"Ready to Start", Self-Portrait, 1917, by William Orpen (Imperial War Museum)
The terrible power of war to unleash death and destruction has often ironically led to remarkable creative breakthroughs from artists, poets, and composers. In the case of World War I, some of the most fascinating innovations in visual arts came just prior to its outbreak—from the cubism of Picasso and Braque to the abstraction of Kandinsky. As artists and writers were drafted or volunteered for service, they brought those avant-garde outlooks with them.
Many of them lost their lives, or returned from the trenches with lifelong traumas. In the aftermath of the conflict, even those who were spared battlefield experience became deeply disillusioned, creating works that challenged traditional ideals about art and its ability to provide meaning in a world forever changed. Amid this cycle of destruction and creation, the Russian Revolution of 1917 led to some of the boldest artistic experiments of the 20th century. Join art historian Aneta Georgievska-Shine in an exploration of the artistic legacy of the Great War.
9:30–10:45 a.m. Avant-Garde Art and the Romance of Disaster
Some avant-garde artists embraced the war, and others lost their lives in battle or in postwar disasters, such as the flu pandemic of 1918; artists discussed include members of the Italian futurists and the English Vorticists, August Macke, Franz Marc, and Egon Schiele.
11 a.m.–12:15 p.m. Witnesses and Memory-Keepers
Artists who faced combat, as well as those commissioned to make visual records of the battlefields, often were traumatized by their experiences; Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Max Beckmann, Paul and John Nash, William Orpen, and John Singer Sargent.
12:15–1:15 p.m. Lunch (Participants provide their own)
1:15–2:30 p.m. Sifting Through the Shards of Culture: Dada
Dada, one of the greatest antiwar movements was born in the midst of WWI, and in the years immediately afterward had great impact in the visual arts and the poetry of “imagist” writers such as T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound; Kurt Schwitters, Hanna Hoch, Raoul Hausmann, and George Grosz.
2:45–4 p.m. The Russian Revolution and the Great Artistic Utopia
Artists and intellectuals who were caught up in the ideals of the Russian revolution of 1917 created some of the most adventurous works of the 20th century; Kazimir Malevich, Alexander Rodchenko, Vladimir Mayakovski, and Sergei Eisenstein.
World Art History Certificate elective: Earn 1 credit
Other Connections
Brothers Paul and John Nash served as official British Army war artists during the First World War. Paul, the eldest, had attended London’s Slade School, while John had no formal art training. Prior to their commissions, both had seen active service on the Western Front. Their experiences and observations are recorded in striking artworks depicting trench life, troop movements, and shattered landscapes.
Smithsonian Connections
Learn more about Aneta Georgievska-Shine.
