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Books > Arts & Architecture > History of art / art & design styles > From 1900 > General

Modern Scottish Painting (Hardcover): J.D. Fergusson Modern Scottish Painting (Hardcover)
J.D. Fergusson; Edited by Alan Riach, Alexander Moffat
R895 R730 Discovery Miles 7 300 Save R165 (18%) Ships in 12 - 19 working days

In 1939, Scottish artist and sculptor J.D. Fergusson was commissioned to write a fully illustrated book on modern Scottish painting. The Second World War made this difficult and the first edition of Modern Scottish Painting was published in 1943 without illustrations. This new edition – edited, introduced and annotated by Alexander Moffat and Alan Riach – finally brings Fergusson’s project to fruition, illustrating the argument with colour reproductions of Fergusson’s own work. Moffat and Riach frame Fergusson’s important art manifesto for the 21st-century reader, illuminating his views on modern art as he explores questions of technique, education, form and what it means for a painting to be truly modern. Fergusson relates these aspects of modern painting to Scottishness, showing what they mean for Scottish identity, nationalism, independence and the legacy that puritanical Calvinism has left on Scottish art – a particular concern for Fergusson given his recurring subject matter of the female nude.

Imaging Migration in Post-War Britain - Artists of Chinese, Korean, Japanese and Taiwanese Heritage (Hardcover): Beccy... Imaging Migration in Post-War Britain - Artists of Chinese, Korean, Japanese and Taiwanese Heritage (Hardcover)
Beccy Kennedy-Schtyk
R4,479 Discovery Miles 44 790 Ships in 12 - 19 working days

This book examines the artistic practices of a range of British-based artists of East Asian (Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Taiwanese) heritage to consider the social, political and cultural effects of migration or diaspora on their creative production. Beccy Kennedy-Schtyk demonstrates three themes: the multiplicity and expansive contemporaneity of these artists' visual oeuvres; the physical impact or interpretation of migratory circumstances on their artistic practices; and the necessity to continue to evolve ways of thinking about migration, race and border crossings in the current political climate of the 21st century. The book will be of interest to scholars studying art history, Asian studies, British studies, migration and diaspora studies, and cultural studies.

Playing at Home - The House in Contemporary Art (Paperback): Gill Perry Playing at Home - The House in Contemporary Art (Paperback)
Gill Perry
R676 Discovery Miles 6 760 Ships in 12 - 19 working days

'There's no place like home'; 'safe as houses'; 'home is where the heart is': ideas of the house and home are rich in cultural cliches and contradictory meanings. Playing at Home explores the different ways in which artists have engaged with this popular everyday theme - from 'broken homes' to haunted houses, doll's houses, mobile homes and greenhouses. The book considers how issues of gender, identity, class and place can overlap and interact in our relationships with 'home', and how certain artworks disturb our comfortable ideas of what it means to be 'at home'. While other books have touched on examples of the 'uncanny' and surreal presentation of houses in art, this one argues that an understanding of the role of irony and play, and the critical potential of the 'everyday', are equally important in our interpretations of these intriguing works. The author draws on the work of philosophers, cultural theorists and art critics to enrich our understanding of this genre. Covering the work of well-known artists, including Tracey Emin, Gordon Matta-Clark, Rachel Whiteread, Cornelia Parker, Vito Acconci, Michael Landy, Richard Wilson, Mike Kelley and Louise Bourgeois, the book also looks at artists who travel across continents, for whom home is a shifting notion, such as Do-Ho Suh and Pascale Marthine Tayou. Discussing a wide range of media, including installation and film, and richly illustrated, Playing at Home is a compelling survey of one of contemporary art's popular themes.

