NationMaster - Encyclopedia: American modernism

American Modernism is an artistic and cultural movement in the USA starting at the turn of the 20th Century with its core period between World War I and World War II. Characteristically, Modernist art has a tendency to abstraction, is innovative, aesthetic, futuristic and self-referential. It includes visual art, literature, music, film, design, architecture as well as life style. It reacts against historicism, artistic conventions and institutionalisation of art. Art was not only to be dealt with in academies, theaters or concert halls, but to be included in everyday life and accessible for everybody. Furthermore, Cultural institutions concentrated on fine art and scholars paid little attention to the revolutionary styles of Modernism. Economic and technological progress in the USA during the Roaring Twenties gave rise to widespread Utopianism, which influenced some Modernist artists, while others were sceptical of the embrace of technology. The victory in World War I had confirmed the status of the USA as an international player and gave the people self-confidence and a feeling of security. In this context American Modernism marked the beginning of American art as distinct and autonomous from European taste by breaking artistic conventions that had been shaped after European traditions until then. American Modernism benefitted from the diversity of immigrant cultures. Artists were inspired by African, Caribbean, Asian and European folk cultures and embedded these exotic styles in their works. Some see Modernism in the tradition of 19th century Aestheticism and the Art for art's sake movement. Clement Greenberg argues that Modernist art excludes ´anything outside itself`. Others see Modernist Art, for example in Blues and Jazz music, as a medium for emotions and moods and many works dealt with contemporary issues, like feminism and city life. Some artists and theoreticians even added a political dimension to American Modernism. American Modernist design and architecture enabled people to lead a modern life. Work and family life changed radically and rapidly due to the economic upswing during the 1920s. In the USA the car became popular and affordable for many, leisure time and entertainment gained importance and the job market opened up for women. In order to make life more efficient, designers and architects aimed at the simplification of house work. The Great Depression at the end of the 20s and during the 30s disillusioned people about the economic stability of the USA and eroded utopianist thinking. The outbreak and the terrors of the Second World War caused further changes in mentality. The period that followed is termed Post-Modernism. Combatants Allied Powers: Russian Empire France British Empire Italy United States Central Powers: Austria-Hungary German Empire Ottoman Empire Bulgaria Commanders Nicholas II Aleksei Brusilov Georges Clemenceau Joseph Joffre Ferdinand Foch Herbert Henry Asquith Douglas Haig John Jellicoe Victor Emmanuel III Luigi Cadorna Armando Diaz Woodrow Wilson John Pershing Franz... Combatants Allied Powers: United Kingdom France Soviet Union United States Republic of China and others Axis Powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Winston Churchill Charles de Gaulle Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Chiang Kai-Shek Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tojo Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33... Historicism is a term which applies to a number of theories of culture or historical development which place the greatest weight on two factors: that there is an organic succession of developments, that local conditions and peculiarities influence the results in a decisive way It can be contrasted with reductionist... The term institutionalization is widely used in social theory to denote the process of making something (for example a concept, a social role, particular values and norms, or modes of behaviour) become embedded within an organization, social system, or society as an established custom or norm within that system. ... Fine art refers to arts that are concerned with beauty or which appealed to taste (SOED 1991). ... A scene typical of the Follies of Florenz Ziegfeld, the most popular Broadway impresario of the decade. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into utopia. ... The Aesthetic movement is a loosely defined movement in art and literature in later nineteenth-century Britain. ... Art for arts sake is the usual English rendition of a French slogan, lart pour lart, which is credited to ThÃ©ophile Gautier (1811â€“1872). ... Clement Greenberg (January 16, 1909 - May 7, 1994) was an influential American art critic closely associated with the abstract art movement in the United States. ... Postmodernism (sometimes abbreviated pomo) is a term applied to a wide-ranging set of developments in critical theory, philosophy, architecture, art, literature, and culture, which are generally characterized as either emerging from, in reaction to, or superseding, modernism. ...

American Identity Politics

Feminism, Gender, and Sexuality

Development of Feminism

Starting from the early 1800s, some women used the doctrines of the ideal femaleness to avoid the isolation of the domestic sphere. By the 1830s, women were openly challenging the women’s sphere and demanding greater political, economic and social rights. They formed women’s clubs and benevolent societies all over the US. Male domination of the public arena was no longer within acceptable limits to many of these middle-class activist women. Beginning with the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848, American feminists held state and national conventions until the early 1900s. When some spokeswomen of the feminist movement connected the feminist cause with free love and the sexual revolution, which were the taboo issues of the Victorian Age. Therefore, feminists in both Britain and the United states concentrated on political and legal issues, the vote in particular, and other important women’s issues regarding the domestic roles of women and the organization of domestic life in general. Eventually, after a long and hard struggle that had included massive, sometimes violent protests, the imprisonment of many women, and even some deaths, the battle for women’s suffrage was won. The suffrage law was passed in the United States in 1920 for women who were householders or wives of householders and in 1928 for all adult women. However, African-American women were not included. They only received the right to vote in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. The National Organization for Women (NOW) was founded in 1966 by a group of feminists. The largest women's rights group in the U.S. NOW aimed to end sexual discrimination, especially in the workplace, by means of legislative lobbying, litigation, and public demonstrations. The following years of the late 20th century witnessed a great expansion of women’s rights in all areas of the modern society. Modernist artists had an ambivalent attitude towards feminism: on the one hand they opted for equal treatment of men and women with regard to law, franchise, and professions; on the other hand they still had the female inadequacies in terms of biology, culture, and transcendence in mind. As the radical feminist Emma Goldman proclaimed, “true liberation begins neither at the polls nor in courts [but rather] in a woman’s soul” (qtd. in Lyon 223). The Seneca Falls Convention, held in Seneca Falls, New York on July 19 to July 20, 1848, was the first womens rights convention held in the United States, and as a result is often called the birthplace of the feminist movement. ... Queen Victoria (shown here on the morning of her Accession to the Throne, June 20, 1837) gave her name to the historic era. ... Historically, the civil rights movement was a concentrated period of time around the world of approximately one generation (1924-1980) wherein there was much worldwide civil unrest and popular rebellion. ... The National Organization for Women (NOW) is an American feminist group, founded in 1966, with 500,000 contributing members and 550 chapters in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. ... Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Emma Goldman Emma Goldman (June 27, 1869 â€“ May 14, 1940) aka Red Emma, was a Kaunas, Lithuania-born anarchist known for her writings and speeches. ...

