Notes from "THE CHALLENGE OF THE AVANT-GARDE" edited by Paul Wood

It is necessary to explain where this project will be coming from and why avant-garde's style is so appealing for use in regards the films I will present.

I have researched different resources on the subject, including literature, of course.
One of the recent books was "The Challenge of the Avant-Garde".
I have to say that it is mainly a collection of case-studies which is an essential part to the semiotic analysis I would like to hold as soon as my films are edited, so I would explain the meaning behind the project and what became a major influence for editing, as well.

However, in terms of the relevantly necessary information for my project in particular, it turns out to be a slightly limited a book, because even if it consists of case-studies, it would preferably be more important to see a number of case-studies based around films or at least photography, whereas the author speaks mainly about paintings.
My work is really inspired by paintings as well, and I will later on post some information on the influences of paintings and especially abstract art, because some of the avant-garde films would base on that exclusively (for instance, Len Lye's "Colour Box" 1935). And the viewers will also see how I'll reference that kind of a technique in my own films within this Master's Project.

1) Avant-garde's positive connotations are of forging ahead, breaking down barriers, caring nothing, being innovative

2) Avant-gardism has become synonymous with the most adventurous manifestations of modern art from decipherable images of cubism to abstract shapes

3) 'Avant-garde' became pervasive synonym for 'modern art' during the boom after World War II
(page 10)
BUT it was more particularly identified with artistic 'modernism', and hence shorthand for the values associated with that term.

They say, the first person to use word 'avant-garde' was Saint-Simon. The concept of avant-garde appears at the end of the book called Opinions litteraires, philosophiques et industrielles, published under his name in 1825.
He said: "Let us unite. To achieve our one single goal, a separate task will fall to each of us. We, the artists, will serve as avant-garde: for amongst all the arms at our disposal, the power of Arts is the swiftest and most expeditious..."

ON DIVERGENT INTERPRETATIONS (page 39) :

"There is a problem here, however, an ambiguity in the conception of 'avant-garde'. Most subsequent commentators, particularly in the period of modernism, took the idea as one according to which certain practices of art were believed to be in advance of the majority of others."

"This approach ultimately came to license the use of avant-garde as a name for those movements whose technical radicalism marked them off from more widely pursued - that is more technically orthodox- approaches to art."

C A S E      S T U D Y

In the book, there's a case-duty of John Brett's painting called "Stonebreaker" (1957-8) and Courbet's "Stonebreakers". The author wants to point out some important details on the concept of technical radicalism.
"Technical dimension of painting actually concerns an ensemble of factors. Even in monochrome reproduction the Courbet is obviously a much more sombre work than Brett's. Brett's traditional compositional depth, fading away into the distance, produces a harmonious effect that is completely absent from the Courbet, abruptly closed off as it is by the cliff or hillside."

"Stonebreakers" by Courbet

"Stonebreaker" by Brett

What is so different about these two paintings being analysed in the book is basically the aspects that would make one of the painters an innovative, therefore an avant-gardism, it's Courbet.

"These, and other effects, have been deliberately produced by Courbet. Questions of composition, scale, colour and finish, are all 'technical' features of the work' "

That type of features are important to mention as of course, editing a film is about the technics that are considered as something specifying the genre's unique features.
So, I find it also important to give the abstract where the author would discuss Manet, who is associated with modernists and is called 'avant-gardism', as well. His art was thought to be unusual for his time, because:
"Manet in particular has been positioned by art historians as the quintessential artist if 'Baudelairean' modernity. In a painting such as Music in the Tuileries, his technical innovations are part of an integral concern to represent the experience of modern life."

Music in the Tuileries, Manet

"The emphatic scrubby brushwork and consistencies of focus can be seen in the light of Baudelaire's dictum concerning the ephemeral and fleeting sensations of modernity. It as if Manet strolls among the crowd in the middle -class leasure-seekers catching the nuances of their ennui, their strange distance from him and indeed from themselves- as if the abrupt shifts of focus represent his glances across the frieze of modern types."

"Manet seems in many ways to be the artist of disconnectedness, and his innovatory techniques a vehicle for that modern sensation of acute self-consciousness"

It is essentially important for me to point this out as well, because the traditional structures or techniques, either it's painting or writing poems, there's always a classical structure the audience is used to and the critics would expect, and possibly judge the art-piece by, however, turns out that's one of the core points to how you would differentiate avant-garde from other styles/ genres. 

In my films the editing is oriented on showing that the location is more of a surreal, not like a daily-life environment, more of a natural sight type of a places- beach, forest. It was done specifically to translate the 'unusual world' clear of any signs of people's habitats, you wouldn't spot any industrial symbols either (except for parts which are intentionally edited in to show the resonance between the metaphysical and the 'real' world environment). 

So "Manet himself and his friends, merge into an unstable experience of the modern crowd. And the whole thing happens not in 'nature' as it might appear, but it is in the artificially constructed environment of the park designed specifically to produce such a sociability. Nothing here is natural; this is modernity"(page 55). In a way, I can suggest it's a totally different 'modernity' style we would follow in our age, because finding natural sights sounds more surreal than film in an industrial or 'indoors' environment. 

Later

In the book, the author talks about how the 'art of modernism' would be a new step in the general creative life, in the way the artists could 'talk' to the audience through their works (paintings). The early avant-garde artists were really concerned about the society and its' vanity, and through what they portrayed, they would try to unveil the depth of that futility.
For instance, in terms of political situation, some of the critics had their own radical opinion: "For Marie Camille, artists should emotionally arouse spectators to the evils of capitalism- the rich must be made to feel physically ill as they view the exhibition." (page 59)

Also, new art was very much about some other aspects of life that inevitably are linked to the questions of equality. They were the questions of GENDER, CLASS, RACE.

In the new age of fine arts, it was already an acceptable idea of portraying naked bodies. Again, the way it was presented, with the help of light, angles, overall compositions, was a core element to making it modernist (and the author would say, therefore, avant-garde). But later, the scientists invented photography and if the naked courtesan (Edouard Manet, "Olympia" 1863) was quite a shocking experience when seen on canvas, than it is easily beyond shock when depicted on a photograph.

The phenomena of a bathing woman or a bathing man is a common theme between the painters of mid and late 19th century.

Modernity was everywhere, and even in architecture, Eiffel Tower is one good example, page 157.
On new engineering "French art has once again manifested its spirit of initiative with an unquestionable character of force and originality. It would not be rash to regard this exhibition as the departure point for an era of expression and emancipation."(page 159)

"By the late 19th century modernisation had become the defining fact of life in urban society."...."Eiffel's tower symbolises an avid embrace of the modern. The deployment of new technology, stimulating new perceptions, ideas and values and nourishing an ambition to form a new world, becomes established as a theme of vanguard practice" (page 163)

"One principal thing avant-garde art did was to address the wider social and cultural condition of modernity, with the added proviso that it had to find equivalently new ways of doing so." (page 194)

So among the avant-garde art the author mentions the following categories:
1) Fauves, Cubism, Abstraction, Futurism, Suprematism, - Early stages of Avant-Garde (which he says, is just French art).
2) Revolutionary avant-gardes: DaDa, Constructivism and Surrealism




book details: Yale University Press, New Haven & London, 1999