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Activities: Context Activities Experimentation and Modernity: Paris, 1900-1930  Back to Context Activities
Paris became the unofficial center of literary and artistic culture not long after the turn of the century. Following World War I, a number of American authors and painters moved to Paris; some had served in the army and remained in Europe after the Armistice, while others were lured from America by the vibrant cultural climate of the city and the extremely favorable monetary exchange rate. Artists and writers sought inspiration in the older culture of France, and many felt that Paris accorded them freedoms unavailable in the United States, which was still influenced in part by the Puritan work ethic and a repression of individual desire. Gertrude Stein commented on America's opposition to art: "Of course they came to Paris a great many of them to paint pictures and naturally they could not do that at home, or write they could not do that at home either, they could be dentists at home." Ezra Pound believed that American culture was essentially anti-culture and squashed the creativity of would-be writers. Gertrude Stein made Paris her permanent home in 1903 and turned her apartment into an informal salon where literati and artists would congregate as Paris became a locus of expatriate artistic endeavor in the decades following. Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Picasso, Joyce, and many others called Paris home in the first decades of the twentieth century. The American Sylvia Beach founded a bookstore and publishing company and helped struggling authors get their work published, including James Joyce's controversial Ulysses in 1922. Paris was a place of permissiveness, where eccentricity in dress and lifestyle was not only tolerated but also to a large degree encouraged. At the same time, Paris was steeped in tradition, both in its architecture and in its history as a center for cultural and intellectual life. It was in Paris that African American performers and authors who struggled with their careers in the United States found appreciative audiences. The nightlife of Paris did not suffer from the restrictiveness of Prohibition, and its cafés and bars offered authors a place to meet one another. Literary critic Malcolm Bradbury views Paris as a critical location for the meeting of the international authors who would create modernism: Paris was the meeting place of two potent forces. One was the peaking of European Modernism, an artistic movement born of a transformation of consciousness in a volatile, troubled Europe. The other was a new stirring of American Modernity, a fundamental process of technological and social change. And what helped to bring about the meeting was the inward transformation of an American culture that was becoming morally and behaviourally far less culturally stable, far more experimental, and so responsive to avant-garde sentiment.The blossoming of arts and letters that took place in Paris fundamentally changed the character of the literature of the United States, as American literature ceased to be simply a derivative of English literature, but itself became a force in the shaping of international arts and letters. Questions
[4930] Anonymous, Hemingway in Paris, courtesy of Princeton University Library, Department of Rare Books. A photograph of Ernest Hemingway with motorcycle in Paris. Hemingway was one of many expatriate American writers who lived and worked in Paris, arguing that the atmosphere was less stifling than that of the United States. [4997] Janet Flanner-Solita Solano, Group Portrait of American and European Artists and Performers in Paris (1920), courtesy of the Library of Congress [LC-USZ62-113902]. Photograph of American and European artists in Paris, including Man Ray, Ezra Pound, and Martha Dennison. Many expatriate artists found inspiration in Paris's traditions and less restrictive culture. [6560] Zyg Brunner, France Imagines New York (n.d.), courtesy of Chris Lowe. Political cartoon by Zyg Brunner, an artist known for art deco influences, published in a French magazine. Paris was a center of modern art and cubism. New York was the site of the Armory Show exhibition. [6561] Zyg Brunner, America Imagines Paris (n.d.), courtesy of Chris Lowe. Political cartoon by Zyg Brunner, an artist known for art deco influences, published in a French magazine. Paris was a major center of modern art and was perceived by Americans as permissive. [7204] George Barbier, La Redingote, ou le retour aux traditions (1920), courtesy of the Gazette du Bon Ton. Many American artists who lived in Paris rather than the United States argued that Paris offered freedom from "Puritanical" American traditions. |
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