20th Century Art

Paper Summary:

Between the years of 1912 and 1914 the entire temper of the American arts changed. America's cultural coming-of-age occurred and writing in the U.S. moved from a period entitled traditional to modernist. These changes engaged an America of rising intellectual opportunities and intensifying artistic preoccupation. With the changes came opportunity for male and female artists. And although female leadership in most careers was scorned by the modernizing society, artists Georgia O'Keeffe, Gwen John and Suzanne Valadon demonstrated that opportunity was blind to gender and opened its door to all who would knock. This paper examines the lives and careers of these three artists and examines some of their artwork. The paper also includes colored copies of the works discussed.

From the Paper:

"After the war, although the experience cast a dark shadow on the optimistic American evaluation of the world, America pulled herself out of the trenches of Germany and France, and decided it had come of age. America, the fledgling democracy which was just over a hundred years in age, entered the war and turned the tide of aggression that all of Europe could not contain. With this new courage, and a national sentiment that valued the traditions of its past, America went looking for herself, and found her portrait painted by the words of the modernist poet, and on the canvases of abstract painters."

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• Cause and Effect Essay # 119761 : "The Effect of War on 20th Century Visual Art"

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