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Description: Modernity and Nostalgia: Art and Politics in France between the Wars
BOOKModernity and Nostalgia: Art and Politics in France between the Wars
Romy Golan
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-23845
For most of the nineteenth century and the first decade of the twentieth, France embodied the very essence of artistic modernism. However, in this original and perceptive study, Romy Golan argues that, after the First World War, traumatized by the experience of the trenches and then by the stranglehold of the Depression, France suffered a crisis of confidence so profound that it initiated a period of cultural, political, and economic retrenchment that lasted into the Vichy years. The image that France acquired of itself—as a rural, feminine, feudal, and victimized society—was not only reflected in the art of the period but was to a large extent fashioned and conditioned by it.

Golan argues that reactionary issues such as anti-urbanism, the return to the soil, regionalism, corporatism, and doubts about the new technology became central to cultural and art historical discourse. Focusing on the overlap of avant-garde and middle-of-the-road production, she investigates the import of these issues not only in painting, sculpture, and architecture (concentrating on the work of Léger, Picasso, Le Corbusier, Ozenfant, Derain, the Surrealists, and the so-called naïfs), but also in the decorative arts, in the spectacle of world and colonial fairs, and in literature. Throughout she finds evidence that artists turned from the aesthetics of the machine age toward a more xenophobic, organic, naturalistic art. This leads her to ask whether the famous and momentous shift of the avant-garde from Paris to New York in 1939 did not, in fact, begin two decades earlier, in 1918. According to Golan, it was in democratic France of this period, rather than in Fascist Italy or Nazi Germany, that one finds the most compelling demonstration of the hidden interaction of art and ideology.

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Author
Romy Golan
PublisherYale University Press
Print publication date October 1995 (out of print)
Print ISBN 9780300063509
EISBN 9780300276305
Copyright© 1995 by Romy Golan
Illustrations 184
Print Status out of print
Publisher (out of print)
WorldCat
Google Books

