PRELUDE

6 Modernism in the Arts

“The entire history of modern music may be said to be a history
of the gradual pull-away from the German musical tradition of
the past century.”
—Aaron Copland

KEY POINTS StudySpace wwnorton.com/enjoy

■ Impressionism was a French movement developed
by painters who tried to capture their “first
impression” of a subject through varied treatments
of light and color.
■ The literary response to Impressionism was
Symbolism, in which writings are suggestive of
images and ideas rather than literally descriptive.
■ The diverse artistic trends of the early twentieth
century were a reaction against Romanticism.
■ Early-twentieth-century artistic trends explored
simplicity and abstraction (interest in non-Western
arts, Dadaism, Cubism) and the world of dreams
and the inner soul (Surrealism, Expressionism).
■ Expressionism was the international counterpart to
French Impressionism; in music, composers such
as Schoenberg and Webern explored new harmonic
systems and the extreme registers of instruments.
■ The Neoclassical movement sought to revive
balance and objectivity in the arts by returning to
formal structures of the past.

J
ust as European and American societies saw great changes in the era from
1890 to 1940, so did the arts witness a profound upheaval. The earliest har-
bingers of modernism were French artists and writers, who abandoned the
grandiose subjects and expressions of Romanticism. Impressionist artists wished
to capture on canvas the freshness of their first impressions and were fascinated
with the continuous change in the appearance of their subjects through varied
treatment of light and color. Claude Monet’s painting, Impression: Sun Rising, com-
pleted in 1867, was rebuffed by the academic salons of Paris (see illustration oppo-
Impressionism site), and “Impressionism” quickly became a term of derision. However, Monet’s
hazy, luminous painting style was embraced by Parisian artists such as Camille Pis-
sarro (1830–1903), Edouard Manet (1832–1883), Edgar Degas (1834–1917), and
August Renoir (1841–1919). We will see how composers like Claude Debussy tried
to emulate the use of color and iridescence that characterize this new style.
A parallel development in poetry was similarly influential to French compos-
Symbolism ers: the Symbolist movement sought to evoke poetic images through suggestion
rather than description, through symbol rather than statement. This literary
revolt against tradition gained prominence in the works of French writers Charles
Baudelaire (1821–1867), Stéphane Mallarmé (1842–1898), and Paul Verlaine
(1844–1896), all of whom were strongly influenced by the American poet Edgar
284
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The Impressionists took paint-

ing out of the studio and into
the open air; their subject
was light. Claude Monet
(1840–1926), Impression:
Sun Rising.

Allan Poe (1809–1849). Through their experiments in free verse forms, the Sym-
bolists were able to achieve in language an abstract quality that had once belonged
to music alone.

