Made him one of the lefts most powerful propagandists. I felt the ground shaking beneath my feet, he said. And the shaking was visible in my work. His caricatures of weimar germany reject a society depraved by greed and power. Groszs contempt was shared by wider artistic developments in europe and america. Those developments became known as dada. Dada was like a storm that broke over the world of art. It had many centers from zurich to hanover from cologne to new york and many sorts of artistic expression. Unlike grosz in berlin these dada artists didnt see the exposure of Class Divisions as their central purpose. They attacked the foundations on which nations were built truth, beauty, reason, science. In the wake of the catastrophe all these values were brought into question. In paris and new york, Marcel Duchamp produced his readymades a hat stand, a bottle rack ordinary everyday items promoted to the status of art objects simply because the artist had signed them. And by signing thi
The valois dukes of burgundy established one of the strangest and most extravagant courts of late medieval europe. From their base in burgundy, by marriage and diplomacy, they acquired large areas of the netherlands to build an extensive, though fragmented state of vast wealth. In 1404, duke philip the bold died at the stag inn near brussels. 20 years earlier his royayal sculptors had begun work on philips tomb. One of them carved these images of the funeral procession which transported his body back to burgundy. Clothed in the habit of a carthusian monk philips embalmed body was sealed in a lead coffin and carried in a funeral cortege whh took nearly seven weeks to wind the 250 miles from brussels to dijon. Accompanied by his sons, his chaplains, and members of his royal court the hearse was drawn by six horses in black with the blue banners of burgundy fluttering at its corners. At dijon, it was received not only by the weeping clergy but by 100 chosen townspeople and 100 poor also c
But this grand illusion, whose stage was the city itself, was founded in reality. By the 1500s, venice claimed 1,000 years of history as a free and independent republic. The chill wind of economic change the decline of empire had not yet touched its selfconfidence. It was still rich in trade and crafts. Its imperial possessions still spread out across the mediterranean and into the italian mainland, as here at vicenza. So the theater and the spectacle were props for a powerful empire which had survived for so long by hardheaded business acumen, by skillful diplomacy, and when those failed, by sheer military force. The cast of characters who paraded on this spectacular stage included the gods of antiquity whose attributes the city took as its own. Like ancient athens, venice personified itself as a woman as serenissima the serene as venus the sensual. The city even claimed a special relationship with the virgin mary virtuous and pure. Behind its spectacular mask the republic used its pr
In 1404, duke philip the bold died at the stag inn near brussels. 20 years earlier his royayal sculptors had begun work on philips tomb. One of them carved these images of the funeral procession which transported his body back to burgundy. Clothed in the habit of a carthusian monk philips embalmed body was sealed in a lead coffin and carried in a funeral cortege whh took nearly seven weeks to wind the 250 miles from brussels to dijon. Accompanied by his sons, his chaplains, and members of his royal court the hearse was drawn by six horses in black with the blue banners of burgundy fluttering at its corners. At dijon, it was received not only by the weeping clergy but by 100 chosen townspeople and 100 poor also clad in black at the dukes expense. As with the other great royal and ducal rituals of the later middle ages death itself could be turned into public theater. Philips tomb itself lay just outside dijon at the carthusian monastery of champmol. It took nearly 30 years to complete a
With its good life its humane values, its sense of play, even. And it dramatized itself as an ideal city both for its own inhabitants and for the world outside. This civic drama was acted out through processions, ceremonies, and spectacle, and through art and architecture but this grand illusion, whose stage was the city itself, was founded in reality. By the 1500s, venice claimed 1,000 years of history as a free and independent republic. The chill wind of economic change the decline of empire had not yet touched its selfconfidence. It was still rich in trade and crafts. Its imperial possessions still spread out across the mediterranean and into the italian mainland, as here at vicenza. So the theater and the spectacle were props for a powerful empire which had survived for so long by hardheaded business acumen, by skillful diplomacy, and when those failed, by sheer military force. The cast of characters who paraded on this spectacular stage included the gods of antiquity whose attribu