Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'European avant-garde'

This thesis addresses the question of how the natural environment figured in the neo‐avant‐garde practices of the generation of artists who around 1970 started to engage with the subject across the socialist states of Central Europe, where various degrees of communist control over society influenced not only artistic production, but also limited access to information about the state of the environment and ecological discourse. The study examines a historical period influenced by the aftermath of the social and political upheavals of 1968, one where art entered the natural environment and engaged with environmental problems, which corresponded to the moment when ecological crisis was first registered on a planetary scale. Individual chapters devote attention to detailed examination of the practices of the Pécs Workshop from Hungary, the OHO group from Slovenia, TOK from Croatia, Rudolf Sikora from Slovakia and Czech artist Petr Štembera, each of whom developed distinctive approaches to the environment through the investigation of process‐based works, land art, public art, conceptual practices or performances, motivated by the neo‐avant‐garde tendency to dematerialise the art object. By focusing on their diverse approaches to the environment, which included engaging with the problems of ecological crisis, raising environmental awareness among socialist citizens, and exploring non‐anthropocentric positions and cosmic perspectives, this comparative study analyses their practices in light of specific socio‐political and environmental circumstances, and reveals the complexity of art history as a discipline under socialism. Working from specific positions and with different artistic affinities, the artists considered here articulated a cosmopolitan voice which commented on the nationalist trespassing of nature, and the communist denial of the environmental crisis, and spoke about a burgeoning ecological imperative that spanned the globe and could not be confined within any imposed borders.

This dissertation is a critical re-assessment of Imagism and Vorticism in relation to the European avant-garde, which both movements aspired towards in their reactions against the contemporary English arts and letters. I explore the implementation of such aspirations in the English arts by chronicling the complex relationship between the English movements and Cubism, the Parisian avant-garde, Italian Futurism and German Expressionism. The thesis argues that Imagism and Vorticism simultaneously modelled themselves on and reacted against their Continental counterparts, in terms of aesthetic concepts, artistic techniques and promotional tactics in creating a modern art. As movements with contributors of different nationalities and working in different artistic media, including poetry, painting and sculpture, there necessarily exists many aesthetic varieties within Imagism and Vorticism apart from foundational consensus shared by group members. In order to address the complexity of the groups’ make-up and the interdisciplinarity of their avant-garde aesthetics, the enquiry is made through a two-fold approach: firstly, by conducting contextual and comparative studies of significant individuals of the movements, including T. E. Hulme, Wyndham Lewis and Ezra Pound, to gauge their individual perspectives on literature, visual arts and aesthetic theories; secondly, by considering the heterogeneous nature of these movements and exploring the group dynamics, tensions and rivalries within the movements and with other contemporary groups. With this dual focus, my thesis reconstructs the cultural milieu through the artists’ works and correspondence, as well as the circulation network of little magazines, publicity and patronage, in order to reconcile the aesthetic and social contexts of Imagism and Vorticism, both in England and beyond. Ultimately, my thesis provides a more comprehensive analysis of the evolution of the English movements’ aesthetics, their relationship with the European avant-garde, and their impact on artistic and literary experimentation in modernist English literature and visual arts.

Lawrence's modern novels are related not so much to the native English tradition as to the wider context of avant-garde movements like Futurism, Expressionism and Surrealism. This thesis investigates the 'unusual' creativity of Lawrence's novels by measuring them against central ideas of avant-garde artists, in particular, Wassily Kandinsky and Antonin Artaud. Lawrence, Kandinsky and Artaud shared a considerable amount of common ground; they all were influenced by Nietzschean ideas. Their innovative arts set out to look for ways of releasing the unconscious, instinctual, 'transrational' or 'libidinal' energies of the psyche. Despite notable differences, the three artists felt that the contemporary situation demanded the development of radically new means of artistic expression; non-verbal, non-discursive, physical, sensual and plastic expression are central to their experiment. Sharing a conviction that the ultimate reality is 'Dionysian', they seek to reveal a Dionysian reality by means of a kind of visionary art which is more inclusive, dynamic and powerful than the traditional forms of art. Artaud and Lawrence especially devote themselves to developing ways in which all natural forces of incomprehensible 'cosmic cruelty'---the uncanny vision of the Dionysian real---can be artistically conveyed. They are Dionysian artists. They explore what they see as the fundamental reality of life: the 'dark' domain of unconscious forces and desires; impulses and instincts; body and blood. Their arts are 'transrational' ones. Kandinsky's 'monumental art', Artaud's 'theatre of cruelty' and Lawrence's post-war novels are each a kind of modern 'total work of art', relying on various non-verbal means of expression; the object is to recreate the festive spectacles of ancient religious rites and rituals.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, certain artists, writers, and philosophers became intrigued by the profound ways in which filmic images could pervade aspects of modern thought and experience. For them, film had the potential to reveal radical new dimensions of sensory phenomena. The early development of avant-garde film-making in Europe is culturally crucial not only for its historical and conceptual context of creative transition, but also for its dynamic exploration of processes of visual perception. The central objective of this thesis is to expose and engage these profound perceptual issues. The structural formation of the thesis entails the confluencing of material for analysis into a sequence of key areas comprising the central components of avant-garde cinematic visualisation. The visual implications of each area are analysed in specific depth, whilst acknowledging their respective interactivity. Significantly, the research applies analytic theories of phenomenology in order to focus incisively upon relevant early European avant-garde filmic imagery. The potential vitality of a phenomenological theorisation of early avant-garde film resides not only within their historical contemporaneity, but at the epistemological level of the mind’s cognitive engagement with the realms of creative visualisation. It is a system of analysis which aims to establish a nuanced phenomenological theory of visual perception as a matter of prime sustenance to historically crucial cinematic art forms.

