Max Ernst : Fiat Modes Pereat Art = Let There Be Fashion, Down with Art

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Max Ernst : Fiat Modes Pereat Art = Let There Be Fashion, Down with Art Max Ernst : Fiat modes pereat art = Let there be fashion, down with art Author Ernst, Max, 1891-1976 Date 1997 Publisher The Museum of Modern Art, Department of Prints and Illustrated Books Exhibition URL www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/248 The Museum of Modern Art's exhibition history— from our founding in 1929 to the present—is available online. It includes exhibition catalogues, primary documents, installation views, and an index of participating artists. MoMA © 2017 The Museum of Modern Art Max Ernst fiat modespereat HPS (Let there be fashion, down with art) Three from a portfolio of eight lithographs ences of Giorgio de Chirico, Carlo Carra, and Francis Cologne:Verlag ABK and SchlomilchVerlag, 1919-20 Picabia, artists whom Ernst had recently discovered Each 17Vs x 12" (43.7 x 31.9 cm) through reproductionsof their work in the Italian peri Printer: the artist odical Valori Plastici. Edition: Oneof only a few known sets.An edition of 60 The emergence and increasing popularity of the sets was initially announced,the majority destroyedby portfolio format in the late nineteenthand early twen the artist. tieth centuries stemmed,in part, from the flexibility it The Museumof ModernArt, New York allowed artists to expand upon a particular theme by Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Fund meansof seriality. In Fiat Modes,made in homageto de Chirico, Ernst consciouslysubverts this customary Max Ernst's Fiat Modes,considered a masterpieceof function by continuously frustrating the viewer's printed art, introducesthe viewer to Ernst's large body inclination to understandthe series of imagesas a log of prints and illustrated books,an integral component ical narrative progression.Instead, he creates a sym of his overall work. Indeed, not only does this first bolic evocation of the collapse of instrumental reason printed project by Ernst providea summaryof the prin and of disbelief in the idea of causality,notions he for ciples of the elusive art and literary movementknown mulated in responseto his military service in World as Dada, which flourished in cities throughout Western Europeand in New York from 1915 to 1923, but it also serves as a prototype for the thematic and compositional motifs of his more well-known Surrealist paintings and col lages of the 1920s. Whereas the allusions to shop windows and fashion were possibly inspired by the works of Ernst's Rheinlandartistic col league August Macke, the imagery of mannequinsplaced within disturbing disjunctive spaceswith unexplainedshad ows also indicates the influ- Platel Plate 2 War I, having witnessed the cal logic and the systemsof mea war's destructive employment surement, Ernst places in the of technology.Ernst's unconven lower right-hand corner a com tional use of the portfolio falls pass that has drawn its own well within the Dada move shadow,and in the upperright he ment's art-making objective to addsa nonsensicalmathematical shock the viewer out of his or formula. The prints that follow her everyday mind-set and to continueto turn upsidedown the instigate a questioning of one's principles of pictorial perspec conditioned responseto reality. tive invented by Renaissance Ernst creates Fiat Modes artists and instead reveal an entirely through precise line valvTc/rMam irrational spatial environment drawing, unaccompanied by filled with dismemberedfigures, text. Its mechanisticstyle regis pulleys,gears, and other mech ters the avant-garderejection of anisms. By the final plate, the both human touch and crafts tailor/artist as well as the manship,characteristics gener puppet-like forms have disap ally understoodas prerequisites peared,replaced with whimsical of art. The first plate establishes imagery consisting of a small Plate 8 the artist as creator in the guise anthropomorphicweight at the of a tailor in the process of unraveling a spool of lower center whose attached cord leads to a circular thread (or, alternatively, drawing lines) before a scalethat measuresthe value of "1 Mark" versusDada. dummy. The inscriptions "Pereat ars fiat modes" Below are various inscriptions including "Dada NoBis (Down with art, let there be fashion) to the left of the vaLuTamTam,"aword punon the phrasefrom the Lord's tailor, and "homo elegans tissi mus" (most elegant prayer "...and give us our daily bread."Fiat Modescre man or mouse)inscribed across his legs,are written in atesa hall of mirrors,an illogical reality akin to a dream reverseto suggestthat we are standingbehind a trans sequencein which Ernst wryly commentsupon what he parent glass,possibly a shopwindow. believesto be a misguidedbelief in the infallibility of In the next print, Ernstcontinues with his visualpuns, humanprogress based upon instruments of reason. presentingus with an overlappingsequence of a head less dummy, which would become a major symbol in Robin Reisenfeld Ernst'swork, the robotic tailor, and a towering,faceless, AssociateCurator bowling-pin-shapedfigure with protruding thigh and This card is made possiblethrough the generosity of Mr. and Mrs. Bert Freidus. lower leg. In a gesturethat willfully negatesmathemati- Design© 1997The Museumof Modern Art, New York The Museum Producedin conjunctionwith the exhibition of Modern Art More Than One: Twentieth-CenturyPrint Portfolios Departmentof Prints May 16-September2,1997 and Illustrated Books.