Gender and Sexuality

The roles of gender and sexuality in American Modernism were elaborated through studies of national identity and citizenship, racial identity and race politics, queer identity and aesthetics, magazine culture, visual culture, market economies, and historical accounts of 20th century political modernity. Immense work done by scholars of feminism, gender, and sexuality helped to restructure the field of American Modernist scholarship. Women writers have become the subjects of extensive literary study. Gay and lesbian communities have been revalued as patterns of modern aesthetic experimentation, and sexual identity and gender formation were interpreted in a new way. Turn of the 20th century cultural life saw a shift to a dichotomy of mass culture versus high culture, with the former being generally gendered as feminine and high culture being considered to be male-oriented. Formerly denounced popular fiction now served the feminist purpose; “it formed the bedrock for defenses of a new phase of free love and the concomitant promotion of birth control” (Lyon 225). The upcoming interest in popular psychology, especially Freudian theories, encouraged this new approach to gender roles and sexuality in the arts. Sexual difference was portrayed by women themselves with the help of the media available to them. This manifested itself for example in Mina Loy’s “sex-talk” which is “stunning both for the focus it places on a woman’s sexual disappointment and for the balance it strikes between clinical frankness and poetic indirection” (Lyon 225). It also entailed the breaking up of traditional gender roles. They were no longer exclusively male or female but there was also an acknowledgement of homosexuality, feminine men, and masculine women. Thus the concept of sexuality became multi-layered, as in Djuna Barnes’ novel Nightwood (1936) in which she obliterates all established ideas of gender and sexuality. This early debate dealing with these issues cleared the way for contemporary approaches to gender, for instance that of Judith Butler in her book Gender Trouble (1990). Sigmund Freud His famous couch Sigmund Freud (May 6, 1856 - September 23, 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of the psychoanalytic school of psychology, a movement that popularized the theory that unconscious motives control much behavior. ... Image:Loy-Haweis1904. ... Djuna Barnes [1] [2] [3] (June 12, 1892 - June 18, 1982) was an American writer who played an important part in the development of 20th century English language modernist writing by women and was one of the key figures in 1920s and 30s bohemian Paris after filling a similar role... Image:J Butler. ... Gender Trouble is a 1990 book by Judith Butler that is highly influential in academic feminism and queer theory. ...

Jazz

For a wider, more formal account, please see Jazz and Jazz Age Jazz is a musical art form that originated in New Orleans at around the start of the 20th century. ... The Jazz Age, also known as the American High, describes the period of the 1920s, the years between the end of World War I and the onset of the Great Depression, particularly in North America and (in the eras literature) specifically in New York City, largely coinciding with the...

Early in the twentieth century, Jazz evolved from the Blues tradition, but also incorporated many other musical and cultural elements. In New Orleans, often considered to be the birth place of Jazz, musicians benefited from the influx of Spanish and French colonial influences. In this city, a unique ethnic cultural mix and looser racial prohibitions allowed African Americans more influence than in other regions of the South. The Spanish American War brought Northern soldiers to the region with their bands. The resulting music adopted sounds from the new brass instruments. ^[1] During the Great Migration, Jazz spread from New Orleans to New York, Chicago, and other cities, incorporating new sounds along the way. Harlem, New York City, became the new center for the Jazz age. ^[2] Jazz is a musical art form that originated in New Orleans at around the start of the 20th century. ... The blues is a vocal and instrumental form of music based on the use of the blue notes and a repetitive pattern that typically follows a twelve-bar structure. ... New Orleans is the largest city in the state of Louisiana, United States of America. ... The Spanish-American War took place in 1898, and resulted in the United States of America gaining control over the former colonies of Spain in the Caribbean and Pacific. ... was when erikson martinez was rich ... NY redirects here. ... Nickname: The Windy City, The Second City, Chi Town, The City of Big Shoulders, The 312, The City that Works Motto: Urbs In Horto (Latin: City in a Garden), I Will Location in Chicagoland and Illinois Coordinates: Country United States State Illinois County Cook & DuPage Incorporated March 4, 1837 - Mayor... For other uses, see Harlem (disambiguation). ... The Jazz Age, also known as the American High, describes the period of the 1920s, the years between the end of World War I and the onset of the Great Depression, particularly in North America and (in the eras literature) specifically in New York City, largely coinciding with the...

Jazz – Music of Integration

Jazz music, as a central element of American culture, has its roots in Black slave culture. The music combined elements from African call and response patterns into its instrumentation and riffs.^[3] In its early beginnings Jazz was looked critically upon by parts of the white population, who considered Jazz and Ragtime rhythms to be “savage crash and bang” ^[4] and denigrated the genre as a product “not of innovators, but of incompetents.” ^[5] Its expressive and pulsating style initially served racial stereotypes in the public mind and was widely encountered with skeptical rejection. Despite this phenomenon of animosity towards a rising Black cultural significance, American writer Lawrence W. Levine interprets the role of Jazz as a catalyst of a shifting national consciousness: Jazz is a musical art form that originated in New Orleans at around the start of the 20th century. ... Second edition cover of Maple Leaf Rag, perhaps the most famous rag of all Ragtime is an American musical genre enjoying its peak popularity between 1899 and 1918. ...

