The ISMS Flashcards

Question

EXPRESSIONISM: Time and Place

Answer 1

1910 Germany

Answer 2

- **Protest against materialism**, industrialism and effects of **capitalism** - Saw these things as **destroyers of the human spirit** - Used **sarcasm** and **satire** - Expressionist said industrial age had turned **humans into machines:** with conditioned responses and **souls shrivelled by materialistic values** - There was **no absolute truth** – truth found within **humankinds** (spirits, desires and visions) – **subjective**

Answer 3

- **Protest against social order**, **paternalistic** family structures and **ethics of capitalism** - Wanted to **reshape the external world** - Explore the **subjective reality** of humankind - Expose **inner feelings** and experiences of characters - Wanted **social change** – therefore **themes** were strongly represented

Answer 4

- Focused on how the **human spirit** has been distorted by false values - **DISTORTION** - **Protagonist** (**author-hero – mouthpiece of the playwright)** – searching for **identity** and fulfilment or a **means to change the world** - **Warped by materialism and industrialism** - As they become **more tortured** and disturbed by external world, the **more distorted and exaggerated** the scenery, lighting, sound and costumes become - **Staging:** anti-realist sets, shapes that are altered and exaggerated **(sharp angles)**, abnormal colour, mechanical movement - **Actor’s Schrei:** an exaggerated facial expression showing a silent scream **(dissatisfaction with bourgeois complacency)** - **Speech exaggerated:** varied from long speeches and prose to short, rhythmic staccato bursts of speech – reinforces the **offbeat atmosphere and dehumanised characterisation** - **Theatrical devices:** narrators, soliloquies, music, dancing, unusual sound and technical effects - Unity of time, place and action is disrupted – **episodic** structure - **Stock characters:** strong themes and messages, emphasis on essential experiences of masses, **simplified plot**, **communicate the protest message** - **Grotesque** imagery and a satirical mood - Dark and Light contrast

Answer 5

1910 Italy

Answer 6

- Futurists: saw **machine age as the key to an enlightened future** - They **glorified machine age** rather than focusing on psychological **introspection** - **Rejected the past** because they believed it **stood in the way of progress**

Answer 7

- **Replaced existing drama** with a synthetic one that **compressed time and space** - By showing **simple, unrelated scenes simultaneously** in **one dramatic setting** - **Amalgamate the arts** (liked circuses and musicals and anything that **broke the tradish proscenium arch setting)** - **Sought confrontations with the audience** and **challenged their prejudice about what art is**

Answer 8

- Performances were a **confrontational mix of forms**: visual events, dancing, displays performed simultaneously or in succession – **result was quite chaotic** - Actors sometimes performed in the **auditorium** - **Opposed traditional conventions** and employed a **variety of art forms** - **multimedia** techniques

Answer 9

Switzerland 1920's

Answer 10

- Began in **1916** - **Based on philosophy of nihilism** (belief in nothing, rejection of all certainties, structures, extreme scepticism) - Grounded in a **rejection of values** that had **provoked WWI** - Because **insanity seemed to be the world’s state** they replaced logic, reason and unity with illogic **‘calculated madness’** - **Expressed disgust** with social and artistic traditions: ***“spat in the eye of the world”*** - **Tristan Tzara (manifesto):** Dada is everything, dada doubts everything,** the real Dadaists are against dada”** - **Destroyed old forms** so that **new forms** could truly **represent the human condition** - **Succeeded in bringing into question the nature of art**

Answer 11

- **Protest against the senseless brutality of war,** where all **moral and aesthetic values** were **meaningless** - Spread **anti-art** and **non-sense** to show that **art depended on chance alone** - **Did not try to suggest how to improve the world, they just questioned everything that existed**

Answer 12

- Used a **variety of forms:** visual art, dance, lectures, short plays to convey their philosophy - Like Futurists, they used **simultaneity and multiple focuses** - Believed that **theatre was an illogical arrangement of unrelated objects and events** - Motto was **“nothing” – Grosz** – our symbol was nothingness, a vacuum, a void - **No order, no logic, no meaning, no optimism** - Staging intended to **shock** audiences - **Rejected the proscenium arch** - **Against ALL forms of traditional staging** - **HUGO BALL – nonsense sound poems**

Answer 13

France 1930's

Answer 14

- **Dadaism was absorbed into Surrealism** (also a revolt against Realism) - **Andre Breton** launched it in a manifesto in 1924 - Wanted to **express real process of thought** - Wanted a **new reality** based on artistic truth, using the **subconscious dream- state of the mind** - Emphasised importance of **subconscious** **(Freud)**

Answer 15

- Explore **imaginative images of dreams** and **subconscious mind** and **not be limited by reality** - **Expose “inner truths”**, and to do this the **conscious mind must be subverted** - **Go beyond the normal perceptions of the outside world**

Answer 16

- Staging drew inspiration from **dream-like images** - Words and images had free reign on stage to **encourage the breaking of the natural censorship** of the mind - Sentences **without grammatical structure,** **juxtaposed** with situations that seemed to **have nothing in common** – but they have a **connection in the subconscious** - **Theatre of Cruelty**: Antonin Artaud - Used **new spaces to replace traditional theatre** buildings - **Stark lighting, shrill sound effects** - **Appeals to the rational mind** were useless because people were **conditioned** by society to **ignore their impulses** - **Language seen as having too close a connection with rational thought** - Broke down the audience’s defences by **assaulting their senses** - **Became v influential after WW2** (bitter and **disillusioned**) and in 1960s (**Grotowski** and Poor Theatre)