Copy of Art In The Depression
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PRESENTATION OUTLINE
THE DEPRESSION IN ART
BY: LEA MANNIELLO, EMILY ALBRIGHT, GABBY RABUANO
ART DURING THE DEPRESSION
- Many different forms of art during the Great Depression
- Movies
- Plays
- Newspapers
- Magazines
- Music
- Books
- Paintings
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BOOKS
- The Grapes of Wrath by: John Steinbeck
- The Sound and the Fury by: William Faulkner
- Look Homeward Angel by: Thomas Wolfe
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JOHN STEINBECK
- Wrote about poverty and misfortune of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl Migration in "Grapes of Wrath"
Photo by Tiendq
GRAPES OF WRATH
- Tells about an Oklahoma family fleeing the Dust Bowl to find a new life in California
- Steinbeck saw migrant families and their struggles and described it as, "people in flight" along Route 66
WILLIAM FAULKNER
- Another novelist during the Great Depression, his book "The Sound of Fury", exposed hidden attitudes of Southerners in a fictional Mississippi county
- Faulkners writing gave a look into his characters thoughts which influenced the literary style of the time
Photo by US Department of State
THE SOUND AND THE FURY
- Author shows what his characters are thinking and feeling before they speak using a stream of consciousness technique
- Story it self is about three Compson brothers and their ones sessions with their sister Caddy
THOMAS WOLFE
- His book "Look Homeward Angel" used the facts of his own life to examine the theme of artistic creation
LOOK HOMEWARD ANGEL
- Largely autobiographical book, follows the story of a young man on a quest for a greater intellectual life
NEWSPAPERS
- Stories about what was happening, form of mass media
- Talked about how the stock market crashed, there were no jobs, people were desperate for any kind of jobs
- Stories about how people were killed, struggling to make enough money to pay the bills, etc
NEWSPAPERS CONT
- Great Depression newspaper accounts document how the crash began in the late 1920s and how this prompted the first real government involvement in the economy
- Water was being turned off in homes of the poor, meaning that many people were not only starving, but thirsty too. Another protest of hungry men going towards the waterway dam on the Illinois River was met by gunfire. The guns fired into the crowd killed one man and injured 17 others
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MAGAZINES
- Another form of mass media used to spread story and information about the Great Depression
MAGAZINES CONT
- Movie reviews of classics like National Velvet and Citizen Kane; profiles of stars like Ingrid Bergman, Gregory Peck and Judy Garland; and biographies of baseball legends all give a peek into how Americans at home kept morale high
- Would also give additional information about the Great Depression and what was going on with people and their sturggles
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PAINTINGS
- The homeless and unemployed became the subject of pictures and stories as artists and writers tried to portray life around them
- American Gothic by: Grant Wood
- Lunch Hour by: Joseph Hirsch
- Sorrowing Farmers by: Philip Evergood
Photo by ⥠jules
AMERICAN GOTHIC
- Depicts a farmer and his daughter
- Painting is realistic, but not a portrait
- Uses his sister and his dentist as inspiration, but they never posed together for the painting
- The barn in the background was added, but the house is the same
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LUNCH HOUR
- Shows a man solemnly sitting at a table alone, with his head down and no food
- Hirsch used such irony as to name the painting "Lunch Hour" proving how harshly the Depression was for people
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SORROWING FARMERS
- Depicts what appears to be a family of three farmers in great despair due to the fact that farmers gained less than anyone else before and during the Great Depression because of their surplus of supplies
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MOVIES
- Movies offered an inexpensive way for people took vacation from reality. This diversion was especially sough out during this era
- Some include: The Public Enemy, and Modern Times
- Throughout the era and hard times people endured, movies were an affordable and great distraction for them
- A record 60-80 million Americans went to the movies a week
THE PUBLIC ENEMY
- A young hoodlum rises up through the ranks of the Chicago underworld, even as a gangster's accidental death threatens to spark a bloody mob war
MODERN TIMES
- The Tramp struggles to live in modern industrial society with the help of a young homeless woman
PLAYS
- Another way that Americans got away from their problems
- Some include Gold Diggers of 1933 and The Wizard of Oz
GOLD DIGGERS OF 1933
- A wealthy composer rescues unemployed Broadway performers with a new play
- Shortly after the first act the play was forced to stop the show due to bankruptcy
- The piano player, Brad Roberts, contributed $15,000 and leads the girls to success once again
- This play brings humor to hardship and success to misfortune
WIZARD OF OZ
- A young girl Dorothy runs away from her home in Kansas to save her dog Toto. On returning she finds her home in the midst of a tornado, and runs into her room. She hits her head, gets sucked into the tornado and shows in Oz
MUSIC
- During the mid 1930s Jazz became Americas most popular music
- It was now called swing, and its impact was revolutionary
- Swing bands were formed in the city of Harlem and the bands would perform in dance halls
QUOTES
- "The content of the motion picture still was designed for escape, the majority reflecting the tastes of tired or jaded adults seeking a never-never land of luxury and melodrama, sex and sentiment."- Dixton Wector
- "Whether films offered visions of order restored, affirmations of work-centered values, or celebrations of a culture rooted in the mythic American village, they also held out images of competing worlds that might be entered through mimicry or consumption."- Terry A. Cooney
QUOTES CONT
- "During the Depression, when the spirit of the people is lower than any other time, it is a splendid thing that for just 15 cents an American can go to a movie and look at the smiling face of a baby and forget his troubles."- President Franklin Roosevelt
