Neurological Impact of World War I on the Artistic Avant-Garde: The Examples of André Breton, Guillaume Apollinaire and Blaise Cendrars

2016 ◽  
pp. 155-167 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julien Bogousslavsky ◽  
Laurent Tatu
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Andre Breton ◽  
World War ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Blaise Cendrars ◽  
Guillaume Apollinaire ◽  
André Breton

Federating the Modern Spirit: The 1922 Congress of Paris

PMLA ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 130 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marius Hentea
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Andre Breton ◽  
World War ◽  
The Public ◽  
International Conference ◽  
Tristan Tzara ◽  
The Arts ◽  
André Breton ◽  
Death Knell

The aim of the ill-fated 1922 Congress of Paris, an international conference organized by André Breton, was to diagnose the sources of the “modern spirit.” Although the congress had ambitious international goals, it was brought down by a remark with xenophobic connotations. Largely remembered today as the death knell of Paris Dada—the public fight between Tristan Tzara and Breton meant not only that the congress never took place but also that Paris Dada was dissolved—the congress's failure stemmed from the tensions involved in selfconsciously deining modernism. Arguing that ambivalence over the concept shaped the main participants' understanding of the congress, I read the congress as a concrete manifestation of the impulse to federate the arts in post-World War I France.

Cendrars, Blaise (1887–1961)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua Sperling ◽  
Jamie Wood
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
World War I ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Free Verse ◽  
World War ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Blaise Cendrars ◽  
Narrative Structures ◽  
The First World War ◽  
First World

Blaise Cendrars was one of the leading experimental writers of the twentieth century. In addition to being a novelist and journalist, he was also a film-maker and explorer. Although his career spanned many decades, Cendrars is now best known for his involvement in the Parisian avant-garde just prior to and following World War I. Cendrars experimented with free verse, image and text, and unusual narrative structures that combined the historical with the biographical and imaginary as a means of capturing the experience of modernity. Immediately following the war he wrote La Fin du monde filmée par l'Ange Notre-Dame (1919), the first poem to assume the form of a screenplay. During the years of his career that followed the First World War, Cendrars turned to the novel and continued to experiment in a variety of genres including the grotesque, reportage, and historical fiction. He died in 1961 following the publication of a tetralogy of memoirs.

Parisian Debuts and World War I

Georges Auric ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 19-42
Author(s):  
Colin Roust
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
First Year ◽  
Music Criticism ◽  
World War ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Louis Aragon ◽  
André Breton ◽  
Close Friendships ◽  
One Year ◽  
Schola Cantorum

In 1913, Georges Auric and his family moved to Paris, where he studied for one year at the Conservatoire and one year at the Schola Cantorum. During his first year in the capital, Auric published his first pieces of music criticism, performed a recital for the Société Musicale Indépendante, and had compositions performed on a recital for the Société Nationale de Musique. From these auspicious beginnings, he participated in several avant-garde art groups and was invited to join many of the most prestigious Parisian salons. In 1917, he was drafted into the army; though his military record was undistinguished, it led to close friendships with Louis Aragon and André Breton.

scholarly journals Symbolism at war: Charles Ricketts and the politics of the stage

2021 ◽  
Vol 51 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 318-336
Author(s):  
Ana Parejo Vadillo
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
World War ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Political Landscape

This article considers the effect of World War I on Charles Ricketts’ work for the stage as an avant-garde set and costume designer. It looks at his cosmopolitan designs in the context of European symbolism. The first part of the essay focuses on Ricketts’ symbolist manifesto ‘The art of stage decoration’ (1913). The essay then examines his designs for three Shakespeare plays that toured Le Havre in 1918 to entertain the troops. I argue that, in the aftermath of the war, Rickett’s symbolism became the lens through which he assessed the complex political landscape of the 1920s, and suggest that his stance against realism politicized his practice and explains his interest in Mussolini’s fascism.

