Violent labor strikes were actually an attempt by workers to bring democracy into the workplace by overturning topdown management. He also describes how radical movements in art and literature clashed with the dominant cultural norms of the time. This class is just under an hour. I want to look at the debate in the early 20th century over what is called modernism. How these things work into some of the anxieties we have been talking about really all semester about the rise of modern america and spilling over into the postwar years. Lets look at some quotes from people we have heard from before in the semester to reestablish what the if those was. Walter lippman 1914. He says we can no longer treat life as something that will trickle down to us. We have to deal with it deliberately, devise its social organization formulate its methods, educate and control it. A classic progressive era approach. Chain atoms. Our friend jane adams. She writes, life in the suburbs above all it has been called the extraordinary pliability of human nature. A phrase she probably got from john stuart mill. And it seems impossible to set bounds to any ideal deal that might unfold from educational and civic institutions. The point that we have been following all semester is that within progressivism there was this strong sense that in in industrialized United States, large problems needed to be addressed but that also with the development or the discovery of new knowledge, new ways of understanding, that these problems could be addressed, and thats a big deal right . Reforms could be enacted in society, in the lives of those living in the United States to make better, happier, more for fault more fulfilled. That in a nutshell is what we have been doing all semester. Now think of people born in, say 1840 what they had witnessed by the time the United States became involved in world war i in 1917. Think of all that has changed in terms of philosophic and scientific innovation. Even the biggies right . Charles darwin. Darwin comes along and the fundamentals of his theory will eventually change our basic notions of where the human race comes from. Big deal. The believe that humans were created in fact a few thousand years ago is now challenged by the view, the modern scientific view, that the human family had evolved over millions of years. Freud, sigmund freud. He challenges how we understand our own motivations and our own actions in ways that were disturbing to some. Freuds work explores the subconscious. But there are memories or ideas in our minds that affect our bodies and that compel behaviors , and we may not be fully aware of them. Ok . This is a huge Seismic Shift in our own thoughts of what it is that makes us tick. Albert einstein in physics early 1900s. Syria of relativity. Einstein comes along to say theory of relativity. Einstein comes along to say time is not time and space is not space in the way we previously understood time and space. That is, unchanging, absolute. Those born in 1840 began to raise questions about this modern questioning. Questioning the questioning. They felt it was all going too far, wondering if all of these innovations and complexities of modernity were not perhaps diluting humanity deluding humanity from some essential reckoning from god or nature. People could fly. They could drive an automobile. Ford Motor Company will produce its one millionth car in 1915. If you could listen to the radio. Not very many, although it is coming. Many more could go to the movies , listen to the phonograph, the victrola, as they would call it. There was a sense among some that we were becoming too upset with what we can do and we can sure do a whole lot more than we could just a few years prior but the results of this lingering fear, that we do not know who we are anymore we are less certain about who we are and what makes us tick, even though we can do a lot more stuff, right . It may be wonderful to have planes and automobiles but someone could ask the question are they really good if we do not know ourselves anymore . So, thomas hardy then. A poet, 1912 writes the convergence of the twain. In this poem he writes, as these smart ship grew in stature grace, and hughew and shadowy silent distance grew, the iceberg, too. Reference to . The titanic. Very good. The sinking of the titanic was, to some, symbolic. Symbolic of too much innovation, too much flaunting our ability to transcend natures limits. Flight. The panama can now. Automobiles. The harnessing of electricity. And now perhaps nature had struck back. Maybe god had struck back. Thomas hardy in his poem also describes the pride of life that planned her. Meaning all of the modern technology and innovations that went into building the dazzling showcase of the Passenger Ship and all of the hubris that seemed to accompany its building. What is hubris . Good liberal arts college word. What is hubris . Excessive pride. Yes. Good. Ok. We will get a sense of where we are headed in terms of this clash. This leads us into really what we are going to wrestle with tonight and that is the rise of modernism. Modernism is a kind of expression of these new thoughts. We will look at the impact on art and poetry and literature, and then of course we will look at the fears of modernism, that it generated a race across american society. A good place to start right here the armory show in 1913, new york city. In march of 1913, the organizers of the International Exhibition of modern art the organizers were this group. The association of american painters and sculptors. Put on this huge, huge exhibition of the latest and modern art, modernist art from europe, with some american painters and artist included as well. And because it was held at the 69th infantry regiment armory if you think about it, that is an interesting place to have the latest, boldest art, in an armory this is referred to as simply the armory show. The 1913 armory show. It brought together really the leading lights of the Modernist Movement from europe and the United States. Organizers estimated over 50,000 people attended the exhibit and this was really a whos who. Picasso, gauguin suzanne delacroix Kandinsky Marcel duchamp, and on and on and on. A massive exhibit. 