From the advent of Fauvism to the development of Dada, the early part of the twentieth century saw a series of avant-garde movements in European literature, music, and painting, which fundamentally re-examined the languages of the arts.
The strength of Early Modernism by Christopher Butler is its treatment of the great movements of this period in a uniquely integrated way. It highlights the interaction between the arts and the interlinking nature of the developments made by Matisse, Picasso, Schoenberg, Eliot, Apollinaire, Marinetti, Benn and many others. The resulting changes and radical new techniques such as atonality, cubism, and collage, are set in the context both of the art that preceded them and a profound shift in ideas. Theories of the unconscious, the association of ideas, primitivism, and reliance upon an expressionist intuition led to new ideas about personal identity. Butler examines the representation of the Modernist self in the work of figures including Joyce, Mann, Conrad, and Stravinsky. Lavishly illustrated, Early Modernism provides an elegant and incisive guide to these momentous 16 years in the history of European art.
Get clued up before your next visit to a modern art gallery. Check if this influential book on the history of art is in stock at your local library by consulting the online catalogue at https://www.sllclibrary.co.uk/cgi-bin/spydus.exe/MSGTRN/OPAC/BSEARCH
336 pages in Oxford University Press
First published 1994
ISBN 978-0198117469
Christopher Butler