| Confronting Modernity: Art and Society in Louisiana Contributor(s): Megraw, Richard (Author) |
|
 |
ISBN: 1578064171 ISBN-13: 9781578064175 Publisher: University Press of Mississippi OUR PRICE: $54.45 Product Type: Hardcover Published: March 2008 Annotation: Between 1890 and 1945, Louisiana, advanced toward modernity. Industry, demographic mobility, and creation of a national culture built on consumerism, mass media, and technological consolidation transformed Louisiana. Modernity complicated American social relationships by compromising local autonomy. In Louisiana, such change not only produced the turbulent politics of the Huey Long era but also provoked debate over new ideas on art and social roles for artists. Two noted Louisiana artists were among those struggling to reconcile localized conceptions of art and society with modern, national trends. Ellsworth Woodward and Lyle Saxon battled to retain artistic control over what they considered the exceptional character of Louisiana. Woodward defended localized assumptions of social refinement through art institutionalized in the world-renowned pottery program he established in 1892 at Sophie Newcomb College and directed for more than forty years. For him, federally-sponsored arts programs of the 1930s undermined local autonomy and compromised artistic integrity. Saxon, a reluctant modernist, sought to use his position as director of the Federal Writers Project in Louisiana to preserve local place and historic structure from modern transformation. Yet, to his dismay, his efforts only hastened changes he resented. Saxon also pursued his preservationist agenda through his association with the FSA documentary photography project. But here again, a portrait of America was compiled by wrenching place and people out of local context for use as national icons. What happened in Louisiana happened elsewhere too, although perhaps nowhere in ways more vividly revealing the complexrelationships and cultural consequences of modernity and modern art in modernizing America. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - History | United States - State & Local - General |
| Dewey: 700.103 |
| LCCN: 2007028022 |
| Physical Information: 0.9" H x 6" W x 9.59" (1.44 lbs) 314 pages |
| Themes: - Cultural Region - Deep South - Cultural Region - Gulf Coast - Geographic Orientation - Louisiana |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Confronting Modernity: Art and Society in Louisiana examines how the conflicts and benefits of modernity's nationalizing influences were reflected and resisted by the state's artists in the first half of the twentieth century. In Louisiana, such change not only produced the turbulent politics of the Huey Long era but also provoked debate over new ideas on art and social roles for artists. By using two of Louisiana's most prominent cultural figures of the era as lenses, Megraw reveals the state's complex relationship with modernity. Artist Ellsworth Woodward and writer Lyle Saxon battled to retain artistic control over what they considered the exceptional character of Louisiana. Woodward defended localized assumptions through art in the world-renowned pottery program he established in 1892 and directed for more than forty years at Sophie Newcomb College. Saxon, on the other hand, fought against modernity's encroachment from within, serving as director of the Federal Writers Project in Louisiana. He used his position to promote literature and culture that preserved local place and historic structure from the transformations wrought by industrialism, consumerism, and the mass media. Confronting Modernity vividly explores how Louisiana's struggles with America's rush to modernize mirrored battles for autonomy happening between artists and governments across the country. Richard Megraw is associate professor of American studies at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. His work has been published in Prospects: An Annual of American Cultural Studies. |