Recommended publications
  • Redalyc.Giorgio Morandi and the “Return to Order”: from Pittura
    Anales del Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas ISSN: 0185-1276 [email protected] Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas México AGUIRRE, MARIANA Giorgio Morandi and the “Return to Order”: From Pittura Metafisica to Regionalism, 1917- 1928 Anales del Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas, vol. XXXV, núm. 102, 2013, pp. 93-124 Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas Distrito Federal, México Available in: http://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=36928274005 How to cite Complete issue Scientific Information System More information about this article Network of Scientific Journals from Latin America, the Caribbean, Spain and Portugal Journal's homepage in redalyc.org Non-profit academic project, developed under the open access initiative MARIANA AGUIRRE laboratorio sensorial, guadalajara Giorgio Morandi and the “Return to Order”: From Pittura Metafisica to Regionalism, 1917-1928 lthough the art of the Bolognese painter Giorgio Morandi has been showcased in several recent museum exhibitions, impor- tant portions of his trajectory have yet to be analyzed in depth.1 The factA that Morandi’s work has failed to elicit more responses from art historians is the result of the marginalization of modern Italian art from the history of mod- ernism given its reliance on tradition and closeness to Fascism. More impor- tantly, the artist himself favored a formalist interpretation since the late 1930s, which has all but precluded historical approaches to his work except for a few notable exceptions.2 The critic Cesare Brandi, who inaugurated the formalist discourse on Morandi, wrote in 1939 that “nothing is less abstract, less uproot- ed from the world, less indifferent to pain, less deaf to joy than this painting, which apparently retreats to the margins of life and interests itself, withdrawn, in dusty kitchen cupboards.”3 In order to further remove Morandi from the 1.