This doctoral dissertation deals with the somewhat neglected relationship between mathematics and theatre. Specifically, the focus of this study is the penetration of modern mathematical thinking into European avant-garde theatre during the late 19th and early 20th century, particularly as regards the revolutionary experiments on scenic space and dramatic logic that occurred at the time. I will argue that modern European theatre underwent a period of crisis, whereby a number of avant-garde practitioners renounced the axioms of traditional theatre, particularly in relationship to the rule of mimesis, representation, and verbal speech. Theatres of the Surd argues for a penetration of symbolic languages in the wake of a decline of word-based textuality in the theatre, combined with a cultural shift toward more abstract, technologically mediated and autonomous forms of theatrical practice. This work focuses on three seminal theatre practitioners of the late 19th and early 20th century avant-garde; namely, Alfred Jarry, Stanislaw Witkiewicz and Samuel Beckett, and the impact of non-Euclidean geometry and modern mathematical logic in their work. I will claim that the mathematisation of cultural practices in the late modern era marked a crucial watershed that played an important role in the transformation of the axiomatics of theatrical practice, and the emergence of a truly modern, post-Aristotelian and post-representational form of theatrical praxis. Thus, mathematics may be said to function within the ambit of cultural dynamics, insofar as its penetration into culture discourse and practice has helped modernise the way theatre is conceptualised and visualised.

This research analyses the impact of transformation and hybridization processes at the intersection of art, science and technology. These forms of transformation and hybridization are the result of contemporary interactions between classic and digital media. It discusses the concept of 'remediation' presented by Bolter and proposes the concept of 'digital ekphrasis,' which is based on Manovich' s analyses of the interactions between classic and digital media. This is a model which, borrowed from semiotic structures, encompasses the technical as well as aesthetic and philosophical transformations of contemporary media. The thesis rejects Baudrillard's and Virilio's proposed concepts of 'digital black hole' as the only possible form of evolution of contemporary digital media. It proposes a different concept for the evolutionary model of contemporary hybridization processes based on contemporary forms of hybridizations that are rooted in aesthetic, philosophical and technological developments. This concept is argued as emancipated from the 'religious' idea of a 'divine originated' perfect image that Baudrillard and Virilio consider to be deteriorated from contemporary hybridization experimentation. The thesis proposes, through historical examples in the fine arts, the importance of transmedia migrations and experimentations as the framework for a philosophical, aesthetic and technological evolutionary concept of humanity freed from the restrictions of religious imperatives.

ABSTRACT The notion of theatricality has, in recent years, emerged as a key term in the fields of Theatre and Performance Studies. Unlike most writings dealing with theatricality, this thesis presents theatricality as a rubric for a particular discourse. Beginning with a case-study of a theatre review, I read an anti-theatricalist bias in the writer’s genre distinctions of “theatre” and “performance”. I do not, however, test the truth of these claims; rather, by deploying Foucauldian discourse analysis, I interpret the review as a “statement” and analyse how the reviewer activates notions of “theatricality” and “performance” as objects created by an already existing discourse. Following this introduction, the body of thesis is divided into two parts. The first, “Mapping the Discursive Field”, begins by surveying a body of literature in which a struggle for interpretive dominance between contesting stakeholders in the fields of Theatre and Performance Studies is fought. Using Samuel Weber’s reframing of Derrida’s analysis of interpretation of interpretation, in Chapter 2, I argue that the discourse of the field is marked by the struggle between “nostalgic” and “affirmative” interpretation, and that in the discourse that emerges, certain inconsistencies arise. The disciplines of Theatre, and later, Performance Studies in the twentieth century are characterised, as Alan Woods (1989) notes, by a fetishisation of avant-gardist practices. It is not surprising, therefore, that the values and concerns of the avant-garde emerge in the discourse of Theatre and Performance Studies. In Chapter 3, I analyse how key avant-gardist themes—theatricality as “essence”, loss of faith in language and a valorisation of corporeality, theatricality as personally and politically emancipatory—are themselves imbricated in the wider discourse of modernism. In Chapter 4, I discuss the single English-language book, published to date, which critically engages with theatricality as a concept: Elizabeth Burns’s Theatricality: A Study of Convention in the Theatre and Social Life (1972). As I have demonstrated with my analysis of the discursive field and genealogy of avant-gardist thematics, I argue that implicit theories of theatricality inform contemporary discourses; theories that, in fact, deny this genealogy. Approaching her topic through the two instruments of sociology and theatre history, Burns explores how social and theatrical conventions of behaviour, and the interpretations of that behaviour, interact. Burns’s key insight is that theatricality is a spectator operation: it depends upon a spectator, who is both culturally competent to interpret and who chooses to do so, thereby deciding (or not) that something in the world is like something in the theatre. Part Two, “The Heritage of Theatricality”, delves further, chronologically, into the genealogy of the term. This part explores Burns’s association of theatricality with an idea of theatre by paraphrasing a question asked by Joseph Roach (after Foucault): what did people in the sixteenth century mean by “theatre” if it did not exist as we define today? This question threads through Chapters 5 to 7 which each explore various interpretations of theatricality not necessarily related to the art form understood by us as theatre. I begin by examining the genealogy of the theatrical metaphor, a key trope of the Renaissance, and one that has been consistently invoked in a range of circumstances ever since. In Chapter 5 explore the structural and thematic elements of the theatrical metaphor, including its foundations, primarily, in Stoic and Satiric philosophies, and this provides the ground for the final two chapters. In Chapter 6 I examine certain aspects of Renaissance theories of the self and how these, then, related to public magnificence—the spectacular stagings of royal and civic power that reached new heights during the Renaissance. Finally, in Chapter 7, I show how the paradigm shift from a medieval sense of being to a modern sense of being, captured through the metaphor of a world view, manifested in a theatricalised epistemology that emphasised a relationship between knowing and seeing. The human spectator thus came to occupy the dual positions of being on the stage of the world and, through his or her spectatorship, making the world a stage.

Este trabalho pretende expor as maneiras pelas quais a ficção de Aníbal Machado dialoga com o cinema, procurando definir a ampla visão de sua poética a partir desse viés. A condição do autor de fã e conhecedor da chamada sétima arte faz com que ela se faça presente também em sua obra literária. Um dos aspectos nela observados é a tentativa de reproduzir técnicas e procedimentos da linguagem cinematográfica, o que tem origem em práticas das vanguardas europeias e do modernismo brasileiro. Tal tentativa se faz já em João Ternura, livro que começou a ser escrito por volta de 1926 e concluído às vésperas da morte do autor, em 1964, e é claramente marcado como um projeto modernista. A aproximação da linguagem fílmica nesse livro, entretanto, limita-se quase exclusivamente à montagem de segmentos narrativos descontínuos. Por outro lado, os recursos que buscam similaridade com a narrativa fílmica encontram-se disseminados nos contos do autor, sendo A morte da porta-estandarte o mais cinematográfico deles, já que mobiliza a maior parte desses recursos, como a focalização de um assunto de diversos ângulos e a montagem, realizando uma feliz conjunção entre imagem, movimento e som. Num segundo andamento a tese examina uma particularidade cinematográfica, a presença de Carlitos, de Charles Chaplin, na obra de Aníbal Machado, bem como do cinema burlesco de maneira geral. Assim é enfatizado que na ficção do autor existe uma galeria de personagens que se distingue pela inocência, pelo sonho ou pelo irracional, o que resulta de uma visão do universo de Carlitos influenciada pelas vanguardas europeias, principalmente pelo surrealismo, ao qual Aníbal Machado chegou a declarar publicamente a adesão. As referências aos filmes chaplinianos estão também no ponto de vista irônico do narrador, bem como na coexistência do cômico e do dramático. Na ficção do autor, a gestualidade está relacionada à inocência e ternura de personagens que, por esse motivo, são massacrados pelas rígidas regras e convenções sociais. Daí seu irracionalismo representado pelo burlesco - como recusa a se submeter a essas regras. A pesquisa se detém ainda em outras atividades de Aníbal Machado relacionadas ao cinema. Nesse particular, o foco se volta para o início dos anos 1950, quando o escritor foi convidado pela Companhia Vera Cruz a colaborar com roteiros de outros autores e a escrever adaptações para alguns contos de sua autoria. Assim, elaborou sinopses e roteiros para A morte da porta-estandarte, O telegrama de Ataxerxes e O piano, mas nenhum deles chegou a ser filmado. Nesse andamento, pretende-se caracterizar o contexto em que a produção ficcional se inscreve, situando-a também na história do cinema brasileiro. Tomando as adaptações de autoria de Aníbal, procura-se avaliar o motivo do interesse do mercado cinematográfico da época em adaptar seus contos. Com isso em vista, pretende-se fazer uma análise comparativa entre A morte da porta-estandarte e sua correspondente sinopse em duas versões, e de O telegrama de Ataxerxes e o roteiro nele baseado, procurando explicitar as soluções adotadas pelo autor para transpor suas histórias para uma linguagem cinematográfica, criando novos elementos para dar conta das diferentes artes e linguagens que se impõem nessas adaptações.
This work intends to discuss problems related to Anibal Machados literary works and the dialogues he established with the filmic art and in this way trying to define the large view of his poetics. The authors interest as fan and expert of the so called Seventh Art was fundamental to the assimilation he processed in his fictional works. So one of the aspects observed in this analyses includes the authors attempt to reproduce techniques and proceedings of the cinematographic language with keeping its roots in practices of the European Avant-garde and in the Brazilian Modernism. This mentioned attempt is firstly present in João Ternura, a book he started writing by 1926 and only finished in 1964 soon before his death, and in which he exposes the linking with the Brazilian modernist project. In this case the approach he established between his literary writing and the filmic proceedings was limited to the act of assembling discontinuous narrative sequences. But different approaches to the filmic narrative were explored in his short-stories being A morte da porta-estandarte the most relevant example of the various ways he tried to absorb the cinematographic language. So from different angles of viewing and discontinuous acts of assembling Aníbal Machado tried to explore the field of the images, movements and sonorities. As a second part this work examines a specific element, focusing the famous character created by Charles Chaplin, Charlie, but also trying to capture the general burlesque aspect of the cinema in the work of Aníbal Machado. So it is showed that in the authors fiction there is a gallery of characters distinguished by its innocence, by the dream and by irrational aspects that lead to Charlies universe and is also influenced by the European Avant-garde, mainly the Surrealism, that Aníbal Machado once declared its adoption. The references to Chaplins filmography will be also stressed by means of the ironical approach of the narrator as well as the comic and the dramatic aspects. In the authors fiction it is marked the presence of the corporal movement related to innocence and tenderness of some characters that due to this kind of acting are slaughtered by the rigidness of social rules and conventions. And so it results in irrationalism represented by the burlesque as a refusal to be submitted to the social rules. The research is still enlarged by other activities of Aníbal Machado related to the Seventh Art. In this case the focus was directed to the beginning of the 50s when the A. Machado was invited by the cinematographic Companhia Vera Cruz to help in the writing of scripts and also asked to adapt some of his own short-stories. Among them are A morte da porta-estandarte, O telegrama de Ataxerxes and O piano, though none of them was filmed. In this part the intention is to expose the context in which the Aníbals work of fiction is included trying to situate it in the history of the Brazilian cinema. Finally, we try to appreciate and discuss reasons way at that time the filmic industry was interested in adapting Aníbals short-stories. So it was developed a comparative approach between A morte da porta-estandarte and two versions of its respective summary. The same was developed between O telegrama de Ataxerxes and a script based on this short-story. In both cases it is tried to show ways the author used to translate his fictional stories to a filmic language thus creating new elements to adapt different arts and languages.

