Archaism, Modernism, and the Art of Paul Manship

Archaism, an international artistic phenomenon from early in the twentieth century through the 1930s, receives its first sustained analysis in this book. The distinctive formal and technical conventions of archaic art, especially Greek art, particularly affected sculptors - some frankly modernist, others staunchly conservative, and a few who, like American Paul Manship, negotiated the distance between tradition and modernity. Professor Susan Rather considers the theory, practice, and criticism of early twentieth-century sculpture in order to reveal the changing meaning and significance of the archaic in the modern world. To this end - and against the background of Manship's career - she explores such topics as the archaeological resources for archaism, the classification of the non-Western art of India as archaic, the interest of sculptors in modern dance (Isadora Duncan and Ruth St. Denis), and the changing critical perception of archaism. Rather rejects the prevailing conception of archaism as a sterile and superficial academic style to argue its initial importance as a modernist mode of expression. The early practitioners of archaism - including Aristide Maillol, Andre Derain, and Constantin Brancusi - renounced the rhetorical excess, overrefined naturalism, and indirect techniques of late nineteenth-century sculpture in favor of nonnarrative, stylized and directly carved works, for which archaic Greek art offered an important example. Their position found implicit support in the contemporaneous theoretical writings of Emmanuel Lowy, Wilhelm Worringer, and Adolf von Hildebrand. The perceived relationship between archaic art and tradition ultimately compromised the modernist authorityof archaism and made possible its absorption by academic and reactionary forces during the 1910s. By the 1920s, Paul Manship was identified with archaism, which had become an important element in the aesthetic of public scuRather, Susan is the author of 'Archaism, Modernism, and the Art of Paul Manship' with ISBN 9780292760356 and ISBN 0292760353.