After all, it was in the nature of Jazz to strive for cultural convergence between Blacks and Whites; according to saxophonist Sonny Rollins, “Jazz has always been a music of integration” ^[7]. During the 1920s and 1930s Jazz considerably gained in popularity and aroused increasing interest in young whites who were attracted by the artistic, personal as well as cultural freedom of expression this new musical form had to offer. Well-known white musicians such as Benny Goodman, Gene Krupa, Milton Mezzrow, Muggsy Spanier or Joe Sullivan were inspired by Afro-American icons like Louis Armstrong. The acceptance of Jazz soon spread across the Atlantic and, by the mid-20th century, made it international. Today, Jazz music is regarded as an integral and vibrant part of American culture, the unique native music of America, a worldwide representative of Afro-American culture. An early Rollins picture graces the cover of Volume One Theodore Walter Sonny Rollins (born September 7, 1930 in New York City) is an American jazz tenor saxophonist. ... Benny Goodman (May 30, 1909 â€“ June 13, 1986) was an American jazz musician, known as King of Swing, Patriarch of the Clarinet, The Professor, and Swings Senior Statesman. He was one of the most important performer of popular music in the twentieth century. ... Gene Krupa Gene Krupa (January 15, 1909 â€“ October 16, 1973) was a famous and influential American jazz and big band drummer, known for his highly energetic and flamboyant style. ... Joseph Muggsy Spanier (1906-1967) was a prominent white cornet player based in Chicago. ... Joe Sullivan (Joseph Michael Sullivan) (November 04, 1906, Chicago - October 13, 1971 San Francisco) was an american jazz pianist. ... Louis Daniel Armstrong (August 4, 1901[1] â€“ July 6, 1971) (also known by the nicknames Satchmo, for satchel-mouth, and Pops) was an American jazz musician. ...

Jazz as American

A compilation article appearing in the New York Times in 1923 proclaimed Jazz to be “A contribution of America to the arts. It is recognized the world over as part of a musical folk lore of this country: it is as thoroughly and typically American as the Monroe Doctrine or the Fourth of July, or baseball” (Say Jazz Will Live).^[8] Jazz’s American-ness begins with its roots. Jazz was a product of the African Americans, a cultural group distinct to America. Though the early Blues sang distinctly of the sorrows of a displaced people, Jazz was something else. The African American labor class who gave birth to Jazz were not subject to the education of other white musicians; Black minstrels were able to escape the pressure to “Europeanize” their art. Culture (with a capital C) essentially demanded that Americans prefer, commend, and reiterate all things European. Free from these constraints, Jazz progressed in an uncharted manner.^[9] In 1925, Irving Berlin called Jazz “American folk music” and cited influences ranging from ”old Southern Songs” and the “Negro spirituals,” to a “tinge of the Russian and Italian folk songs,” but Berlin concluded that it was “typically American above all.” ^[10] Like the nation where it was created, Jazz blended separate ethnic and cultural influences into a new and different product, combining elements from Black identity with other immigrant influences. It incorporated the sounds of the South and the modern, and adapted elements from urban skylines.^[11] Jazz was distinctly American in that it blended the character of different peoples, but still let the individual have his chance to express himself in an improvisational solo,^[12] and therefore asserted the “rugged individualism”^[13] that already characterized the nation. Furthermore, Jazz began to break down the barrier between performer and audience. It “democratized” culture, making it accessible to the common person. ^[14] The New York Times is an internationally known daily newspaper published in New York City and distributed in the United States and many other nations worldwide. ... U.S. President James Monroe The Monroe Doctrine is a U.S. doctrine which, on December 2, 1823, proclaimed that European powers should no longer colonize or interfere with the affairs of the nations of the Americas. ... These fireworks over the Washington Monument are typical of Fourth of July celebrations In the United States, Independence Day, also called the Fourth of July, is a federal holiday celebrating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. ... A view of the playing field at Busch Stadium II St. ... The blues is a vocal and instrumental form of music based on the use of the blue notes and a repetitive pattern that typically follows a twelve-bar structure. ... Irving Berlin (May 11, 1888 â€“ September 22, 1989) was an American composer and lyricist, one of the most prodigious and famous American songwriters in history. ... An ethnic group is a group of people who identify with one another, or are so identified by others, on the basis of a boundary that distinguishes them from other groups. ...

Jazz as Modern

Jazz is distinctly modern in sound and manner. According to Lawrence Levine, “Jazz was, or seemed to be the product of a new age…raucous, discordant…accessible, spontantous…openly an interactive, participartory music.”^[15]Daniel Gregory Mason charged that Jazz „is so perfectly adapted to robots that the one could be deduced from the other. Jazz is thus the exact musical reflection of modernist industrial capitalism,“ and Jazz has also been likened to the sound of riviting.^[16] Irving Berlin called Jazz the "music of the machine age." ^[17] Players drew influences from everyday street talk in Harlem, as well as from French Impressionist paintings.^[18] The improvised nature begs the player to dismantle and examine pre-existing structure within the music. ^[19] As tribute to the modernity of Jazz, one only needs to examine the various media that drew influences from the music. The musical [[Shuffle Along]] is one of the earliest and most successful Jazz adaptation to the stage,^[20] Jazz ballets appeared in New York City’s Metropolitan Theatre, Langston Hughes and …. Drew poetry from the Jazz music they experienced,^[21] and Jazz music colored the paintings of Aaron Douglas, Miguel Covarrubias, and many others. Langston Hughes (February 1, 1902 â€“ May 22, 1967) was an American poet, novelist, playwright, short story writer, and newspaper columnist. ... Power Plant, Harlem by Aaron Douglas. ... JosÃ© Miguel Covarrubias (November 22, 1904 â€” February 4, 1957) Mexican painter and caricaturist. ...

