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Course: Modernisms 1900-1980 > Unit 4
Lesson 1: Futurism and the Great War- Italian Futurism: An Introduction
- Futurist Free Word Painting
- Umberto Boccioni and the Futurist City
- Umberto Boccioni, Unique Forms of Continuity in Space
- Umberto Boccioni, "Dynamism of a Soccer Player"
- Gino Severini, Dynamic Hieroglyph of the Bal Tabarin
- Giacomo Balla, Street Light
- Carlo Carrà, Funeral of the Anarchist Galli
- Duchamp-Villon, Horse
- War and dynamism
- 1913 | Schiess-Dusseldorf by Ludwig Hohlwein
- Tate: 1914 & 1915
- British Art and Literature During WWI
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Duchamp-Villon, Horse
Raymond Duchamp-Villon, Horse, 1914, bronze, 39-3/8 x 24 x 36 inches / 99 x 61 x 91.4 cm (Art Institute of Chicago). Created by Beth Harris and Steven Zucker.
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- Marcel Duchamp's brother?(17 votes)
- That is correct. Marcel was younger than Raymond.(13 votes)
- I can see the resemblances that the professors mention, but my view of Duchamp-Villon's horse is that it is merely the neck and face of the horse. Does anyone else see that as well? I do see the hoof, but think that could also be part of the bit and reigns. The mechanical nature remains, along with the machine-like "movements", gear structure and rigid lifelessness.(7 votes)
- I can see it as a kind of cyborg horse with most of the horse converted to machinery, to be honest I find it a bit disturbing.(3 votes)
- I can't really see a horse within this piece of art. The piece is making it really really hard to see the horse' s figure....(5 votes)
- That's because it's in Futuristic style. It's supposed to be geometric, and up to interpretation. What you make of it is up to you.(2 votes)
- Looks top-heavy. What keeps this thing from toppling over?(2 votes)
- It's exactly what I thought. It looks as if the whole thing could fall over and crush something. It's all about good planning. I believe it is very much intentional, otherwise it wouldn't be so dynamic and menacing. Even though it looks visually out of balance, physical balance can be achieved by making the top front parts hollow and the lower parts more heavy. It has to be thought out very well to work.(3 votes)
- Somehow it reminds me of this picture.
http://voluntaryxchange.typepad.com/Lancer.jpg(3 votes) - When further information and long credits are listed at the conclusion of the video, they disappear before I can read them. Is this because I don't know how to use the system, or just because I'm slow?(1 vote)
- Beautiful piece. Was it displayed all over Europe?(2 votes)
- I feel like the horse has been stretched and shaped into these geometric shapes to give off the illusion of a horse. Does anyone else feel like if you were to unravel this sculpture in a few different ways then you would have a horse?(2 votes)
- I do feel like the horse is being engulfed by the machine. A few moments earlier i can imagine a lot more of the horse being visible, and a few moments later no horse left at all.(1 vote)
- Where was Raymond Duchamp-Villon born, and is he a modern artist of the 20th century?(1 vote)
- 1) in Damville, Eure, in the Haute-Normandie region of France.
2) Yes, but not for long, as he died in 1918.(1 vote)
- I feel like the horse has been stretched and shaped into these geometric shapes to give off the illusion of a horse. Does anyone else feel like if you were to unravel this sculpture in a few different ways(1 vote)
Video transcript
(lively piano music) Steven: In some ways, the
20th century starts in 1914 with the outbreak of the first
World War and ultimately, the collapse of the great
empires of the 19th century. This is such a moment of transition and that idea is beautifully
embodied in a sculpture by Raymond Duchamp-Villon,
Horse from 1914. Beth: And in fact, the
creation of this sculpture was interrupted by the first World War and so, it really is a
pivot for the 20th century and for the sculpture. Steven: In fact, the artist
was only able to finish it when he was on leave from the army. So, what do we see? Beth: We see a horse but only when I stand in particular places as we walk around it. The spot where we're standing now, I see a galloping horse. Steven: Where do you find that? Beth: This vertical form as a leg and I see the diagonal behind it, as the legs coming together, the way that a horse's legs come together when it's galloping. So, I see a horse in
motion and I see the mane of the horse whipping around in the wind. and the head of the horse
[the] circular shapes below. Steven: Ah, okay. So, I can just make out
slightly more rounded forms at the very front and
perhaps make out the face of the horse ever so slightly and I can certainly see a little bit of a hoof down at the bottom. But this is a hard piece of metal. It's geometric. This is certainly not a
naturalistic rendering of a horse. Although, if you look at the
early sketches of the sculpture, you can see something
derived directly from nature. Beth: That's right and it really is only for very specific points of
view as you walk around it that it comes to barely resemble a horse but for the most part,
it looks very mechanical. I feel like I see bolts
and nuts and rivets. Steven: There really is only
a trace of the horse left. Only a trace of the
organic, what we're seeing instead are cogs and pistons and rotors and the transformation into the machine, this is the power of the 20th century. Beth: And so, we might think about cubism in the reduction of the
horse to geometric shapes and we might also think about
futurism in the interest in movement and dynamism. This is very machine-like. Steven: You have this dark bronze, you have this hard angles and
edges, the machined surface, all of these is a product of industry. The Great European powers
entered into the first World War, thinking that this would be perhaps a war like those of the 19th century
but it would be in fact, the war that would collapse
the Great Empires of Europe. It would be a war where the cavalry where the horses would
be replaced by tanks. Beth: The horses were completely
ineffective in World War I. Steven: Well, that's right. You had trenches. You had mustard gas. Beth: We had barbed wire. And perhaps most devastating,
you had machine guns that could lay fire across
the fields of Belgium, across the fields of Northern France and horses and the cavalry
didn't stand a chance. They were replaced by
armor and armored vehicles and so, here we have in the sculpture at this critical moment, this
transition from the 19th century, the historic direct kind of
combat to a mechanized combat that was far more deadly. Beth: And that reminds us really
of the way war is fought now in the early 21st century. Steven: And so, we have a sculpture that is both beautiful
and terrifying as well. And it encapsulates our
fears and our hopes. The mechanization that
this horse represents, the Machine Age has raised
our standard of living. It has done great good but it
also brought terrible violence and all of that complication
is beautifully encapsulated by the artist here. (lively piano music)