    [Show full text]
  • Giorgio De Chirico E Venezia: 1924-1936
    255 GIORGIO DE CHIRICO E VENEZIA: 1924-1936 Giorgia Chierici SOMMARIO: Parte I Giorgio de Chirico e la Biennale di Venezia 1) 1924: XIV Esposizione Internazionale d’Arte della Città di Venezia 2) 1927-1930: da «Comœdia» alla non partecipazione alla XVI Biennale 1928 e XVII Biennale 1930 3) 1932: XVIII Esposizione Biennale Internazionale d’Arte Parte II Giorgio de Chirico e le mostre organizzate all’estero dalla Biennale 4) 1933: New York e Vienna 5) 1935: Varsavia e Parigi 6) 1936: Budapest Tavola delle abbreviazioni: APICE: Archivi della Parola, dell’Immagine e della Comunicazione Editoriale, Milano Archivio della Fondazione: Archivio Fondazione Giorgio e Isa de Chirico, Roma ASAC: Archivio Storico delle Arti Contemporanee, Venezia CRDAV: Centro Ricerca e Documentazione Arti Visive, Roma Mart: Museo d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea Trento e Rovereto, Rovereto Nota alla lettura: In caso di errori di ortografa e battitura nei testi originali, si è preferito trascrivere fedelmente ogni documento. La maggior parte delle lettere e documenti sono trascritti solo in parte, ed è riportata la collocazione dove sono contenuti. Metafisica 2018 | n. 17/18 256 Giorgia Chierici Parte I – Giorgio de Chirico e la Biennale di Venezia 1) 1924: XIV Esposizione Internazionale d’Arte della Città di Venezia Nel 1924 Giorgio de Chirico partecipa per la prima volta alla Biennale di Venezia. In questo primo capitolo attraverso la lettura dei documenti si ricostruisce il rapporto dell’artista con la Manifesta- zione Internazionale d’Arte di Venezia: in particolare, de Chirico invia le due opere L’ottobrata e I duelli a morte, entrambe del 1924, dipinti a tempera grassa, parentesi pittorica che lascerà il posto al “ritorno all’olio” e a nuovi temi degli anni successivi.
    [Show full text]
  • Abject Art, 33 Abraham, Karl, 82, 83, 246 Adorno, Theodor W., 92, 181
    Index Page numbers in boldface indicate illustrations. Abject art, 33 Bachelor machines, 120, 151, 163, 173, 181, Abraham, Karl, 82, 83, 246 323, 334 Adorno, Theodor W., 92, 181 Baker, Josephine, 99 African art, 29, 31, 36, 159, 346n20 Ball, Hugo, 158, 166, 174, 176, 191, 286 Allen, Woody, 41 Balla, Giacomo, 132 Anthologie Dada, 158 Baroque art, 265–269 Apotropaic transformation, 260, 262, 263, Barthes, Roland, 238 268, 271, 272 Bataille, Georges, 4, 49, 204, 205, 238, Aragon, Louis, 209 242, 338 Arp, Hans, 158, 159, 186 Baudelaire, Charles, 12, 186 Art brut, 203–204 Bauhaus, 78, 110, 113, 114, 151, 199 Art Nouveau, 59, 81, 88–95, 98–99 Beehle, Hermann, 205, 206 Arts and crafts, 57, 58, 59, 60, 63, 65 Bellmer, Hans, 114, 181, 230–239, 231, Aurier, Albert, 44–45 234, 235, 237 Austro-Hungarian Empire, 56–57 Benjamin, Walter, 92–94, 99, 114, 168, 181, Authenticity, modernist critique of, 63–64, 185–186, 199, 202, 205 65, 67 Bergson, Henri-Louis, 134, 148 Berlin, 42, 223 Baargeld. See Grünwald, Alfred Bersani, Leo, 126 Baartman, Saartjie, 12 Bertelli, R. A., 128, 130 Index Biondo, Michael, 302 Castner, Louis, 157 Bleuler, Eugen, 194 Cellini, Benvenuto, 258 Bloch, Ernst, 94 Cézanne, Paul, 279 Boiffard, Jacques-André, 224, 225 Mont Sainte-Victoire Seen from Les Bois, Yve-Alain, 33 Lauves, 280 Bonn, University of, 156, 198, 209 Chagall, Marc, 158 Bosch, Hieronymus, 330 Charcot, Jean Martin, 194 Bourgeois aesthetics, 57, 65–70, 72, 75, Chasseguet-Smirgel, Janine, 87 92–94, 104 Chicago, 59 Bourke, John G., 84, 85 Children, art of, 193, 203 Brancusi,
    [Show full text]
  • 02Bodyetd.Pdf (193.2Kb)
    Chapter I: Introduction Throughout history, there have been sporadic pockets or concentrations of intense intellectual activity around the globe. From Athens to Vienna, cities have often been associated with the historical eras in which they excelled. For example, the 5th century BC dramatists in Greece such as Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides helped to make Athens a leader in artistic creation during its prime. Vienna, the European capital of the music world during the 18th century, was a center of artistic creativity that included composers such as Mozart and Haydn. During the 1920s, the Weimar Republic held the distinction of being the epicenter of human thought and art, with Berlin firmly at the heart of this activity. A few of the familiar names connected to this era in German history are Thomas Mann, Albert Einstein, Theodor Adorno, Wassily Kandinsky, Lyonel Feininger, Fritz Lang, and F.W. Murnau. In addition to these individuals, many artistic and intellectual schools such as German