Every good University student knows that the Bayly Art Museum is somewhere down Rugby Road. However, with other possible pleasures in the vicinity, artistic treasures seldom are truly explored.
A trip to the Bayly always offers surprising rewards, and this winter it will feature classic Americana. From now until March 11, the Bayly will feature a display entitled "Poetry of the Prosaic: Early 20th Century American Painting," a worthwhile reason to go down Rugby.
By the early 20th century, Modernism swept both America and Europe. Real experience was often neglected, as artists were compelled to present the sordid, seamy side of life. While there was certainly a magnetic force that attracted Americans to forms of vulgarity, there was also a need for peace, for certainty and for beauty. After the turmoil of World War I, a new class of American artists arose. Leaving behind the recent political storms, these young artists fought to bring the prosaic back to the forefront of American art. Such portrayals of peace and pleasure can give even today's students a moment of quiescence.
Harangued by more "modern" artists as being outdated and oversimplified, this new class of artists formed what was then known as the Ashcan School. However, far from juvenile, their works opposed academia. To these men, true beauty existed in the portrayal of average, everyday American life.
One of these artists, Guy Pene du Bois, attempted to fight current pop culture by mocking its self-absorption and egoism. "Beach, Deauville," painted in 1926 at the height of the Roaring '20s, shows clusters of people standing together and yet blatantly ignoring one another. The heightened colors and astoundingly smooth brush strokes make the painting appear almost comic. Similarly, John Barber uses the vivid colors and planar outlines of Cezanne to ridicule the modern caf
Read More
The best albums of 2014
By Noah Zeidman | December 4, 2014Across genres, it has been a pretty great year in music.
Top 10 movies of 2014
December 4, 2014This has been an excellent year for film, offering everything from gripping blockbusters to innovative personal films.
Iggy Azalea is “Reclassified”
December 4, 2014It has become common practice among music artists to repackage their albums in an effort to simultaneously boost single sales and dish out new content by slightly renaming the album or slapping “Deluxe” onto the title.
