A Lost Generation?

What was the Lost Generation?

The lost generation was a term coined by Gertrude Stein to describe young American artists (mostly writers) who rejected American ideals in the 1920s and moved to Paris to live the bohemian lifestyle (party it up, live for today, because there may be no tomorrow). Famous members of the Lost Generation included Stein herself, Ernest Hemingway, Ezra Pound, and F. Scott Fitzgerald.

The Lost Generation thought that Western Civilization was coming to an End…

Why would intellectuals have thought WWI was the end of the superiority of Western Civilization?

1918

The Lost Generation felt betrayed by their leaders, their culture, and their institutions. They asked themselves “How could all this

death and destruction have been allowed to happen?”

They felt helpless, and lost. They despaired for the future. Where once they had trusted, now they did not. It appeared that Good had lost the battle against Evil.

Writers tried to capture the bleak hopelessness of War T.S. Eliot- The Waste Land (1922) JRR Tolkien- The Lord Of The Rings (1937-1954) F. Scott Fitzgerald- The Great Gatsby (1925) Ernest Hemingway-

An American novelist Served in WWI A Farewell to Arms (1929) "I know the night is not the same as the day: that all

things are different, that the things of the night cannot be explained in the day, because they do not then exist, and the night can be a dreadful time for lonely people once their loneliness has started."

Modern Art- Artists tried to capture new perceptions of reality…

Old styles of art couldn’t express the deep distress caused by WWI.

In many cases, people did not want to remember the war too clearly or too exactly.

WWI changed the way people perceived the world and this was reflected in their art.

“Oppy Wood” – John Nash, 1917

“Gassed and Wounded”Eric Kennington, 1918

“Those Who Have Lost Their Names”Albin Eggar-Linz, 1914

Cubism- Reality broken into Pieces Cubism was born out of

the experience of the WWI battlefield.

At night, exploding bombs lit the sky in quick flashes, causing the world to look disjointed, distorted, disordered, and broken up into stark pieces.

In Cubism… Objects are broken up

and re-assembled in abstract form.

Picasso Pre-WWI work African masks

What do you see?

Pablo Picasso, Three Musicians, 1921

What do you see?

Pablo Picasso, Still Life, 1924

Surrealism- Trying to show how things Feel During WWI, the founder of

surrealism, André Breton, who had trained in medicine and psychiatry, served in a neurological hospital where he used the psychoanalytic methods of Sigmund Freud with soldiers who were shell-shocked.

He sought a way to express the inner workings of the mind, those feelings, experiences, urges and impressions that were separated from logic and reason.

Surrealism is an art movement that sought to link the world of dreams with real life.

Surreal—beyond or above reality

Yves Tanguy, Indefinite Divisibility 1942

How is this painting connected to the idea of Perception?

Salvador Dali, The Persistence of Memory, 1931

What do you see?

Salvador Dali, The Temptation of St Anthony

What does this painting tell you about how the artist is feeling?

Music- Ragtime, Jazz and Swing Musical artists in the US combined

African rhythms from the South with popular music to make ragtime, jazz and swing.

This music held a hesitation before the last beat of four. That hesitation expressed the uncertainty and anguish of the post-war world.

The hesitation is what makes this music sound different from classical music.

The best musicians like Woody Herman, Duke Ellington and Fats Waller were masters at manipulating this hesitation in the music.

Swing dances like Lindy-hop, Balboa and Shag were created to take advantage of the new music. These dances also broke taboos.

Psychology-Trying to find out how the brain works

Sigmund Freud—physician- He opened a window on the unconscious — where, he said, lust, rage and repression battle for supremacy — and changed the way we view ourselves- TIME Magazine

Believed that human behavior is irrational Believed humans are driven by their

unconscious mind Believed dreams could help people

understand their unconscious Freud greatly influenced the surrealists

Science- Trying to find out how the physical world really works

Albert Einstein (1879-1955) German-born physicist- a true out of the box thinker -

the genius among geniuses who discovered, merely by thinking about it, that the universe was not as it seemed. –TIME Magazine

Discovered that space and time are not constant Known for seeing things from an entirely new angle,

and then devising simple experiments to prove his ideas.

Theory of Relativity changed how people viewed the world

Werner Heisenberg—Uncertainty Principle (1927) The more precisely the position is determined, the

less precisely the momentum is known in this instant, and vice versa.

