Introduction
The artists living in the rapid modernizing world of the first half of 20th century wanted not the depict modern everyday life, rather to reveal the emotional and psychological effects of the people’s life. Such artists like Henri Matisse and Paul Cezanne continued painting quite traditional topics, portraits, and life (Fall et al, 2002, p 123). Throughout the modern Art that took place in the first half of the 20th century, there were several themes were evident. These themes included the use of primitivism in various art movement, the exploration of Freud’s psychoanalytic theories, the changing role of art and the influence of mass culture and lastly the new form of realism in response to political and social events occurring in the early 20th century. Below is a detailed examination of the four themes as expressed in the first half of 20th century
- The use of primitivism in various art movement
The above artwork is an example of Primitivism kind of artwork. It was designed by Jacob Epstein in the year 1938 (Flam et al, 2003, p 321). It is a representation of Adam, Harewood House.
Primitive Art refers to the cultural artifacts of the “primitive” people. These represent those ethnic groups that are deemed to have relatively low levels of technological development by the Western standards (Fricke et al, 2000, p 321). This style of painting is self-taught, and the paintings are usually simplistic in their form and color, as they lacked conventional motifs such as chiaroscuro, linear perspective and some of other types of the proportionality.
This included the African Art of the Sub-Saharan, the Oceanic Art of the Pacific islands, the Aboriginal Art of the Australia among the other types of Rock Art that trace their origin from prehistory and also the Tribal Art from the Americas and the South-East Asia. This notion of primitivism dates back from the Age of Discovery and is largely associated with a Christian- Caucasian world point of view.
- Exploration of Freud’s psychoanalytic theories;
The above artwork represents a Sphinx statuette that was owned by Sigmund Freud. It was designed by artist Mona Hatoum. It was designed in the year 1912. It is on the display at the science Museum’s psychoanalysis exhibition
This artwork was woven from the human hair and the eerie that is enough to trouble anyone’s unconscious mind. This is among the contemporary and ancient artworks that were first displayed in the first exhibition that was devoted to psychoanalysis that was held at the science Museum in London.
Among the exhibition, it included the contemporary installations by the artists such as Grayson Perry. His Ceramics dealt with dark subjects that were under the seductively beautiful glaze. Among them, there was Webster and Noble whose art dealt with the shadows, cast by the banal objects to create some of the startlingly different images.
The Ancient Egyptian, Roman, and Greek statuettes and the images are on a loan from Freud Museum London. Sigmund Freud, who is regarded as the father of psychoanalysis, owned these objects. He was also intensely interested in the archeology thus keeping a small museum’s worth on one of his desk in a consulting room that was owned by him.
One piece of painting was a fragment of the Roman wall that represented Leda-the nymph who was seduced by Zeus in form of the swan. It also represented a Greek image of the sphinx, who revealed his fate being to marry his own mother to Oedipus, thus giving his name forever to the famous complex in the psychoanalysis.
- The changing role of art and the influence of mass culture
This marked the change in the representation of art. At this time, art was used to represent a commodity, as a link to commodity culture or as mass production of the art productions.
The above painting was done by Roy Lichtenstein, which was done in the year 1944.
This mode of art was developed in Europe and USA, during the early 20th century (Fall, 2002, p 132). It was marked by significant production of the interface with the industrially produced mass culture, some advertisements, and folk of some popular art.
The Pop Art is the art that returned to the material realities of each and everyday life, to the popular culture. This form of art was mainly derived from the most of the visual pleasures of the people. This included television, comic, and magazines. Some of the styles that came up included Gothic style, Art Nouveau, the Baroque style, and the Cubism.
Gothic style is a Medieval Art movement that originated in medieval Europe that began in 1140 until 1500s. This form of art was later fully developed in German, by Georgio Vasari, who came from the tribe of Goths (Terraroli et al, 2007, p 213). This was a prototype of an inferior and a barbarian culture. The Gothic art was characterized by the weight of its forms, the ascending lines tendency, the kind of balancing in the stability, the weight, its narrowness, the pointed arches, the buttress, the pilgrims, the flying buttress, the ribbed vaulting, the towers which were usually on the West end and lastly the stained glass windows.
The mass culture can be defined from the aspect of modernism, and is always regarded as a negative term. In a more positive perspective, it can be seen as a culture that belongs to the masses and not to the elite (Hills et al, 2000, p 212). This art is made up of people who are at all the educational and economic levels and not with respect to their church, the king, the intellectuals, or the kind of aristocracy.
Mass culture can be viewed as a global term by definition. At the same time, it can be explained as the primary mechanism through which “rarity” or the “otherness” from the periphery of developed world becomes newly available for the cultural appropriation through “primitively”, globalization, and commodification.
- A new form of realism in response to political and social events occurring in the early 20th century
The social realism is a form of naturalistic realism that is focusing specifically on the social issues and the hardship that is experienced in everyday life. Term is usually used to refer to the urban American scene artists of the great Depression era. These artists were influenced by the Ashcan school of the early 20th century in the New York. The Social Realism is somewhat of the pejorative label in United States (Flam et al, 2003, p 231). The overtly political art and socialist politics were extremely out of favor. Some of the American known Social Realists includes Jack Levina, Ben Shalin and Jacob Lawrence.
The above painting was done by Alexander Gerasimov representing the Lenin on the tribune. It was painted in 1920s.
The aim of this painting is to create the art that was a revolutionary in the form and socialist in its content. During this time, only those paintings which reflected Germanic traditions were considered and acceptable, as well as some of the examples of classical and the Romantic revival. These were some of the artistic genre that was considered suitable by the authorities for promoting the nationalistic ideological integration.
Impact of these themes on the art of the latter half of the 20th century and into the 21st.
The themes that were expressed in the first half of the 20th century had an impact of the kind of art that followed in the latter half of the 20th century and that of 21sr century. The first impact is that it leads to an improvement in the kind of art that emerged after those of the early 20th century. The followed arts of the late 20th century and those of the early 21st century got an improvement.
Another impact which was caused by the themes which were being suggested from the arts of 20th century is that there was disagreement among different groups of people. This was experienced more so on those groups which were considered primitive and those that considered themselves as the elites. It brought about division and slavery between the primitive group and the elite group.
Works cited
Fall, N'Goné, and Jean L. Pivin. An Anthology of African Art: The Twentieth Century. New York: D.A.P./Distributed Art Publishers, 2002. Print.
Flam, Jack D, Miriam Deutch, and Carl Einstein. Primitivism and Twentieth-Century Art: A Documentary History. Berkeley, Calif: University of California Press, 2003. Print.
Fricke, Christiane, Ingo F. Walther, Klaus Honnef, Karl Ruhrberg, Manfred Schneckenburger, and Christiane Fricke. Art of the 20th Century, Volume 1: [painting, Sculpture, New Media, Photography]. Koln: Taschen, 2000. Print.
Hills, Patricia. Modern Art in the Usa: Issues and Controversies of the 20th Century. Upper Saddle River, N.J: Prentice Hall, 2000. Print.
Terraroli, Valerio. 1946-4968: The Birth of Contemporary Art. Milan: Skira, 2007. Print.
