20th Century - Major Artistic & Literary Movements

1. Paper N/o., Subject Code, Name : 110A : 22403 :
History of English Literature – From 1900 to 2000
Topic : Major Artistic & Literary Movements
Prepared By : Nirav Amreliya
Batch : 2021-2023 (M.A. Sem. 2)
Enrollment Number : 4069206420210002
Ro. N/o. : 18
Submitted To : Smt. S. B. Gardi Department of English,
Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University,
Vidhyanagar, Bhavnagar – 364001
(Dated On : 15th April, 2022)
Twentieth Century : Artistic & Literary Movements

2.  Introduction :
 The 20th century opened new vistas and possibilities
that expanded everyday human experience and greatly
influenced the world of art and original painting. From
the earliest years of the turn of the century, artists were
beginning to experiment with subject matter, creating
realities reflective more of their own inner visions than
what lay before them in nature. Concurrent with this was
a search for new techniques, materials, and approaches
to support these forays into new terrains. As a result,
20th century painting movements and trends inspired
artists to set out in many divergent directions, resulting
in a broad range of styles and forms. Here are some of
the major movements that defined and shaped art in the
20th century and which still influence the art being
produced today.
 Subsequent initiatives towards the end of the century
involved a paring down of the material of art
through Minimalism, and a shift toward non-visual
components with Conceptual art, where the idea, not
necessarily the made object, was seen as the art.

3. 1. Stream of Consciousness :
 Recognized as the most important feminist writer (and perhaps one of
the most important writers in general) of all time, Virginia Woolf used
the stream-of-consciousness technique to great significance in her
work. The novel ’Mrs. Dalloway’ follows the thoughts, experiences, and
memories of several characters on a single day in London. In this
passage, the title character, Clarissa Dalloway, watches cars driving by
 Samuel Beckett used the stream of consciousness technique in his ’Three
Novels’ (Molloy, Malone Dies and the Unnamable) to deliver a stream of
observations and musings on time and existence. Beckett placed stream of
consciousness style monologues in the mouths of many of his characters
and later applied the method to his novels.
 James Joyce applied a new technique which is going inside the
characters' minds to reveal innermost thoughts, feelings, and
sensations. ‘Ulysses’ (1922), this novel tracks a single day in the life
of Irishman Leopold Bloom. It contains long lengthy passages of
stream of consciousness, truly mimicking a brain’s free-associative
abilities. Joyce pushed this technique even further in later works,
culminating in the arguably narrative-free ’Finnegan’s Wake.’

4. 2. Expressionism :
 Munch’s own deeply original style crystallized about 1892.
Munch used line not as decoration but as a vehicle for profound
psychological revelation. The violent emotion and
unconventional imagery of his paintings, especially their
daringly frank representations of sexuality, created a bitter
controversy.
 Käthe Kollwitz was the last great practitioner of
German Expressionism and is often considered to be the
foremost artist of social protest in the 20th century.
Her Expressionistic prints, woodcuts, and sculptures
empathetically portrayed human suffering. Capturing the
anguish and plight of the impoverished and injured in a country
torn apart by armed conflict.
 Max Pechstein, painter and printmaker, who was a leading
member of the group of German Expressionist artists
known as Die Brücke (“The Bridge”). He is best known for
his paintings of nudes and landscapes. Most of Pechstein's
main motifs had always been figures in nature, the human
form in natural surroundings. his attraction of a "primitive"
life had already led to the discovery of the expressive
powers of Oceanic and African art.

5. 3. Absurdism :
 Eugène Ionesco, Romanian-born French dramatist whose tragicomic farces
dramatize the absurdity of bourgeois life, the meaninglessness of social
conventions, and the futile and mechanical nature of modern civilization. His
plays build on bizarrely illogical or fantastic situations using such devices as the
humorous multiplication of objects on stage until they overwhelm the actors.
The clichés and tedious maxims of polite conversation surface in improbable or
inappropriate contexts to expose the deadening futility of most human
communication.
 Albert Camus in his influential philosophical essay, Le Mythe de
Sisyphe (The Myth of Sisyphus), in which he, with considerable sympathy,
analyzed contemporary nihilism and a sense of the “absurd.” His writings,
which addressed themselves mainly to the isolation of man in an alien
universe, the estrangement of the individual from himself, the problem of evil,
and the pressing finality of death, accurately reflected the alienation and
disillusionment of the postwar intellectual.
 Franz Kafka’s stories and novels have provoked a wealth of interpretations.
Brod and Kafka’s first English translators, Edwin Muir and his wife, Willa,
viewed the novels as allegories of divine grace. Existentialists have seen
Kafka’s environment of guilt and despair as the ground upon which to
construct an authentic existence. Some have found an imaginative
anticipation of totalitarianism in the random and faceless bureaucratic terror
of The Trial.

