In Defense of Civilisation: Modernism, Anti-Americanism and the Struggle for Cultural Identity in French Art (1953- 1968)

Abstract

In Defense of Civilisation In Defense of Civilisation: Modernism, Anti-Americanism and the Struggle for Cultural Identity in French Art (1953¬ Rhiannon Vogl, Carle ton University Modernism and modernity have long been synonymous w i t h national and cultural identity in France. In Paris, the absolute sovereignty o f Modernism is ushered in around 1910 by a rupture w i t h the classical and traditional vocabulary: the divine and the human, the city, history, paternity. The reign is consolidated after World War I w i t h Cubism, abstract art and the rise o f the Bauhaus (Lefebvre 1-2). World-renowned as the centre o f creative innovation, Paris at the dawn o f the twentieth century stood as the urban hub o f intellectual and artistic development, symbolized by the power and grace o f the Eiffel tower and the cosmopolitan city's burgeoning avant-garde. The end o f the Second W o r l d War marked a dramatic shift away from this notion o f Paris as the cultural capital o f the world; with the onset o f the Cold War and the rise o f the United States as the new purveyor o f modernity as both the international economic and political leaders, France's position as the cultural centre o f the developed w o r l d came greatly under threat. The subsequent loss o f Modernism was equated w i t h a crisis o f national identity and the need o f France to regain cultural superiority became all the more pressing. As a means by which to theorize French reactions to this cultural shift, artistic manifestations o f this national trauma w i l l be explored in detail through this paper. Since this topic has been examined extensively both in relation to American foreign policy and governmental influences on the production and promotion o f American Modern art in the 1950s, this examination w i l l present a treatment o f lesser- known French artists from 1953-1968, and an exploration o f their artistic responses to the influx o f Americanism, consumerism and the American way o f life. The fervent anti- American reactions one witnesses in art o f this period,