The Reaction against Romanticism

Other styles soon arose as early-twentieth-century composers severed their ties
with their Romantic pasts. These new attitudes took hold just before the advent of
the First World War (1914–1918), when European arts tried to break away from
overrefinement and to capture the spontaneity and the freedom from inhibition The powerful abstraction of
that was associated with primitive life. Artists were inspired by the abstraction of African sculpture strongly
influenced European art.
African sculpture, and painters Paul Gauguin and Henri Rousseau
created exotic works of monumental simplicity. Likewise, some
composers turned to the vigorous energy of non-Western rhythm,
seeking fresh concepts in the musics of Africa, Asia, and eastern
Europe. Out of the unspoiled, traditional music in these areas came
powerful rhythms of an elemental fury, as reflected in Bartók’s
Allegro barbaro (1911) and Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring (1913), which
we will study.
In those years surrounding the First World War, two influential
arts movements arose: Futurism, whose manifesto of 1909 declared
its alienation from established institutions and its focus on the
dynamism of twentieth-century life; and Dadaism, founded in
Switzerland after 1918. The Dadaists, principally writers and artists
who reacted to the horrors of the war’s bloodbath that had engulfed
Europe, rejected the concept of art as something to be reverently
admired. To make their point, they produced works of absolute
absurdity. They also reacted against the excessive complexity of
Western art by trying to recapture the simplicity of a child’s world-
286 PART 6 | Impressionism and the Early Twentieth Century
Parisian painter Paul Gauguin
(1848–1903) was drawn to
the simplicity of Tahitian life
and the emotional directness
of his native subjects. Nave,
Nave Moe (Miraculous Source,
1894).
Surrealism and Cubism
Spanish artist Joan Miró
(1893–1983) explores the
surrealist world of dreams
through the distortion of
shapes. Dutch Interior I.
view. Following their example, the French composer Erik Satie led the way toward
a simple, “everyday” music, and exerted an important influence—along with the
writer Jean Cocteau—on the group called Les Six (The Six; see Chapter 37).
The Dada group, with artists such as Hans Arp and Marcel Duchamp, merged
into the school of Surrealism, which included Salvador Dali and Joan Miró (see illus-
tration), both of whom explored the world of dreams. Other styles of modern art
included Cubism, the Paris-based style of painting embodied in the works of Pablo
Picasso, Georges Braque, and Juan Gris (see p. 283), which encouraged the painter to
construct a visual world in terms of geometric patterns; and Expressionism, which
we will see had a significant impact on music of the early twentieth century.
Expressionism
Expressionism was the international counterpart to French
Impressionism. While the French explored radiant impressions
of the outer world, the Germanic temperament preferred dig-
ging down to the depths of the psyche. As with Impressionism,
the impulse for the Expressionist movement came from painting.
Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944), Paul Klee (1879–1940), Oskar
Kokoschka (1886–1980; see illustration opposite), and Edvard
Munch (1863–1944)—famous for The Scream—influenced the
composer Arnold Schoenberg (see p. 306) and his followers just
as the Impressionist painters influenced Debussy. Expressionism
is reflected not only through the paintings of Kandinsky, Koko-
schka, and Munch, but also in the writings of Franz Kaf ka (1883–
1924). Expressionism in music triumphed first in central Europe,
especially Germany, and reached its full tide in the dramatic
works of the Second Viennese School (a term referring to Arnold
Schoenberg and his disciples Alban Berg and Anton Webern).
 PRELUDE 6 | Modernism in the Arts 287

The Austrian Expression-

ist painter Oskar Kokoschka
(1886–1980) reveals his
terror of war in Knight Errant
(1915).

The musical language of Expressionism favored hyperexpressive harmonies,

extraordinarily wide leaps in the melody, and the use of instruments in their
extreme registers. Expressionist music soon reached the boundaries of what was
possible within the major-minor system. Inevitably, it had to push beyond.

Neoclassicism
One way of rejecting the nineteenth century was to return to earlier eras. Instead
of revering Beethoven and Wagner, as the Romantics had done, composers began
to emulate the great musicians of the early eighteenth century—Bach, Handel, and
Vivaldi—and the detached, objective style that is often associated with their music.
Neoclassicism tried to rid music of the story-and-picture meanings favored in
the nineteenth century. Neoclassical composers turned away from the symphonic
poem and the Romantic attempt to bring music closer to poetry and painting.
They preferred absolute to program music, and they focused attention on crafts- Absolute music
manship and balance, a positive affirmation of the Classical virtues of objectivity
and control.
As in previous movements, Modernism was both a reaction against the past and Modernism
a distillation of it. It was in part an investigation into why the past needed to change
and in part an attempt to make the arts more relevant—more “modern”—while
still challenging conventional perceptions. The movement transformed a culture
and allowed for endless experimentation. It was to have far-reaching consequences
in all fields, including the arts, literature, the sciences, philosophy, and religion.
Let us now consider two key composers from the first modern generation in
France: the Impressionist composer Claude Debussy and the post-Impressionist/
Neoclassicist Maurice Ravel.

Critical Thinking
1. How do the artistic movements of Impressionism and Expressionism differ? Do they
share any similarities?
2. How are the major artistic trends of the early twentieth century a reaction against
earlier styles?
3. What appealed to artists about non-Western art and music?