6. 4. Surrealism :
 An original member of the Dada group, André Breton founded
and led the Surrealist movement in 1924. Introducing the notion
of intuitive art and automatism in his Surrealist Manifesto, he
defined the movement as "psychic automatism in its pure state,
by which one proposes to express - verbally, by means of the
written word, or in any other manner - the actual functioning of
thought." Breton believed in the future resolution of dream and
reality into surreality, the reality he regarded as absolute.
 A celebrated Belgian surrealism painter, Rene Magritte created
works that are beautiful in their clarity and simplicity, but also
provoke unsettling thoughts. He described his works as visible
images that conceal nothing, but evoke mystery. Featuring
everyday objects placed in unusual contexts and juxtapositions,
his art challenges the assumptions of human perception and
force the viewer to reconsider things usually taken for granted.
 Renowned for his flamboyant personality and technical virtuosity, Salvador Dalí is best known for
his painterly output, Despite being formally expelled from the Surrealist group in 1934 for his
reactionary political views, he is today most often associated with this movement. Basing his
surrealism artworks on Freudian theory, Dalí aimed to create a formal and visual language in his
studio that could render his dreams and hallucinations. The act of tapping into the unconscious he
described as “critical paranoia”. Obsessed with themes of eroticism, death, and decay, he is
famous for employing ready-interpreted symbolism encompassing fetishes, animal imagery, and
religious symbols in his art.

7. 5. Dadaism :
 Hugo Ball's major contribution as leader and co-founder along with his
girlfriend, cabaret performer, Emmy Hennings, of the Dada movement, was to
articulate the collective's radical nihilistic and iconoclastic ideology. Ball's sound
poems such as Karawane (1916) and Katzen and Pfauen (1916) exemplified
Dada's ironic, nonsensical, and playful yet deadly serious critique of Western
culture.
 Tristan Tzara, Romanian-born French poet and essayist known mainly as the
founder of Dada, a nihilistic revolutionary movement in the arts, the purpose of
which was the demolition of all the values of modern civilization. He wrote the
first Dada texts—La Première Aventure céleste de Monsieur Antipyrine (1916;
“The First Heavenly Adventure of Mr. Antipyrine”) and Vingtcinq poèmes (1918;
“Twenty-Five Poems”)—and the movement’s manifestos, Sept
Manifestes Dada (1924; “Seven Dada Manifestos”).
 Marcel Duchamp, French artist who broke down the boundaries between
works of art and everyday objects. A urinal titled Fountain, he sent to the first
exhibition of the Society of Independent Artists, in 1917. Although he was a
founder-member of this society, he had signed the work “R. Mutt,” and
therefore it was refused. In Paris in 1919 he stayed with Picabia and
established contact with the first Dada group. This was the occasion of his
most famous ready-made, a photograph of the Mona Lisa with a moustache
and a goatee added. The act expressed the Dadaists’ scorn for the art of the
past, which in their eyes was part of the infamy of a civilization that had
produced the horrors of the war just ended.

8.  Conclusion :
 Art and design are both influenced by the politics, rise of technology, and
the atmosphere of various periods. The produced pieces, poster works, or
even the innovations of typography are all linked to the thoughts and
challenges the various societies face. The economical, social, political,
and cultural factors need to be understood as guides which help
designers produce pieces which communicate with its public. Hugo Ball
regarded “all this civilized carnage as a triumph of European intelligence.”
One Cabaret Voltaire performer, Romanian artist Tristan Tzara, described
its nightly shows as “explosions of elective imbecility.”

9.  Resources :
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 Artnet.com, http://www.artnet.com/artists/k%C3%A4the-kollwitz/.
 Blumberg, Naomi. "Käthe Kollwitz". Encyclopedia Britannica, 9 Jul. 2021, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Kathe-Kollwitz.
Accessed 15 April 2022.
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 MasterClass. “Writing 101: What Is Stream of Consciousness Writing? Learn about Stream of Consciousness in Literature with
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