Ernest Boyd (1887 – 1946), all-around swell guy and significant literary figure in 1920s New York, took a hard look at German Expressionism and its wide influence on other Teutonic arts in the early Twenties. He paid particular attention to the German critic Hermann Bahr (1863 – 1934), who coined the term, Expressionism, and had much to say about the movement.
“In 1934, Adolf Hitler boasted: ‘In my Ordensburgen a virile youth will be developed from whom the world will recoil in terror – a violent, dominating, intrepid, brutal youth indifferent to pain and knowing no tenderness or weakness.'”
Nice.
German-born reporter Johannes Steel (1908 – 1988) was not an amateur when it came to identifying Fascists, he could spot them a mile away. In 1946, with Asian and European Fascism soundly defeated, he turned his attention to his adopted homeland and wrote this article concerning his disturbing observations.
Click here to read about Christian Nationalism.
“Government movies are now having their greatest boom in history. The boom is tied to the war, but many capital observers believe that it will continue into the post war era, and that the large-scale production of films by the Government telling the people what’s what and how to do it is here to stay.”
Literary critic Philip Guedallia (1889 – 1944) reluctantly concluded that the contributions of Rudyard Kipling (1865 – 1936) to the world of letters were genuine – and, no matter what you think of him, his writing will be around for a good while.
“He sharpened the English language to a knife-edge, and with it he has cut brilliant patterns on the surface of our prose literature.”
Artist Tristan Tzara (1896 – 1963) reported from Berlin for the editors at Vanity Fair on what’s new in German art. With tremendous enthusiasm he explained everything that was going on throughout all the German studios – he did not hold back – every name brand is included: Schwitters, Klee, Kandinsky, Lehmbruck, Gropius and the Bauhaus.
In this column, art critic Clive Bell (1881 – 1964) explained why neither Britain or America would have been capable of producing a writer like Marcel Proust (1871 – 1922).
In this column, art critic Clive Bell (1881 – 1964) explained why neither Britain or America would have been capable of producing a writer like Marcel Proust (1871 – 1922).
Once upon a time there was a short-lived organization in New York City created to lampoon works of art hailed by the critics as worthy creations. They called themselves The Academy of Misapplied Art and they held their exhibits in the lobby of the Light House for the Blind. Attached herein is the N.Y. Times review of their 1913 exhibit intended to make light of the European Cubists.
As America was gearing up to fight another world war, the brass caps were reminded how incapable they were at identifying and isolating the mental incompetents during the last war, and they swore this war would be different. Numerous military and civilian psychiatrists were convened, and it was concluded that of the millions of men called, at least 15 percent would likely be off-their-rockers.
As America was gearing up to fight another world war, the brass caps were reminded how incapable they were at identifying and isolating the mental incompetents during the last war, and they swore this war would be different. Numerous military and civilian psychiatrists were convened, and it was concluded that of the millions of men called, at least 15 percent would likely be off-their-rockers.
Writing Prohibition’s obituary during the Winter of 1933, Bertrand Russel (1872 – 1970) came away thinking that the best thing that could ever be said about Prohibition was that it served to put an end to that line of Victorian thinking that held up women as morally superior to men.
These are the observations of an American woman in fascist Japan; the writer was Joy Homer. In this article she tells of her travels to Tokyo in 1940 where she was asked to secretly address those small groups that silently wished for a republican form of government while silently opposing their country’s imperial conquest of China.
These are the observations of an American woman in fascist Japan; the writer was Joy Homer. In this article she tells of her travels to Tokyo in 1940 where she was asked to secretly address those small groups that silently wished for a republican form of government while silently opposing their country’s imperial conquest of China.
Numerous deep thoughts on the subject of Cubism by a prominent art critic of the time, Clive Bell (1881 – 1964):
“But, though in two or three years’ time Cubism may have disappeared, its influence should endure for a generation at least. The service it has rendered art is inestimable. Without it the liberating impulse given by Cezanne had been incomplete. Cezanne freed artistic sensibility from a hampering and outworn convention; Cubism imposed on it an intelligent and reasonable discipline. If a generation of free artists is now turning spontaneously towards the great tradition, it was through Cubism that it came at Ingres and Poussin.”
“The important question of the proper length of dress skirts is again racking the public press and putting a large part of our female population completely off their feed.”
“Philadelphia Coast Guardsmen yesterday observed the surrender of Germany by recalling that their branch of service fired the first American shot in the war against Germany, capturing the first enemy ship and taking the first Nazi prisoner… It was in September, 1941, that the Coast Guard cutter Northland captured the Norwegian freighter Busko, loaded with equipment for a German weather station to be established in Greenland.”
“Philadelphia Coast Guardsmen yesterday observed the surrender of Germany by recalling that their branch of service fired the first American shot in the war against Germany, capturing the first enemy ship and taking the first Nazi prisoner… It was in September, 1941, that the Coast Guard cutter Northland captured the Norwegian freighter Busko, loaded with equipment for a German weather station to be established in Greenland.”
