1. Mid-Twentieth
Century and
Later
European and US Reactions
to WWII
―Hell is other people.‖ from Sartre’s
No Exit

2. In the last chapter we determined…
 War can be framed as a cleansing
agent
 Optimism about social change can
bring war
 But war with modern technology is
devastating (flame throwers,
poison gas)
 WWI razes Europe
 WWI brings Europe to hysteria (Dada,
Surrealism)
 The US responds to WWI with stoicism

3. Guiding Question(s)
 What are the emotional and psychological effects of
modern warfare with modern technology?
 What do we seek (the US) after the trauma of War?

4. Guiding Historical Events
 1945-Hiroshima and Nagasaki
 The acute effects killed 90,000–166,000 people in Hiroshima and 60,000–80,000
in Nagasaki
 In both cities, most of the dead were civilians
 The Cold War
 After WWII and into the early 1990s
 Characterized by an amped up disdain for Communism
 1945-1973 US involvement in Vietnam
 The US, feeling quite powerful after WWII, is involved in a drawn-out war, much
of which is opposed by the US citizenry
 The US involvement comes indirectly out of the Cold War attitude to stamp out
communism, but also out of a bravado of imperialism that seeks to establish
democracy outside of the US
 1966-“The Pill”
 Oral contraceptives become widely available allowing women to choose when to
be pregnant and not
 Also brings to cultural consciousness the fact that women are sexual beings

5. European
Reactions
Despair
Atheism
Self-Reliance
FRANCIS BACON (British), Painting, 1946

6. Reflections of European Reactions to
WWII:
LITERATURE and PHILOSOPHY
 Jean-Paul Sartre’s No
Exit
 ―Torture‖ is the inability to  SimoneDebeauvoir’s
live with who we are, The Second Sex
 Characters in ―Hell‖  ―One is not born, but rather
because of the choices becomes, a woman.‖
they made  A study of how women
have BECOME
 Samuel Beckett’s  From prehistory, through
Waiting for Godot the mythological age, to
contemporary times
 From the Theatre of the
Absurd
 Contemplates what
Click on links to see videos
makes life worth living—
suicide is an option, but

7. US Reactions
Optimism
Prosperity in Consumerism
A sense of Uniqueness
ANDY WARHOL, Marilyn

8. Abstract
Expressionism
 Not philosophical like Kandinsky—primal
 An emphasis on the visual elements—an exploration of the
medium’s elements
 An image of the painter’s psyche, state of mind in order to
create emotional responses

9. Jackson Pollack’s Autumn
Rhythm, Number 30, 1950
 Seeking the
intuitive, the pure
(spiritualism
without God)
 Action Painting
 Artistis dead so
the process
becomes the art
object

10. Jackson Pollack
Drip Painting
Used non-traditional
media—house and
automobile paint
Used non-traditional
methods—canvas on
floor, brushes are
―flipped‖
Artist uses automatism
to make work anti-
mneumonic

11. Mark Rothko’s No.61, Rust and
Blue, 1953
 Color meant to
evoke emotion,
weeping
(Spiritualism without
God)
 Interpretation MUST
be engaged, so
Reader becomes the
artist, the one to
create meaning

12. In Architecture
Frank Lloyd Wright’s
Le Corbusier’s Ronchamp, Guggenheim Museum, New
France, 1950--55 York, 1957—60
Architecture as sculpture
Like painting, it lacks a central
form and moves more organically

13. Pop Art the art of reification
 POP art is an outgrowth of A. Expressionism, which deified
the transcendent
 Rejects symbolism (transcendent and decontextualized)
and embraces signs (semiotic and contextualized)
 Choose to represent the banal, the mundane

14. Reflections of the Pop Period
LITERATURE
Allen
Jack Kerouac Ginsberg
 On the Road,  Howl, 1956
1951
 A celebration of the
 The American
Western rewritten madness that arises
for the slums of out of a consumer
Denver and culture
Cheyenne,
Wyoming  Moloch
 Writing influenced
Click on linksby automatism
to see videos

15. Reflections of the Pop Period
MUSICAL
THEATRE
 Leonard Bernstein’s  Leonard Bernstein’s Mass
West Side Story  A religious Mass with
 Romeo and Juliet for a performers, dancers, street
modern, multiethnic singers
age  Intention is to reach popular
 Explores globalization culture with a new kind of
as it affects personal music
relationships, what we
hold most noble—love
 AndrewLloyd Webber’s
Jesus Christ Superstar
 Christianity for the rock age of
Click on links to see videos
popular culture
 Accompanies the rise of

16. John Cage
 Redefines what
music is and the
role of the musician
 Experimentedwith
sounds and forms
of music
 Used dishes, tubs,
and different
metals for sounds
 Forms are more
organic

17. Andy Warhol’s
Vegetarian Vegetable
from Campbell Soup
II, 1969
We are what we eat
We are what we
consume

18. Roy Lichtenstein’s Drowning Girl,
1963
 Defies the
eternality of art
 Subjects are
from pulp fiction,
which can be
thrown away
 Depicted with
ben day dots of
commercial
printing

19. In Subsequent Presentations you
will learn more about:
 The Language of Pop art
 Curating Abstract
Expressionist work at MOMA