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Esta pesquisa pretende compreender o conceito de crítica dentro da obra Rua de mão única (Einbahnstrasse) através da análise do funcionamento e da estrutura da escrita empregada por Walter Benjamin chamada: “imagem de pensamento” (Denkbild). Partindo de um procedimento que norteia grande parte dos fragmentos: uma proximidade distanciadora, potencialmente crítica e reflexiva, proporcionada por formas aparentemente irrelevantes (unscheinbaren Formen) e pela polarização de imagens e ideias dissonantes.
This research aims to understand the concept of critic in the work, One Way Street (Einbahnstrasse) by the analysis of the functioning and the structure of writing used by Walter Benjamin named: “though-image” (Denkbild). From a procedure that orients much of the fragments: a proximity distancing, potentially critical and reflective, provided by apparently irrelevant forms (unscheinbaren Formen) and by the polarization of dissonant images and ideas

This thesis closely examines the utilisation of dramatic characters’ comments on matters of literary and theatrical criticism. This phenomenon shaped a trend in European theatre during the first half of the twentieth century, and Egyptian theatre in the second half of the century. My main hypotheses are, firstly, that dramatic characters’ comments on literary and theatrical matters of criticism respond to specific problems that challenge theatre practice. Thus, my reading of literary and theatrical criticism within the dramatic texts studied in my thesis focuses on this criticism’s reformative function to rectify the crisis that faces theatre practice in general, rather than playwrights’ individual motives, such as responding to their critics. Secondly, socio-political, economic, and cultural aspects shape historical circumstances, which influence the current state of the theatre industry. Therefore, although Egyptian plays are noticeably influenced by European metatheatre, Egyptian playwrights utilise these borrowed techniques to highlight specific problems of Egyptian theatre such as the corrupt administration of governmental theatre and censorship. Finally, while Egyptian plays exploit European metatheatrical techniques, Egyptian playwrights claimed their works as a revival of intrinsically anti-illusionist traditional forms of entertainment such as the shadow play and Karagöz. This claim reflected increasing calls for pure Egyptian theatre, as part of the anti-Western jingoistic discourse of the political regime of the 1950s. In order to examine these assumptions, my theoretical approach draws from the fields of metatheatrical studies; literary and performance studies of parody and intertextuality; the history of European and Egyptian theatre; sociological, political and cultural studies; theories of modern criticism, and critical reviews. My contribution to the field of metatheatrical studies is in highlighting the reformative function of literary and theatrical criticism, whether as a discourse or a metatheatrical device, within a group of European plays that belong to different movements of the avant-garde during the first half of the twentieth century. More significantly, my study investigates the same phenomenon in Egyptian plays that, since the 1980s, have gradually been marginalised as fringe theatre and neglected by academic studies.

L\'Esprit Nouveau, revista de estética publicada em Paris entre 1920 e 1925, projeto do pintor francês Ozenfant, do arquiteto suíço Le Corbusier e do poeta belga Paul Dermée, representa uma importante matriz na formação das idéias estéticas e da poética de Mário de Andrade. Lida e anotada por ele em todos os exemplares, esta publicação da vanguarda francesa encerra um alentado diálogo do poeta brasileiro com o modernismo europeu. Paralelamente, os apontamentos autógrafos, sobrepostos aos textos impressos, fazem com que os números anotados gozem da dupla natureza de edição e de manuscrito. Esta pesquisa inclinou-se sobre as correlações entre as leituras, as notas e as obras do autor brasileiro entre 1920 e 1925. Transcreveu e classificou as anotações autógrafas deste escritor/leitor na coleção completa da revista em sua biblioteca, no Instituto de Estudos Brasileiros, na Universidade de São Paulo, e apresentou, no final, um índice da revista LEsprit Nouveau nas estantes do autor de Macunaíma.
L\'Esprit Nouveau, revista de estética publicada em Paris entre 1920 e 1925, projeto do pintor francês Ozenfant, do arquiteto suíço Le Corbusier e do poeta belga Paul Dermée, representa uma importante matriz na formação das idéias estéticas e da poética de Mário de Andrade. Lida e anotada por ele em todos os exemplares, esta publicação da vanguarda francesa encerra um alentado diálogo do poeta brasileiro com o modernismo europeu. Paralelamente, os apontamentos autógrafos, sobrepostos aos textos impressos, fazem com que os números anotados gozem da dupla natureza de edição e de manuscrito. Esta pesquisa inclinou-se sobre as correlações entre as leituras, as notas e as obras do autor brasileiro entre 1920 e 1925. Transcreveu e classificou as anotações autógrafas deste escritor/leitor na coleção completa da revista em sua biblioteca, no Instituto de Estudos Brasileiros, na Universidade de São Paulo, e apresentou, no final, um índice da revista LEsprit Nouveau nas estantes do autor de Macunaíma. Biblioteca de Mário de Andrade, Marginália, Leitura e criação, Modernismo brasileiro, Vanguardas européias

