937) are important blues artists that influenced the development of jazz. A good place to begin your journey into Jazz is with Bessie Smith’s Florida Bound Blues.

Jazz became a worldwide phenomenon, popular in Paris, Berlin, Harlem, Chicago, and New Orleans. In New Orleans, jazz was played in the red light district of Storeyville. In 1917 Storeyville was shut down by the Navy on concerns regarding its negative influence on sailors’ discipline. As a result, many jazz musicians such as Louis Armstrong (1900–1971) moved north to Chicago. Armstrong’s Hotter Than That popularized his vocal technique of scat.

Jazz: Duke Ellington

Meanwhile in Harlem, Duke Ellington (1899–1974) began a five-year engagement at the Cotton Club. His It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t got that Swing) popularized the swing style. After his work was broadcast on the radio, Ellington inspired numerous imitators such as Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, and “Count” Basie.

The attempt to capture the vernacular voice of everyday Americans can be seen in the work of Harlem Renaissance painter Jacob Lawrence and in the paintings of Joseph Stella, Charles Demuth, Marsden Hartley, and Georgia O'Keeffe.

 

Stella, Demuth, Hartley, and O'Keeffe were all supported by photographer Alfred Stieglitz first at his gallery 291 and later at An American Place.

Salvador Dali

 

Surrealist artist, Salvador Dali was especially interested in exploiting the potential of film. In 1928, with his collaborator Luis Buñuel, Dali produced the most famous of all his films, Un Chien Andalou (“An Andalusian Dog”). This sixteen minute silent film prominently features several montage sequences a la Eisenstein.

 

Go to the Links tab under More Tools to visit the following information:

 

· Dali: Painting and Film. Learn more about Dali and this important film.

· Un Chien Andalou. View the film by Dali and Bunuel.

Go to the Links tab under More Tools to visit the following information:

 

· The Armory Show of 1913. Visit the 1913 Armory Show! Go to the website Shelley Staples created in 2001 for the University of Virginia.

· Skyscrapers. Explore this phenomenon.

· Jazz in the Schools. To learn more about the Jazz Age and Jazz music, visit this National Education Association’s webpage.

· Art of the Harlem Renaissance. Explore the visual art of the Harlem Renaissance.

· National Gallery of Art. Modern Art and America: Alfred Stieglitz and his New York Galleries. Learn more about the collaboration between Stella, Demuth, Hartley, O'Keeffe, and Alfred Stieglitz.