Grosz, George (1893–1959)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara McCloskey
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
World War I ◽  
Social Order ◽  
The United States ◽  
Early 20Th Century ◽  
World War ◽  
New Objectivity ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
George Grosz

George Grosz was a leading artist of Germany’s early 20th-century expressionist, Dada, and New Objectivity movements. His works from this period remain celebrated examples of the modernist avant-garde. Grosz began his career as a student at the Dresden Academy of Art in 1909. In 1912, he moved to Berlin, abandoned the academic rigor of his earlier work, and became part of the Expressionist avant-garde. His paintings and drawings soon adopted the fractured planes, vivid color, and psychologically troubled content of Expressionist art. Grosz became politically radicalized by the outbreak of World War I in 1914. He helped to found Berlin Dada during the war years. His irreverent cut and paste Dada collages of this period assailed not only the concept of ‘‘art,’’ but also the vaunted notions of culture, militarism, and national pride that were part of a German social order Grosz had come to despise. At the end of World War I, Grosz joined the German Communist Party and became its leading artist. He fled to the United States in order to escape persecution after Hitler’s appointment as Chancellor in 1933. Grosz settled in New York, where he pursued his art under the utterly changed circumstances of exile.

Curiosities from the Front

PMLA ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 134 (3) ◽  
pp. 555-561
Author(s):  
Guillaume Apollinaire ◽  
Cedric Van Dijck
Keyword(s):  
Musical Instrument ◽  
First World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Everyday Objects ◽  
Guillaume Apollinaire ◽  
The First World War ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Full Swing ◽  
First World

In November 1916, with the first world war in full swing, the Soldiers of the 82nd Territorial Infantry Regiment of the French Forces opened the latest issue of their monthly regimental magazine, Brise d'entonnoirs (“Breeze from Bombcraters”), to find a piece by the avant-garde poet Guillaume Apollinaire. Entitled “Curiosités du front” (“Curiosities from the Front”), it reinvents the everyday objects that cluttered the front lines: a shovel held up above the trench, for instance, becomes a dancing musical instrument as German bullets strike the shovel plate. This sense of humor was characteristic of the trench press, which existed to distract readers from the grim realities of warfare. Probably because it was thought to be so amusing or pertinent, Apollinaire's piece attracted some notice in its day. Several of its sections—“The Shovel,” “Trellis,” “The Bulletproof Shield”—found their way into other publications, at the front as well as in Paris, and some even made it onto the popular quotation pages of the official magazine of the French army, Bulletin des Armées de la République, of which an unsuspecting Apollinaire had written a year earlier, “Les pages consacrées aux citations sont merveilleuses” (“The pages dedicated to quotations are marvelous” [Letter to André Level]).

scholarly journals Transatlantic crossing in the 1920s and 30s – the trajectories of the European poetic and scientific avant-garde in Brazil

Gragoatá ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 21 (41) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ellen Spielmann
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Sao Paulo ◽  
São Paulo ◽  
World War ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Blaise Cendrars ◽  
The University ◽  
Fernand Braudel

This article focuses on four paradigmatic cases of travelers. The central part concerns Dina Lévi-Strauss who gave the first course on modern ethnography in Brazil. She transfered the very latest: her projects include the founding of an ethnographic museum modeled on the “Musée de l`Homme”. Claude Lévi-Strauss and Fernand Braudel traveled to São Paulo as members of the French mission, which played an important role in the founding of the University of São Paulo. For political reasons Claude Lévi-Strauss’ contract at the University was not renewed in 1937. Blaise Cendrars was already a famous poet when he crossed the Atlantic in 1924. Fascism in Europe and World War II interrupted the careers of these four travelers as well as their interchanges with Brazil and their Brazilian friendships. But Brazilian experiences of Claude Lévi-Strauss and Braudel are crucial for their successful careers, after 1945.----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Travessia transatlântica nos anos 1920 e 1930: as trajetórias da vanguarda poética e científica europeia no BrasilO artigo trata de quatro casos paradigmáticos de viajantes. A parte central está dedicada a Dina Lévi-Strauss, quem ministrou o primeiro curso de etnografia moderna no Brasil, apresentando nele o que havia de mais recente em sua época; seus projetos ainda incluíam a fundação de um museu etnográfico concebido a partir do modelo do “Musée de l’Homme”. Por sua vez, Claude Lévi-Strauss e Fernand Braudel viajaram a São Paulo como membros da Missão francesa, que teve um papel importante na fundação da Universidade de São Paulo, mesmo que, por razões políticas, o contrato de Claude Lévi-Strauss não tenha sido renovado pela Universidade em 1937. Antes deles, Blaise Cendrars era já um poeta famoso quando cruzou o Atlântico em 1924. O fascismo na Europa e a Segunda Guerra Mundial interromperam as carreiras destes quatro viajantes tanto quanto seus intercâmbios com o Brasil e com seus amigos brasileiros. Contudo, as experiências que Claude Lévi-Strauss e Braudel levaram a cabo no Brasil foram cruciais para o sucesso de suas respectivas carreiras após 1945.---Artigo em inglês.