Believed we could know what we couldn’t know

Philosophy- Trying to decide what we should think about next… John Paul Sartre, Albert

Camus- Existentialism- Humans must

define their own Reality There is no universal meaning to

life. There is no one way to order or explain the universe

We must create our own meaning We can never truly understand

each other, because we are all too different. No two understandings are the same.

See also: Thinkers React to Uncertainties, Pg. 464

Existentialism in the movies….WOODY ALLEN:  That's quite a lovely Jackson Pollock, isn't it? GIRL IN MUSEUM:  Yes it is. WOODY ALLEN:  What does it say to you? GIRL IN MUSEUM:  It restates the negativeness of the universe, the

hideous lonely emptiness of existence, nothingness, the predicament of man forced to live in a barren, godless eternity, like a tiny flame flickering in an immense void, with nothing but waste, horror, and degradation, forming a useless bleak straightjacket in a black absurd cosmos. [pause]

WOODY ALLEN:  What are you doing Saturday night? GIRL IN MUSEUM:  Committing suicide. WOODY ALLEN:  What about Friday night? GIRL IN MUSEUM: [leaves silently]

"Play It Again, Sam", Paramount Pictures, 1972;

Now look at your set of information about the New way of thinking in Europe… What do you notice? What words would you use to describe how people are seeing the world and their place in it?

Historical Quotes- A glimpse at changing philosophy (what you think) and ideology (what you believe) Get a piece of paper and a pen. Set it up like this:

Quote Philosophy Name

There are 8 quotes set out on tables in the room. With your partner, visit a quote, write it on your

paper and talk about what it means. You will have 3 minutes for each quote.

Make sure you have all the quotes on your paper… “Meaning has to be sought out, there is

no universal meaning to life. We create our own meaning through life choices and our actions. While there is no moral certainty, we do have agency in that we can make choices.”

“Love God, your neighbors, your enemies, and yourself. Every individual has worth and at the same time each individual has a responsibility to the whole community. You should live your life according to moral rules.”

“The realistic portrayal of life is not the purpose of art. Art should capture the inner world of emotion, feeling, and the workings of our imagination and unconscious mind.”

“Art should capture a realistic portrait of the world. It should show everyday people and the world around us.”

“The universe is governed by a specific set of laws. The universe was ordered by God the creator.”

“Much of human behavior is irrational and beyond reason. We are driven by that part of the mind that is unconscious and our unconscious pursues actions determined by our desires.”

“Every person has the gift of reason and as science uncovers more and more knowledge about the physical world, reason and knowledge will bring about progress. Truths can be revealed through observation and uncovering of evidence.”

“Time and space are not constant, perception is relative to one’s experiences, there are no absolute truths.”

Lost Generation Match Up…

I have put up a list of names for Philosophies and Ideologies from World history. These will include ideas from both before and after WWI.

Match the name of the philosophy or Ideology with the quote that represents it. Write the name of the philosophy next to the quote.

Turn your paper over (or use the bottom of the back…) Which of these philosophies happened before

WWI? Which After? Set up your paper like this and write the philosophy name on the correct side:

Before WWI After WWI

Answer these questions on your paper: How would you characterize the two sides? Do you see a connection between the two sets?

How would you characterize that connection?

Check your work… Christianity—“Love God, your

neighbors, your enemies, and yourself. Every individual has worth and at the same time each individual has a responsibility to the whole community. You should live your life according to moral rules.”

Enlightenment—“Every person has the gift of reason and as science uncovers more and more knowledge about the physical world, reason and knowledge will bring about progress. Truths can be revealed through observation and uncovering of evidence.”

Realism—“Art should capture a realistic portrait of the world. It should show everyday people and the world around us.”

Newtonian Law—“The universe is governed by a specific set of laws. The universe was ordered by God the creator.”

Existentialism—“Meaning has to be sought out, there is no universal meaning to life. We create our own meaning through life choices and our actions. While there is no moral certainty, we do have agency in that we can make choices.”

Freudian thought—“Much of human behavior is irrational and beyond reason. We are driven by that part of the mind that is unconscious and our unconscious pursues actions determined by our desires.”

Surrealism—“The realistic portrayal of life is not the purpose of art. Art should capture the inner world of emotion, feeling, and the workings of our imagination and unconscious mind.”

Theory of Relativity—“Time and space are not constant, perception is relative to one’s experiences, there are no absolute truths.”