ARTH142

Description

A survey of avant-garde art from the late nineteenth century to World War II in Western Europe and the U.S. During this period, artists, writers, and critics all began to use the term "modern," which had for centuries simply been an adjective meaning "contemporary," as a formal name for their unique historical moment. They proclaimed, in short, that their world of technology, efficiency, and mass entertainment signified a radical break with all past forms of society. We will examine a wide range of art, including painting, sculpture, collage, photography, architecture. The course begins with the generation of "post" impressionist painters and covers topics including the appropriation of non-Western art forms by white artists as a part of persistent colonialist mentalities, the use of art as a tool of identity formation for African American artists in the early 20th century, the pursuit of abstraction in both Europe and the U.S., the trauma of World War I, and surrealist dreamscape.