Alberto Giacometti: Traces of a Friendship (Hardcover, Expanded, Revised ed.): Ernst Scheidegger Alberto Giacometti: Traces of a Friendship (Hardcover, Expanded, Revised ed.)
Ernst Scheidegger
R1,421 R1,123 Discovery Miles 11 230 Save R298 (21%) Ships in 12 - 19 working days

In 1962, Ernst Scheidegger published his first book using his own name as an imprint. This book was the German edition of Jean Genet's essay on Alberto Giacometti. The great artist and close personal friend of Ernst Scheidegger has been subject of a number of books published by Verlag Ernst Scheidegger and Verlag Scheidegger & Spiess since. The most successful of them has been "Traces of a Friendship - Alberto Giacometti", first published in 1990 and reprinted several times. To mark the 50th anniversary of Verlag Ernst Scheidegger / Verlag Scheidegger & Spiess present a new, completely revised and expanded edition of this classic. It includes around 40 previously unpublished colour images which have recently been discovered in Ernst Scheidegger's archive. They add an intimate new chapter to this legendary book. In addition to the more accurate dating of some photographs' the essays and captions have been revised and expanded also. Text in English and German.

Essays on 20th Century Latin American Art (Hardcover): Francine Birbragher-Rozencwaig Essays on 20th Century Latin American Art (Hardcover)
Francine Birbragher-Rozencwaig
R4,476 Discovery Miles 44 760 Ships in 12 - 19 working days

* Covers a wide range of topics in Latin American/Caribbean/Central American Art History * Concise analysis of Latin American artists, works, and art movements * An interdisciplinary approach to the topics discussed that places art in its contemporary historical perspective * Includes material on art from Central America and the Caribbean, Women's Art, and Popular Art

Race, Anthropology, and Politics in the Work of Wifredo Lam (Paperback): Claude Cernuschi Race, Anthropology, and Politics in the Work of Wifredo Lam (Paperback)
Claude Cernuschi
R1,431 Discovery Miles 14 310 Ships in 12 - 19 working days

This book reinterprets Wifredo Lam's work with particular attention to its political implications, focusing on how these implications emerge from the artist's critical engagement with 20th-century anthropology. Field work conducted in Cuba, including the witnessing of actual Afro-Cuban religious ritual ceremonies and information collected from informants, enhances the interpretive background against which we can construe the meanings of Lam's art. In the process, Claude Cernuschi argues that Lam hoped to fashion a new hybrid style to foster pride and dignity in the Afro-Cuban community, as well as counteract the acute racism of Cuban culture.

Waiting at the Shore - Art, Revolution, War and Exile in the Life of the Spanish Artist Luis Quintanilla (Paperback, New): Paul... Waiting at the Shore - Art, Revolution, War and Exile in the Life of the Spanish Artist Luis Quintanilla (Paperback, New)
Paul Quintanilla
R1,135 Discovery Miles 11 350 Ships in 12 - 19 working days

Waiting at the Shore chronicles the extraordinary life of the Spanish artist Luis Quintanilla, championed by Ernest Hemingway, John Dos Passos, Elliot Paul, and many other American and European writers and artists. In 1912, at the age of 18, he ran off to Montmartre where, under the influence of his fellow countryman Juan Gris, he began his artistic career as a Cubist. Returning to Madrid before the war he befriended prominent Spaniards, including Juan Negrin, the Premier during the Spanish Civil War. In April 1931 he and Negrin participated in the peaceful revolution which ousted the monarchy and installed the Second Spanish Republic. When civil war broke out Quintanilla helped lead troops on Madrid's Montana Barracks, which saved the capital for the Republic. "Because great painters," as Hemingway put it, "are scarcer than good soldiers," the Spanish government [Negrin] ordered Quintanilla out of the army after the fascists were stopped outside Madrid. The artist completed 140 drawings of the various fronts of the war which were exhibited at New York's Museum of Modern Art, with a catalogue by Hemingway. After the Republic lost the war Quintanilla was forced into an exile which lasted several decades. Living in New York and in Paris he strove to perfect his art, shunning the modernist vogues of the time. Although a celebrity when he first arrived in the United States he eventually fell into obscurity. This volume, which is heavily illustrated, brings him out of the shadows of neglect, and provides the compelling story of an artist who led not just an extraordinary life but left a legacy of paintings and drawings which, in both their skill and great imaginative variety, should be known to all art lovers.

