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Baroque between the Wars is a fascinating and new account of the arts in the twenties and thirties. We often think of this time as being dominated by modernism, yet the period saw a dialogue between modern baroque - eclectic, playful, camp, open to influence from popular culture yet in dialogue with the past, and unafraid of the grotesque or surreal - and modernism, which was theory-driven, didactic, exclusive, and essentially neo-classical.
Jane Stevenson argues that both baroque and classical forms were equally valid responses to the challenge of modernity, by setting painting and literature in the context of 'minor arts' such as interior design, photography, fashion, ballet, and flower arranging, and by highlighting the social context and sexual politics of creative production.
Accessibly written and generously illustrated, the volume focuses on artists, artefacts, clients, places, and publicists to demonstrate how baroque offered a whole way of being modern which was actively subversive of the tenets of modernism and practised by the people modernism habitually defined as not worth listening to, particularly women and homosexuals.
Inhaltsverzeichnis
- The In Between Time
- I: Society
- 1: Climbing
- 2: Hiding in Plain Sight
- 3: Sitwell Style
- II: The City
- 4: Modern Times
- 5: Streams Of Consciousness
- 6: Machines To Live In
- III: Rooms
- 7: Outdoor Rooms
- 8: Chinese Wallpaper
- 9: Whiteness
- 10: White and Gold
- 11: Rococo Arcadia
- IV: Uncanonical Arts
- 12: Silver Paper
- 13: Self Fashioning
- 14: Masks
- 15: Four Dozen White Lilies
- 16: Flowers in the Abstract
- 17: The Ghost of a Rose
- Epilogue
Über den Autor / die Autorin
Jane Stevenson was born in 1959 and mostly brought up in London. She studied at the University of Cambridge, and subsequently taught at the Universities of Sheffield and Warwick before moving to Aberdeen, where she was Regius Professor of Humanity. Jane Stevenson is now Senior Research Fellow at Campion Hall at the University of Oxford. Her works include studies of women's writing in Latin, early modern women poets, a biography of the painter Edward Burra, and six novels.
Zusammenfassung
Covering literature, film, interior design, architecture, photography, fashion, ballet, and flower arranging, Baroque between the Wars offers a new take on modernism that explores how baroque offered a whole new way of being modern.
Zusatztext
With the scholarship, humanity, and wit that made her Edward Burra biography so outstanding, Jane Stevenson presents a shimmering bouquet of connected essays, animating the ghosts of early twentieth-century fashion and frolic, that propose a serious alternative to modernism.
Bericht
Baroque Between the Wars ... is a witty and elegant account of an alternative style in the arts ... this wide-ranging and hugely entertaining book perfectly combines aesthetic and social history. Peter Parker, Books of the Year 2018, Times Literary Supplement
