The Age of Anxiety

"The Soup Kitchen"
-Norman Wilfred Lewis 1937
http://www.metmuseum.org/explore/artists_view/soup_kitchen.html








This artistic picture, drawn by Norman Lewis, is a realistic and beautiful depiction of the hardships of the Great Depression in the US. Even though this picture shows the turmoil of the Great Depression in the United States, I still believe it is a universal snapshot of the effects of the Great Depression in Europe, and the rest of the world. You can feel the sadness, confusion, and helplessness in all of the peoples body composer and especially the man sitting at the table because you can see how bad he feels. I loved how this picture brought the feelings of the Great Depression into my mind because I believe the artist showed the overall feelings of everyone in the world at the time, in a perfect, simple picture that tells so much, with so little effort.







Guernica, 1937
Pablo Picasso
http://www.westpointgradsagainstthewar.org/powellpresentation_to_the_un.htm



This painting by the famous Pablo Picasso, was his way of expressing his feelings about the bombings of Guernica, Spain, in 1937. I thought this painting was interesting because it was very abstract to me, and I didn't totally understand Picasso's style, nor his meaning behind the painting. After a little research, I found out that this was Picasso's painting for the Spanish government, so I realized that it was obviously going to be sympathetic towards the Spanish people of Guernica. After this realization, I finally saw the expressions of everyone in the painting, and how they were all frantic as if they were in the bombing of Guernica themselves. I thought it was interesting to finally, somewhat, understand a painting by Picasso because his abstract art pieces are usually very weird, but this one actually had a story behind it, and I found it interesting because it had to do with the tensions leading up to WWII which were very prevalent during the age of anxiety.







"L.H.O.O.Q"
By: Marcel Duchamp, 1919
http://www.marcelduchamp.net/L.H.O.O.Q.php










I thought this art piece by Duchamp was absolutely hilarious and awesome because it depicted the famous face of the Mona Lisa with a mustache, something that I personally could have saw myself doing when I was a child. Usually when I think of art during the age of anxiety, I think of artists with fancy cloths on, doing eloquent paintings of fruit and forests, not artists drawling mustache's on the Mona Lisa. I like this painting so much because it fights the normal characteristics of proper art, and shows creativity and comedy. The part of this painting that I thought was the best, was that the L.H.O.O.Q actually stands for "Elle a chaud au cul," which when translated, means "she is hot in the ass." I just think everything about this painting is so cool because it is nothing like the stereotypical 1920's art pieces, and it screams the characteristics and opinions of a true Dadaism painting.