A discussion of modernism and politics starting at Alfred Corn’s, then Baroque in Hackney then George Szirtes here and here.
I suppose we tend to associate modernism with left-wing politics because we feel that people who embrace radical and new aesthetics would probably have radical instincts in politics as well: whatever else modernism was, it wasn’t a conservative movement. To reduce so much in art and politics down to one binary personality trait is very simplistic; even so, there’s probably some truth to it.
But left-wing politics doesn’t have a monopoly on wanting to change the world. Fascism was a radical movement; perhaps it’s not surprising it should attract its share of radical artists.
» The painting is Mi esposa desnuda by Salvador Dalí; an artist who started on the left and later supported Franco.
2 replies on “Modernism and politics”
Good to have you coming in on this, Harry. My first post on the subject is very rushed and far from neatly argued. It just drops a few coins into the slot but the gears are not properly engaged. I will pursue this with, I hope, greater rigour, or at least as much rigour as fits into a blog post, over the next few days.
I wait with interest :)