Expressionism, the Frankfurt School, the Bauhaus, and “Der Sturm” are associated with the Weimar Republic. Socially, the period represents an equally intense atmosphere. The Weimar Republic thrived on entertainment, clubs, and night-life in general. Berlin was at the forefront of urban entertainment in Germany, rivaling the other major cities of the Western world. The nightscape of Berlin was marked by lighted signs advertising small cabaret clubs and lavish musicals. However, the streets were also lined with disabled war veterans, prostitutes, and businessmen alike, reflecting an increase of prostitution, debauchery and crime of which all are in some way connected to the unbelievable inflation that permeated all layers of social, cultural and political life in Weimar Germany during the Republic’s first few years.
    [Show full text]
  • The New Figuration Between Classicism and Superrealism
    The New Figuration Between Classicism and Superrealism From the cultural crisis that took place after World War I there emerged new aesthetic proposals in Europe, ran- ging from Dadaist rejection of rationality to the antithetical return to order, clarity and simplicity predominant in the Italian and German scenes. In Spain, this translated into a new wave of figuration with classical and surrea- listic elements that appear in the work of artists like Salvador Dalí and Ángeles Santos. Art developed between the two poles which Realism and Surrealism represented, with the common aim of recovering the repre- sentation of the human body. Modern Spa- nish Realism didn’t look so much for the metaphysical quality of things, in the Italian style, so much as the irrational side that every excess of reality has. For that reason, many practitioners of Modern Realism had no difficulty in nor did they find contradic- tion in their encounter with the surreal. This oscillation between Magic Realism, Me- taphysical Painting, Surrealism, and even Hyperrealism was not something strange in the Spanish artistic reality; on the contrary, In 1927, Franz Roh’s essay After Expressionism, Magic Realism: Problems of the Newest stylistic nomadism was the characteristic European Painting was published. For Roh, the new variants of European post-Expres- of those years. sionism had their origin in the group of artists associated with the Roman magazine Valori The case of Salvador Dalí (1904-1989) Plastici, founded in 1918. The artists Carlo Carrà (1881-1966), Giorgio De Chirico (1888- was very special. Very informed of what was 1978), Alberto Savinio (1891-1952), and Giorgio Morandi (1890-1964) contributed to being done in the rest of Europe through it as spokesmen of the metaphysical movement, considered the antecedent of European the magazine Valori Plastici and L’esprit Magic Realism.
    [Show full text]
  • Neue Sachlichkeit, Metaphysical Painting, and Leftist Visions of Labor in 1920S Weimar
    27 Superstructure: Neue Sachlichkeit, Metaphysical Painting, and Leftist Visions of Labor in 1920s Weimar Ara H. Merjian Two figures stand barefoot on opposite sides of a narrow street, the plunging vectors of which converge upon a distant, central vanishing point [fig. 1]. Clad in red and green cloaks respectively, they seem, at first blush, trans- posed from some Biblical scene. The long hair and beard of the impassive figure in a red robe at left conjures up a time-traveling Christ, while the figure in green raises a hand to his pained face like some latter-day Adam har- ried from Eden. This Manichean face-off occurs not in a distant Biblical antiquity, however, but the contemporary moment of the painting’s making. Giuseppe Scalarini cre- ated the image in 1920 at the height of Italy’s Red Bienni- um: a violent conflagration between left and right which reached the dimensions of civil war in scale and intensity. A pair of institutional entities – and their respective flags – stand here in an embodiment of that conflagration. The local Socialist Party headquarters of some provincial town fig. 1 G. Scalarini, Luce e ombra, 1920 squares off against the offices of the Christian-democratic oriented Partito Popolare – a party even- tually riven by pro- and anti-Fascist elements following the March on Rome. 1919 had seen the Partito Popolare debut to great success, gaining twenty percent of deputies in Italy’s new electoral system – bested only by the Socialists.1 The latter would find themselves increasingly targeted by Mussolini’s Blackshirts, with the collective occupation of factories matched by widespread Black- shirt violence against Socialist offices across the country.
