Daniel Moore
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- January 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780197266755
- eISBN:
- 9780191916038
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197266755.001.0001
- Subject:
- Art, Art History
Insane Acquaintances charts the varied encounters between artistic modernism and the British public in the years between ‘Manet and the Post-Impressionists’ (1910) and the Festival of Britain (1951). ...
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Insane Acquaintances charts the varied encounters between artistic modernism and the British public in the years between ‘Manet and the Post-Impressionists’ (1910) and the Festival of Britain (1951). Through a range of case studies which explore the work of the ‘mediators’ of modernism in Britain – those individuals, groups and organisations which facilitated the introduction of modernist art and design to public audiences during the first part of the twentieth century – Insane Acquaintances explores the social, political and cultural impact of visual modernism over the course of four decades. Focusing on the efforts to legitimise, explain and make authentic the abstract (and often continental) modernist aesthetics that shaped British artistic culture during the years 1910-1951, this study charts the changing taste of the nation, through chapters on Postimpressionist art and crafts, modernist art in schools, the home design and decoration, Surrealism and revolution and the post-War institutionalisation and funding of the arts.Less
Insane Acquaintances charts the varied encounters between artistic modernism and the British public in the years between ‘Manet and the Post-Impressionists’ (1910) and the Festival of Britain (1951). Through a range of case studies which explore the work of the ‘mediators’ of modernism in Britain – those individuals, groups and organisations which facilitated the introduction of modernist art and design to public audiences during the first part of the twentieth century – Insane Acquaintances explores the social, political and cultural impact of visual modernism over the course of four decades. Focusing on the efforts to legitimise, explain and make authentic the abstract (and often continental) modernist aesthetics that shaped British artistic culture during the years 1910-1951, this study charts the changing taste of the nation, through chapters on Postimpressionist art and crafts, modernist art in schools, the home design and decoration, Surrealism and revolution and the post-War institutionalisation and funding of the arts.
Andrea Harris
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780199342235
- eISBN:
- 9780190265816
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780199342235.003.0008
- Subject:
- Music, Dance, History, American
Chapter 4 examines the circumstances leading to the final success of Lincoln Kirstein’s American ballet in 1963, when Ford Foundation philanthropy made George Balanchine’s neoclassicism a national ...
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Chapter 4 examines the circumstances leading to the final success of Lincoln Kirstein’s American ballet in 1963, when Ford Foundation philanthropy made George Balanchine’s neoclassicism a national institution and a national style. Examining the New York City Ballet’s cultural diplomacy activities, it illustrates the advantageous position that Balanchine attained within the alliances between the government, private and corporate foundations, and the arts that developed in the cultural Cold War. Yet the chapter stresses the complexity of the collaboration between the ballet company and the government, insisting that the artists often had very different political motivations than the state. A main concern is how the belief in the social efficacy of art, nurtured in the 1930s, was affected by the transformational shift in arts funding, organization, and management that arose during the Cold War. This chapter concludes by raising questions about the consequences of the post-WWII institutionalization of the arts for the political agendas of the 1930s-era modernists.Less
Chapter 4 examines the circumstances leading to the final success of Lincoln Kirstein’s American ballet in 1963, when Ford Foundation philanthropy made George Balanchine’s neoclassicism a national institution and a national style. Examining the New York City Ballet’s cultural diplomacy activities, it illustrates the advantageous position that Balanchine attained within the alliances between the government, private and corporate foundations, and the arts that developed in the cultural Cold War. Yet the chapter stresses the complexity of the collaboration between the ballet company and the government, insisting that the artists often had very different political motivations than the state. A main concern is how the belief in the social efficacy of art, nurtured in the 1930s, was affected by the transformational shift in arts funding, organization, and management that arose during the Cold War. This chapter concludes by raising questions about the consequences of the post-WWII institutionalization of the arts for the political agendas of the 1930s-era modernists.
