scholarly journals THE SYMBOLISM OF THE MOUNTAIN IN THE EUROPEAN AND ROMANIAN SYMPHONIC CREATION

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Mihaela Rusu ◽  
Gheorghe Duțică
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Visual Arts ◽  
Analytical Approach ◽  
Complex Mixtures ◽  
Tone Poem ◽  
Philosophical Idea ◽  
Richard Strauss ◽  
Abstract Language ◽  
Contact Unit ◽  
Two Universes

Background: This analytical approach aims to accentuate the interconnections between two universes which are apparently in contradiction: ideal and pragmatic, or symbol and sound. The mountain – viewed as a place of creative inspiration – represents a leitmotif of creation in most of the artistic fields. Thus, literature, visual arts and music give this symbol a historical anchor in the artistic movements of all eras Methods: In order to exemplify a possible way of interference between the two philosophical areas, we have chosen as a “contact unit” the symbol of the mountain, observing the intuition with which it was represented in Alpen Symphony by Richard Strauss and the tone poem The Mountain by Csíky Boldizsár. In the compositional context of the twentieth century, Richard Strauss made a remarkable creation with a strong philosophical idea as a model of descriptive Programmatism. In his work, the composer suggests the ascension of a traveler in a mountain climb that encounters, in his journey, places either  protected by nature or dangerous  The whole journey is dominated by majestic symbols of life, nature, and, and resembles an initiatic journey through which the hero is challenged to push himself to the limits and evolve. Equally, this is an allegory of life. On the summit, The Glacier, or The Storm are just some symphonic scenes with complex symbolic connotations that will be analyzed in this research through the connection with the componistic technique of the creator. In a mysterious universe, the tone poem The Mountain by Csíky Boldizsár depicts the monumental landscape of the Transylvanian lands, the symbols of greatness, boundlessness and eternity. The intention of the composer is to raise a monument dedicated to the invincible human will, a force that drives explorers of unknown seas and lands, researchers of all mysteries, poets, psychologists, artists, to the eternal unknown. In music, the composer uses an abstract language, anchored in modernity, using a whole arsenal of complex mixtures of chords, bartokian modes, non-imitative polyphony, mobile clusters, elements that serve the expression. Results, Conclusions: Finally, this research aims to demonstrate, as a synthesis, how the tonal and modal languages manage to illustrate the connotations extracted from the symbol of the mountain.

Italian Minor Theatre, 2000–14: the Development of ‘Short Forms’ and the Politics of the Stage

2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (03) ◽  
pp. 195-208
Author(s):  
Silvia Mei
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Visual Arts ◽  
Modern Dance ◽  
Minor Literature ◽  
Philosophical Concept ◽  
Short Forms ◽  
Research Fellow ◽  
History Of ◽  
Expressive Dimension ◽  
The University

Brevity in experimental Italian theatre is not merely an expressive dimension of scenic creation, but a forma mentis, a conceptual vocation of young companies. The 2000s produced a minor theatre in Italy – first because of the reduced stage size, and second because of the brevity of works such as installation pieces. Moving from the linguistic disintegration of the historical avant-gardes of the twentieth century, this theatre is especially inspired by the visual arts, even though its historical roots remain fragmented and art is still seen in the synthetic language of modern dance and Futurist variety. Short forms actually become a tool for crossing artistic genres and languages. Starting from Deleuze’s and Guattari’s philosophical concept of minor literature, in this article Silvia Mei explores and analyzes work by such Italian contemporary companies as gruppo nanou, Città di Ebla, Anagoor, Opera, ErosAntEros, and Teatro Sotterraneo – all representative of what can be called installation theatre, a new theatrical wave that crosses the boundaries and specificities of artistic language, leading to the deterritorialization of theatre itself, a rethinking of the artistic work as well as its relationship with the audience. Silvia Mei is Adjunct Professor of the History of Theatre Directing and Theatre Iconography at the University of Bologna, having been a Research Fellow at the University of Turin. Her recent publications include ‘La terza avanguardia: ortografie dell’ultima scena italiana’, in Culture Teatrali, No. 14 (2015), and Displace Altofest (Valletta: Malta 2018 Foundation).

The avant-garde’s visual arts in the context of Santayana’s idea of vital liberty

Human Affairs ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Krzysztof Skowroński
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Visual Arts ◽  
The Other ◽  
Political Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Political Dimension ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The Universe

AbstractIn the present paper, the author looks at the political dimension of some trends in the visual arts within twentieth-century avant-garde groups (cubism, expressionism, fauvism, Dada, abstractionism, surrealism) through George Santayana’s idea of vital liberty. Santayana accused the avant-gardists of social and political escapism, and of becoming unintentionally involved in secondary issues. In his view, the emphasis they placed on the medium (or diverse media) and on treating it as an aim in itself, not, as it should be, as a transmitter through which a stimulating relationship with the environment can be had, was accompanied by a focus on fragments of life and on parts of existence, and, on the other hand, by a de facto rejection of ontology and cosmology as being crucial to understanding life and the place of human beings in the universe. The avant-gardists became involved in political life by responding excessively to the events of the time, instead of to the everlasting problems that are the human lot.