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List of illustrations

  • The Conquest of the Air
  • Landscape of Hauteville
  • Brante et le Mont Ventoux
  • House in the Forest
  • Village Road
  • Old Bridge in Cagnes
  • Provençal Farmhouse
  • Spring in Chaville
  • Reims in ruins
  • Aerial photograph of Douaumont (Meuse)
  • Crédit National
  • Entrevaux-sur-Var
  • Trenches
  • l'Enlisé
  • War (The Trenches)
  • Battle of Fish
  • Mama, Papa is Wounded!
  • Verdun: Ils t'ont meurtrie chère fille, mais ils ne t'ont pas eue
  • Emprunt National
  • Rape of Europa with Shell
  • Nude
  • Nude Woman with a Basket of Fruit
  • Bathers
  • Seated Bather
  • Boules Players No. 2
  • Village of Longport, after its destruction in 1918
  • Village of Longport, after its reconstruction in 1926
  • Auvergne
  • Reims cathedral after the 1914 bombing
  • Rouen Cathedral
  • Les Tracés Régulateurs
  • Vision Provoked by the Porte Saint-Denis at Night
  • Notre-Dame de Paris
  • L'Art en deuil. MCMXIV
  • Notre-Dame de Paris
  • First World War memorial, Pernarmc'h, Brittany
  • First World War memorial
  • First World War memorial to the Unknown Heroes, for the Paris Panthéon, 1914–1918
  • First World War memorial
  • La Pergola de la Douce France
  • Saint Sebastian
  • Woman with Tamburin
  • Helmeted Head
  • Peasant Family
  • Le Soldat Laboureur
  • Terre de France, Emprunt National
  • The Herdsman
  • Portrait of Auguste Herbin's mother and uncle
  • Briard Peasants
  • The Drinkers
  • The Rest in the Cellar
  • The Two Friends (Portrait of Duyoner de Segonzac and Boussingault)
  • Still Life with Rooster
  • The Old Donjon
  • Event in the Village
  • Town Hall with Flag
  • The Master of the Harvest
  • André Duyoner de Segonzac as Le Maçon des sous-bois
  • Self-Portrait
  • The Game of Skittles
  • Paysage Animé
  • The Fourteenth of July in Avignon
  • Untitled
  • Ludus Pro Patria
  • The City
  • The Fourteenth of July
  • La Maison Bernot
  • The Street
  • The Blind Alley
  • Still Life Léonce Rosenberg or Still Life Modern Effort
  • Le Village Français
  • Ti Breiz
  • Leaves and Shells
  • Woman with Cat and Teapot
  • The Source/Woman at the Spring
  • The Harvesters
  • Rustic Labor
  • Harvest
  • The Toil of the Earth
  • Old Gloves
  • Bather
  • Composition with Three Figurines
  • Arcachon fisherman's family
  • Arcachon oyster-fishing folk
  • Arcachon Fisherwoman
  • Composition with Moon
  • Fish-seller
  • Fisherwoman
  • Hélène de Mandrot House, Le Pradet near Toulon
  • The Woodcutter
  • Perilous Harmony
  • Biological Life
  • The Crowning of the Virgin
  • Cabinet
  • Microscopic enlargement of wood and metal
  • The Rendez-vous of the Trout Fisherman
  • Dining room
  • Dining room
  • The Young Man's Home: Study and Gym
  • Chaise longue
  • Sports
  • Cover of Art
  • From the Other Side of the Bridge
  • Woman, Child, Palm Tree and Vase
  • Grotto with Bathers
  • Exquisite Corpse
  • Desmeures's poster Exposition Coloniale Internationale, Paris 1931
  • Paris 1937
  • Normandie
  • Suite Arabe
  • The History of Navigation
  • Jungle Scenes
  • Royal Tigers on the Edges of the River Mekong; Sacred Elephants on the Edges of the River Mekong
  • Norman Horseman
  • Odalisque with Grey Pantalon
  • Oued
  • Algérienne
  • Algeria
  • North African Nude
  • Bather with Pinasse [shallop]
  • Plan Obus model
  • The Four Races
  • Congolese Girls
  • L'Avenue des colonies françaises
  • The Colonies' Contribution to France
  • Palais de la Section Métropolitaine
  • France's Contributions to the Colonies
  • Rodier Stand
  • Office of Maréchal Lyautey
  • Desk and armchairs
  • Centre Régional
  • Centre Rural
  • Photomontage, Agriculture Pavilion
  • Return from the Fields
  • Man with Pitchfork
  • Man with Plow
  • The Street
  • Copy of Joseph Reinhardt's Kanton Freiburg
  • The Mountain
  • Rest during the Harvest
  • The Elders
  • The Peasant's Soup
  • Still Life with Old Shoe
  • The Landscape of Wonders
  • Arts and Crafts
  • Madrid, 1937 (The Black Airplanes)
  • La Monserrat
  • The Reaper/Catalan Peasant in Revolt
  • Guernica
  • Woman Seated in a Garden
  • Potiers et Imagiers de France
  • Night Fishing at Antibes
  • Paul Guillaume, Novo Pilota
  • Bignou Players
  • The Accordionist (Portrait of Per Krohg)
  • Musical Group
  • Mon Intérieur, Paris (Still Life with Clock)
  • Mon Intérieur, Paris (Still Life with Accordion)
  • Chartres Cathedral
  • Chartres Cathedral
  • The Village
  • The Pastry-Cook
  • The Waiter
  • Montparnasse, Square Jolivet
  • Lampshade Peddler
  • L'Elégance du Métier
  • Max Jacob
  • The Fourteenth of July in Quimper
  • Soldat Laboureur
  • (left) "Je me dirige tout seul"; (center) "Les Héros de Verdun"; (right) “La terre, elle, ne ment pas"
  • Landscape of Gordes
  • Salon des Provinces Françaises
  • 3e Salon de l'Imagerie
  • The Soil
  • Life of the Fields
  • Youth and the Return to the Soil
  • The Golden Age (Terrestrial Paradise, The Hunt)
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Contents
Romy Golan
Description: Modernity and Nostalgia: Art and Politics in France between the Wars
Modernity and Nostalgia: Art and Politics in France between the Wars
Contents
Author
Romy Golan
PublisherYale University Press
Copyright© 1995 by Romy Golan
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-23846
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Acknowledgments
Romy Golan
Description: Modernity and Nostalgia: Art and Politics in France between the Wars
Modernity and Nostalgia: Art and Politics in France between the Wars
~In the course of writing this book I have received the help of numerous colleagues, museum curators, and friends in France, England, and the United States.
Author
Romy Golan
PublisherYale University Press
Copyright© 1995 by Romy Golan
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-23847
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Preface
Romy Golan
Description: Modernity and Nostalgia: Art and Politics in France between the Wars
Modernity and Nostalgia: Art and Politics in France between the Wars
~In the minds of most art historians, France has remained a stronghold of modernism and even of avant-gardism up until World War II. The main premise of this book, however, is that far from inhabiting the margins of cultural and art-historical discourse in France, reactionary issues such as the return to the soil, anti-urbanism, the questioning of technology...
Author
Romy Golan
PublisherYale University Press
Copyright© 1995 by Romy Golan
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-23848
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1. France Revisited: Landscape as Lieu de Mémoire
Romy Golan
Description: Modernity and Nostalgia: Art and Politics in France between the Wars
Modernity and Nostalgia: Art and Politics in France between the Wars
To begin a study of French art between the wars with landscape painting is to risk seeming anti-climactic and parochial...
Author
Romy Golan
PublisherYale University Press
Copyright© 1995 by Romy Golan
Related print edition pages: pp.1-21
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-23849
Chapter subject tags:Landscape painting, French--20th centuryWorld War, 1914-1918--Trench warfareSurrealism--FranceFrance--Politics and government--20th centuryCubism--FranceDerain, André, 1880-1954Art and society--France--History--20th century

