RADIUM AGE ART (1935)
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December 23, 2024
A series of notes regarding proto sf-adjacent artwork created during the sf genre’s emergent Radium Age (1900–1935). Very much a work-in-progress. Curation and categorization by Josh Glenn, whose notes are rough-and-ready — and in some cases, no doubt, improperly attributed. Also see these series: RADIUM AGE TIMELINE and RADIUM AGE POETRY.
RADIUM AGE ART: 1900 | 1901 | 1902 | 1903 | 1904 | 1905 | 1906 | 1907 | 1908 | 1909 | 1910 | 1911 | 1912 | 1913 | 1914 | 1915 | 1916 | 1917 | 1918 | 1919 | 1920 | 1921 | 1922 | 1923 | 1924 | 1925 | 1926 | 1927 | 1928 | 1929 | 1930 | 1931 | 1932 | 1933 | 1934 | 1935.
Nazis repudiate Versailles Treaty; Nuremberg Laws against Jews; the Luftwaffe formed.
Show trials take place in Russia — the beginning of a process by the end of which Stalin had arrested and executed almost every important living Bolshevik from the Revolution.
A pastiche of the aesthetics of propaganda, the photomontage shows a German family at a dinner table eating a bicycle, with a portrait of Hitler hanging on the wall; the wallpaper is emblazoned with swastikas. A baby gnaws on an executioner’s axe, also emblazoned with a swastika, and a dog licks an oversized nut and bolt.
Also see: RADIUM AGE: 1935.
“Moon” depicts a tree covering the glowing moon.
From the Guggenheim’s website:
Green Accent is evidence of a shift in direction in Kandinsky’s later career, when he returned to a combination of angular and biomorphic forms after the strict geometry of his work in the 1920s. The compositional elements in Green Accent are concentrated in a single biomorphic shape floating in the center of the frame. The interior network of architectonic lines contrasts with the curving contours of the dark form and the pronounced brushwork of the white background. Such organic forms appeared frequently in Kandinsky’s later works, most likely inspired by French Surrealism and his new interest in the sciences of biology, botany, and zoology. The painting’s scratchy, quirky web of white lines also bears comparison to the work of his Bauhaus colleague and friend Paul Klee.
One of four Magritte paintings of this title.
A variant of Ernst’s painting was used as the cover for a Penguin edition of Dick’s The Man in the High Castle.
Gerardo Dottori was an Italian Futurist painter. His work was appreciated by the Fascist government, and he produced portraits of Benito Mussolini on a number of occasions.
The title of Arp’s embryonic sculpture reminds us that human beings are formed by mechanisms of growth and evolution we do not fully understand. “Concretion is something that has grown,” in Arp’s words.
“Voracious gardens, devoured in turn by a vegetation that springs out of the debris of trapped planes.” (Ernst)
From the Centre Pompidou’s website: “While luxuriant nature occupies a central place in the work of Max Ernst, the Jardin gobe-avion [Eating-plane Garden] series rather gives way to isolated plants that take the appearance of decaying organs. They attach themselves in a disturbing manner to crashed gliders in boxes with deceptive geometry. This agonising image cannot be isolated from the European political context, threatened by the rise of fascism.”
Ernst’s painting would be used as the illustration for a 1964 edition of Ray Bradbury’s sf story collection “The Day It Rained Forever.” And it rates a mention in Ballard’s The Atrocity Exhibition (1970).
PLUS: this painting from 1936.
MORE RADIUM AGE SCI FI ON HILOBROW: RADIUM AGE SERIES from THE MIT PRESS: In-depth info on each book in the series; a sneak peek at what’s coming in the months ahead; the secret identity of the series’ advisory panel; and more. | RADIUM AGE: TIMELINE: Notes on proto-sf publications and related events from 1900–1935. | RADIUM AGE POETRY: Proto-sf and science-related poetry from 1900–1935. | RADIUM AGE 100: A list (now somewhat outdated) of Josh’s 100 favorite proto-sf novels from the genre’s emergent Radium Age | SISTERS OF THE RADIUM AGE: A resource compiled by Lisa Yaszek.