technicolour

I spent quite some time looking at these slides from the Library of Congress. I'm amazed at how beautifully cinematic they are. Its rare that we are able to see the depression and war eras in colour, and it usually makes them feel more recent, and real. Simultaneously, though, to me, they almost look like frames from a film, like fictions. The man in the second to last image could be Paul Newman. I'm not sure if I like the way in which my reading of these incredible images is so totally influenced by films and Steinbeck novels...There are so many to look at, and so many I almost put up here, but then felt a bit odd about (images of depression-era families and children, for example). Regardless, they're amazing, poignant and beautiful, and you should have a look at them.

rrriot

Images from the Joffrey Ballet's recreation of Nijinksy's choreography of Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring (whew!). When it premiered with Les Ballet Russes in Paris in 1913, it caused a riot. I'll probably dream some strange dreams tonight.

notorious

Anita Berber was a weimar-period caberet dancer, among many other things. She is the subject of this painting by Otto Dix, was probably the first person to dance naked onstage and is widely considered to be an important predecessor of modern performance art. You should read this article to learn more. Also of interest is this film, Anita - Tänze des Lasters, which is about a woman who "goes insane, believing herself to be the notorious Anita Berber, a nude art dancer/drug addict/scandalous figure of post-WWI Berlin."

It all sounds VERY interesting. Oh, and you can see some archival footage of her on this (German) news story.

on the cusp

"What has our culture lost in 1980 that the avant-garde had in 1890? Ebullience, idealism, confidence, the belief that there was plenty of territory to explore, and above all the sense that art, in the most disinterested and noble way, could find the necessary metaphors by which a radically changing culture could be explained to its inhabitants."
Robert Hughes, The Shock of the New.

The people, ideas and art movements from the turn of the last century and the years loosley surrounding it have always fascinated me in a terribly unacademic and romantic way. There were so many things happening around the same time: modernity creeping in, the first world war brewing (with machine guns), bohemian artists collaborating in Paris, the last days of the Romonavs...

Further reading could include Hughes' The Shock of the New and Bohemian Paris: Picasso, Modigliani, Matisse, and the Birth of Modern Art.

Photo of a dancer from Diaghilev's Ballet Russes from here.