Abstract Expressionism
Abstract Expressionism was a movement initiated by a group of loosely affiliated artists that came together during the early 1940s, primarily in New York City.…
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Surrealism Overview
Soupault’s publication of Manifeste du Surréalism in 1924. Rising in the wake of the First World War, Surrealism revolted against a world that had become…
War Art in Japan
Under Japan’s totalitarian state during World War II, most Japanese artists participated in the war effort. Their activities included producing works commissioned by the state,…
Lenin, Vladimir (1870–1924)
Vladimir Lenin (born Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov) was the most prominent figure in the translation of Marxist political economy and theories of proletarian revolution into successful…
Jancsó, Miklós (1921–2014)
Hungarian director Miklós Jancsó (September 27, 1921–January 31, 2014) emerged in the 1960s with a series of films professing both an unapologetic Marxist perspective and…
Yakobson, Leonid (1904–1975)
A Russian dancer and choreographer, Leonid Veniaminovich Yakobson choreographed for the Kirov and Bolshoi ballets from 1930 to the early 1970s, during which time he…
Orwell, George (1903–1950)
George Orwell is the pseudonym of Eric Arthur Blair. A writer, poet, journalist, broadcaster and critic, he is best known for his satirical novel Animal…
Benda, Julien (1867–1956)
Julien Benda was a French writer, literary critic, and political thinker. An atypical figure in French literary history, Benda opposed most of the intellectual trends…
Bulgakov, Mikhail Afanas’evich (Булгаков, Михаил) (1891–1940)
Mikhail Bulgakov was a Russian prose writer and playwright. In the last 25 years of the Soviet Union’s existence Bulgakov was one of its most…
Blanchot, Maurice (1907–2003)
Maurice Blanchot was one of Europe’s most influential essayists, theorists and experimental fiction writers. Roland Barthes, Michel Foucault, Paul de Man, Jacques Derrida and Emmanuel…
Abstraction-Création
Abstraction-Création was a collective of abstract artists active in Paris until 1936. Beginning in 1931, the founding committee was composed of Theo Van Doesburg, Jean…
Communism, Socialism, Marxism, Bolshevism
Communism is first and foremost the reality of long-dismantled or nearly defunct regimes in China, the (former) Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, Cuba and North Korea:…
The Great Depression
Beginning on New York’s Wall Street on October 29, 1929, which would come to be known as ‘Black Tuesday’, the Great Depression was the most…
Shlonsky, Abraham (1900–1973)
Abraham Shlonsky can be regarded as the main architect of modern Hebrew poetry. He was born in 1900 to a socialist revolutionary mother and a…
Artists’ Front of Thailand, The
The Artists’ Front of Thailand (AFT) formed in 1974, immediately following the violent political events of October 1973. The group came together for the purpose…
Gandhi, M. K. (1869–1948)
Mohandas Karamchand (sometimes called Mahatma, or ‘great soul’) Gandhi was an Indian lawyer, a champion of Indian independence from Great Britain, and an advocate and…
Lagerkvist, Pär (1891-1974)
Born in Växjö, Sweden, Pär Lagerkvist pursued academic studies at Uppsala University where he befriended artists associated with the avant-garde in Sweden. Lagerkvist visited Paris…
Documentary
Documentaries involve self-conscious reflections on modern life. Early newsreels and actualities displayed film’s capacity to document events and everyday life as they happened, leading viewers…
Hermeticism
Though it originates in the work of H. D., hermeticism achieves its most lasting impact and enduring legacy in the work of mid-century Italian poets.…
Howe, Irving (1920–1993)
Irving Howe was an American literary and social critic. Howe was a central figure in the circles of American democratic socialism as well as a…
Niemeyer, Oscar (1907–2012)
Oscar Ribeiro de Almeida Niemeyer Soares Filho, better known as Oscar Niemeyer, was a prolific Brazilian architect and one of the leading Latin American exponents of…
Gutai
Gutai Art Association [Gutai Bijutsu Kyōkai] [具体美術協会] was an influential post-World War II Japanese avant-garde collective with an outward-looking mindset. Founded in 1954 in Ashiya,…
Nishida, Kitarō [西田 幾多郎] (1870–1945)
Arguably the most important Japanese philosopher of the 20th century, Nishida Kitarō was one of the first thinkers to engage deeply with the sudden massive influx…
Rationalism
Rationalism [Ratsionalizm] was a modernist movement in Soviet architecture that was current in the 1920s and early 1930s. It was led by the architect and…
Lissitzky, El (1890–1941)
The Soviet artist, photographer, designer, and architect Lazar Markovich (Mordukhaevich) Lissitzky grew up in a Jewish family in Smolensk in western Russia. In 1909 Lissitzky…