Art and Creativity in an Era of Ecocide - Embodiment, Performance and Practice (Hardcover): Anna Pigott, Owain Jones, Ben Parry Art and Creativity in an Era of Ecocide - Embodiment, Performance and Practice (Hardcover)
Anna Pigott, Owain Jones, Ben Parry
R3,011 Discovery Miles 30 110 Ships in 12 - 19 working days

What can creativity achieve in an era of ecocide? How are people using creative and artistic practices to engage with (and resist) the destruction of life on earth? What are the relationships between creativity and repair in the face of escalating global environmental crises? Across twelve compelling case studies, this book charts the emergence of diverse forms of artistic practice and brings together accounts of how artists, scholars and activists are creatively responding to environmental destruction. Highlighting alternative approaches to creativity in both conventional art settings and daily life, the book demonstrates the major influence that ecological thought has had on contemporary creative practices. These are often more concerned with subtle processes of feeling, experience and embodiment than they are with charismatic ‘eco-art’ works. In doing so, this exploratory book develops a conception of creativity as an anti-ecocide endeavour, and provides timely theoretical and practical insights on art in an age of environmental destruction.

Ravilious: Submarine (Hardcover): James Russell Ravilious: Submarine (Hardcover)
James Russell; Edited by Tim Mainstone; Illustrated by Eric William Ravilious 1
R775 R734 Discovery Miles 7 340 Save R41 (5%) Ships in 9 - 17 working days

About the artist's second major foray into lithography, the set of prints he made in 1940/41 while working as a war artist. Known as the Submarine Series.

Modern Art for a Modern China - The Chinese Intellectual Debate, 1900-1930 (Paperback): Yiyan Wang Modern Art for a Modern China - The Chinese Intellectual Debate, 1900-1930 (Paperback)
Yiyan Wang
R1,363 Discovery Miles 13 630 Ships in 12 - 19 working days

How did art reform fit into the many initiatives for social and cultural change that contributed to the New Cultural Movement that transformed the Chinese cultural landscape during the Republican period? "Modern art for a modern China" was the rallying cry of Chinese intellectuals, many of whom were artists, critics, writers, poets and educators. Wang describes how these groups discussed and implanted changes in China's conception and practice of art. She demonstrates how art reforms fit into the many initiatives for social and cultural change that contributed to the New Cultural Movement that transformed the Chinese cultural landscape during the Republican period. In doing so, she analyses two key areas in the intellectual history of Republican China: China's art reform in the early decades of the twentieth century; and the connection and intersection between colonialism, nationalism and cosmopolitanism, including their direct impact on the development of art and art practice in China. Modern Art for a Modern China is an invaluable resource for scholars and students of China's twentieth-century intellectual history and art history.

The Women Who Changed Art Forever - Feminist Art - The Graphic Novel (Hardcover): Eva Rossetti, Valentina Grande The Women Who Changed Art Forever - Feminist Art - The Graphic Novel (Hardcover)
Eva Rossetti, Valentina Grande
R481 R444 Discovery Miles 4 440 Save R37 (8%) Ships in 9 - 17 working days

These women changed art forever - told in colourful graphic novel form, this is the story of four pioneers of feminist art: Judy Chicago, Faith Ringold, Ana Mendieta, and the Guerilla Girls. Each made their mark in their own powerful way. Judy Chicago made us reassess the female body, Faith Ringold taught us that feminism is for everyone, Ana Mendieta was a martyr to violence against women, while the Guerilla Girls have taken the fight to the male-dominated museum. This graphic novel tells each of their stories in a unique style.

