Answer one of the Questions Below

1) Imagine that you were a young artist just starting out in Paris in the 1920s.  In what ways might it seem more natural to break with Western cultural traditions to you than it might have been for a young artist beginning work fifty years earlier?  What historical changes made experimentation more likely?  How might changes in the organization of the art world have encouraged you to strike out in new directions?  What ideas about art and examples of artistic experimentation might have influenced your decision?

Be sure to support your answer with specific references to the readings and the web site, as well as from the lecture.  Also be sure to include references to specific artists from The Banquet Years , Dada, and Surrealism

OR

2) Beginning in the late 18th century Romantic artists and intellectuals insisted that art should express the deepest emotions of artists and their eras by abandoning rigid forms of artistic expression and by delving into dreams, childhood, and madness as sources of inspiration.  To what extent, if any, do the artists of The Banquet Years , Dada, and Surrealism represent yet another expression of this Romantic consciousness? To what extent, if any, have they gone beyond Romanticism?

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