Post-Impressionism to World War II: (Blackwell Anthologies in Art History)

Post-Impressionism to World War II is an exciting anthology of the best art history writings of the Post-Impressionist period. Several key essays by critics including Benjamin, Greenberg and Bürger knit together primary sources and classic, “canonical” criticism. Collects the most important writings on art history from Post-Impressionism to the mid-20th century, covering both canonical and contemporary perspectives Offers a chronicle of avant-garde practice during an especially creative, if volatile, period of history Features several key essays by critics including Benjamin, Greenberg and Bürger Includes recent critical interventions from a range of methodological perspectives – both well-known and less familiar Organizes material thematically, and features introductory essays to each of the five sections Provides a valuable, stimulating resource for students and teachers alike and offers new ways to think about and teach this important period in art history.

Table of Contents:
Series Editor’s Preface. Preface. Acknowledgments.. Part I: Programs and Manifestos. . Introduction. 1 Post-Impressionism (Roger Fry). 2 Why are we publishing a journal (Ver Sacrum editorial). 3 Notes of a Painter (Henri Matisse). 4 The Foundation and Manifesto of Futurism (F.T. Marinetti). 5 Dada Manifesto (Hugo Ball). 6 The Work Ahead of Us (Vladimir Tatlin). 7 First Manifesto of Surrealism (André Breton). 8 Introduction to ‘New Objectivity’: German Painting since Expressionism (Gustav Hartlaub). Part II: Spirit and Subjectivity. Introduction. 9 Gustave Moreau (Joris-Karl Huysmans). 10 Symbolism in Painting: Paul Gauguin (G.-Albert Aurier). 11 from Abstraction and Empathy: A Contribution to the Psychology of Style (Wilhelm Worringer). 12 from Concerning the Spiritual in Art (Wassily Kandinsky). 13 Mystery and Creation (Giorgio de Chirico). 14 From Cubism and Futurism to Suprematism: The New Painterly Realism (Kazimir Malevich). 15 Neo-Plasticism: The General Principle of Plastic Equivalence (Piet Mondrian). Part III: Mass Culture and Modernity. Introduction. 16 The Mass Ornament (Siegfried Kracauer). 17 The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (Walter Benjamin). 18 Avant-Garde and Kitsch (Clement Greenberg). 19 Modernism in the Work of Art (Victor Burgin). 20 The Hidden Dialectic: Avantgarde - Technology - Mass Culture (Andreas Huyssen). Part IV: Politics and the Avant-Garde. Introduction. 21 The Politics of the Avant-Garde (Raymond Williams). 22 from Theory of the Avant-Garde (Peter Bürger). 23 Jugglers’ Fair Beneath the Gallows (Ernst Bloch). 24 Towards a Free Revolutionary Art (André Breton, Diego Rivera and Leon Trotsky). 25 The Birth of Socialist Realism from the Spirit of the Russian Avant-Garde (Boris Groys). Part V: Identity and Appropriation. Introduction. 26 Going Native (Abigail Solomon-Godeau). 27 Virility and Domination in 20th-Century Vanguard Painting (Carol Duncan). 28 from Men’s Work? Masculinity and Modernism (Lisa Tickner). 29 What the Papers Say: Politics and Ideology in Picasso’s Collages of 1912 (David Cottington). 30 "Dada as ‘Buffoonery and Requiem At the Same Time’" (Hanne Bergius). 31 Surrealism: Fetishism’s Job (Dawn Ades). Index.

About the Author :
Debbie Lewer is Lecturer in Art History at the University of Glasgow. She has published essays in Dada Zurich: A Clown’s Game from Nothing (edited by B. Pichon and K. Rihs, 1996) and Printed Matters: Printing, Publishing and Urban Culture in the Modern Period, (edited by M. Gee and T. Kirk, 2000).

Review :
"This is a neat little collection of textual sources that will prove invaluable to students and teachers of high modernism. Debbie Lewer has done an excellent job in editing an exemplary selection of texts from the familiar to the obscure... This anthology represents the first book to be published as part of a new series: the Blackwell Anthologies in Art History. These books will provide overviews of major periods in art history. If they are all of this consistent quality then this will prove to be an excellent and invaluable series." The Art Book “Post-Impressionism to World War II is a skillfully selected anthology of texts on art history and theory which will be of great value to undergraduate and graduate students of art history and cultural theory.” Andrew Causey, University of Manchester “At the heart of Debbie Lewer’s selection of texts lies a powerful sense ofthe way modern art intersected with broader political and cultural debates.This will prove to be an inspiring and enduring resource for students oftwentieth-century art.” David Hopkins, University of Glasgow “This is an invaluable collection of the texts that set the terms for and responded to the modernist projects of the twentieth century, supported by clear, nuanced editorial essays situating them within a range of critical understandings.” Elizabeth Legge, University of Toronto