    [Show full text]
  • Francesco Guadagnuolo Nella Dimensione Storica Dell'arte Italiana
    FRANCESCO GUADAGNUOLO NELLA DIMENSIONE STORICA DELL'ARTE ITALIANA VINICIO SAVIANTONI Per comprendere meglio l’arte di Francesco Guadagnuolo è utile esaminare (anche se in maniera molto succinta) la storia della pittura italiana dal 1900 ad oggi, tramite correnti e stili che hanno vissuto lo sviluppo culturale, con le più svariate conoscenze tecniche e i molteplici modi di espressione, così da permetterci di analizzare e valutare come l’arte di Guadagnuolo si sia formata collocandosi all’interno dei fenomeni artistico-culturali degli ultimi decenni. Nella prima decade del ‟900,quando Michetti, Bistolfi , Sartorio, erano ritenuti fra i migliori artisti italiani, si manifesta in maniera travolgente il movimento Futurista nato nel 1909 con un articolo di Filippo Tommaso Marinetti pubblicato su “Le Figaro”. Il giovane critico Roberto Longhi considera la pittura Futurista come l‟unica valida avanguardia italiana nell‟arte del XX secolo. Umberto Boccioni, Giacomo Balla, Gino Severini, Carlo Carrà, Luigi Russolo ed Antonio Sant‟Elia contribuiscono a creare l‟importanza del movimento. L‟avanguardia Futurista, dopo la prima guerra mondiale appare dissociata soprattutto per la prematura scomparsa di Boccioni e Sant‟Elia. Il Secondo Futurismo, sempre con alla guida un Marinetti abbastanza rivoluzionario, ha origine a Torino ed esce ben presto dall‟ambito regionale con artisti di grande spessore quali Fortunato Depero, Luigi Fillia, Enrico Prampolini Gerardo Dottori, Bruno Mu nari, Tullio Crali, Osvaldo Peruzzi, Tato e Marasco, ma non avrà più quella forza propria che contraddistingue le grandi avanguardie. Nel frattempo l‟influenza del simbolista svizzero Arnold Böeklin viene assorbita da un giovane pittore, il quale rivela un‟immaginazione malinconica e tormentata insistentemente dal mistero della realtà urbana e delle piazze disabitate.