Frida Kahlo - The Gisele Freund Photographs (Hardcover): Gisele Freund Frida Kahlo - The Gisele Freund Photographs (Hardcover)
Gisele Freund; Text written by Gerard De Cortanze; Epilogue by Lorraine Audric 1
R640 R504 Discovery Miles 5 040 Save R136 (21%) Ships in 12 - 19 working days

In 1950, photographer Gisele Freund embarked on a two-week trip to Mexico, but she wouldn't leave until two years later. There she met the legendary couple Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. Welcomed into their home, she immersed herself in their private lives and the cultural and artistic diversity of the country, taking hundreds of photographs. These powerful photographs, among the last taken before Kahlo's death, bear poignant witness to Frida's beauty and talent.Showcasing more than 100 of these rare images, many of which have never been published before, the book also includes previously unpublished commentary by Gisele Freund about Frida Kahlo, texts by Kahlo's biographer Gerard de Cortanze and art historian Lorraine Audric, as well as a link to a previously unreleased colour film, shot by Freund, showing Diego Rivera at work.

Pocket Frida Kahlo Wisdom - Inspirational Quotes and Wise Words From a Legendary Icon (Hardcover): Hardie Grant Books Pocket Frida Kahlo Wisdom - Inspirational Quotes and Wise Words From a Legendary Icon (Hardcover)
Hardie Grant Books 1
R165 R148 Discovery Miles 1 480 Save R17 (10%) Ships in 5 - 10 working days

Frida Kahlo is undoubtedly one of the most innovative and influential painters of the 20th century and is widely considered a style icon thanks to her eclectic taste and love for colour, print and hauls of jewellery. From a young age, Kahlo forged her own path, overcoming polio as a child, and stoically battling the after-effects of a tragic road accident that left her with lifelong injuries.

Pocket Frida Kahlo Wisdom is an inspiring collection of some of her best quotes on love, style, life, art and more, and celebrates the Mexican icon's immense legacy.

Some quotes from Frida Kahlo:

'Nothing is worth more than laughter. It is strength to laugh and to abandon oneself, to be light.'

'The only thing I know is that I paint because I need to, and I paint whatever passes through my head without any other consideration.'

'I must fight with all my strength so that the little positive things that my health allows me to do might be pointed toward helping the revolution. The only real reason for living.'

'I am my own muse, I am the subject I know best. The subject I want to know better.'

Meanings Of Modern Art, Revised (Hardcover): John Russell Meanings Of Modern Art, Revised (Hardcover)
John Russell
R3,734 Discovery Miles 37 340 Ships in 12 - 19 working days

A survey of modern art from the Impressionists to the present, with a new chapter on the art of the seventies and eighties, and corrections and revisions in the text.

Glasgow Style: Artists in the Decorative Arts, Circa 1900 (Hardcover): Laura Euler Glasgow Style: Artists in the Decorative Arts, Circa 1900 (Hardcover)
Laura Euler
R2,055 R1,582 Discovery Miles 15 820 Save R473 (23%) Ships in 12 - 19 working days

The Glasgow style of decorative arts evolved in the 1890s at the Glasgow School of Art, from influences begun by the Art Nouveau and Arts and Crafts movments in Great Britain. It was characterized by the juxtaposition of elongated verticals and sensuous bright, light, feminine designs, such as the rose, butterfly, peacock, singing birds, circles, crescents, and teardrop shapes. The text explains the meanings of each motif. Biographies of 20 influential artists in the Glasgow style include Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Herbert McNair, Margaret Macdonald, and Frances Macdonald, Their broad spectrum of designs, shown here in over 530 beautiful color photographs, covered walls, furniture, metalwork, jewelry, embroidery, textiles, dress, pottery, stained glass, and book illustration. Their goal was to support themselves by creating useful decorative arts that presented their new aesthetic. Today, Glasgow style decorative arts are avidly collected and cherished for their originality and handsome docor.