scholarly journals Regenesis: Lawrence and a Re-Evaluation of the Genesis story

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
AWEJ for Translation & Literary Studies ◽  
Roumaissa Moussaoui
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Analytical Approach ◽  
The Past ◽  
Creation Myth ◽  
Classical Mythology ◽  
Women In Love

The sterility of twentieth century society fostered nostalgia for the values of the past and a renewed interest in classical mythology. For D. H. Lawrence (1885 –1930), myth became one of the most important elements in both his fictional and non fictional works. Taking well-known examples, he reinterpreted them as an illustration of his own personal vision. This article is limited to a study of three major fictional works: The Rainbow, Women in Love and The Virgin and The Gypsy and attempts to analyse them in the light of the Genesis myth. It hinges on the hypothesis that Lawrence, by condemning orthodox religious beliefs, formulated his own creation myth: his regenesis. He attempted to expose the false ideals of conventional society, which had for centuries destroyed man’s natural intuition, by a re-examination of the Genesis myth. By using an analytical approach, this article aims to answer several provocative questions. Firstly, how far did Lawrence succeed in undermining conventional authority? Secondly, how successful was he in formulating his philosophy of regenesis? Thirdly, to what extent can this philosophy be seen as an answer to the problems of the age?

Untimely Reasoning about Two Monuments. Between Architecture, Sculpture and Site

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anton Danailov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Visual Arts ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Architectural Theory ◽  
Surrounding Environment ◽  
The One ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Artistic Analysis

The report compares the form-formation principles, key to the architecture of the Wexner Center for the Visual Arts (1983/89) Columbus, Ohio – of the American Peter Eisenmann – with some of the techniques used in the spatial – compositional solution of the destroyed Sofia monument “1300 Years Bulgaria” (1980/81–2017). The text refers to the 80’s of the twentieth century and the creative approaches, distinctive for some of the lastest „large-scale monuments“ realized in Bulgaria. These approaches are considered in the light of one opened architectural theory, absolutely oppositional to the one typical to our country at this time. The comparison aims to are to expand, within this date, the scope of the spatial-artistic analysis, committed to the relationship between the architecture, sculpture and the surrounding environment.

Expressionism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nell Andrew ◽  
Sharon Jordan ◽  
Lidia Głuchowska ◽  
Tanja Poppelreuter ◽  
Ryan Conrath
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Visual Arts ◽  
Physical Reality ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Van Gogh ◽  
Wassily Kandinsky ◽  
Vincent Van Gogh ◽  
Expressive Meaning ◽  
Edvard Munch

Expressionism was one of the foremost modernist movements to emerge in Europe in the early years of the twentieth-century. It had a profound effect on the visual arts, as well as on music, dance, drama, literature, poetry, and cinema. Rather than depict physical reality, Expressionism developed as a reaction against the prevailing interest in positivism, naturalism, and Impressionism, as artists who were heavily influenced by the work of Edvard Munch and Vincent Van Gogh sought to explore subjective content, finding the visual means to fully evoke or express an emotion, mood, or idea through their artwork. Expressionism’s theoretical underpinnings reside in Friedrich Nietzsche’s (1844-1900) philosophy and in Wilhelm Worringer’s (1881-1965) Abstraktion und Einfühlung (Abstraction and Empathy, 1908). In expressionist works, emotions and tensions were depicted with the help of symbolic color and lines in the belief that both carry their own innate expressive meaning and have psychological and spiritual effects—a strand of thinking pursued by Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) in his 1911 book Concerning the Spiritual in Art (Gordon, 1987).

scholarly journals The avant-garde in the architecture and visual arts of Post-Revolutionary Mexico

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fernando N. Winfield
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Visual Arts ◽  
Architectural Design ◽  
Political Context ◽  
Modern Architecture ◽  
The Political ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Mexican Architecture ◽  
Direct Reflection

Commenting on an exhibition of contemporary Mexican architecture in Rome in 1957, the polemic and highly influential Italian architectural critic and historian, Bruno Zevi, ridiculed Mexican modernism for combining Pre-Columbian motifs with modern architecture. He referred to it as ‘Mexican Grotesque’. Inherent in Zevi’s comments were an attitude towards modern architecture that defined it in primarily material terms; its principle role being one of “spatial and programmatic function”. Despite the weight of this Modernist tendency in the architectural circles of Post-Revolutionary Mexico, we suggest in this paper that Mexican modernism cannot be reduced to such “material” definitions. In the highly charged political context of Mexico in the first half of the 20th Century, modern architecture was perhaps above all else, a tool for propaganda. In this political atmosphere it was undesirable, indeed it was seen as impossible, to separate art, architecture and politics in a way that would be a direct reflection of Modern architecture’s European manifestations. Form was to follow function, but that function was to be communicative as well as spatial and programmatic. One consequence of this “political communicative function” in Mexico was the combination of the “mural tradition” with contemporary architectural design; what Zevi defined as “Mexican Grotesque”. In this paper, we will examine the political context of Post-Revolutionary Mexico and discuss what may be defined as its most iconic building; the Central Library at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico . In direct counterpoint to Zevi, we will suggest that it was far from grotesque, but rather was one of the most committed political statements made by the Modern Movement throughout the Twentieth Century. It was propaganda, it was political. It was utopian.

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