Se dégageant du point de vue spiritualiste et idéaliste caractérisant la critique poétique contemporaine, ce travail vise à remettre en question la conception d'une poésie par principe détachée de tout enjeu politique et prend en charge des textes en partie exclus du canon poétique. Centré sur la politisation des poésies françaises, anglaises et allemandes dans l’entre-deux-guerres européen, le projet est historique et dresse une vision globale mais analytique des liens entre la poésie et la politique d’un point de vue à la fois théorique et historique. Le corpus central réunit L. Aragon, W. H. Auden et Bertolt Brecht et s’étend ponctuellement à A. Breton, X. de Magallon, S. Spender, C. Day Lewis, T. S. Eliot, E. Pound, W. Lewis, G. Benn, V. Maïakovski, R. Alberti, etc. Les trois auteurs principaux permettent une aisance méthodologique et conduisent l’évocation des réseaux littéraires européens et de certains effets de réception. L’étude prend aussi en compte certains titres de presse et revues littéraires variés (La N.R.f., Commune, Eurydice, The Criterion, The Left Review, Die neue Rundschau, Das Wort, etc.). La première partie de l’étude dresse un tableau historique des incompatibilités entre le genre poétique et l’exercice de la politique dans l’entre-deux-guerres, autour des querelles sur la « propagande » et la « poésie pure ». Analytique, la deuxième étudie les stratégies de l’inscription historique et de l’action politique à l’œuvre dans l’écriture et la publication des textes. La troisième partie livre un questionnement théorique sur le lien entre les poètes politiques et le temps en étudiant d’abord leur rapport avec la poésie des siècles précédents puis leurs relations aux théories modernistes de l’autonomie et au programme politique des avant-gardes
Leaving behind the spiritualist and idealist method which is frequent in poetry criticism nowadays, this dissertation aims to challenge the model of an essentially non-political poetry. It adopts both a historical and theoretical approach and focuses on so-called minor poems or poems that were later on excluded from the literary canon. Focused on France, Britain and Germany between the two World Wars, it presents how poets became politicized and how they conceived of the links between poetry and politics between 1918 and 1939. The main corpus is composed of L. Aragon, W. H. Auden and Bertolt Brecht but also extends to A. Breton, X. de Magallon, S. Spender, C. Day Lewis, T. S. Eliot, E. Pound, W. Lewis, G. Benn and even V. Mayakovski and R. Alberti, etc. The three main authors should be considered as centres to explore the European literary networks and describe reception effects. The project also encompasses various newspapers, magazines and literary journals (La N.R.f., Commune, Eurydice, The Criterion, The Left Review, Die neue Rundschau, Das Wort, etc.). The first part of this research is historical and establishes how poets and critics quarrelled about the notions of “propaganda” and “pure poetry” over the period. The second part is analytical and delves into how poets evoke contemporary history and how they use writing and publishing strategies to make their poems more effective in the public space. The third part is more theoretical and depicts how poets conceived their own historicity, how they positioned themselves with respect to the poetry of the past, to contemporary modernist theories of artistic autonomy and to the political programmes of the Avant-Garde

This thesis examines the relationship between the three artists' workshops Røde Mor (Red Mother), Folkets Ateljé (The People's Studio) and GRAS, who worked between 1968 and 1975 in Denmark, Sweden and Norway. Røde Mor was from the outset an articulated Communist graphic workshop loosely organised around collective exhibitions. It developed into a highly productive and professionalised group of artists that made posters by commission for political and social movements. Its artists developed a familiar and popular artistic language characterised by imaginative realism and socialist imagery. Folkets Ateljé, which has never been studied before, was a close knit underground group which created quick and immediate responses to concurrent political issues. This group was founded on the example of Atelier Populaire in France and is strongly related to its practices. Within this comparative study it is the group that comes closest to collective practises around 1968 outside Scandinavia, namely the democratic assembly. The silkscreen workshop GRAS stemmed from the idea of economic and artistic freedom, although socially motivated and politically involved, the group never implemented any doctrine for participation. The aim of this transnational study is to reveal common denominators to the three groups' poster art as it was produced in connection with a Scandinavian experience of 1968. By ‘1968' it is meant the period from the late 1960s till the end of the 1970s. It examines the socio-political conditions under which the groups flourished and shows how these groups operated in conjunction with the political environment of 1968. The thesis explores the relationship between political movements and the collective art making process as it appeared in Scandinavia. To present a comprehensible picture of the impact of 1968 on these groups, their artworks, manifestos, and activities outside of the collective space have been discussed. The argument has presented itself that even though these groups had very similar ideological stances, their posters and techniques differ. This has impacted the artists involved to different degrees, yet made it possible to express the same political goals. It is suggested to be linked with the Scandinavian social democracies and common experience of the radicalisation that took place mostly in the aftermath of 1968 proper. By comparing these three groups' it has been uncovered that even with the same socio-political circumstances and ideological stance divergent styles did develop to embrace these issue.

