Modernity and Reaction in European Art 1890-1945

Interesting day of lectures from London Art History Society held at Friend’s House on the reaction against Modernist art by the dictators of the inter war years.

Richard Humphreys organised the talks by country starting with an overview of what was happening at the centre of the avant-garde in Paris. We tend to concentrate on the major modern movements which started there like Cubism and Surrealism but Humprey’s looked at the reaction against these movements often led by the right wing and nationalism.

He then used this discussion of the reaction to lead to talks on Italy and Mussolini, Russia and Stalin and Germany and Hitler where similar themes and subjects emerged such as the role of technology and how it represented in art, the desire to memorialise and use the history of the countries and the propaganda use of art.

Because of the similar themes the country talks became a bit repetitive so I wonder if it might have been better to arrange it by theme, flagging what was happening in each area, but then we might have missed the history of each movement but I suspect most of the audience knew that bit.

I would also have liked a bit more about Modernism and the avant-garde in each country but I think that had been covered by previous courses which I hadn’t done. I’m still looking for a good course on the Bauhaus which is a bit of a mystery to me. This day looked more at the reaction in the title.

 

 

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