Visual Arts

Early Modernist Painting

There is no single date for the beginning of the Modern Era in America, as dozens of painters acted actively at the beginning of the twentieth century. It was the time when the first cubist landscapes appeared; bright colours entered the pallets of painters, and the first non-objective paintings were displayed in the galleries. According to Davidson, the beginning of American Modernist Painting can be dated on the 1910s. The early part of the period lasted 25 years and ended around 1935, when Modern Art was referred to as, what Greenberg called, “avant-garde art.” A work similar to Marcel Duchamps Fountain Avant garde (written avant-garde) is a French phrase, one of many French phrases used by English speakers. ...

The early twentieth century was marked by the exploration of different techniques and ways of artistic expressiveness. The formation of various artistic assemblies led to the multiplicity of the meaning of visual arts. The Ashcan School gathered around Realism (Robert Henri or George Luks); The Stieglitz Circle glorified abstract visions of New York City (Max Weber, Abraham Walkowitz); Color Painters evolved in direction of the colourful, abstract “synchromies” (Standon Macdonald-Wright and Morgan Russel), whereas Precisionism visualized the industrialized landscape of America in the form of sharp and dynamic geometrization (Joseph Stella, Charles Sheeler). Nickname: Big Apple, Gotham, NYC Location in the state of New York Coordinates: Country United States State New York Boroughs The Bronx Brooklyn Manhattan Queens Staten Island Settled 1613 - Mayor Michael Bloomberg (R) Area - City 1,214. ... Maximilian Weber (IPA: ) (April 21, 1864 â€“ June 14, 1920) was a German political economist and sociologist who is considered one of the founders of the modern study of sociology and public administration. ... Self-Portrait at Easel, 1932, by Charles Sheeler Charles Sheeler (1883-1965) is recognized as one of the founders of American modernism and one of the master photographers of the 20th century, yet his photographs have been exhibited far less often than those of his contemporaries Alfred Stieglitz and Paul...

The shift of the subjects taken in the visual arts is also a hallmark of American Modern Art. Thus, for example, the group “The Eight” brought the focus on the modern city, and different classes of citizens. One of the most significant representatives of The Eight, Robert Henri and John Sloan related painting to the social diversity, taking as a main subject the slum dwellers of industrialized cities. The late 1920s and the 1930s belonged among many others to two movements in painting, Regionalism and Social Realism. The Regionalists praised the colourfulness of American land and beauties of country life, whereas Social Realists went into the subjects of the Depression and social injustice. The Social Realists were against the government members, who appeared indifferent to the matters of human inequalities. The Ash Can School was remembered on the USPS stamp. ...

Modernism bridged the gap between the art and socially diverse audience in the U.S.A. The growing number of museums and galleries aimed at bringing the modernity to the general public. Despite initial resistance to the celebration of progress, technology, and urban life, visual arts contributed enormously to the self-consciousness of Americans. Painting placed emphasis on the emotional and psychic states of the audience, which was fundamental to the formation of American identity.

Numerous directions of American “modern” did not result in one coherent style, but evoked the desire for experiments and challenges. It proves that modern art goes beyond fixed principles.

Modernist Painting

African-American painter Aaron Douglas (1899-1979) is one of the best-known and most influential African-American modernist painters. His works contributed strongly to the development of an aesthetic movement that is closely related to distinct features of African-American heritage and culture. Douglas influenced African-American visual arts especially during the Harlem Renaissance. One of Douglas' most popular paintings is The Crucifixion. It was published in James Weldon Johnson's God's Trombones in 1927. The crucifixion scene that is depicted in the painting shows several elements that constitute Douglas' art: clear-cut delineation, change of shadows and light, stylized human bodies and geometric figures as concentric circles in contrast to linear forms. The painting's theme resembles not only the biblical scene but can also be seen as an allusion to African-American religious tradition: the oversized, dark Jesus is bearing his cross, his eyes directed to heaven from which light is cast down onto his followers. Stylized Roman soldiers are flanking the scene with their pointed spears. As a result the observer is reminded for instance of the African-American gospel tradition but also of a history of suppression. Power Plant, Harlem by Aaron Douglas. ...