    [Show full text]
  • VISIONARI PRIMITIVI ECCENTRICI Da Alberto Martini a Licini, Ligabue, Ontani POTENZA GALLERIA CIVICA DI PALAZZO LOFFREDO
    VISIONARI PRIMITIVI ECCENTRICI da Alberto Martini a Licini, Ligabue, Ontani POTENZA GALLERIA CIVICA DI PALAZZO LOFFREDO 15 OTTOBRE 2005 – 8 GENNAIO 2006 BIOGRAFIE DEGLI ARTISTI In ordine alfabetico AGOSTINO ARRIVABENE Nato a Rivolta d'Adda (Cremona) l'11 giugno1967, si è diplomato nel 1991 all'Accademia di Brera ma ha completato la sua formazione con viaggi di studio in varie città europee, nei cui musei ha approfondito in particolare la tecnica degli antichi maestri, dando vita a un recupero di modalità pittoriche pressoché dimenticate o comunque oggi trascurate. A una sua prima personale nel 1992 a Rivolta d'Adda fanno seguito numerose mostre, personali e colletive: tra le prime l'antologica del periodo 1988-2001 tenutasi presso il Museo Civico di Crema, accompagnata da una monografia con testi di Alberto Agazzani e Marco Vallora; tra le seconde la grande esposizione Surrealismo padano. Da de Chirico a Foppiani 1915-1986, curata da Vittorio Sgarbi per il Palazzo Gotico di Piacenza, passata poi con diverso titolo (Da de Chirico a Léonor Fini. Pittura fantastica in Italia) al Civico Museo Revoltella di Trieste. Arrivabene adibisce una minuzia descrittiva tersa e assoluta, sostenuta da una tecnica peritissima, nelle sue composizioni, spesso assai vaste, inizialmente debitrici di maestri del passato (Leonardo e Durer, ma in particolare i prediletti simbolisti di area francese, tedesca e belga), poi basate su una personale, sempre più libera, rilettura dei miti e su una fantasia sbrigliata, incline al torbido, al drammatico, al funereo. Da ultimo si avverte nella sua opera una certa attenuazione delle componenti ermetiche ed esoteriche a vantaggio di una visione più contemplativa che, se di ispirazione paesaggistica, prescinde comunque dal naturalismo ma riduce alquanto la carica visionaria.
    [Show full text]
  • Maarten Doorman
    artinprogress2.def 20-10-2003 11:58 Pagina 1 Maarten Doorman Art is supposed to be of our time or rather to be part of Art in Progress the future. This perspective has reigned the arts and art criticism for more than a century. The author of this challenging and erudite essay shows how the idea of progress in the arts came up A Philosophical Response to the End of the Avant-Garde and he describes the enormous retorical impact of progressive concepts. After the end of the avant-garde the idea of progress in the arts collapsed and soon philosophers like Arthur Danto Doorman Maarten proclaimed the end of art. Doorman investigates the crippling effects of postmodernism on the arts and proposes a new form of progress to understand contemporary art. Its history can still be seen as a process of accumulation: works of art comment on each other, enriching each other’s meanings. These complex interrelationships lead to progress in both the sensibility of the observer and the significance of the works of art. Art in Progress Maarten Doorman is an In the nineteenth century, the history of painting associate professor of was regarded as the paradigm of a progressive under- philosophy at the taking, and evidence that historical progress is a University of Maastricht possible ideal everywhere else. In post-modernist and a professor of literary times, however, progress seems to have all but lost criticism at the University meaning against prevailing philosophies of the end of Amsterdam. The Dutch of art. But the end of art does not entail that there has edition of this title was not been genuine progress in the philosophy of art.
    [Show full text]
  • Picasso Y El Cubismo En La Literatura Artística De Carlo Carrà
    artículos Picasso y el cubismo en la literatura artística de Carlo Carrà. Las influencias picasianas tras el período futurista (1914-1930) María Jesús Martínez Silvente Universidad de Málaga PALABRAS CLAVE : Cubismo/ Futurismo/Literatura Artística RESUMEN La relación entre el cubismo y el futurismo constituyó uno de los episodios más inte- resantes de la historia del arte del siglo XX. La figura de Pablo Picasso está presente a lo largo del todo el siglo, su influencia es evidente en las nuevas manifestaciones, también en las futu- ristas. Gino Severini mantiene al grupo futurista informado de lo que el malagueño estaba haciendo en París. ABSTRACT The relationship between the Cubism and the Futurism was one of the most interest- ing episode in the history of Art in the XX century. Piccasso is present in all century, his influence is evident in the new artistic expres- sions, in the future ones too. Gino Severini keeps the futurist group informed about the things which the artist from Malaga was doing in Paris. 1. RECUERDOS DE PICASSO. La polémica relación entre el cubismo y el futurismo constituyó uno de los epi- sodios más interesantes de la historia del arte de la recién acabada centuria, tanto por la relevancia de ambos movimientos como por la importancia de sus protagonis- tas. La figura de Pablo Picasso, omnipresente en la escena artística prácticamente desde sus comienzos influyó, como es bien sabido, en las nuevas manifestaciones surgidas en la Europa del pasado siglo XX y, el futurismo 1 no fue una excepción. Desde fechas tempranas, los de Marinetti, tuvieron constancia de lo que en la capi- tal francesa se encontraban realizando el pintor malagueño y la “escuela cubista”, gracias a la información que mandaba a Italia el futurista Gino Severini y a algunos textos de críticos franceses que llegaron a cruzar la frontera.
