Art Between the World Wars

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Art Between the World Wars
Dada Surrealism Constructivism Socialist Realism
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Dada 1916-1922
An extension of expressionism that emphasized
individuality, irrational instinct and
change. Attracted artists who shared disgust
with bourgeois culture and emphasized the
destruction of such values in art and
society. Artists sympathized with communism and
demanded the immediate expropriation of
property(socialization) and the communal feeding
of all. Evolved into Surrealism and
Constructivism. Leading Artists Hugo Ball,
Raoul Hausmann, John Heartfield, and Marcel
Duchamp, Max Ernst
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Raoul Haussmann The Spirit of our Time 1921

• An assemblage of various objects
• Satirizes contemporary folly
• The attachments to the ears and
• head, symbolize the growing
• popularity in W. Europe of that
• humans should model themselves
• on the machine
• The head portrays the
• dehumanization of such ideas.

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Marcel Duchamp Bride Stripped Bare by Her
Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass) 1923

• A pessimistic statement of the insoluble
• frustrations of male-female relations.
• It contradicts the conventionally optimistic
• view of male-female relations reverses
• the conventional power roles of men and
• women.
• The female is dominant, and the males
• merely react to her.

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John Heartfield Have No Fear--Hes a
Vegetarian 1936

• Shows Hitler sharpening a knife behind
• a rooster, the symbol of France.
• It communicates a warning.
• When Hitler took power he ordered
• Heartfields arrest.
• Fled to Prague, Czechoslovakia.

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Surrealism 1924-1940

• Art period between the World Wars, begun by
  André Breton in 1924.
• represented a reaction against the "rationalism"
  that had guided
• European culture and politics in the past and had
  culminated in
• the horrors of World War I.
• Was a means of reuniting conscious and
  unconscious realms of
• experience so completely that the world of dream
  and fantasy
• would be joined by the everyday rational world in
  an absolute
• reality, a surreality.
• Through chance, symbolism, shock, suggestion, and
  violence they
• sought to go beyond consciousness itself.
• Famous Artists René Magritte, Max Ernst,
  Salvador Dali, Joan Miro,
• Pablo Picasso

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Salvador Dali Persistence of Memory 1931
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Pablo Picasso Guernica 1938

• Was a response to the first aerial bombing of
  civilians German pilots fighting for
• Franco, bombed Guernica, killing hundreds of men,
  women and children.
• It depicts the incident as a stark, surrealistic
  nightmare focusing on the victims

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Rene Magritte Time Transfixed 1939

• Purpose was to discredit ordinary
• reality and open to view the
• worlds mystery.
• Shows that mystery has no
• meaning.

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CONSTUCTIVISM 1914-1932
Stood for the ideals of abstraction,
functionalism, utilitarianism Held that art
should be easily comprehensible and socially
useful for the new communist state. Most
artists abandoned easel painting as overly
bourgeois, and turned instead to design. Used
metals, wire, and pieces of plastic
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Vladimir Tatlin Monument to the Third
International 1920
Art into Life
To unite purely artistic forms with
utilitarian intentions Shows that Russian
society is advancing industrially Taller than
the Eiffel Tower Never Built
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El Lissitsky Proun 2C 1920

• Proun acronym for Project for the
• Affirmation of the New.
• Produced with the aid of mechanical
• instruments.
• Celebrates industrial technology
• Encourages precise thinking among
• the public.

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SOCIALIST REALISM
Ideology enforced by the Soviet state as the
official standard for art, literature,
etc. Defined in 1934 at the First All-Union
Congress of Soviet writers. Based on the
principle that the arts should glorify political
and social ideals of communism. All artists had
to join theUnion of Soviet Artists, which was
controlled by the state. Paintings had to be
idealizations of political leaders and
communist ideas.
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Karpo Demjanowitsch Trokhimenko "Stalin as an
Organizer of the October Revolution".
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Iwan Alexejewitsch Wladimirow
Lenin and Stalin in Summer 1917
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Sergej Alexejewitsch Grigorjew "Stalin at a
Session of politicians at the Kremlin"
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Wassilij Filipowitsch Iwanow "Wladimir Ilich
Lenin"
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Karpo Demjanowitsch Trokhimenko "Revolution
1917"
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Daily Life
Scenes from daily life were common topics
glorified in Social Realism. Workers on their
way to the coal mines. Farmers working or on
way to work in a small village. Machines and
hard work.
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"Miner "Female Worker" Boris
Jeremejewitsch Wladimirskij
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Wladimir Gawriilowitsch Krikhatzkij "The First
Tractor"
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Karel Stehlik "Building of a Dam at the Moldavia"
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THE STALIN PRIZES
Inaugurated in 1939 to reward high achievement
in the arts and sciences. The prizes
conferred considerable prestige and a large
sum of money. All awards were agreed by Stalin
and inevitably they had strong political
coloring.
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Boris Ieremeevich Vladimirski "Roses for Stalin"
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Pjotr Pantelejmonowitsch Parkhet "Stalin at the
8th Conference of the Highest Council"
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Boris Ieremeyevich Vladimirsky "Lenin in Red
Dawn"
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Bibliography
Horvath, Patrick and Horvath Dr. Werner. Virtual
Museum of Political Art Socialist Realism.
Available at http//www.medicalnet.at/horvath/so
c.htm Harden, Mark, The Artchive.
http//artchive.com/ftp_site.htm Jansen, H W.
History of Art 5th Edition. Harry N.
Abrams Publishers Inc., New York.
1995. Stokstad, Marilyn. Art History Revised
Edition Volume two. Harry N. Abrams Publishers
Inc., New York. 1999. No Author Given. The
Artist.Org. http//www.the-artists.org/ Witcombe,
Chris. Art History Resources on the
Web. http//witcombe.sbc.edu/ARTH20thcentury.html.
2001.