Modernist Photography

At the beginning of American Modernism, photography was still struggling to be recognized as a form of art. The photographer Alfred Stieglitz described it as following: "Artists who saw my earlier photographs began to tell me that they envied me; that they felt my photographs were superior to their paintings, but that, unfortunately, photography was not an art. I could not understand why the artists should envy me for my work, yet, in the same breath, decry it because it was machine-made." (Stieglitz:8). In 1902, Stieglitz founded the Photo-Secession group with members such as Edward Steichen, Gertrude Käsebier and Clarence Hudson White, which had the objective of raising the standard and increasing the awareness of art photography. At that point, their main style was "pictorialist", which was known for modifying photos e.g. through soft focus, special filters or exotic printing processes, to imitate the style of paintings and etchings of that time. For means of publication, Stieglitz, as the driving force of the movement, started the magazine "Camera Work", in which he would publish the works of artists whom he considered representative for the movement. He also ran three galleries one after another, namely "291" (1905-1917), "The Intimate Gallery" (1925-1929) and "An American Place" (1929-1947). Especially 291 served as a meeting point for artists and writers and was the first to exhibit the early modernist art works of European artists, such as Henri Matisse, Auguste Rodin, Henri Rousseau, Paul Cezanne, and Pablo Picasso, in the United States. A further link to the European avant-garde was established by Man Ray. Born in America and inspired by the work he saw in Stieglitz’ galleries, Ray emigrated to Paris in 1921 and together with artists of the European Dada and Surrealist movements created new photographic techniques, e.g. “rayographs”, a procedure during which objects are placed directly on photosensitive paper.
In the early 1920s the photographers moved towards what they called "straight photography". In contrast to the pictorialist style, they now rejected any kind of manipulation in the photographic process (e.g. soft lens, special developing or printing methods) and tried to use the advantages of the camera as a unique medium for capturing reality. Their motifs were supposed to look as "objective" as possible. Turning the focus away from classic portraiture and the pictorialist style, the photographers started using their pictures as means for representing the harsh realities of every day life, but at the same time tried to search for the beauty in the detail or the overall aesthetical structure. Machines and factory work, sky scrapers and technical innovations became prominent motifs. In 1932 some younger photographers (e.g. Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, Willard Van Dyke, Edward Weston) started Group f/64 based on the ideals of straight photography, which became the most progressive association of its time. Alfred Stieglitz (January 1, 1864 â€“ July 13, 1946) was an American-born photographer who was instrumental over his fifty-year career in making photography an acceptable art form alongside painting and sculpture. ... The Photo-Secession movement was a group of photographers led by Alfred Stieglitz in the early 1900s that helped to raise standards and awareness of art photography. ... Edward Steichen (March 27, 1879-March 25, 1973) was an American photographer, painter, and art gallery and museum curator, born in Luxembourg. ... Gertrude KÃ¤sebier (nÃ©e Stanton) (1852 - 1934) was a American photographer, she was a part of the PhotoSecession movement in America with Eduard Steichen, Alvin Langdon Coburn and Clarence Hudson White and a founder of the Pictorial Photographers of America. ... Clarence Hudson White, photographed by Doris Ulmann Clarence Hudson White (1871 - 1925) was an American photographer and member of the Photo-Secession movement in America. ... Pictorialism was a photographic movement of the early 20th century which subscribed to the idea that art photography needs to emulate the painting and etching of the time. ... Clarence H. Whites photo, Ring Toss, featured in an edition of Camera Work Camera Work was a quarterly photographic publication by Alfred Stieglitz and the Photo-Secessionists from 1902 to 1917 that was known for its high-quality reproductions and its effort to establish photography as a fine art. ... Events The War of the Eight Princes begins in China. ... Photo of Henri Matisse taken by Carl Van Vechten, 1933. ... Auguste Rodin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia /**/ @import /skins-1. ... Self Portrait, 1908 Henri Rousseau (May 21, 1844 â€“ September 2, 1910) was a French Post-Impressionist painter in the Naive or Primitive manner. ... Categories: 1839 births | 1906 deaths | French painters | Post-impressionism | Artist stubs ... Young Pablo Picasso Pablo Picasso (October 25, 1881 â€“ April 8, 1973) was a Spanish painter and sculptor. ... Man Ray, photographed at Gaite-Montparnasse exhibition in Paris by Carl Van Vechten on June 16, 1934 Man Ray (August 27, 1890â€“November 18, 1976) was an American artist who spent most of his career in Paris, France. ... Cover of the first edition of the publication, Dada. ... Surrealism is an artistic movement and an aesthetic philosophy that aims for the liberation of the mind by emphasizing the critical and imaginative powers of the subconscious. ... A rayograph is a type of cameraless print, or photogram. ... Straight photography refers to photography that attempts to depict a scene as realistically and objectively as permitted by the medium, forsaking the use of manipulation both pre-exposure (e. ... The Tetons - Snake River (1942) by Ansel Adams Ansel Easton Adams (February 20, 1902 â€“ April 22, 1984) was an American photographer, best known for his black and white photographs of Californias Yosemite Valley. ... Imogen Cunningham (April 12, 1883 - June 24, 1976) was one of the best-known American female photographers. ... Willard Van Dyke (1906 - 1986) was an American filmmaker and photographer who believed that photography could have a major influence on the world. ... Edward Weston (March 24, 1886 - January 1, 1958) was an American photographer, and co-founder of Group f/64. ... Group f/64 was created in 1932 by a circle of photographers espousing a common philosophy. ...

American Icons in the European Mind

Definition of "American Icon"

New York City

New York City is one of the most iconic cities in the United States and one of the major global cities of the world due to its important business, financial, trading and cultural organizations, such as Wall Street, United Nations, the Metropolitan Museum of Arts and Broadway theaters with their (in that time innovative) electric lighting. It is regarded as the birthplace of many American cultural movements, including the Harlem Renaissance in literature and abstract expressionism in visual art (cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City).

NYC is iconic for many Europeans as the city of melting pot where many different ethnic groups live often ghettos such as Chinatown, Little Italy. “Culture just seems to be in the air, like part of the weather” (ibid.). In American modernism, New York became the first stop for immigrants seeking a better life. The city’s population boomed, 5 boroughs were formed, the New York City Subway was opened and became a symbol of progress and innovation. The city saw construction of skyscrapers in the skyline(cf. ibid.).

“Take New York City skyline, for example – that ragged man-made Sierra at the eastern edge of the continent. Clearly, in the minds of immigrants and returning travelers, in the iconography of the admen who use it as a backdrop for the bourbon and airplane luggage they are selling, the eyes of poets and of military strategies, it is one of the prime symbols” (Kouwenhoven 1998: 124). Iconic is especially the Manhattan skyline and its structural properties. It is regarded as a symbol of American progress and competition in height, creativity of structure, advancement and efficiency. It is considered an icon of “architectural individualism” (cf. ibid. 125). The typical gridiron pattern of the city’s streets is an icon of simplicity. Horizontal steel construction of many stories is important not ornamentation (cf. ibid 127).

To read more about New York City, please see New York City Nickname: Big Apple, Gotham, NYC Location in the state of New York Coordinates: Country United States State New York Boroughs The Bronx Brooklyn Manhattan Queens Staten Island Settled 1613 - Mayor Michael Bloomberg (R) Area - City 1,214. ...

