History: Art and Experiment - The Avant-Gardes From Fauvism to Constructivism

What is the avant-garde? In this course, you will deepen your understanding of a fundamental period of the history of art. Throughout the ten sessions, key characteristics of the “avant-garde” will be highlighted, in terms of the artist’s mindset, the group’s dynamics and rhetoric, the work of art’s aspect, and the audience’s response.

This course will begin with an introductory portrait of the European society and arts at the turn of the 20th century. We will then study a sequence of avant-garde movements (such as Fauvism, Cubism, Futurism, and Vorticism). Their rapid proliferation will be questioned in order to understand the urge artists felt to challenge conventions and create something new.

We will investigate the impact of the First World War on avant-garde movements and their members. We will see how this conflict challenged them by casting doubt on something fundamental: their faith in progress and their role in defining the future. To this state of uncertainty, we will study two opposite artistic responses: dada and the “Return to order”. The case of the Bolshevik revolution and its impact on art and artists will also be examined. Finally, we will consider the case of the Bauhaus, probably the most successful fusion between the ideas of the avant-garde and real life.