Diese Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit den wechselseitigen Beziehungen zwischen Literatur, Malerei und Fotografie in den literaturgeschichtlichen Epochen des Realismus und der Avant- Garde. Schwerpunkt bildet dabei die Kunst und Literatur im europäischen Rahmen. Ausgangspunkt ist die Annahme, dass die medialen Veränderungen und Neuerungen sich in der Gesellschaft und der Kunst wiederspiegeln. Es wird dargestellt, wie sich sowohl der Realismus wie auch die Avant-Garde aus den Auseinandersetzungen über das Bild erklären lassen. Dabei ist der Aufstieg und die Entwicklung der Fotografie und ihr Zusammenprall mit der Malerei besonders wichtig. Berücksichtigt werden in diesem Zusammenhang die künstlerische Produktion und ihre theoretische Aufarbeitung. Die Arbeit stellt im ersten Teil zunächst eine kurze Geschichte der Fotografie vor und diskutiert im Zusammenhang dieses neuen Mediums den realistischen Roman. Der zweite Teil beschäftigt sich dann mit den avantgardistischen Bewegungen Kubismus, Futurismus, Dadaismus und Surrealismus. Die Betonung liegt dabei auf den künstlerischen Manifestationen wie auch auf den poetologischen Reflektionen, die sich auf die Wechselbeziehungen zwischen visuellen und literarischen Darstellungsformen beziehen. Mit diesem Ansatz werden den visuellen Medien, insbesondere der Fotografie und Malerei, eine wichtige Rolle bei der Herausbildung und Konsolidierung des Realismus und der Avant-Garde zugesprochen.
Este trabalho propõe-se a analisar as relações de influência entre os media literatura, pintura e fotografia durante o surgimento e instituição dos movimentos artísticos realismo e vanguarda, com ênfase no âmbito europeu. Parte-se do pressuposto de que mudanças e inovações midiais refletem-se na sociedade e na arte. Busca-se discutir os movimentos realismo e vanguarda, atualmente consolidados nas diferentes abordagens da história da literatura, como emergentes das discussões sobre a imagem, em que pese o surgimento da fotografia e seu embate com a pintura. Considerando-se a produção artística e teórica da época são avaliadas as relações entre imagens e letras a partir de um breve histórico do medium fotográfico e da contextualização dos primeiros romances realistas até o surgimento e desenvolvimento dos movimentos vanguardistas cubismo, futurismo, dadaísmo e surrealismo. São enfatizadas as manifestações artísticas bem como as reflexões conceituais e poetológicas que de alguma forma utilizaram referências entre o visual e o literário, ou elementos tanto textuais quanto visuais. Esta abordagem interdisciplinar mostra-se válida ao discutir a função dos media visuais, sobretudo a pintura e a fotografia, na instauração dos movimentos literários realismo e vanguarda.

On dresse ici un panorama ample des usages de la forme poétique du sonnet durant la Seconde Guerre mondiale, en France, Allemagne, Grande-Bretagne et Italie. Ce parcours à travers la poésie de pays opposés militairement donne lieu à des analyses ciblées, qui visent à mettre en avant le fonctionnement d’une forme qui connaît une réelle floraison durant ce dürftiger Zeit de l’Europe. De nombreux poètes emploient en effet le sonnet pour donner un ordre à une expérience individuelle ou collective du désordre. On envisage la manière dont ces usages interrogent parfois profondément le rôle de la poésie, lorsqu’elle est abondamment sollicitée dans des sociétés en crise. La réduction à un discours militant, l’interférence idéologique ou religieuse d’une part, la remise en cause des présupposés culturels ou relatifs au lyrisme d’autre part, sont autant de tensions qui traversent le sonnet. On propose que le sonnet, forme ordonnée, est employée pour se positionner face au désordre du monde, soit en le rédimant, soit en l’acceptant. Les deux positions ne se traduisent pas systématiquement par un équivalent formel dans le poème même. Toutefois, les usages néoclassiques et rénovateurs du sonnet ont pour point commun d’interroger très profondément le rapport de la poésie au monde
This study consists in a wide, comprehensive overview of the usages of the poetic form of the sonnet during the Second World War in France, Germany, Great Britain and Italy. Such a process aims at gathering close readings of sonnets, in order to highlight the mechanisms of a blooming form in the midst of a dürftiger Zeit. Many poets resort indeed to the sonnet in order to give a frame to a singular or collective experience of the chaos unleashed throughout Europe.The way these recourses to the sonnet interact with the role of poetry in a time of wide reception and collective crisis will be scrutinized in the light of political commitment, religious or ideological biases and the questioning of the former foundations of Western European culture, all of which can interfere in poetry’s proper motives.This work’s proposal is that the sonnet can be used as an ordered form, either to set a demiurgic stand in front of the chaotic situation of the continent, or so as to accept it. Neither poetic stances do necessarily lead to a disordering of the form itself ; however, both conservative and rejuvenating usages of the sonnet have in common the ability to deeply question poetry’s relation to the world