Charlie Chaplin

Even though born in London, and no US citizen, he felt strong belonging to American society thanks to which he became famous after starring in his first movie "Making a living" (1914). Before that as a 10 year old boy "he worked as a mime on the British vaudeville circuit" (NYT 08.06.98). The fact that he was very poor inspired the Tramp’s trademark to create a distorted version of formal dinner suit which was regarded to be a symbol of an adult personified in an innocent child (cf. Douglas: NYT 08.06.98).

He is claimed to be the first and the last person who was in charge of every aspect of making films: He started his own film studio "United Artists" in cooperation with among all D.W. Griffith; was in charge of directing, writing, editing, producing and casting the movies in which he played. It is said that he changed a film industry into an art in the first decades of the 20th century when Americans used to go to movie theaters regularly. It was his personality of a genius with "expressive grace", "endless inventiveness" and creativity that made him iconic (ibid.). He preferred silent movies to set the acting and plot in the center. His best known movies are "The Jazz Singer" (1927), "The Great Dictator" (1940), "Monsieur Verdoux" (1947), "Limelight" (1952), "The Kid" (1921), "The Gold Rush" (1925), "The Circus" (1928), "City Lights" (1931) and "Modern Times" (1936) (cf. ibid.).

He was so highly recognizable that a movement of "Chaplinitis" was formed by 1920. There were Chaplin songs, dances, comic books, dolls, and cocktails. Poems were written about him and his pantomime. The Beat Generation (of writers) made him one of their icons. In the 80s IBM took the Tramp for the logo in the their advertisement of its personal computer (cf. ibid.). The Beat Generation was a group of American writers who came to prominence in the late 1950s and early 1960s. ...

"The endearing figure of his Little Tramp was instantly recognizable around the globe and brought laughter to millions. Still is. Still does" (ibid.).

"Every few weeks, outside the movie theater in virtually any American town in the late 1910s, stood the life-size cardboard figure of a small tramp — outfitted in tattered, baggy pants, a cutaway coat and vest, impossibly large, worn-out shoes and a battered derby hat — bearing the inscription I AM HERE TODAY" (ibid.).

Funnily enough, even though he always retained his British nationality, was damned for his increasingly politicized messages of his films, was accused of "anti-American activities" as a suspected communist supporter, and even not allowed to re-enter US in 1952, he is perceived by many Europeans as the American film icon probably due to his acting career in the US and the charm and brilliance of his films which made people forget his convictions.

In the ‘60s Chaplin’s American fortunes turned. His movies were shown during a festival of his films in New York in 1963. He also received a special Oscar from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1972 (cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Chaplin).

For extensive reading on Charlie Chaplin, please go to Charlie Chaplin Charles Chaplin redirects here. ...

The Model-T Ford

Everyday Life and Culture

The Modernist Movement caused vast changes in societies in which it took place. With the introduction of industrial developments, the American people started to enjoy the outcome of the new modernist era. Everyday life and culture are the areas that reflected the social change in the habits of the society. Developments that occurred with modernism influenced American people life standards and gave way to new style of living.

Widespread use of electricity and mass production of technological house appliances like refrigerator brought about the change of eating habits of American people. Use of frozen food became more common. After the war the USA government passed new laws concerning food. So some new foods came right out of the ration kits to the stores. "Foods formerly manufactured solely for army use were put on the civilian market," Frozen and dried food products also became popular after the war. National Research Corporation of Boston introduced frozen orange juice concentrate called “tang.” The company became Minute Maid, and, by 1950, a quarter of Florida's orange crop was going into concentrates. The frozen product quickly overtook fresh squeezed orange juice in most American homes.

Full frozen meals were not far behind. In the 1950s, a Nebraska company Swanson's brought out their TV Dinners to great success.

These changes in eating habits caused huge changes in appliances, transportation and farming. Since people bagan buying the new products, new refrigerators were quickly developed with bigger freezer sections Shock resistant refrigerator units for truckshad to be invented and used by the military before frozen products could distributed and marketed around the country and around the world. These developments forced farmers to change what they grew and how they grew their products to meet new consumer demands.

In the following are there a few of the foods that were first produced and sold in the 1940s.
• Mrs. Paul's frozen fish sticks
• Cheerios (first sold as Cheeri Oats, the first read-to-eat oat cereal) and Kellogg's Raisin Bran
• Minute Rice
• Reddi-Whip whipped cream
• Nestles Quick powdered drink mix
• Packaged cake mixes
• M&Ms Chocolate Candies, Peppermint Patty, Junior Mints, Almond Joy, Whoppers malted milk balls, Jolly Rancher Candies
• Deep Dish Pizza (Pizzeria Uno, Chicago)

With the increasing number of automobiles, American people started to get out of their homes and had dinner outside. However, during the war people drove their cars as little as possible. Gas and tires were limited by the government. Car production ceased as factories had to manufacture tanks, Jeeps and other military vehicles. After the war families piled into cars again, as a consequence, new highways were built. The number of drive-ins increased immediately. Drive-ins became part of the social life in America by the end of 1940.

Modernism showed its effects nearly in all areas. One of the immense developments was to supply the rural areas with the electricity. The REA, Rural Electrification Administration, began in the 1930s, however, it took time to build power lines scores of miles into rural areas. Throughout the 1940s, the REA continued to build the electricity lines.

Electricity changed the lives of farm families, from the moment they got up early in the morning, through meals, chores, and work until they went to bed at night. Electricity brought power for lights to work, read, and sew at night; power for appliances like refrigerators and freezers to preserve food; power for small kitchen devices such as mixers and blenders; and power for other labor saving devices such as electric stoves, irons and clothes washers. Electricity brought changes that just made life safer and better – like colored lights instead of dangerous candles on Christmas trees, refrigerators to keep food fresh and electric fans to bring relief on a hot summer day.

• In 1930, only 13 percent of farms had electricity.
• By the early 1940s, only 33 percent of farms had electricity.
• Locally in York, Nebraska, the Perennial Public Power District had strung nearly 250 miles of electric line to more than 500 customers by September 1945.
• By 1950 nearly all of Nebraska farms were "hooked up," and electricity replaced kerosene lanterns in homes and barns.

