- Between the Wars
 

 

 

 

 


Picasso, Guernica detail (1938);  The Dream and Lie of Franco (1937) Homage to Ubu; Pre-cursor to Guernica (See Guardian) and the Douanier Rousseau's  La guerre (1894) (Smart Set)


Boccioni, Unique Forms of Continuity in Space (1913) (Smarthistory) (MET)


Beckmann,  Dancing Bar in Baden-Baden 1923


Poster for Der Blaue Engel (The Blue Angel), directed by Josef von Sternberg, 1930.


Grosz, Pillars of Society (1926) (MOMA)


Magritte, The Treachery of Images (Ceci n’est pas une pipe) (1929)


Gaudi, Casa Batlo  (1904-06)


Dali,  The Persistence of Memory (1931) (Smarthistory) (MoMA Multimedia)


Speer, The Berlin Dome, "The Empire of Light" (1937)

 Dali, Soft Construction with Boiled Beans (Premonition of Civil War) (1936)


Gropius, Bauhaus (1919-25) (MET)


Kandinsky, Composition 8 (1923)


Miro, The Farm (1922)


Klutsis, The USSR is the crack brigade of the world proletariat (1931)


The Victory of Faith [Der Sieg des Glaubens], Film Poster (1933)

Key Questions

 

 

 
  • Describe the rise of fascism and totalitarianism in Europe following World War I.  Why did people turn to these socio-political systems for answers in the wake of Worlds War I?  What was the appeal of these socio-political systems?
  • Following an era in which Nietzsche declared 'God is Dead', describe the ways in which these socio-political systems filled the void vacated by a conscious withdrawal from traditional religion.
  • How was the utter loss of faith in Western civilization expressed in the art, literature and music of the period?
  • Was there any hope after 'The War to End All Wars'?
  • How was artistic expression used to support and attack fascist, communist, totalitarian and Nazi ideology?
  • To what extent was the situation in Europe more unstable during the inter-war years than in the years leading up to World War I?

 BTW Political, Social, Economic, Intellectual Religious

 BTW Art:

 BTW Literature:

 BTW Music:

Primary Sources:

Primary Sources:

Primary Sources:

Primary Sources:

Versailles Treaty:

Conservatism:


Liberalism:

Weimar Germany:

Munich 1938:

Marxism:

Fascism/Nazism


Nazi Educational Propaganda



 
Stalin:


Konstantin Melnikov, Soviet Pavilion at the Paris International Exhibition of Decorative Arts 1925

Expressionsim:



Picasso, The Dance (1925)


Boccioni, Unique Forms of Continuity in Space (1913) (Smarthistory) (MET)

Futurism


Dix, The Skat Players - Card Playing War Invalids, 1920

Surrealism


Grosz, Republican Automotons (1920)

    Marxism:


    Arno Brekker, Sword Carrier (1938)

    Fascism/ Nazism



    Red Army Men by Varvara Stepanova, 1930


    Voron, For Shock-Brigade Reaping and for a Bolshevik Harvest  Poster. 1934

    Lang, Metropolis (1926) (Open Culture);  Poster ;  M, (1931) (Open Culture) 

    Fiction:

     Drama:


    The Threepenny Opera Original German poster from Berlin, 1928



    La Casa de Bernarda Alba (1936)

    Poetry:



    Bauhaus Home, 1929

    Film:




    Falconetti in The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)
    dir Dreyer


    Staluter, Hans. "The Eternal Jew." Poster. 1937. Hoover Institution.


    "Join the Kholkhoz" (1930)


    Ezhov's Iron Glove (1937)
    Music and Totalitarian Society:

     

    Rodchenko, Pioneer Girl (Pionerka). 1930.


    Deineka, The River (1944)
    Physical Culture in the USSR
    1934-35


    Denieka, Untitled (1937)

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     


     

    BTW  Political, Social, Economic, Intellectual Religious

     BTW Art:

     BTW Literature:

     BTW Music:

    Secondary Sources:

    Secondary Sources:

    Secondary Sources:

    Secondary Sources:

    Between world wars: Psychoanalytic glimmers

    corporatism and totalitarian.

    Science and Technology:
    • 1057 Too bad that Amelia Earhart didn't get to write poetry
    • 2232 The real story behind Amelia Earhart, and other tales to good to be true
    • 1062 In which Charles Lindbergh decides who to be
    • 2281 Lindbergh, Nungesser, and the stories woven about them
    • 2233 Gee Bee, Macchi-Castoldi, and the age of speed
    • 1070 Wrong Way Corrigan -- a last bit of fun before WW-II
    • 1335 Santos-Dumas, Zeppelin, and the great airships
    • 1396 An engineer named Calder
    • 1520 In which automobile makers gradually learn aerodynamics
    • 1606 The Skycity: a concept struggling against its own Gothic weight
    • 1715 The first flight around the world -- in 175 days
    • 1780 Radio Days -- a tribute to early radio
    		The Left:

    The Right:

    Totalitarian Art:

     

     

     

     

     

    		 Stravinsky and the Ballet Russes:

    Wagner and Hitler:
    Jazz:
    Orff's Carmina Burana:
    Shostakovich:
    • Shostakovich, Man of Many Variations (NPR); "The Secret Rebel" on Shostakovich's Recantation (Guardian 7-15-06)

    • Gogolian opera The Nose (1930) and his Third (‘May Day’) Symphony (1930), with its fast-paced montage of musical tableaux. 

    • Shostakovich’s first film score, for The New Babylon (1929), a cinematic reconstruction of the revolutionary events of the Paris Commune in 1871.
    • January 28, 1936: The Publication in Pravda of the Article "Chaos Instead of Music"  This article signaled Stalin’s displeasure with Shostakovich’s opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk and led to the composer’s “redemption” in his Symphony No. 5.  This program will explore Shostakovich and the sometimes mutually beneficial, sometimes terrifying, relationship between music and the totalitarian state.
    • Fifth Symphony (1937) (Keeping Score)  (the composer’s ‘Socialist Realist’ rejoinder to those who had attacked Lady Macbeth), which received a half-hour ovation of electrifying force when it was first performed in the Great Hall of the Leningrad Philharmonia in November 1937.
    • Seventh Symphony (1942) composed during the Seige of Leningrad:  symphony was  performed in the bombed-out Great Hall of the Philharmonia on 9 August 1942
    • Rayok, or The Peep Show, a cantata satire on the Zhdanov era
    • Shostakovich first used Jewish themes in the finale of the Second Piano Trio (1944), : the song cycle From Jewish Poetry (1948), courageously performed at private concerts in his flat at the height of the Doctors’ Plot;
    • The Thirteenth Symphony (1962), the ‘Babi Yar’ with its requiem, the words composed by the poet Yevtushenko, for the Jews of Kiev who were murdered by the Nazis in 1941; and virtually all the string quartets from No. 3 (in 1946) to the unforgettable No. 8 (in 1961).

    General Resources:

     BTW Political, Social, Economic, Intellectual Religious

     BTW Art:

      BTW Literature:

     BTW Music:

    Lesson Plans and Presentations:

    Lesson Plans and Presentations:

    Lesson Plans and Presentations:

    Lesson Plans and Presentations: