Modern art and WWI

3. The Armory Show
• 1913; first exposure of many American artists to current trends in
European modern art
• Controversial; widely seen; influential

4. • The Armory Show–
official advertising
poster

6. • Nude Descending a
Staircase, no. 2
• "Is it a woman? No. Is it a
man? No. ...I have never
thought which it is. Why
should I think about it?“ MD

7. • Jules Marey, motion
study photograph, ca.
1890-1900

9. • Picasso, Guitar Player,
1910, Cubism

10. • Portrait of Ambroise
Vollard (1910)

11. • Picasso, Guitar Player,
1910, Cubism

12. • Portrait of Ambroise
Vollard (1910)

13. • Picasso “Guitar,
sheet music, and
wine glass” 1912

14. Modernism and the War
•Futurism:
•Ancient life was all silence. In the nineteenth
century, with the invention of the machine,
Noise was born. Today, Noise triumphs and
reigns supreme over the sensibility of men.
--Luigi Russolo, The Art of Noises

15. The cry of rebellion which we utter associates our
ideals with those of the Futurist poets. These ideas
were not invented by some aesthetic clique. They
are an expression of a violent desire, which burns
in the veins of every creative artist today. ... We will
fight with all our might the fanatical, senseless and
snobbish religion of the past, a religion encouraged
by the vicious existence of museums. We rebel
against that spineless worshipping of old canvases,
old statues and old bric-a-brac, against everything
which is filthy and worm-ridden and corroded by
time. We consider the habitual contempt for
everything which is young, new and burning with
life to be unjust and even criminal.

16. Luigi Russolo - Macchina Tipografica
Luigi Russolo - Macchina Tipografica

17. • http://www.ubu.com/sound/marinetti.html
• La Battaglia di Adrianopoli
• http://www.ubu.com/sound/balla.html
• Macchina Tipografica (1914)

18. Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Zang Tumb
Tumb, 1914.

19. • 2 pages from
Marinetti’s “Words in
freedom” 1919

20. Giacomo Balla, Street Light,
Study of Light, 1909

21. • Giacomo Balla, Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash, 1912

22. • Jules Marey Motion
Capture
photography

23. • Chrono
Jules Marey, Chronophotographic Image Formed by Man
Walking in Black Suit with White Stripes, 1884

24. • Edweard Muybridge Motion study

25. • Boccioni, Charge of the Lancers, 1915

26. • Gino Severini, Cannon in Action, 1915

27. Plastic Synthesis of the Idea of War, 1915,

28. Cubism at the Front
• The art of painting original arrangements composed of elements
taken from conceived rather than perceived reality.
-- Guillaume Apollinaire, The Beginnings of Cubism, 1912

29. Fernand Leger
Verdun, The Trench Diggers, 1916

30. • La Fin du monde, filmée par l'ange de
N.-D. (author: Blaise Cendrars,
illustrator Fernand Leger)

31. •

32. Fernand Léger, Le soldat à la pipe, oil on canvas, 1916

33. • Leger, The Card
Game, 1917

34. Art and camouflage

35. • Renault FT-17 WWI light tank. (model)

36. • German Helmet with Camouflage American Helmets with
camouflage

38. • Dazzle
Camouflage

44. • Sniper in Dazzle camo

47. • German Lozenge
Camouflage on a Fokker
D.VII

48. • German Lozenge Camouflage

49. • Sonia Delaunay,

50. • sonia delaunay - costumes for the ” the gas heart” directed by
tristan tzara (1923)

51. • Giacomo Balla, , 'Futurist Suit', 1913-1918
• Human beings, until now, have dressed (more or less) in black mourning.
We are fighting against:
(a) the timidity and symmetry of colours, colours which are arranged in wishy-washy
patterns of idiotic spots and stripes;
(b) all forms of lifeless attire which make man feel tired, depressed, miserable and sad, and
which restrict movement producing a triste wanness;
(c) so-called 'good taste' and harmony, which weaken the soul and take the spring out of the
step.
We want Futurist clothes to be comfortable and practical
Dynamic
Aggressive
Shocking
Energetic
Violent
Flying (i.e. giving the idea of flying, rising and running)
Peppy
Joyful
Illuminating (in order to have light even in the rain)
Phosphorescent
Lit by electric lamps.