European Art 1890-1940

Module code: HA2217 

This module will provide a comprehensive overview of the developments in Modernism from the turn of the twentieth century to the outbreak of the Second World War. Within a broad artistic, intellectual, political and cultural context it will explore the innovations of the major artistic movements of the first half of the century: cubism, abstraction, futurism, dada and surrealism. The central themes of this course will be the artistic and ideological concerns of abstraction, the idea of ‘anti-art’, the influence of so-called primitivism, and the polemics of modernity as expressed in collective manifestos and artists’ writings. After looking at the developments in modernist painting, the course will examine how artists sought modes of expression and practice outside the conventions of painting, in performance, street life, found objects, photography, collage and film.