Text by Emily Braun, Kenneth E. Silver, James Herbert, Jeanne Nugent, Helen Hsu.
Now available in paperback, Chaos and Classicism explores the classicizing aesthetic that followed the immense destruction of World War I: the poetic dream of antiquity in the Parisian avant garde of Fernand Léger and Pablo Picasso; the politicized revival of the Roman Empire under Benito Mussolini by artists such as Giorgio de Chirico and Mario Sironi; and the austere functionalist utopianism of the Bauhaus, as well as, more chillingly, the pseudo-biological classicism, or Aryanism, of nascent Nazi society. Among the other artists surveyed here are Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, André Derain, Gino Severini, Jean Cocteau, Le Corbusier, Amédée Ozenfant, Madeleine Vionnet, Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann, Carlo Carrŕ, Giorgio Morandi, Massimo Campigli, Achille Funi, Ubaldo Oppi, Gio Ponti, Arturo Martini, Georg Kolbe, Oskar Schlemmer, Otto Dix, Georg Scholz, Georg Schrimpf, Wilhelm Schnarrenberger and August Sander.
Featured image, Julius Bissier's Sculptor with Self-Portrait, 1928, is reproduced from the paperback edition of Chaos and Classicism.
"In the sober postwar period, the radical artistic experimentation that characterized the century's opening seemed inappropriate in the face of World War I's terrible destruction. Art that was innovative yet acknowledged was the past was essential to address both the need for order and the profound sense of tragedy that hung over the era. Classicism, with its figuration, clean lines, and modeled forms, functioned as both a vehicle for mourning and an assertion of beauty, and by the mid-1930s, these notions of classical rebirth were appropriated and fostered to devastating ends. Yet, the fact that Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini conceived of themselves as the reincarnations of ancient Greek and Roman rulers--and took their fantasies to terrible lengths--does not mean that the classical aesthetic and its various revivals are inherently dangerous. At its best, classicism is a language of democratic ideals, beauty and balance, with the power to redeem."
FORMAT: Pbk, 8 x 10.75 in. / 192 pg / 140 color. LIST PRICE: U.S. $40.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $50 ISBN: 9780892074051 PUBLISHER: Guggenheim Museum Publications AVAILABLE: 4/30/2011 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Out of print AVAILABILITY: Not available TERRITORY: WORLD
Chaos and Classicism Art in France, Italy, and Germany, 1918-1936
Published by Guggenheim Museum Publications. Text by Emily Braun, Kenneth E. Silver, James Herbert, Jeanne Nugent, Helen Hsu.
Now available in paperback, Chaos and Classicism explores the classicizing aesthetic that followed the immense destruction of World War I: the poetic dream of antiquity in the Parisian avant garde of Fernand Léger and Pablo Picasso; the politicized revival of the Roman Empire under Benito Mussolini by artists such as Giorgio de Chirico and Mario Sironi; and the austere functionalist utopianism of the Bauhaus, as well as, more chillingly, the pseudo-biological classicism, or Aryanism, of nascent Nazi society. Among the other artists surveyed here are Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, André Derain, Gino Severini, Jean Cocteau, Le Corbusier, Amédée Ozenfant, Madeleine Vionnet, Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann, Carlo Carrŕ, Giorgio Morandi, Massimo Campigli, Achille Funi, Ubaldo Oppi, Gio Ponti, Arturo Martini, Georg Kolbe, Oskar Schlemmer, Otto Dix, Georg Scholz, Georg Schrimpf, Wilhelm Schnarrenberger and August Sander.
