Art Between World Wars

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Art, Between World Wars

I thought it would be difficult, when asked to write a paper on the period of art that most interested me between the five most recent eras. Surprisingly enough, the choice was not a hard one at all. Art between the two world wars could be looked at is a huge collage of styles and techniques all molding together in a time when the world was falling apart. I couldn't help but be confused and amazed during the chapter as so many movements were lined out. In my own words I would describe it as a period of transformation, from the old world to the new. Transitions are not easy for anyone and it's no different for cultures or the artists spawning from them.

When describing art between the two world wars, one can't put a single title on the era. It was a time that consisted of so many different movements and styles. Dada, Surrealism, Constructivism, De Stijl, Bauhaus, German expressionism, and Cubism are all styles and movements that existed between 1918 and 1939. Those are the years from the end of the First World War to the beginning of the second. However, it's impossible to confine the movements in art to those set years. Cubism, parent to many of the other movements in between the wars, got its start before the start of the first war and didn't really play out until after the battlegrounds had cleared. So realistically I would have to classify this period as starting with cubism but taking flight and historical form in the gap between wars.

One of the things that separate the period in art that took place between the two world wars and the rest of the modern eras is its questions of the world in which it was constructed. I guess what I am trying to say; Art of this time period didn't just conform to what society deemed “rational behavior”. In fact, leaders of the Dada movement felt it pointless to try to find order and meaning in a world in where such behavior had produced only chaos and destruction. Machinery of the new modern age was shown in work along side human representations. Many people in the world had an ill taste of new technologies because they are what helped further the destruction of the First World War. However, the most important aspect separating this period from all the others would have to be the desire to use art as a media to communicate more easily, directly, and fluently to the public about social issues and causes.

Although most basic elements, a lot spawning from Cubism, are alike; Characteristics specific to art produced between the wars can be given differently with almost each movement compressed within the time period. To name a few, De Stijl in Holland advocated the use of basic forms, particularly rectangles, horizontals, and verticals. Piet Mondrain, leader of De Stijl, reduced painting to four elements, consisting of line, shape, color, and space. Russia had constructivism, a form of art that focused on developing a new visual language for the new industrial age. Vladimir Tatlin's Model for monument to the third international, almost defines constructivism. Parts of its structure resembled humanity and evolution while the monument as a whole was to reflect the dynamism and progress of communism as a social experiment. In Surrealism, my favorite of the movements, infinite space or things of that nature were used often to help make visible imagery of unconscious. It's also very interesting that the psychological studies and findings of Sigmund Freud, new at the time, were used as a reference in validity of meaning. The Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dali is an example of surrealism. Time is shown to be wilting away in infinite space showing the eerie quality of dreams. Another example of surrealism characteristics being applied to great works of art would be Frida Kahlo's The two Fridas. In this particular work she shows herself as a divided being, torn between her Mexican and European heritage. Both depictions gaze back at the observer as do the hearts of both women, showing that the two worlds are painfully connected.

To continue on a discussion of Frida Kahlo after having given a picturesque example of surrealism using her work would only seem fitting. Frida, a part Mexican, Spanish, and Indian, was born in Mexico City. Many tragedies plagued her life from early on, such as being struck with polio at the age of six. The disease left her with one leg uneven in length and width than the other. At the age of eight she was in a trolley car accident resulting in over thirty orthopedic treatments in her lifetime. Her infamous severely damaged body became a preoccupation of the artist's work, ironically also resulting in some of her best and most famous pieces. Her work was not just surrealism though; it also in compassed a lot of Mexican folk style. In the past decade her work has become more appreciated by the masses outside of the art elite, due to book and movies depicting her. However, in her lifetime she was in the shadow of her famous husband, Diego Rivera.

Diego Rivera was the most celebrated muralist of the last century and I would dare to say of this one too. Like Frida, Diego was born in Mexico City where he grew up. At the age of twelve Rivera attended one of the most prestigious Mexican art schools aiding him to eventually be granted a scholarship in Europe by the age of twenty. He was called on by the new Mexican government at the end of their revolution as part of a public works program. He was to beautify public building with murals that would also serve as educational tools helping the Mexican people learn of their heritage. He later declared that the new world should create artistic independence from Europe. He did this by finding healthy roots for artistic growth from works spawning from cultures such as the Maya and Aztec.

I find the era in art that developed between world wars interesting because it depicts a change in the world. A time when new technologies and mass production set a new course of civilization apart from any the world had ever known, and yet, in art the times were depicted and available to the masses to understand. It was ok to question what existed, and even if it was not, movements did so. All art is beautiful, if not to you then to someone else. That being said, the art of this time period and the truth it entails is my direct depiction of beauty.

Art, Between World Wars