Essays on 20th Century Latin American Art (Paperback): Francine Birbragher-Rozencwaig Essays on 20th Century Latin American Art (Paperback)
Francine Birbragher-Rozencwaig
R1,249 Discovery Miles 12 490 Ships in 12 - 19 working days

* Covers a wide range of topics in Latin American/Caribbean/Central American Art History * Concise analysis of Latin American artists, works, and art movements * An interdisciplinary approach to the topics discussed that places art in its contemporary historical perspective * Includes material on art from Central America and the Caribbean, Women's Art, and Popular Art

Women Art Critics in Nineteenth-Century France - Vanishing Acts (Hardcover): Wendelin Guentner Women Art Critics in Nineteenth-Century France - Vanishing Acts (Hardcover)
Wendelin Guentner
R2,873 Discovery Miles 28 730 Ships in 12 - 19 working days

Over the past years, studies have begun not only to identify the factors that impeded the full participation of women artists in French cultural life, such as women's limited access to professional art education, but also to bring to light the considerable artistic accomplishments of women occluded by historians for over a century. A similar effort at historical revision has been under way for French women writers. Works of fiction that enjoyed many editions in the nineteenth-century receded from our field of vision for almost a century before being rediscovered and reissued during the last decades of the twentieth century. Such efforts have resulted in scholarship that has helped revise the history of both artistic and literary expression in nineteenth-century France. Similarly, many women in nineteenth-century France had their art criticism published both in journal reviews and in book form, often for decades, in a number of the most influential venues of their day. However, it is perplexing that they remain almost totally invisible in histories of French culture. Women Art Critics in Nineteenth-Century France: Vanishing Acts is the first sustained effort to bring these prolific and influential critics out from the shadows. Although each of the chapters in this volume results from an interdisciplinary approach, the fact that they are written by scholars in art history and in literature means that there will be inevitable differences in approach and methodology. Thus, we study the women's reception of specific artworks and aesthetic movements, discuss intersections of aesthetics and politics in their essays and the literary styles and rhetorical strategies of individual critics, explore the social conditions that allowed or impeded their successes, and suggest reasons for their all but disappearance in the twentieth century. In bringing to light for twenty-first-century readers the "vanished" writings of heretofore unrecognized or underrecognized women art critics, the authors hope to contribute to the ongoing revision of women's role in cultural history. The multifaceted approaches to word/image studies modeled in this book, and the many avenues for further research it identifies, will inspire scholars in a number of disciplines to continue the work of reinscribing women in the history of cultural life.

Mathematical Impressions (Hardcover): Mathematical Impressions (Hardcover)
R1,037 Discovery Miles 10 370 Ships in 12 - 19 working days

Anatolii Fomenko is a Soviet mathematician with a talent for expressing abstract mathematical concepts through artwork. Some of his works echo those of M. C. Escher in their meticulous rendering of shapes and patterns, while other pieces seem to be more visceral expressions of mathematical ideas. Stimulating to the imagination and to the eye, his rich and evocative work can be interpreted and appreciated in various ways - mathematical, aesthetic, or emotional. This book contains 84 reproductions of works by Fomenko, 23 of them in colour. In the accompanying captions, Fomenko explains the mathematical motivation behind the illustrations as well as the emotional, historical, or mythical subtexts that they evoke. The illustrations carry the viewer through a mathematical world consisting not of equations and dry logic, but of intuition and inspiration.

