Synthèse « ART and POWER »

AXE 3 : Synthèse -> « ART and POWER »

American artists produced works during the Great Depression so as to be able to more easily tell this macabre period for the homeland. All these works are gold mines of information about this period and mostly on the societal change that is happening at this time.

A big social change and an economic upheaval is what happened during this hard period. The photos denounced the horrible living conditions of certain people. They are victims of this big change (James Patrick Lee, Homeless shantytown Know as Hooverville, Seattle, Washington, 1937)

After this difficult period and full of incomprehension, America is starting to stick its head out of the water with an economic twist. The change from manual to industrial is progressing in the right direction.

Charle Sheeler modeled this change with a painting named « Classic Landscape »(1931) who showed the news America to the whole world.

This crisis has spared no one, all social class has been affected. Reginald Marsh shoe it with his work

« The park bench » (1933) where there are 4 people of different social class sitting on the same bench but having the same financial problem.

American art has changed a lot during this Macabre period, he tried to transcribe as much as possible this change to modernity. Some works destroy this change with very critical paintings but others agree and therefore value it. Which shows us that art is a way of communicating because we can see the different opinions of artists through their paintings.

Art is also a « counter power » by conveying message against the current power and the government, we can even say that art have the power to influent.

                           PIERRE-PHILIPPE VALENTI                          G1

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