scholarly journals Zenitism and orientalism

2021 ◽  
pp. 29-45
Author(s):  
Iva Glišić ◽  
Tijana Vujošević
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Balkan Peninsula ◽  
Black Atlantic ◽  
Striking Similarity ◽  
World War ◽  
Negative Stereotypes ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Global Demand ◽  
The Aesthetic

Reflecting on the centenary of the birth of Zenitism, this essay examines how the movement engaged with stereotypes about the Slavic Orient, and in particular the discourse on Balkanism. The European orientalist reading of the Balkans became especially profound in years surrounding the World War I. Seeking to invert derogatory characterisations of the Balkan Peninsula, Zenitists would embark on a mission to "Balkanise Europe" by presenting the artist from the East as a rejuvenating, revolutionary force emerging from a cultural tabula rasa. Zenitism sought to destabilise the dominant Orient-Occident discourse by establishing parallels between existing negative stereotypes of the Balkans and the aesthetic tropes of the European avantgarde. Specifically, Zenitists established the Balkan "Barbarogenius" as the archetypal modernist primitive - precisely the figure conjured by the European intelligentsia as the saviour for its listless modern condition. In addition, the Zenitist movement established an analogy between the hallmark fragmentation of the Balkans and the cultural cacophony of the avant-garde. The political and aesthetic strategies of the movement, the authors assert, bear a striking similarity with those of the Black Atlantic, and its 'in-betweenness'-its ambition to straddle two opposing worlds. Organised around its eponymous journal Zenit, which was conceptualised as "the first Balkan journal in Europe and the first European journal in the Balkans," Zenitism employed European avant-garde aesthetic strategies while simultaneously rejecting European claims to cultural supremacy. For Yugoslav, Soviet, and Western European audiences, the journal had two parallel goals: the creative "Balkanisation" of Europe, and a commitment to dismantling Yugoslav "nesting orientalisms" by fighting against the reproduction of negative stereotypes among the region's own inhabitants. Against a backdrop of European crisis and a global demand for a renewed emancipatory struggle, the ambition of Zenitism holds strong appeal today.

scholarly journals The neurology behind three wounded French artists during the great world war

2020 ◽  
Vol 78 (6) ◽  
pp. 380-382
Author(s):  
Bruno Kusznir VITTURI ◽  
Wilson Luiz SANVITO
Keyword(s):  
French Literature ◽  
Phantom Limb ◽  
World War ◽  
Nerve Paralysis ◽  
Blaise Cendrars ◽  
Guillaume Apollinaire ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Neurological Conditions ◽  
First World ◽  
Unique Association

Abstract A unique association joins Guillaume Apollinaire, Blaise Cendrars and Louis Ferdinand Céline. Besides being great exponents of French literature, they were all neurologically wounded during the First World War. Apollinaire had a traumatic brain injury, Cendrars developed phantom limb neuropathic pain and Céline presented radial nerve paralysis. There is quite an evidence that supports that their artistic output was also influenced by acquired neurological conditions during the war. The examples of these three French authors reveal the surprising intimacy Neurology can share with art and history.

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