Modernism and Still Life: Artists, Writers, Dancers

Claudia Tobin

Published by Edinburgh University Press 2020

Modernism and Still Life

Artists, Writers, Dancers

Claudia Tobin

In the series Edinburgh Critical Studies in Modernist Culture

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781474455152

Overview
Contents

About this book

Explores the ‘still life spirit’ in modern painting, prose, dance, sculpture and poetry

Challenges the conventional positioning of still life as a ‘minor’ genre in art history
Proposes a radical alternative to narratives of modernism that privilege speed and motion by revealing forms of stillness and still life at the heart of modern literature and visual culture
Provides the first study of still life to consider the genre across modern literature, visual cultures and dance
Uncovers connections and cultural exchange between networks of European and American artists including the Bloomsbury Group and Wallace Stevens

The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries have been characterised as the ‘age of speed’ but they also witnessed a reanimation of still life across different art forms. This book takes an original approach to still life in modern literature and the visual arts by examining the potential for movement and transformation in the idea of stillness and the ordinary. It ranges widely in its material, taking Cézanne and literary responses to his still life painting as its point of departure. It investigates constellations of writers, visual artists and dancers including D. H. Lawrence, Virginia Woolf, David Jones, Winifred Nicholson, Wallace Stevens, and lesser-known figures including Charles Mauron and Margaret Morris.

Claudia Tobin reveals that at the heart of modern art were forms of stillness that were intimately bound up with movement: the still life emerges charged with animation, vibration and rhythm; an unstable medium, unexpectedly vital and well suited to the expression of modern concerns.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
CONTENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	v
FIGURES AND PLATES Publicly Available Download PDF	vi
ABBREVIATIONS Publicly Available Download PDF	x
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
SERIES EDITORS’ PREFACE Publicly Available Download PDF	xv
INTRODUCTION: ‘NOTHING IS REALLY STATICALLY AT REST’: CÉZANNE AND MODERN STILL LIFE Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1 ‘QUIVERING YET STILL’: VIRGINIA WOOLF, ROGER FRY AND THE AESTHETICS OF ATTENTION Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	33
2 STILL LIFE IN MOTION Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	76
3 ‘PAST THE GAP WHERE WE CANNOT SEE’: STILL LIFE AND THE ‘NUMINOUS’ IN BRITISH PAINTING OF THE 1920s–1930s Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	124
4 ‘INACTIVE CONTEMPLATION’: WALLACE STEVENS AND CHARLES MAURON Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	160
CONCLUSION: ‘ON THE VERY BRINK OF UTTERANCE’: ALDOUS HUXLEY, MARK GERTLER AND TRANSFIGURED THINGS Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	203
BIBLIOGRAPHY Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	214
INDEX Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	234

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Audience: College/higher education;
Pages
- Main content: 256
Illustrations
- Other: 11 B/W illustrations 26 colour illustrations
Keywords: Literary Studies

eBook

Published: March 24, 2022
ISBN: 9781474455152