There were some crucial steps taken in the communication and media devices like the invention of radio and television.

Radio was the nation's first mass medium, linking the country and ending the isolation of rural residents. Radio was so important that the 1930 Census asked if the household had a radio. Radio provided free entertainment (after you bought the radio) and connected country people to world events. Walter Winchell and Lowell Thomas were popular news commentators on the radio.

• Families laughed at comedians Jack Benny, Fred Allen, George Burns and Gracie Allen, Amos and Andy, and Fibber McGee and Molly.
• Radio featured daytime soap operas.
• In the evening, people listened to the Lone Ranger, the Green Hornet, The Shadow, and Jack Armstrong.
• Singers Bing Crosby and the Mills Brothers, as well as Guy Lombardo's orchestra and the Grand Ole Opry were popular.
• Families listened to baseball, cheering for stars like Lou Gehrig and Joe DiMaggio. Nearly 40 million people listened to the horserace between Seabiscuit and War Admiral in Maryland.
• In news coverage, the German airship Hindenburg caught fire in 1937 as it landed in New Jersey. Thousands of people across the country heard Herb Morrison describe the terrifying scene on live radio, saying "Oh the humanity!"

The first practical TV sets were demonstrated and sold to the public at the 1939 World's Fair in New York. The sets were very expensive and New York City had the only broadcast station.

When World War II started, all commercial production of television equipment was banned. Production of the cathode ray tubes that produced the pictures was redirected to radar and other high tech war uses.

After the war television was something few had heard of. That changed quickly. In 1945, a poll asked Americans, "Do you know what television is?" Most didn't. But four years later, most Americans had heard of television and wanted one! According to one survey in 1950, before they got a TV, people listened to radio an average of nearly five hours a day. Within nine months after they bought a TV they listened to radio, but only for two hours a day. They watched TV for five hours a day.

The 1940s TVs didn't look like today's televisions. Most had picture screens between 10 and 15 inches wide diagonally, inside large, heavy cabinets. And, of course, color broadcasts and sets didn't arrive until much later, in 1954.

Fashion

For a further, more formal account, please see Fashion
Referring to fashion, usually one would think of dressing styles or costumes. Of course, dressing style is a very important category of the word “fashion”. On the other hand, “fashion” has more meanings and could be explained and found in many other fields, such as architecture, body type, dance and music, and even forms of speech, etc.

1.Costumes
In the early 1920s, the ready-to-wear fashion began to spread America. More women earned their own wages and didn’t want to spend time on fittings. Fashion as the status symbol was no more important as class distinctions were becoming blurred. People especially women called for inexpensive fashion. In the aspect of mass production of contemporary style clothing for women, America went ahead of other countries. Several designers of this fashion including Jane Derby made a stage pose.

Women: by 1921 the longer skirt, which was usually long and uneven at the bottom was out of date. The short skirt became popular by 1925. No bosom, no waistline, and hair nearly hidden under a cloche hat. The manufacturing of cosmetics also began from this decade. Powder, lipstick, rouge, eyebrow pencil, eye shadow, colored nails, women had them all. Moreover, pearls came in fashion as well.

Men: in this period, the clothing for men was a bit more conservative. Trousers widened to 24 inches at the bottoms. Knickers, increased the width and length, were called “plus fours”. During the summer white linen was popular, while in the winter an outstanding American coat---- the raccoon coat was in fashion. The slouch hat, made of felt, could be rolled up and packed into a suitcase. These were very popular with the college men.

2.Furniture
There’s no pure American modern style in the designing world. The American modern artists inherited the style characterized by simplicity of form, absence of decorative ornament, and focused on functional concerns from their precedents. At the same time, the American designers blended the wild style of Parisian painting, as well as the features of modern architecture in their works, such as Art Deco. Moreover, the designers also placed much emphasis on the materials, especially those invented in the modern age.

American Drama

American Modernist Literature

Modernist literature in America dealt with such topics as racial relationships, gender roles and sexuality, to name just a few. It reached its peak in America in the 1920s up to the 1940s. Among the representative writers of the period we may find Ezra Pound, Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner, although one should mention also Walt Whitman, sometimes regarded as a pioneer of the Modernist Era in America. Ezra Pound in 1913. ... Scott Fitzgerald may refer to: F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896â€“1940), American author Scott P. Fitzgerald (born 1979), professional football player Scott L. Fitzgerald (born 1963), member of the Wisconsin State Senate Scott Fitzgerald (football), former Wimbledon defender, currently caretaker manager of Brentford F.C. Category: ... Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 â€“ July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. ... William Cuthbert Faulkner (September 25, 1897 â€“ July 6, 1962) was an American novelist and poet whose works feature his native state of Mississippi. ... Walt Whitman Walter Whitman (May 31, 1819 - March 26, 1892) was an American Romantic [] poet, essayist, journalist, and humanist. ...

Black writers need to be mentioned when talking about Modernism in America, as they seem to have brought a breakthrough in literature and mentality, as far as the self-esteem of Afro-Americans is concerned. The folk-oriented poetry of Sterling Brown and Langston Hughes, for example, written in a rhythm fit to be either sung or told as a story, melancholically describes the joyful attitude of Afro-Americans towards life, in spite of all the hardships they were confronted with. Sterlin Allen Brown was an influential African-American teacher, literary critic, and poet whose poetry was rooted in folklore sources and black dialect. ... Langston Hughes (February 1, 1902 â€“ May 22, 1967) was an American poet, novelist, playwright, short story writer, and newspaper columnist. ...