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2. Rusticizing the Modern
Romy Golan
Description: Modernity and Nostalgia: Art and Politics in France between the Wars
Modernity and Nostalgia: Art and Politics in France between the Wars
If landscape could serve as a consoling memento mori, all the more so could be that which was to be rebuilt upon it. In recounting the discourse surrounding France’s postwar reconstruction...
Author
Romy Golan
PublisherYale University Press
Copyright© 1995 by Romy Golan
Related print edition pages: pp.23-60
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-23850
Chapter subject tags:Regionalism--FranceWar memorials--FranceLandscape painting, French--20th centuryExposition internationale des arts décoratifs et industriels modernes (1925 : Paris, France)Art and society--France--History--20th centuryFrance--Politics and government--20th centuryGromaire, Marcel, 1892-1971Lhote, André, 1885-1962

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3. A Crisis of Confidence: From Machinism to the Organic
Romy Golan
Description: Modernity and Nostalgia: Art and Politics in France between the Wars
Modernity and Nostalgia: Art and Politics in France between the Wars
By 1927, two years after their championing of the machine aesthetic culminated in their contributions to the Exposition des Arts Décoratifs...
Author
Romy Golan
PublisherYale University Press
Copyright© 1995 by Romy Golan
Related print edition pages: pp.61-83
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-23851
Chapter subject tags:Le Corbusier, 1887-1965Léger, Fernand, 1881-1955Agriculture--France--HistoryFrance--Politics and government--20th centuryArt and society--France--History--20th centuryOzenfant, Amédée, 1886-1966

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4. The Return to Man
Romy Golan
Description: Modernity and Nostalgia: Art and Politics in France between the Wars
Modernity and Nostalgia: Art and Politics in France between the Wars
France’s crisis of confidence, and its slightly paranoid view of America and Germany, were tangential to a much larger debate over the decline of the West...
Author
Romy Golan
PublisherYale University Press
Copyright© 1995 by Romy Golan
Related print edition pages: pp.85-104
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-23852
Chapter subject tags:Furniture design--France--History--20th centuryOzenfant, Amédée, 1886-1966Léger, Fernand, 1881-1955Le Corbusier, 1887-1965France--Politics and government--20th centuryArt and society--France--History--20th century

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5. At the Fairs
Romy Golan
Description: Modernity and Nostalgia: Art and Politics in France between the Wars
Modernity and Nostalgia: Art and Politics in France between the Wars
In the midst of the Depression, two colossal world fairs – the 1931 Exposition Coloniale Internationale de Paris and the 1937 Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne...
Author
Romy Golan
PublisherYale University Press
Copyright© 1995 by Romy Golan
Related print edition pages: pp.105-136
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-23853
Chapter subject tags:Exposition coloniale internationale de Paris (1931)Exposition internationale (1937 : Paris, France)France--Politics and government--20th centuryFrance--ColoniesArt decoArt and society--France--History--20th centuryLe Corbusier, 1887-1965Ozenfant, Amédée, 1886-1966

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6. In Defense of French Art
Romy Golan
Description: Modernity and Nostalgia: Art and Politics in France between the Wars
Modernity and Nostalgia: Art and Politics in France between the Wars
Implicit in the various narratives elaborated in this book is the question of the status of French culture vis-à-vis foreign elements living in its fold...
Author
Romy Golan
PublisherYale University Press
Copyright© 1995 by Romy Golan
Related print edition pages: pp.137-154
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-23854
Chapter subject tags:France--Politics and government--20th centuryMontparnasse (Paris, France)Soutine, Chaim, 1893-1943Art and society--France--History--20th centuryModigliani, Amedeo, 1884-1920Jewish artists--20th century

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Conclusion: A Moralized Tale
Romy Golan
Description: Modernity and Nostalgia: Art and Politics in France between the Wars
Modernity and Nostalgia: Art and Politics in France between the Wars
Less than ten months into World War II – with France’s capitulation to the German army after the debacle of May–June 1940 – the proverbial soldat laboureur, who had made a short comeback at the time of mobilization...
Author
Romy Golan
PublisherYale University Press
Copyright© 1995 by Romy Golan
Related print edition pages: pp.155-163
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-23855
Chapter subject tags:France--Politics and government--20th centuryWorld War, 1939-1945Pétain, Philippe, 1856-1951France--History--German occupation, 1940-1945Tapestry--France--20th centuryFolklore--FranceArt and society--France--History--20th century

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Bibliography
Romy Golan
Description: Modernity and Nostalgia: Art and Politics in France between the Wars
Modernity and Nostalgia: Art and Politics in France between the Wars
Bibliography
Author
Romy Golan
PublisherYale University Press
Copyright© 1995 by Romy Golan
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-23856
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Index
Romy Golan
Description: Modernity and Nostalgia: Art and Politics in France between the Wars
Modernity and Nostalgia: Art and Politics in France between the Wars
Index
Author
Romy Golan
PublisherYale University Press
Copyright© 1995 by Romy Golan
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-23857
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Photograph Credits
Romy Golan
Description: Modernity and Nostalgia: Art and Politics in France between the Wars
Modernity and Nostalgia: Art and Politics in France between the Wars
Photograph Credits
Author
Romy Golan
PublisherYale University Press
Copyright© 1995 by Romy Golan
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-23858
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Modernity and Nostalgia: Art and Politics in France between the Wars
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