Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Artistic and cultural developments in america in the 1920s
Artistic and cultural developments in america in the 1920s
Artistic and cultural developments in america in the 1920s
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
People of Chilmark, by Thomas Hart Benton, is a post- WWI visual art piece depicting both the chaos and unity in the fictional town of Chilmark. In many ways, Benton’s work describes more than an eery scene, mirroring the revitalization of the United States during the Roaring 1920s. As a member of the lost generation, Benton’s work takes on an existential motif, but ultimately an optimistic tone that conveys a message of unity as America moves itself forward. Benton was born April 15th, 1889, to an affluent family in Missouri. His father, having already served in Congress, maintained that patriotism compelled the United States forward. In 1906, he went to school at the Art Institute of Chicago, where he became part of the cosmopolitan movement of the early twentieth century, drawing inspiration form artists such as Picasso and Klee. What distinguished Benton, however, from the elitism that embodied these early movements was his reluctance to abandoned rural America. In 1924, he began traveling the Southwest corners of America, sketching people and rural landscapes. If Benton’s father …show more content…
The people, though each distinct in their own clothes, come together to combat the coming storm; symbolically, in the sense that the piece is a testament to the productivity of Americans when they work together, and literally, in the sense that their physical molds form a sort of canvas, with the opposing color schemes and drawn-out muscles adding a frustrated tone to the painting. Benton’s statement becomes evident; to work together may not sound appealing, but ultimately it is necessary. Benton’s own opinion on art reflects this belief. “…[P]rivatism in modernism, its grounding of exaggerated individualism… sets up a people’s art ”(Blake 170). People of Chilmark may be one of Benton’s most radical rallying cries, but it’s effect was far from his initial
Additionally, the painting shows that these colonists are literally building their society. For example, in the background, there are two buildings under construction and there is a man delivering bricks to the workers. This shows that these colonists are willing to work hard to build their community. This also shows that they are willing to go far away to get bricks. In conclusion the
Tompkins, Jane. Sensational Designs: The Cultural Work of American Fiction 1790- 1860. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985.
...to Americans: if their prospects in the East were poor, then they could perhaps start over in the West as a farmer, rancher, or even miner. The frontier was also romanticized not only for its various opportunities but also for its greatly diverse landscape, seen in the work of different art schools, like the “Rocky Mountain School” and Hudson River School, and the literature of the Transcendentalists or those celebrating the cowboy. However, for all of this economic possibility and artistic growth, there was political turmoil that arose with the question of slavery in the West as seen with the Compromise of 1850 and Kansas-Nebraska Act. As Frederick Jackson Turner wrote in his paper “The Significance of the Frontier in American History” to the American Historical Association, “the frontier has gone, and with its going has closed the first period of American history.”
Eder, Richard. "Pain on the Face of Middle America." Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Daniel G. Marowski. Detroit: Gale Research Publishing, Inc., 1986. 103.
Tate, Allen. “A Southern Mode of the Imagination.” In Essays of Four Decades. Chicago: Swallow Press, 1968; (Third Edition) Wilmington, De: ISI Press, 1999.
..., 1820-1865. Columbia Studies in American Culture Series (New York: Columbia University Press, 1942): 13-14.
... after nine at night, but in those days [we] ... did not think of our day in terms of hours. We liked our work, we were proud to do it well, and I am afraid that we were very, very happy.” The 1930s were a time of struggle and sadness. However, American citizens continued to work and search for the happiness they once knew. Although the Great Depression stretched through the 1930s, putting a damper on the economy and liveliness of the nation, the decade cannot be solely defined by it. Art and photos illustrate the decade’s sentiments, while acts of society and architecture reveal much more regarding a common citizen's lifestyle. A tragic photo, a vast-spread psychological struggle, and a famous building, are all examples of artifacts taken from the 1930s that have changed, they way we perceive our country, the American way of living, and America’s skyline forever.
Sutton, Bettye. "1930-1939." American Cultural History. Lone Star College-Kingwood Library, 1999. Web. 7 Feb. 2011.
Grant Wood’s American Gothic is one of the most famous paintings in the history of American art. The painting brought Wood almost instant fame after being exhibited for the first time at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1930. It is probably the most reproduced and parodied works of art, and has become a staple within American pop-culture. The portrait of what appears to be a couple, standing solemnly in front of their mid-western home seems to be a simplistic representation of rural America. As simple as it sounds, when looking deeper into this image, it reveals something much more complex.
The growth of art in Canada has played a pivotal role in the development of Canadian culture. An individuals ability to connect themselves to their country has increasely been linked to artistic works and their representation of national ideals. Earlier pieces such as After the Rain by Homer Watson represent an artistic sense of agrarian society, which later shifted to an increasely modern perspective through the work of the Group of Seven. Group member Arthur Lismer’s, A September Gale, reflects represents a dramatic departure away from earlier styles of panting and its representative ideals feed into a similar vision the North portrays for Canada.
Bradley, Becky. “1950-1959.” American Cultural History. Lone Star College- Kingwood Library, 1998. Web. 30 Sept. 2013.
Kallen, Stuart . A Cultural History of the United States through the Decades: The 1950's . San Diego, CA: Lucent books, Inc. , 1999. Print.
As can be seen throughout history, art is a powerful expressive model that has the capacity to instruct and construct social change within a community. The art born out of the Chicano Movement of the 1960’s is a perfect example of this phenomenon. In response to the struggle for civil rights for Mexican-Americans immigrants, Chicanos and Chicanas created an art aesthetic that embodied the activist spirit of the movement. As Alicia Gaspar de Alba once stated, “the Chicano art movement functioned as the aesthetic representation of the political, historical, cultural and linguistic issues that constituted the agenda of the Chicano civil rights movement.” By taking an activist approach to challenge the stereotypes, economic inequality and xenophobic shortcomings of the dominant mainstream and by promoting awareness of history, culture and community the visual art of the Chicano Movement served as a political tool to enact social change for Mexican-American Immigrants of all generations.
Schreier, Benjamin. "Twentieth Century Literature." Desire's Second Act: "Race" and "The Great Gatsb'ys": Cynical Americanism 53.2 (2007): 153-181. JSTOR. Web. 16 Apr 2014.
Belasco, Susan, and Linck Johnson, eds. The Bedford Anthology of American Literature. Vol. 1, 2nd Ed., Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2014. 1190-1203. Print.