Cette thèse analyse une série d'« histoires de l'art moderne» diffusées en France de 1900 à 1960 comme un « hypertexte» dont les mutations ne se comprennent qu'à la lumière des reconfigurations politiques d'une même question, à savoir la forme de la communauté qu'ils tentent de définir. Entre la nation et l'Europe, le peuple et les élites, les « ethnies» et les « races», ces « histoires» établissent jusqu'à la Seconde Guerre mondiale des liens complexes, et des distinctions tranchées. Le modèle organiciste testé par la III e République vers 1900 puis au Salon d'Automne structure durant trois décennies un récit qui, selon le cas, se réfère à la psychologie des peuples ou privilégie l'activité créatrice d’une élite, héritière, selon l'Action française, d'un Occident latin. Le modèle impérialiste de l'Europe française chère aux maurrassiens coexiste à la fin des années 1920 avec un récit mettant l'accent sur les caractéristiques « ethniques» de chaque « peuple européen ». Au début des années 1930; enfin, le mythe politique d'un Occident latin cède le pas à la vision biologique d'une Europe latine composée de groupes ethniques appartenant au même « type racial ». Une nouvelle « histoire de l'art» diffuse bientôt les mêmes mots d'ordre que les divers fascismes européens. L'« histoire de l'art moderne », centrée sur des avant-gardes internationales exprimant les valeurs du monde libre, que des groupes américains et européens tentèrent d'imposer au début des années 1950, ne pouvait dès lors qu'entrer en conflit avec les représentations de la nation mais aussi celles d'une Europe supranationale, ethno-raciale, qui avaient dominé l'entre-deux-guerres
This thesis studies a series of « histories of modern art », which circulated in France between 1900 and 1960, as a « hypertext» whose transformations can be understood as political reinterpretations of the same question, that is the form of the community they« describe ». Thus in the first half of the XX th Century, those narratives establish complex relations, and sharp distinctions, between «nation» and «Europe », «people» and «elites », «ethnic groups» and «races ». The organicist model the Third Republic favoured around 1900 and which triumphed al the Salon d'Automne would structure during three decades a narrative which referred either to the so-called psychology of the peoples or to the creative power of an elite, which according to the Action française, would save a Western Civilisation rooted in a Latin tradition. At the end of 1920s, the imperialist model of a « French Europe », dear to the maurrassians, coexisted with a narrative stressing the ethnic caracteristics of each « Europeân people ». Ln the early 30s, the political myth of a Latin Civilisation was at last dispeIIed in favour of the biological conception of a « Latin Europe » composed of ethnie groups belonging to the same « racial type ». A new « history of art» was designed to spread ideas similar to those of the diverse European fascisms. The «history of modern art », focused on international avant-gardes expressing the values of the « free world », that American and European groups tried to impose in the early 1950s, would then conflict not only with nationalist representations but also with the supranational, ethno-racial, « European » models of the interwar period

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1994.
Typescript. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 77-80).

This thesis examines modernist attitudes towards the past generally and towards the medieval past in particular, by exploring the significance of gothic architecture and stained glass to the constructive pictorial enquiries of Joaquín Torres-García, František Kupka, Robert Delaunay, Otto Freundlich, Piet Mondrian, Theo van Doesburg and Josef Albers. Torres-García is taken as a case study given that his painted and written work shows an actual engagement with the medieval that has hitherto gone largely unnoticed. The discussion thus traces Torres-García's complex and changing relationship with the gothic over time, and examines its place in his constructive pictorial practice. Close attention is given to two particular periods in Torres-García's career. Firstly, his transition from Noucentisme to the avant-garde in the mid-1910s in Barcelona, coinciding with his involvement in a stained glass project for a public building. This period is examined under the light of prevalent attitudes towards the medieval in classicist noucentista Barcelona, which are inferred through a comprehensive survey of local modernist magazines. A second period of interest is Torres-García's late-1920s formulation of Constructive Universalism, the distinct primitive-constructive idiom he characterised as "the style of a cathedral," coinciding with a time when he was closely associated with three of the artists also under study here, van Doesburg, Freundlich and Mondrian. The discussion on these, as well as on Kupka, Delaunay and Albers, takes into consideration that, unlike Torres-García, they all developed their practice within a cultural context that celebrated the gothic. Their rapport with the gothic is analysed, when relevant, in the light of Worringer's theories on the subject. Additionally, several of these artists' interest in the pictorial constructive was concomitant with research into the sensorial properties of colour fragmentation and interaction. This area of pictorial enquiry, in which the study of stained glass proved especially useful, is also explored in the relevant cases. The focus on the constructive as a common denominator to the practice of all these artists, and a common motivator of their engagement with the cathedral, implies a largely formal approach to the issue at hand. This, nevertheless, takes into consideration that these artists' rapport with the gothic was mediated by contemporary discourses surrounding the Middle Ages and their legacy. As such, the analysis necessarily considers the ideological factors (political leanings, identitary issues, religious backgrounds) that came into play in each artist's relationship with the medieval. This, ultimately, serves to address the problem of how these forward-looking artists found a legitimate place in their modernist practice for references sourced in the medieval past.
A presente tese explora as atitudes do modernismo em relação com o passado em geral e o passado medieval em particular, por meio de uma análise da relevância da arquitetura e do vitral góticos nas pesquisas pictóricas construtivas de Joaquín Torres-García, František Kupka, Robert Delaunay, Otto Freundlich, Piet Mondrian, Theo van Doesburg e Josef Albers. Torres-García constitui o caso de estudo da tese uma vez que a sua obra pictórica e teórica evidencia um diálogo com o medieval que até a data passou largamente desapercebido. O estudo traça portanto a complexa e variável relação que Torres-García estabelece com o gótico ao longo do tempo, e examina o lugar deste referente na sua prática pictórica construtiva. Dois períodos concretos da carreira de Torres-García merecem particular atenção. Em primeiro lugar, a sua transição do Noucentisme para a vanguarda, em meados da década de 1910 em Barcelona, que coincide com o seu envolvimento num projeto de vitral para um edifício público. Este período é analisado à luz das atitudes predominantes em relação ao medieval no ambiente classicista noucentista de Barcelona, atitudes estas que são inferidas a partir de uma análise abrangente da sua expressão nas revistas modernistas da cidade. Um segundo período de interesse situa-se nos finais da década de 1920, quando Torres-García formula o Universalismo Construtivo, a sua singular linguagem primitiva-construtiva que ele próprio caracteriza como "um estilo de catedral", num momento em trabalha em estreita associação com três dos artistas objeto de estudo desta tese: van Doesburg, Freundlich e Mondrian. A discussão acerca da obra destes três artistas, bem como a de Kupka, Delaunay e Albers, leva em consideração que, ao contrário de Torres-García, todos eles desenvolveram a sua prática num contexto cultural que celebrava o legado gótico. A sua relação com o gótico é examinada, segundo o caso, à luz das teorias de Wilhelm Worringer sobre a arquitetura medieval. Em alguns dos artistas aqui contemplados, ao interesse pela dimensão construtiva da pintura acrescia a pesquisa sobre as propriedades sensoriais da fragmentação e a interação da cor. Esta área de pesquisa pictórica, em que o estudo do vitral se revelou particularmente fecundo, é também explorada aqui para os casos pertinentes.

