Chapter 13

1. Sum up the reading in your own words in 1 paragraph.

This chapter continued to describe the changes going on in the earlier twentieth century, with most of the focus being on typography and poetry. Most of these changes involved socioeconomic ones (rise of communistic thought and other "leftist" things, ect..). Political changes in society had a particular impact on new advertising methods and styles. For instance, African tribal designs and geometric lines influenced Paul Cezanne's and Pablo Picasso's new style Cubism. Not only were there new styles, but there were also new major art movements. For this era, art was "at war" with new progressions in science and machinery. The famous poet, Filippo Marinetti was the man responsible for beginning Futurism. These new movements had a kind of "anti-harmonious" attitude in their art. One such group out of this era's movements that took their chaotic sense of style to extremes were the Dadaists. Dadaism was a style of art that rebelled against the conventional idea of art. They argued that art could be anything, therfor their work was considered ironic art. For instance, probably the biggest name in Dadaism: Man Ray, was a photographer that used things like unorthodox dark room techniques to make very strange pictures. Other movements included expressionism and surrealism, two big art movements in Europe during the early twentieth century. Surrealism was anathema to Dadaism. Those of the surrealist movement sought to bring back intricacy, humanitarian themes and spiritual influence back to art. "The Bridge" and "The Blue Rider" were the largest groups of people following the expressionist movement. The Bridge worked mostly with expressing feeling through subject matter and material art(sculptures). The Blue Rider expressed feeling with perceptions given by an object. Between these larger movements were other smaller art forms that also had a backlash to the destruction of World War One: suprematism, constructivism, and De Stilj.

2. Name the one thing (or person) you found most interesting from the reading.

I just find Dadaism in general to be an interesting movement in art. I don't think Dadaism's idea that art can be anything will ever die. I'm sure that the question "define art" had come up before Dadaism, but the effort by the movement has echoed that unanswerable question and made an impression on artistic thought for all time.

3. State at least one question you have after the reading.

With all of these styles talked about in the chapter having their "distinctions" there are a lot of underlying themes (World War One) that are very similar. Could any of the art displayed in the book be considered more than one style or displaying characteristics of more than one movement?