Deline Notes--20th Century Art, Music, and Literature

20th Century Art, Music, and Literature

Three main tendencies of art, music, and literature in the 20th century are the following: a tendency to be less and less accessible to the average man, a tendency to glorify art itself, and a tendency to undercut rather than reinforce traditional standards and beliefs. Comment.

I. Music
A. Atonal music
1. No tonal center
2. Average person cannot hear the pattern
3. Admire ingenuity
   a. Arnold Schoenberg
B. Aleatoric music
1. Random notes
2. Use computers to play random notes
   a. John Cage
    i. 4:33
     (attention to sounds not normally heard)
   b. Igor Stravinsky
    i. Rite of Spring
II. Visual Arts
A. Cubism
1. Picasso
   a. Multiple perspectives
   b. Abstract impressionism
B. Dada
1. Deliberately destroy traditional art
   a. Die Kunst ist tot
2. Bourgeoisie class
   a. A joke on them
C. Pop Art
1. Andy Warhol
   a. Many Jackis and Marilyns
   b. Makes fun of things
D. Surrealism
1. Disturbed with illogic
2. Unique
3. Marvelous in beauty
4. Shocking work=work of value
5. Attack on morals, religion, and patriotism

III. Literature
A. Poetry
1. T. S. Eliot
   a. “The Wasteland”
   b. Real versus fake
2. Don’t want others to understand
B. Stream of Consciousness (style)
1. James Joyce
   a. Art-broad new religion
   b. Undercutting traditional values
   c. “Ulysses”
    i. Characters changed from Odyssey
    ii. No faithfulness
2. Samuel Beckett
   a. Novel—“Malloy”
    i. Sucking rocks (absurdity)
    ii. Lit should reflect society
   b. “Waiting for Godot” (Waiting for God)
    i. Comedy
    ii. Waiting for a revelation or purpose
    iii. Life has no meaning or purpose
    iv. Wants us to laugh ---produced for laughs ---no purpose, so you laugh
3. Eugene Ionesco
   a. “The Bald Soprano”
   b. “A Stroll Through the Air”
    i. Writing convinces himself
   c. Uses imagination to make life fun
C. Existentialism
1. Jean Paul Sartre
   a. Most read and influential of 20th century
   b. Atheistic existentialism
    i. No God
    ii. Bad thing
    iii. No right or wrong
    iv. Good faith vs. bad faith
    v. Authentic vs. inauthentic
2. Jean Genet
   a. “Our Ladies of the Flowers”
   b. Wrote about stuff deepest within him
    i. Homosexuality
   c. Writes authentically
    i. Inability to love
    ii. No hypocrisy
    iii. Embraces Marxism
    iv. Hatred of stuff
3. Fernando Arabel
   a. Playwright
   b. Architect and the Emperor of Assyria
IV. Conclusions
A. Art tried to shock the world and put something better in place of traditional
values
B. It did not succeed
C. Nothing was accomplished
D. Successful people=not happy