Le Génie du Nord: Sélection and the Advocacy of a Cosmopolitan Northern Culture

The article discusses the francophone review of art and literature Sélection published in Brussels (1920–22) and Antwerp (1923–33), Belgium, by André de Ridder and Paul-Gustave van Hecke. It takes as its point of departure the concept Le Génie du Nord [The Genius of the North], which was the title of a 1925 book published in Antwerp by De Ridder. The book mainly consists of essays previously published in Sélection between 1923 and 1924. De Ridder argues that France should not claim autonomy in the field of cultural production since throughout the centuries Nordic influence played a central role in its evolution. Although the book attracted little attention from the contemporary press, it offers a novel approach to the Nordic idea through the anticipation of a new classical order that distinguished itself from Southern classicism. While German expressionism is equally renounced, the book proposes a synthetic style — similar to the one that marked the gothic period — that also found expression in the art presented in Sélection. This style furnished a visual model for the invention of a new classical order stemming from the successful mingling of French rationalism with Flemish expressionism, a ‘constructive expressionism’ that became the precondition for a universal Nordic culture. The magazine was supportive of those French and Belgian artists who achieved a combination of the two styles — an ‘eclectic dualism’, in the words of Edmond Picard. Taking the origins of Gothicism and the Nordische Gesellschaft as case points of ideological complexity, the Génie du Nord concept forms an alternative discourse which intervenes in an ongoing art-historical and cultural debate that defines the identity of Sélection.

Poezia modernă și tradiția

The article is a brief revisitation of the relationship between modern poetry and tradition, such as it was understood by poets starting with Charles Baudelaire. The theoretical proposition advanced here postulates the existence of two complementary attitudes in this respect: the first one progressive, characterized by the denial of tradition, represented by the European avant-garde (most of all futurism, dadaism, and surrealism); the second one conservative, illustrated first of all by German expressionism, but also by modernism and Anglo-American postmodernism’s attempts to recover or recycle the contents of tradition.

“That Saves Them the Blessings of Civilization”

The classic Hollywood Western is generally taken to be the antithesis of avant-garde art, a popular genre unaffected by modernism. However, John Ford’s Stagecoach (1939) provides an illustrative example of middlebrow American modernist cinema. Influenced by French literary naturalism and German expressionism, Ford’s Western obliquely engages with the ills of modern urban existence and the interrelated “crises of modernity” that characterized the interwar years, when the global viability of liberal democracy was cast into doubt. In Stagecoach, the problems of modernity are treated (diegetically), though not fully cured, by a transformative if dangerous journey into the American Wild West. By integrating the formal innovations of F. W. Murnau’s expressionist style with his own epic and monumental vision of the American west, Ford epitomized an underappreciated form of American vernacular modernism that emerged across the arts in the 1910s, flourished in the 1920s and 1930s, and survived into the post-WWII era.

Ich-Dissoziation – Apokalypse – Ästhetik des Hässlichen. Einfluss des deutschen literarischen Expressionismus’ auf die frühe Lyrik von Robert Reiter

"Dissociation of the Self – Apocalypse – the Aesthetic of Ugliness. The Influence of German Literary Expressionism on the Early Lyrical Work of Robert Reiter. The present paper focuses on the influence of German literary Expressionism on the early lyrical work of Robert Reiter. In his early period, Robert Reiter took inspiration from the formal language of German Expressionism, as well as from the notion of subjective expression or the dissociation of the self associated with it. He used the apocalypse-motif and the ideal type known as the “New Man,” and practised an “aesthetics of the ugly”, which played a central role in Expressionist literature. To support this thesis, this article analyses the early work of the poet in light of contemporary avant-garde tendencies, with a focus on the poem Terhes hajnalban [In Pregnant Dawn]. Keywords: Expressionism, Robert Reiter, dissociation of the self, apocalypse, aesthetic of ugliness "

Postmodernism: The American T.V. Show, 'Family Guy, As a Politically Incorrect Document