Doctor of Philosophy
ABSTRACT The notion of theatricality has, in recent years, emerged as a key term in the fields of Theatre and Performance Studies. Unlike most writings dealing with theatricality, this thesis presents theatricality as a rubric for a particular discourse. Beginning with a case-study of a theatre review, I read an anti-theatricalist bias in the writer’s genre distinctions of “theatre” and “performance”. I do not, however, test the truth of these claims; rather, by deploying Foucauldian discourse analysis, I interpret the review as a “statement” and analyse how the reviewer activates notions of “theatricality” and “performance” as objects created by an already existing discourse. Following this introduction, the body of thesis is divided into two parts. The first, “Mapping the Discursive Field”, begins by surveying a body of literature in which a struggle for interpretive dominance between contesting stakeholders in the fields of Theatre and Performance Studies is fought. Using Samuel Weber’s reframing of Derrida’s analysis of interpretation of interpretation, in Chapter 2, I argue that the discourse of the field is marked by the struggle between “nostalgic” and “affirmative” interpretation, and that in the discourse that emerges, certain inconsistencies arise. The disciplines of Theatre, and later, Performance Studies in the twentieth century are characterised, as Alan Woods (1989) notes, by a fetishisation of avant-gardist practices. It is not surprising, therefore, that the values and concerns of the avant-garde emerge in the discourse of Theatre and Performance Studies. In Chapter 3, I analyse how key avant-gardist themes—theatricality as “essence”, loss of faith in language and a valorisation of corporeality, theatricality as personally and politically emancipatory—are themselves imbricated in the wider discourse of modernism. In Chapter 4, I discuss the single English-language book, published to date, which critically engages with theatricality as a concept: Elizabeth Burns’s Theatricality: A Study of Convention in the Theatre and Social Life (1972). As I have demonstrated with my analysis of the discursive field and genealogy of avant-gardist thematics, I argue that implicit theories of theatricality inform contemporary discourses; theories that, in fact, deny this genealogy. Approaching her topic through the two instruments of sociology and theatre history, Burns explores how social and theatrical conventions of behaviour, and the interpretations of that behaviour, interact. Burns’s key insight is that theatricality is a spectator operation: it depends upon a spectator, who is both culturally competent to interpret and who chooses to do so, thereby deciding (or not) that something in the world is like something in the theatre. Part Two, “The Heritage of Theatricality”, delves further, chronologically, into the genealogy of the term. This part explores Burns’s association of theatricality with an idea of theatre by paraphrasing a question asked by Joseph Roach (after Foucault): what did people in the sixteenth century mean by “theatre” if it did not exist as we define today? This question threads through Chapters 5 to 7 which each explore various interpretations of theatricality not necessarily related to the art form understood by us as theatre. I begin by examining the genealogy of the theatrical metaphor, a key trope of the Renaissance, and one that has been consistently invoked in a range of circumstances ever since. In Chapter 5 explore the structural and thematic elements of the theatrical metaphor, including its foundations, primarily, in Stoic and Satiric philosophies, and this provides the ground for the final two chapters. In Chapter 6 I examine certain aspects of Renaissance theories of the self and how these, then, related to public magnificence—the spectacular stagings of royal and civic power that reached new heights during the Renaissance. Finally, in Chapter 7, I show how the paradigm shift from a medieval sense of being to a modern sense of being, captured through the metaphor of a world view, manifested in a theatricalised epistemology that emphasised a relationship between knowing and seeing. The human spectator thus came to occupy the dual positions of being on the stage of the world and, through his or her spectatorship, making the world a stage.

This dissertation seeks to abolish the inherited cliché that the Modernist writers and artists rejected earlier art and literature, particularly that of the classical tradition. In fact, both literature and art of the early 20th century made widespread use of the inherited Greco-Roman tradition in a myriad of ways. Moreover, beginning after the First World War and maturing in the 1920s, a demonstrative Neoclassical “movement” appeared across different types of art and different nations. A neoclassical or classicizing style or form is inherently malleable, an empty signifier that can, through an artist or writer’s emphasis, point towards any number of meanings. This allowed a classical style to become widespread along with its seeming resiliency as the ordered, traditional bedrock of the West. In the 1930s, however, the fascist parties of Germany, France, and Italy began to appropriate the neoclassical as a state- or party-style because of the ease with which politics could be incorporated into a relatively vacant form. Their systematic use of the classical tradition in large part “tainted” classical subjects and styles, which allowed for the post-World War II institutionalization of the avant garde. I argue that texts which used the classical tradition could do so in four distinct manners—four types of classicism. Symbolic Classicism controls its classical material by using it only at the level of hollow icon which pregnantly gestures towards antiquity. Traditional Classicism, like an adaptation of a classical narrative particularly in drama, becomes completely dependent on its borrowings. Formal Classicism borrows an inherited, vacant form which can then be injected with Modernity. Finally, Synthetic Classicism necessitates a careful balancing of the classical material, not reducing it to symbolic meaning, but producing a novel narrative or mirroring-effect, that controls its various elements designed into a modern theme or objective.
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