As the twentieth century dawned, artists and writers increasingly
felt that realistic themes and realistic techniques were inadequate
to address the human condition. Convinced that there was more to
reality than physical appearance, they turned their gaze inward and
adopted a number of unconventional approaches. Paradoxically,
considering that they strove to give a more faithful impression of
reality, their experiments were overwhelmingly anti-realistic. Some
artists and writers, such as the cubist and the futurist poets,
subverted traditional rhetorical devices. Others, like the cubist
and the metaphysical artists, invented new spatio-temporal
constructions. Some individuals, including the cubists and
futurists, borrowed freely from other disciplines. Others,
especially the dadaists and the surrealists, cultivated nonsense
and illogicality. Focusing on basic principles and drawing on their
personal experience, poets and painters writers began to explore
subjective reality, which proved to be far more interesting than
its objective counterpart. As they soon discovered, the quest for a
new reality required the creation of a new language that could
express that reality. Each goal was inextricably bound up with the
other in a relationship that was fundamentally reciprocal. Artists
and writers searched for a language that would express the
complexity of the modern world while revolutionizing traditional
aesthetics. Visual imagination demanded linguistic innovation and
vice versa. Language and vision were entwined in a double helix
like a strand of DNA. Rather than opposite sides of the same
aesthetic coin, they represented complementary ways of processing
experience. So important were vision and expression to the vanguard
enterprise that this double quest soon became obligatory--an
"avant-garde imperative." Eager to attract attention, artists and
writers struggled to be on the cutting edge. Keen to impress
publishers, dealers, and colleagues, they dressed original ideas in
striking new clothes. The insights, impressions, and ideas
generated by contemporary technological developments demanded to be
expressed in a brand new language. As poets and painters strove to
create such a language, however, they discovered that this activity
also provided them with new insights, impressions, and ideas. By
expanding the ability of language to express the tremendous
complexity of modern life, they hoped to overcome this complexity
by inventing new ways of thinking about the world and of
interacting with it. To be sure, the search for an alternate means
of expression assumed many different guises over the years. Each of
the individuals examined in these pages struggled long and hard to
discover a suitable vehicle for his or her voice. Each searched for
a radical new art form that, in addition to expressing his or her
personal vision, would transform the way we view things. Besides
poets and painters, to be sure, the avant-garde included numerous
people associated with other disciplines. Dancers, choreographers,
musicians, composers, film makers, theater directors,
scenographers, art dealers, playwrights, actors, critics, and
publishers all contributed to the heady mix. While freely
acknowledging their important contributions, the present study
concentrates on art and literature, which, as the volume
demonstrates, evolved along parallel lines. Although writers and
artists mostly worked in radically different media, which partially
determined what they could accomplish, they shared the same goals.
In their quest for new domains to explore, they developed
anti-realistic strategies that would revolutionize modern
aesthetics. The Avant-Garde Imperative is an important volume for
anyone interested in modern aesthetics. It will appeal not only to
scholars of twentieth-century literature but also to those working
in the field of modern art.
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