Postmodernism is a movement that grew out of modernism. Movements in art, literature, and cinema focused on a particular stance. The visual artists who created entertainment focused on expressing the creator herself/himself beginning from German expressionism to modernism, surrealism, cubism, etc. These art movements played an important part in what an artist (literature, art, and visual) portrayed to his or her audience. As perspectives played an important part, an understanding of what the artist needed to portray was critical. Modernism dealt with this portrayal, which came about due to the changes taking place in society. In terms of the industry, where the overall product dealt with features like individualism, experimentation and absurdity, modernism dealt with a need to overthrow past notions of what painting, literature, and the visual arts needed to be. "After World War II, the focus moved from Europe to the United States, and abstract expressionism (led by Jackson Pollock) continued the movement's momentum, followed by movements such as geometric abstractions, minimalism, process art, pop art, and pop music." Postmodernism helped do away with these shortcomings. An understanding of postmodernism is explored in this paper. The main point which sets it apart is concepts like pastiche, intersexuality, and spectacle. Concerning pop culture, an understanding of referencing is a constant trait used by postmodern art. Postmodern television and the central part of this study applied to the popular animated American TV show, 'family guy' is a postmodern show in its truest form, while attempting to use certain aspects of postmodernism tropes to help emphasize that visual art can be considered a historical document while doing an in-depth analysis of the visual text of 'family guy by itself, several other research papers were used to help further put in stone that 'family guy' is a true representation of postmodern television. It is divided into two phases of data collection: context analysis, which involves a qualitative study. The second being in-depth interviews (also qualitative) which in itself helps give a subjective view of participants between the ages of 20 and 28. These comprise students who are familiar with the show and the concepts of the show. All of them, both frequent viewers of the show and those also politically informed of world politics, helped further emphasize the concept of the paper, which was the idea of how a television show in all its absurd narrative and pastiche functions as a historical document. The purpose of this study, along with the results for this research, is to help bring about the comprehension of how postmodern shows are influenced by other past events, figures of history, etc.; this understanding can explain how a television show like 'family guy could be considered a historical document – by its narrative, by the cultural references connected to these said events, and also with the help of paintings, which the makers of the show use to design the episode of the show, and which reflect and refer to the actual historical figures. Historiography is being proven to be biased in more ways than one, which leads us to an understanding of a different narrative depending on one’s own opinions of history and historical documents as we know it.

O Anjo Azul: do fim do Expressionismo à influência da Paramount – um filme de Josef von Sternberg

“The success of the film will depend on the naked thighs of Miss Dietrich”. This was the answer that Heinrich Mann gave to Emil Jannings, when he asked the novelist if he had liked his performance. Made in 1930 and directed by Josef von Sternberg, The Blue Angel will always be remembered in the history of cinema as the movie in which the myth of Marlene Dietrich was born. However, its merits go well beyond this fact. The Blue Angel is the prototype of a hybrid film, made in Germany by an Austrian settled in America since he was a young boy, having been influenced not only by the American studio production, but also by the German Expressionism, through Max Reinhardt. A director whose cinema Nöel Simsolo compares to tapestry, in which all the elements are always necessary and important, with the supremacy of the décor because everything that appears on the screen becomes it. More than a motion picture that marks the end of an era, that of the German silent cinema, or the German Expressionism, more than a ‘foreign’ production of Paramount, The Blue Angel is above all a film by Josef von Sternberg, a point of arrival and a point of departure for all the marvels to come.

Picturesque of Literature and Literature of Fine Arts in Works of Twice Exceptional Expressionists

The article considers a problem of the arts interaction, which is a characteristic feature of German expressionism. It analyzes works of gifted expressionists, which are fulfilling themselves not only as writers, but as painters too and vice versa. All attention is paid to such figures of expressionism as Oscar Kokoschka, Franz Kafka, Alfred Kubin. The article argues that the power of talent of such artists is so great that self-realization in one of the arts is not enough for them, and therefore they actively use the opportunity to reveal the facets of their giftedness not only verbally, but also visually, alternately changing brushes to pen. Such a synthesis is quite productive because these works are enriched by narrative thematic motifs, genre varieties, a figurative vision of reality, compositional figures of the material organization, etc. It is proved that the expressionists did not follow the modernist concept “Art for the sake of art”, yet for them a human is with his fears, complexes and visions in the center. Thus, the main aim of an artist is using various artistic means to show a sacred inner world where in contrast to the real philistine life a spiritual unity and harmony do exist. In a combination of text, drawing or music, or, like Kokoschka’s light and paint, expressionists try to convey through multimedia the sensual and sacred that arises for them as the purpose of existence.

International aspect in the history of Russian contemporary graphics: problems of interpretation and identity

This article analyzes the examples of formal compliance with global trends in Russian print design of the XX – early XXI centuries. The subject of this research is the comparative characteristics of Russian and world practice in the area of contemporary graphic art. In this context, the author highlights the stylistic characteristics of expressionism (1910 – 1920) and neo-expressionism (1960s – 1980s).  Comparative analysis allows determining the points of intersection of Russian examples to Western analogues, as well as their originalities outlying the formal criteria. Emphasis is placed on the sources of determination of the uniqueness of graphics as a form of art within the history of Russian art studies. In the course of this research, the author brings the examples of “expressive” graphics in the works of N. N. Kupreyanov and A. I. Kravchenko in relation to printmaking of German expressionism, and some recent examples of Russian graphics (Saint Petersburg artists P. S. Bely, P. M. Shvetsov) in comparison to the graphic experiments of A. Kiefer. The conclusions lie in determination of the unique tradition of Russian realism (V. A. Vetrogonsky and V. I. Shistko), which in the author’s opinion, should be considered the crucial actor in the identity of Russian graphics against the trends leveling national cultural differences of international contemporary art.