Food, Poetry, and the Aesthetics of Consumption - Eating the Avant-Garde (Paperback): Michel Delville Food, Poetry, and the Aesthetics of Consumption - Eating the Avant-Garde (Paperback)
Michel Delville
R1,785 Discovery Miles 17 850 Ships in 12 - 19 working days

From Plato's dismissal of food as a distraction from thought to Kant's relegation of the palate to the bottom of the hierarchy of the senses, the sense of taste has consistently been devalued by Western aesthetics. Kant is often invoked as evidence that philosophers consider taste as an inferior sense because it belongs to the realm of the private and subjective and does not seem to be required in the development of higher types of knowledge. From a gastrosophical perspective, however, what Kant perceives as a limitation becomes a new field of enquiry that investigates the dialectics of diet and discourse, self and matter, inside and outside. The essays in this book examine the importance of food as a pivotal element - both materially and conceptually - in the history of the Western avant-garde. From Gertrude Stein to Alain Robbe-Grillet and Samuel Beckett, from F.T. Marinetti to Andy Warhol, from Marcel Duchamp to Eleanor Antin, the examples chosen explore the conjunction of art and foodstuff in ways that interrogate contemporary notions of the body, language, and subjectivity.

Play and the Artist's Creative Process - The Work of Philip Guston and Eduardo Paolozzi (Paperback): Elly Thomas Play and the Artist's Creative Process - The Work of Philip Guston and Eduardo Paolozzi (Paperback)
Elly Thomas
R1,407 Discovery Miles 14 070 Ships in 12 - 19 working days

Play and the Artist's Creative Process explores a continuity between childhood play and adult creativity. The volume examines how an understanding of play can shed new light on processes that recur in the work of Philip Guston and Eduardo Paolozzi. Both artists' distinctive engagement with popular culture is seen as connected to the play materials available in the landscapes of their individual childhoods. Animating or toying with material to produce the unforeseen outcome is explored as the central force at work in the artists' processes. By engaging with a range of play theories, the book shows how the artists' studio methods can be understood in terms of game strategies.

The Diary of Frida Kahlo - An Intimate Self-Portrait (Hardcover, 2nd Revised edition): Carlos Fuentes The Diary of Frida Kahlo - An Intimate Self-Portrait (Hardcover, 2nd Revised edition)
Carlos Fuentes
R706 R647 Discovery Miles 6 470 Save R59 (8%) Ships in 12 - 19 working days

Published in its entirety, Frida Kahlo's amazing illustrated journal documents the last ten years of her turbulent life. These passionate, often surprising, intimate records, kept under lock and key for some 40 years in Mexico, reveal many new dimensions in the complex personal life of this remarkable Mexican artist. The 170-page journal contains the artist's thoughts, poems, and dreams-many reflecting her stormy relationship with her husband, artist Diego Rivera-along with 70 mesmerizing watercolor illustrations. The text entries, written in Frida's round, full script in brightly colored inks, make the journal as captivating to look at as it is to read. Her writing reveals the artist's political sensibilities, recollections of her childhood, and her enormous courage in the face of more than 35 operations to correct injuries she had sustained in an accident at the age of 18. This intimate portal into her life is sure to fascinate fans of the artist, art historians, and women's culturalists alike.

Cleo de Merode and the Rise of Modern Celebrity Culture (Hardcover, New Ed): Michael D. Garval Cleo de Merode and the Rise of Modern Celebrity Culture (Hardcover, New Ed)
Michael D. Garval
R4,636 Discovery Miles 46 360 Ships in 12 - 19 working days

The first English-language monograph on the French dancer and model, Cleo de Merode and the Rise of Modern Celebrity Culture explores the haunting legacy of this intriguing and glamorous figure, an international celebrity at the dawn of modern celebrity culture. Situating Merode at a pivotal moment in the history of fame and visual culture, this study analyzes how technological and societal changes led to our star-struck modernity. Merode was one of the earliest examples of fame born from mass visual culture, as newly available postcards circulated her image around the globe. Through Merode, Michael D. Garval illuminates broader trends of the Belle A0/00poque: persistent statue fetishism within a vibrant monumental culture, rampant exoticism amid unprecedented colonial expansion, the rapid growth of the illustrated press, the rise of female show business personalities, the advent of cinema and x-rays, and a burgeoning sense of new visual possibilities. The volume examines how Merode heralded modern celebrity icons; problematizes the status of women and women's bodies under intense public scrutiny; and exposes the paradoxes of a society captivated by a mass media-driven dream of intimacy from afar.Cleo de Merode and the Rise of Modern Celebrity Culture probes the neglected prehistory of a visual culture obsessed with celebrities and their images.

