Throughout history have recognized the art forms ability to bring about social change. They are just like us, living in their own time frame, and they want to reflect upon what is going on around them, and potentially influence society with their work. And the amazing thing about prints that allows them to be really powerful social tools, really, is they are relatively inexpensive to produce. They are multiples. They are less expensive to acquire. And so they really penetrate all aspects of society. And they are excellent platform with which to convey information, both image and text. And so lot of artists have used print specifically for this reason. So we selected today from the collection a range of prints from the 18th century through to contemporary of artists dealing with social and political content. And what is really amazing is that while a lot of the specifics change so, the settings, the costumes, the specific details of the current event the broader issues remain the same.
Throughout history have recognized the art forms ability to bring about social change. They are just like us, living in their own time frame, and they want to reflect upon what is going on around them, and potentially influence society with their work. And the amazing thing about prints that allows them to be really powerful social tools, really, is they are relatively inexpensive to produce. They are multiples. They are less expensive to acquire. And so they really penetrate all aspects of society. And they are excellent platform with which to convey information, both image and text. And so lot of artists have used print specifically for this reason. So we selected today from the collection a range of prints from the 18th century through to contemporary of artists dealing with social and political content. And what is really amazing is that while a lot of the specifics change so, the settings, the costumes, the specific details of the current event the broader issues remain the same.
The first 15 years of the 20th century saw changes in the theory and practice of art among modern artists in western europe which were so remarkable theyve been compared with the great advances made in science and technology at the same time. Theres no simple explanation for why this period was so dynamic, nor was the dynamism confined to one center. Although paris had long been the focus of modernism, it had its rivals in brussels, barcelona, and munich. But it was a time of growing tension in western culture, of continued rapid industrialization, of imperialism abroad and rivalry within the states of europe, and, at the same time, scientific breakthroughs, which not only questioned our way of seeing the world, but the very nature of reality itself plancks quantum theory, einsteins theory of relativity, freuds work on psychoanalysis. It was in 1900 that freud wrote his interpretation of dreams, a prophetic work in view of the tragedies of modern western history. Freud wrote and publis
In the south of france. In germany, the sequel to defeat was revolution a bitter struggle between nationalists and revolutionaries. Groszs observations of nationalist brutality made him one of the lefts most powerful propagandists. I felt the ground shaking beneath my feet, he said. And the shaking was visible in my work. His caricatures of weimar germany reject a society depraved by greed and power. Groszs contempt was shared by wider artistic developments in europe and america. Those developments became known as dada. Dada was like a storm that broke over the world of art. It had many centers from zurich to hanover, from cologne to new york and many sorts of artistic expression. Unlike grosz in berlin, these dada artists didnt see the exposure of Class Divisions as their central purpose. They attacked the foundations on which nations were built truth, beauty, reason, science. In the wake of the catastrophe, all these values were brought into question. In paris and new york, Marcel Du
Captioning made possible by the Annenberg Cpb project the first 15 years of the 20th century saw changes in the theory and practice of art among modern artists in western europe which were so remarkable theyve been compared with the great advances made in science and technology at the same time. Theres no simple explanation for why this period was so dynamic, nor was the dynamism confined to one center. Although paris had long been the focus of modernism, it had its rivals in brussels, barcelona, and munich. But it was a time of growing tension in western culture, of continued rapid industrialization, of imperialism abroad and rivalry within the states of europe, and, at the same time, scientific breakthroughs, which not only questioned our way of seeing the world, but the very nature of reality itself plancks quantum theory, einsteins theory of relativity, freuds work on psychoanalysis. It was in 1900 that freud wrote his interpretation of dreams, a prophetic work in view of the trage