1200 painters and sculptors. Impressionist, post impressionists, and most controversial of all, the cubist s. As this exhibit was being set up in capturing the nations attention, a lot of the press seem to be focused on the french hater Henri Matisse french painter Henri Matisse. I will give you a couple examples of matisses work. Ok. Gives you a sense of how he paints. Another quick example. This is one that was on display at the armory show. He is a post impressionist. He is messing with lines here a little bit. The New York Times, for example, so fascinated with matisse, they sent a reporter to france to interview him and from this interview, what you have, we get a good sense both of what these modern artists were attempting to do, and also why their critics disliked them so much. So, you have before you then, little snippets from this article, this interview with matisse. What is your three on art, the reporter asked matisse. Take that table for example. I do not literally paint that table, but the emotion it produces upon me. Later on, the reporter tell me i said, pointing to an extraordinarily lumpy clay study of a nude woman with limbs of fearful liength, why . I like that. He picked up a small japanese statue with head all out of proportion to the body. Is that not beautiful . No i replied boldly. I see no beauty where there is lacquer for portion. Then matisse, then you are back to the classical, the formal. We are trying to express he 20 century, not what the greeks saw. Here is a key line. Above all, the great thing is to express oneself. The reporter matisse produced a blue tomato. Why blue, he was asked . Because i see them that way, and i cannot help it if no one else does. And so this interview goes on and on and on, right, but matisse as a modern artist is less impressed with copying the techniques and forms of previous generations. We see how the new artists are placing a greater premium on the emotional power of the work. Or they are bringing some deeper emotional relationship to their work to achieve a kind of emotional fulfillment through their work. And therefore whether the end result looks like the subject matters less and less. They are using their art to access something within. Does that sound like freud . Yeah, i think it does. Ok but coming after the powerful realist movement, the previous generation, been 19thcentury mid 19th century painting the realist movement, which, as you can probably tell by the name, realist realism attempted to capture the subject, right . That is to say the peasant working in the field actually looked like the peasant working in a field. Given that kind of backdrop, we can see, we can imagine then how what the impressionist and what the post impressionist and the cubist and how what they were doing was seen as revolutionary. One of the classic examples of realist art is titled arrangement in gray and black the artists mother. What do we know that painting as . You will know it as soon as i put it up. Ah. Whistlers mother. James whistler, 1871. Why is it a realist painting . We can probably take it on pretty good confidence this is what mrs. Whistler wouldve looked like, bless her heart. So ok. All right. Against this kind of realism that the postimpressionists and the cubists are working against and the matisse is certainly different from whistlers mother that it is a far cry from what the cubists are about to do. So if the critics thought that matisse was wild and revolutionary, they fell all over themselves when looking at the work of cubist painters like pablo picasso, or sell duchamp all of marcel duchamp, all of these artists on display at the armory show. Let me give you three quick little examples of cubist art. What we see here ok . Dances at the spring. Whats going on here . Good question. Well, dances at the spring. The point is how different it is from whistlers mother for the whole realist school. Woman in a mustard pot. Ok. And then finally, marcel deschuchamp nude descending. So, these are just three of those. You get a sense of the cubist genre here. What are we seeing . What were seeing is a further disorienting of lines and overall structure. The cubists on purpose fracture the traditional form, the subject as it were. It is all broken up and reassembled. And reassembled. And this spoke also to the artists temper and some of the philosophical motivations of the time, and that is things are not what they seem or may not be what they seem. Ok . Especially with einstein and some of freuds and floods. This is a thought that is starting to take hold, starting to take root. What we thought was time and space turns out not to be time and space, at least not the way we thought it was. Things like that. You can see this now working its way into art. That what we thought was true, real, more solid absolute, that these things can be broken down, and then they can be reassembled. Truth or art or life itself can be broken down, but then reassembled in a way that has greater meaning and value than it could previously. From this point then, we should be able to make the link from this artistic sensibility we are describing and the kind of social reforms at jane adams might advocate. If we think about the adams biography, that whole progressive ease those. These problems in society can be broken down and they can be reassembled to make life better, to have more meaning. In a way, that is what these artists are doing. They are breaking down the subject, right . And then they are reassembling. Critics of modernism however, as we will see, tended to focus on the breaking down part. They tended to focus on that a lot. Cubism provoked some very Strong Negative reactions. It seemed to to the encouraging the feeling of the disintegration of the modern world itself. So the reaction against cubism really strong. For instance, this article that i passed out here in the fresno morning republican, september 27 1913. In that little article that i copied for you here, the rider rightwriter makes a really interesting connection between cubism and labor radicalism. He says if the