The collages of Kurt Schwitters : tradition and innovation /
Dorothea Dietrich.
- xvi, 240 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some colour) ; 27 cm
Includes bibliographical references (pages 224-235) and index.
Introduction -- Political and cultural chaos and the formation of Merz -- Art after the war: expressionism and dada -- Merz and expressionism -- The invention of a new language -- Play with chaos: the Aquarelle -- Political inscription -- Refashioned traditions -- The Merzbau or the cathedral of erotic misery -- The fragment reformed: Schwitters's Merzbau -- Conclusion -- Bibliography. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.
"At the end of World War I, the German artist Kurt Schwitters dramatically broke with dominant artistic traditions by adopting collage as the primary medium for his literary and visual production. In The Collages of Kurt Schwitters: Tradition and Innovation, Dorothea Dietrich demonstrates how collages function for the artist. Characterising Schwitters's work as the product of the deep social and political crises of the Weimar Republic, Dietrich challenges the prevalent outlook that twentieth-century art can be reduced to a revolutionary struggle of avant-garde artists against an entrenched artistic tradition. The Collages of Kurt Schwitters argues for a more nuanced view, in which revolutionary art forms are exposed as containing much that is traditional and, indeed, reactionary."--Publisher description.
0521419360 9780521419369 0521498910 9780521498913
92044956
Schwitters, Kurt, 1887-1948 Schwitters, Kurt, 1887-1948 --Criticism and interpretation.