    [Show full text]
  • Alberto Savinio: a Bridge Between Metaphysical Painting and Mexican Modern Art
    ITALIAN MODERN ART | ISSUE 2: ISSN 2640-8511 A Bridge Between Metaphysical Painting and Mexican Modern Art ALBERTO SAVINIO: A BRIDGE BETWEEN METAPHYSICAL PAINTING AND MEXICAN MODERN ART italianmodernart.org/journal/articles/alberto-savinio-a-bridge-between-metaphysical-painting-and- mexican-modern-art 0 Carlos Segoviano Alberto Savinio, Issue 2, July 2019 -------------https://www.italianmodernart.org/journal/issues/alberto-savinio/ Abstract In 1993, alongside the first exhibition in Mexico of works by Giorgio de Chirico, a parallel exhibition entitled “Metaphysics Iconography in Mexico” explored the connections between Metaphysical Painting and Mexican modern art. Omitted from this survey was the significant relationship between Alberto Savinio and the Mexican artist Marius de Zaya: both of these artists were not only considered part of Apollinaire’s creative circle but also collaborated together on projects for international magazines such as 291. This presentation investigates the reception of Alberto Savinio’s painting and art criticism in Mexico, as well as, more specifically, his connection with the artists de Zayas, Siqueiros and Antonio Ruiz “El Corcito.” It may seem strange to write an essay that relates Andrea de Chirico, better known as Alberto Savinio, to Mexican art, given that the Greek-born Italian artist never visited “the land of the Aztecs.” There is likewise an absence of information concerning any friendships he may have maintained with promiment Mexican painters who were his contemporaries. I have identified only five translated
    [Show full text]
  • Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences Spring 2020– Course Descriptions
    FACULTY OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES SPRING 2020– COURSE DESCRIPTIONS HSS2 (A-N) Texts and Contexts: Old Worlds and New (Core course, 3 credits). This course is offered in multiPle Sections. A study of texts and topics from 1500 to 1800, with emphasis on literary expression and cultural context. Contextual topics include the formation of modern states, exploration, encounter with the new world, the crisis in religious orthodoxy, the origins of modern science and the beginnings of political and economic individualism. This semester develops both cultural and political understanding through close reading, class discussion, and careful writing. HSS4 The Modern Context: Figures and ToPics (Core course, 3 credits). A study of important figures or topics from the modern period whose influence extends into contemporary culture. Requirements include individual research and writing projects, offered in multiple sections: HSS4 A Ang Lee. In this course we will explore how recurring themes, such as family, marriage, love, and identity, in Ang Lee’s films reflect his East-meets-West aesthetics and his approach to cultural convergence. Wedding Banquet (1993) that unfurls like a screwball comedy features a Taiwanese gay man in New York who marries a Chinese woman out of family obligation. Transcultural musings on marriage, family, and love are manifest in his Austen adaptation Sense and Sensibility (1995) and martial art film Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (2000)—both exemplify his hybrid aesthetics. Brokeback Mountain (2005), based on Annie Proulx’s 1997 short story of the same title, presents homosexual lovers’ struggle against the homophobic climate in Midwest America and further glorifies the lasting love.
    [Show full text]