rights make you ill, try the antidote of going out and exploring the violent world of the art annex. Before you get out you will regard the iww as rational and lawabiding citizens. He goes on, the violent towards where these paintings the violent wards where these paintings are held. Cubism and futurism run riot, so write it indeed they will not even stay in their frames. For this is liberty and free art cannot confine itself within its frame. Here is a room full of pictures that represent neither things nor thoughts nor even emotions but disordered visions, manias and delirium. Ok, so heres the question then. What is the connection between how is this person connecting cubism and the iww . Who were the iwws . Their nickname is the wobblies. The wobblies. The wobblies were, for that time probably the most radical Labor Organization. The American Federation is pretty popular, but they take a much more conciliatory approach to labor relations, and this is one of the reasons we get groups like the iww, the Industrial Workers of the world. Who get this awesome nickname of the wobblies. The wobblies then did advocate aggressive confrontation with mine owners in the west for example. They did encourage even violence to a certain extent. Ok . Certainly they were seen as the most radical Labor Organization of the time. To a lot of middleclass types and Business Owners and mention of the iww, the wobblies sent chills and shivers down their backs. Great concern in consternation of the wobblies. So, in this context, this article that links cubism with the kind of labor confrontation advocated by the wobblies, right is really telling. It is really telling. It really gets at those anxieties that modernism was generating and certified in spreading. It was not confined to just art. Critics of cubism are very easily, quickly able to make the connection between the kind of disruption the cubists had done to traditional art form and the kind of disruption the wobblies advocated in labormanagement relations. Ok. Another example, this interview that the New York Times holds with this artist named kenyon cox. March 15 1913. Kenyon cox was himself an american painter born in the 1860s, but at this stage in his life he was known as much for being a critic and an art theorist. He responded very forcefully to the rise of cubism. Very early on you can see the sympathies of the New York Times. Just out of the bat with this article, the times writes the artist was found in his studio in slippered ease, an old corncob pipe between his teeth. What kind of image does that convey . What comes to mind when we think of that . What are they trying to say about kenyon cox . He seems like a good old southern boy . Not necessarily southern. Maybe the corncob pipe. One he was born in the 18 1860s. Hes not that old. More respected. Very stable, very practical. This is important. Even in this article, being able to convey this image of cox of being well settled in slippered ease. I love that. Stable. Because then he is going to talk about cubism and the application that the implication that cubists arent. So, kenyon cox on the cubists. Here is what cox cox says. They maintain they have invented a symbolism that expresses their individuality, or as they say, their soul. If they really expressed their soul in the things they show us, god help their souls. Right . Because in their souls, potatoes are blue. Then he makes this important link between modernism and painting and literature and cox raises a very important question. He says if the literary man were to say wiggle the legal the wiggle the wiiggility wiggility wiggilty and tell you that combination of letters gives you the impression of dawn, how will you say that it doesnt . The good question. They represent for him a tendency to abandon all respect for tradition and to insist that art shall be nothing but an expression of the individual. So again cox has raised a very important point regarding modernism and cubism. If all that matters to the painter, to the artist is what he or she feels inside, what happens if that view, that conviction moves beyond the realm of art . What then . Its a fair question. The thing, he concludes is psychologically insidious and worst of all for cox it is popular. These men have seized on the modern engine of publicity and are making insanity pay. They ran an Opinion Column the same day as the interview and here you see a depiction that sets him up differently from the image we have of the cubist artists. He is described as someone who expresses the view of the sound artists and a rational human being. Therefore, he is our guy. We can count on him. It should be borne in mind that this movement is surely to disrupt and degrade if not to destroy, all of art and literature and society, too. You can see how quickly the critics of modernism move from being critical of the art itself to arriving at these very large conclusions or fears that grow out of this sort of artistic sensibility. My god. If this is allowed here, where does it stop . Ok . It continues they have their counterparts not only in politics but in all forms of art including music and the industrial movement. There is iww again, the wobblies. There only need seems to be that all is old is bad, all that is improved is false, all that has been cherished should be destroyed, all that is beautiful should be despised, all that is obvious should be ignored. Yikes. Wow. Ok, moving on then. Some of the poets and novelists of the day were also breaking down traditional forms storylines, the very structure of righting it self writing itself. American poets like ezra pound, William Carlos williams, t. S. Eliot all reflect the rise of modernism in american poetry. One very quick example is William Carlos williams, very famous poem the red wheelbarrow, 1923. I will go ahead and read all of it. Here it comes. So much depends on a red wheelbarrow glazed with rainwater so much depends . What is he saying. It is not clear. Another of the famous modernist poets was t. S. Eliot. Born in missouri, which he quickly left and spent most of his adult life in europe. One of his most famous poems, he implemented a re