| At the turn of 20 th century,there emerged lots of art images depicting New York scene and life in America,far more abundant and various than other cities’ images in the western world.Some were using mist and shimmer to endow the city with picturesque,presented a genteel New York;some were dark,vulgar yet full of vitality,presented a civilian New York;some were depicting the overall environment of blurred light,andchaotic noise,using fragmented forms presented a modern New York;some were seeing from the old world Europe,focusing the mechanical achievement and American way of life in New York;and some were empty skyscrapers without any person,reflects their experience of alienation in New York.These five kinds respectively corresponding to the tonalism and impressionism,ashcan school,cubo-futurism,New York dada,precisionism,synchronization with the development of American art.Then,why sprang out such New York images,what the relationship between these styles and urban experiences,what role New York played in the processing of American art and the construction of American cultural identity.This thesis tries to explain all these questions.During this period,New York is the center of art revolution in America,various new style,new movement were born in New York.At the same time,its physical form and way of life experience drastic changed.With skyscrapers and night lights,it left London,Paris behind,becoming the first extremely modern city in the history of mankind.Depicting these urban wonders,artists consciously translated the avant-garde style from European into American version.With the expansion of the American cultural ambitions,they also clearly realized an American age was approaching in New York,naturally take New York as the symbol of modern America.Therefore,New York has a triple meaning in American art world.It was an art center,providing art experience,and also a cultural symbol.In its image production there are two layers of narrative,one is the personal experience of modernity narrative,the other is national identity narrative.They are core appeals in the late 19 th century early 20 th century American art.These two narratives strengthen the symbol relationship of New York-modernity-America,and create a "New York myth",constantly corrected and retold in subsequent art history.Besides,this paper also describes three ways to realize “out of New York” in the narration of modern American identity.Stieglitz returned to focus on the realm of spirit.He believed the real America lies in the spiritual world rather than the urbanized physical world.O’Keeffe went to the west.She revealed the west spirit through a symbolic way and used desert and skeletons to represent America.Schiller lived in an old country house.He used the simple creation in American colonial period to bridge traditional culture and modern culture.In fact,the artistic course in these 30 years implies all sorts of possibilities for the development of narration of post-modern American identity. |
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