A Picture of Cornwall - Contemporary Artists and the Inspirational Landscape (Hardcover): Ray Backwill A Picture of Cornwall - Contemporary Artists and the Inspirational Landscape (Hardcover)
Ray Backwill
R943 R829 Discovery Miles 8 290 Save R114 (12%) Ships in 12 - 19 working days
Transculturation in British Art, 1770-1930 (Hardcover, New Ed): Julie F. Codell Transculturation in British Art, 1770-1930 (Hardcover, New Ed)
Julie F. Codell
R4,657 Discovery Miles 46 570 Ships in 12 - 19 working days

Examining colonial art through the lens of transculturation, the essays in this collection assess painting, sculpture, photography, illustration and architecture from 1770 to 1930 to map these art works' complex and unresolved meanings illuminated by the concept of transculturation. Authors explore works in which transculturation itself was being defined, formed, negotiated, and represented in the British Empire and in countries subject to British influence (the Congo Free State, Japan, Turkey) through cross-cultural encounters of two kinds: works created in the colonies subject over time to colonial and to postcolonial spectators' receptions, and copies or multiples of works that traveled across space located in several colonies or between a colony and the metropole, thus subject to multiple cultural interpretations.

The Avant-Garde in Interwar England - Medieval Modernism and the London Underground (Hardcover): Michael T. Saler The Avant-Garde in Interwar England - Medieval Modernism and the London Underground (Hardcover)
Michael T. Saler
R3,174 Discovery Miles 31 740 Ships in 12 - 19 working days

The Avant-Garde in Interwar England addresses modernism's ties to tradition, commerce, nationalism, and spirituality through an analysis of the assimilation of visual modernism in England between 1910 and 1939. During this period, a debate raged across the nation concerning the purpose of art in society. On one side were the aesthetic formalists, led by members of London's Bloomsbury Group, who thought art was autonomous from everyday life. On the other were England's so-called medieval modernists, many of them from the provincial North, who maintained that art had direct social functions and moral consequences. As Michael T. Saler demonstrates in this fascinating volume, the heated exchange between these two camps would ultimately set the terms for how modern art was perceived by the British public.
Histories of English modernism have usually emphasized the seminal role played by the Bloomsbury Group in introducing, celebrating, and defining modernism, but Saler's study instead argues that, during the watershed years between the World Wars, modern art was most often understood in the terms laid out by the medieval modernists. As the name implies, these artists and intellectuals closely associated modernism with the art of the Middle Ages, building on the ideas of John Ruskin, William Morris, and other nineteenth-century romantic medievalists. In their view, modernism was a spiritual, national, and economic movement, a new and different artistic sensibility that was destined to revitalize England's culture as well as its commercial exports when applied to advertising and industrial design.
This book, then, concerns the busy intersection of art, trade, and national identity in the early decades of twentieth-century England. Specifically, it explores the life and work of Frank Pick, managing director of the London Underground, whose famous patronage of modern artists, architects, and designers was guided by a desire to unite nineteenth-century arts and crafts with twentieth-century industry and mass culture. As one of the foremost adherents of medieval modernism, Pick converted London's primary public transportation system into the culminating project of the arts and crafts movement. But how should today's readers regard Pick's achievement? What can we say of the legacy of this visionary patron who sought to transform the whole of sprawling London into a post-impressionist work of art? And was medieval modernism itself a movement of pioneers or dreamers? In its bold engagement with such questions, The Avant-Garde in Interwar England will surely appeal to students of modernism, twentieth-century art, the cultural history of England, and urban history.

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