During the years before his death in 1918 Apollinaire?s reputation as poet and artistic animateur approached legendary proportions. This book is the first to present an extensive reassessment of Apollinaire?s role in the promotion of themes and iconography amongst his painter friends. Detailed analysis of the poetic subject matter of selected works of Dufy, Delaunay, de Chirico, Laurencin, Marcoussis, Metzinger, Picabia and Picasso is used to reconstruct the responses of these artists to Apollinaire?s artistic and aesthetic proclivities. Drawing attention to the poet?s immersion in the art and iconography of the French late-Renaissance and the seventeenth century, Adrian Hicken shows that the study of the permeation of Apollinairean and Orphic imagery in the work of artists with very different personalities presents a fascinating and pivotal episode in the history of Parisian modernism.

This literary history examines Guillaume Apollinaire's reception and influence in the Western hemisphere during the early twentieth century. Ir identifies and reconstructs major literary and art historical paths of development, about which surprisingly little is known. In particular, it discusses Apollinaire's reception and formative influence in North America, England, Germany, Spain, Argentina, and Mexico, and includes important documents by Apollinaire himself that have not appeared in print until now. "Bohn brings together a worldwide network of writers, artists, and critics to reveal the role and centrality of Apollinaire as the icon of Parisian modernism, cult figure of the avant-garde, poet with a new series of techniques, esthetician of the New, innovator of modern culture, and literary and cultural arbiter of his generation. "This is Rezeptionsesthetik in its most intense form. It is the definitive reference book for checking on who had any dealings with Apollinaire, the man or his work, and French modernism in English, German, Spanish or Catalan linguistic and cultural domains in both the Old and New Worlds. Bohn's translations from the various languages he commands are superb and prove that he is always working from source material. His text is simply a tour de force, a virtuoso performance". -- Seth L. Wolitz, University of Texas, Austin "Given the centrality of French poetry for European and New World poetry since Baudelaire, one simply cannot overstate Apollinaire's role in the evolution of the most advanced poetry written throughout Europe and North and South America since circa 1900. However, no one before has tracked his impact on avant-garde circles outsideFrance with so much attention to the specifics involved. Bohn has emerged as the dean of Apollinaire studies in North America; thus everything he has to say about the poet has the ring of absolute authority". -- Robert W. Greene, State University of New York, Albany

If the city is the theatre of urban life, how does architecture act in its many performances? This book reconstructs the spatial experiments of Art et Action, a theatre troupe active in 1920s Paris, and how their designs for theater buildings show how the performance spaces interacted with actors and spectators according to their type.

Modernism and Authority presents a provocative new take on the early paintings of Pablo Picasso and the writings of Guillaume Apollinaire. Charles Palermo argues that references to theology and traditional Christian iconography in the works of Picasso and Apollinaire are not mere symbolic gestures; rather, they are complex responses to the symbolist art and poetry of figures important to them, including Paul Gauguin, Charles Morice, and Santiago Rusi–ol. The young Picasso and his contemporaries experienced the challenges of modernity as an attempt to reflect on the lost relation to authority. For the symbolists, art held authority by revealing something compellingÑsomething to which audiences must respond lest they lose claim to their own moral authority. Instead of the total transformation of the reader or viewer that symbolist creators envision, Picasso and Apollinaire imagine a divided self, responding only partially or ambivalently to the work of artÕs call. Navigating these problems of symbolist art and poetry entails considering the nature of the work of art and of oneÕs response to it, the modern subjectÕs place in history, and the relevance of historical truth to our methodological choices in the present.

This is a revealing book which, for the first time, investigates the central influence of feminism in the work of Le Corbusier; one of the most important and revered architects of all time. The text covers Le Corbusier’s upbringing and training and sets this in the context of the cultural atmosphere of his time, covering issues of gender and religion. It reveals aspects of his private life such as personal relationships, which have barely been explored before as no biography currently exists. Furthermore, the author reveals, for the first time in print, a previously undiscovered and unpublished Le Corbusier building, making this book an incredibly significant addition to existing literature on the great man. In short, the new evidence and theories contained in this volume amount to major revelations about this hugely revered and central architectural figure of the 20th Century.

Many modernist artists in the early years of the 20th century preferred solitary lives, but just as many thrived in small, nebulous groups, such as the Futurists & Imagists. Cohen demonstrates how these groups fostered artistic innovation & bore responsibility for nearly all avante-garde agitation.

In the years before, during, and after the First World War, hundreds of young Jews flocked to Paris, artistic capital of the world and center of modernist experimentation. Some arrived with prior training from art academies in Kraków, Vilna, and Vitebsk; others came armed only with hope and a few memorized phrases in French. They had little Jewish tradition in painting and sculpture to draw on, yet despite these obstacles, these young Jews produced the greatest efflorescence of art in the long history of the Jewish people. The paintings of Marc Chagall, Amedeo Modigliani, Chaim Soutine, Sonia Delaunay-Terk, and Emmanuel Mané-Katz, the sculptures of Jacques Lipchitz, Ossip Zadkine, Chana Orloff, and works by many other artists now grace the world's museums. As the École de Paris was the most cosmopolitan artistic movement the world had seen, the left-bank neighborhood of Montparnasse became a meeting place for diverse cultures. How did the tolerant, bohemian atmosphere of Montparnasse encourage an international style of art in an era of bellicose nationalism, not to mention racism and antisemitism? How did immigrants not only absorb but profoundly influence a culture? This book examines how the clash of cultures produced genius.

John Golding brings to his writing the sure eye and profound sensitivity of a practicing artist. Perhaps best known for his seminal history of Cubism, Golding has long been regarded as one of the most outstanding art historians and critics of our time. This volume brings together many of his most important essays, and its publication will be celebrated not only by his admirers, but by lovers of art and language everywhere. Visions of The Modern covers a vast range of twentieth-century art, from Matisse and Cubism, Dada and Surrealism, to aspects of postwar American art. Some essays have been out of print, while others have appeared in periodicals not easily accessible to the average reader. Taken together, they establish a sustained, deeply informed account of many of the grandest moments in the art of this century. A much admired painter, Golding's unique balance of eye and mind infuses his exceedingly literate criticism. Combining a meticulousness in matters of fact with a capacity to write in a lucid, jargon-free manner, he addresses equally the sophisticated art historian, the cultural historian, and the general reader. An appendix to the volume is in the form of a dialogue between Golding and the philosopher Richard Wollheim. It provides additional insights into the origins and aims of abstract art, as well as revealing the mind of an invigorating artist at work.