Racial relations between blacks and whites, the gap between what was expected of each of the two and what the actual facts were, or, better said, prejudice in the society of the time are themes dealt with in most of the Modernist American literature, whether we speak about prose (Jean Toomer, Zora Neal Hurston, William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway), or about drama Eugene O'Neil. Jean Toomer (December 26, 1894â€“March 30, 1967) was a poet, novelist and an important figure of the Harlem Renaissance. ... Zora Neale Hurston (January 7, 1891 - January 28, 1960) was an African-American folklorist and author. ... William Cuthbert Faulkner (September 25, 1897 â€“ July 6, 1962) was an American novelist and poet whose works feature his native state of Mississippi. ... Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 â€“ July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. ... Eugene Gladstone ONeill (October 16, 1888 â€“ November 27, 1953) was a Nobel and Pulitzer Prize-winning American playwright. ...

From late 1930s to the 1960s, New Criticism became the most powerful critical perspective in American literary criticism. The representatives were John Crowe Ransom, Allen Tate, Cleanth Brooks, Robert Penn Warren, and W. K. Wimsatt, F. R. Leavis, Kenneth Burke, René Wellek, Yvor Winters, and R. P. Blackmur. The criticism of T. S. Eliot was very important. Eliot made great effort on criticism. He led modernist writers to present traditional forms of literary criticism with a problem in modernist literature. In Eliot’s essay “Tradition and the Individual Talent”, he redefined tradition. His formulation of critical concepts such as the “objective correlative”, and the reconsideration of the literary canon , had a fundamental influence on the New Criticism.

The term “New Criticism” came from John Crowe Ransom’s book “The New Criticism(1941)”.It was quite different from Richards’ work. It focused on the words in the texts rather than psychology. The New Criticism changed the focus from psychology to the poem as a structure of words. It had an independent existence. The New Critics have been called formalists. However, their formalism was quite different from the Russian Formalists. After New Criticism, we got five points of the theories: Politics is pervasive. Language is constructive. Truth is provisional. Meaning is contingent. Human nature is a myth. The New Criticism made us become a self-conscious critic, and know more about literature. It led us to understand and historicize our own perspective, as well as other’s perspectives. After that, Theory becomes an independent school of study.

The United States of America played a great role in the Modernism movement concerning new advanced building and construction technologies. Among construction innovations there are such materials as iron, steel and reinforced concrete. Brooklyn Bridge by John and Washington Roebling (1869-1883) for more details see John Roebling/Washington Roebling Louis Henry Sullivan headed the so-called Chicago school of architecture, which was distinct by its developement of functional design along with modern materials. sullivan's follower Frank Loyd Wright absorbed from his 'lieber Master' (dear master) the German Romantic tradition of organic architecture. He developed a new and original approach to residential design before World War I, which became known as the “Prairie Style.” It combined open planning principles with horizontal emphasis, asymmetrical facade elevations, and broad, sheltering roofs. Robie House (1909) and Guggenheim Museum in New York City (1946–59)are one of his main works. In his works Wright moved closer and closer to an earth-bound sense of natural form, using rough-hewn stone and timber and aiming always in his houses to achieve an effect of intimate and protective shelter. For more details go to Frank Loyd Wright. Foreign-born architects as Richard Neutra, Rudolph Schindler, and William Lescaze during the 1920s played a great role in developement of American architecture performing later a style, which got the name of International style and was reflected in the design of corporate office buildings after World War II. Such buildings as Skidmore, Owings and Merrill's Lever House (1952) and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's Seagram Building (1956–58)in New York City are the examples of this new style. When such famous Europeans as Walter Gropius and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe immigrated to the United States, many American architectural schools went under the influence of the traditions of the Bauhaus in Germany.

Architecture and Space

References

Jazz References

1. Miller, John. Blues and Jazz in American Culture. Bielefeld University, Bielefeld (Germany). 2 February 2007.
2.Salamon, Frank A. "Expatriate Jazz Musicians in Europe." Ed. William Boelhower, et al. Sites of Ethnicity: Europe and the Americas. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter GmbH, 2004. 258.
3. Huggins, Nathan Irvin. Harlem Renaissance. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971. 229.
4. Levine, Lawrence W. "Jazz and American Culture." Ed. Robert O'Meally. The Jazz Cadence of American Culture. New York: Columbia University Press, 1998.
5. Levine,
6. Levine,
7. Levine
8. New York Times, Say Jazz Will Live
9. Huggins 60.
10. New York Times
11. Kouwenhoven, John A. "What's 'American' About America." Ed. Robert O'Meally. The Jazz Cadence of American Culture. New York: Columbia University Press, 1998. 128.
12.Kouwenhoven 128.
13.
14. Levine
15. Levine
16. Levine
17. NYT
18. Salamon 256
19. Kouwenhoven 127-130
20.Huggins 291
21. Huggins 223

Contents

American Identity Politics

Feminism, Gender, and Sexuality

Development of Feminism

Gender and Sexuality

Jazz

Jazz – Music of Integration

Jazz as American

Jazz as Modern

Visual Arts

Early Modernist Painting

Modernist Painting

Modernist Photography

American Icons in the European Mind

Definition of "American Icon"

New York City

Charlie Chaplin

The Model-T Ford

Everyday Life and Culture

Fashion

American Drama

American Modernist Literature

Architecture and Space

References

Jazz References

Further reading

External links

See also

Contents

American Identity Politics GA_googleFillSlot("encyclopedia_square");

Feminism, Gender, and Sexuality

Development of Feminism

Gender and Sexuality

Jazz

Jazz – Music of Integration

Jazz as American

Jazz as Modern

Visual Arts

Early Modernist Painting

Modernist Painting

Modernist Photography

American Icons in the European Mind

Definition of "American Icon"

New York City

Charlie Chaplin

The Model-T Ford

Everyday Life and Culture

Fashion

American Drama

American Modernist Literature

Architecture and Space

References

Jazz References

Further reading

External links

See also

American Identity Politics