A History of European Art

(Steven Felgate) #1

side, the sculpture gives the impression that it is striding with forcefulness;
a strong wind has forced back the clothing or covering. Seen from in front,
if the sculpture is placed at our level, it seems to rush irresistibly headlong
toward us.


Next is Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (German, 1880–1938); we see his
Self-Portrait as a Soldier (1915), painted when the artist was on garrison
duty during World War I. The painting is a grim fantasy of the possibility of
dismemberment or amputation caused by war and, at the same time, a sexual
fantasy of castration. Kirchner had not lost a hand, although in this picture,
he is shown as having lost his right hand—his painting hand. Nor is he, as it
at ¿ rst appears, standing in front of a nude woman. Instead, he is standing in
front of a painting of a woman; the angle of the canvas can be seen at right.
The ambiguity, however, is intentional and has a strong sexual component.


When the war to end all wars ended, the tallying up of the physical and
psychological toll began. How was one to get on with life? The utter
irrationality of mankind seemed to have been demonstrated. To some, the
futility of the period could be expressed only by the absurd, and in art and
literature arose a movement called Dada, named by Tristan Tzara in 1916, in
response to that absurdity. We see an example in Duchamp’s Fountain (1917,
replicated in 1964). As a member of an exhibition jury that had announced
its intention to admit all art submitted, Duchamp anonymously entered
this work. Fountain, of course, is a urinal without plumbing that has been
removed from the lavatory, inverted, signed with a pseudonym, and dated.
Duchamp “found” an object, divorced it from its intended use, reordered
it by repositioning it, and tried to place it in an exhibition where it could
be seen “differently.” The concept of found objects incorporated into art or
presented as art in their own right has been around for a century and is now
generally accepted in the world of artists.


From Dada, or partly from it, came Surrealism, meaning “above” or “beyond”
Realism. Though Surrealist artists often used Realistic techniques, it was
to express the irrational, such as the world of dreams. On the other hand,
Surrealism might also utilize non-rational techniques, such as automatic
writing or painting. Much of Surrealism had a sexual content, because it
was informed by the theories and explorations of Sigmund Freud. As an

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