The History Book Club discussion

The assignment for this week's reading is:

September 7 – September 13 ~~ Part III, Cross Section: The View from Chicago Around 1895 (591-613)
Also: A Summit of Energies (615-641)

The moderator tries to stimulate/instigate discussion but please feel free to open up with any questions of your own or your own opinions. These threads are for all of you.

Additionally, it is never too late to pick up the Barzun book and participate. We welcome all of the membership to this discussion. We always keep the threads open of the previous spotlighted book even though it will be moved to an Archive spot until the completion of the next in line selection so there is still plenty of time to get caught up.

This is a weekly non spoiler thread, When posting, please post in the appropriate weekly thread.


Bentley

Page 615:

"The suggestion that two decades, and not one, be called the Nineties arises from the rush of new ideas and behavior that took place between 1885 and 1905. Change did not then stop; on the contrary: but it was another and quite different impulse that irrupted early in the 20C and animated the Cubist Decade that followed."

I guess I did not know that there was any such suggestion. Entered forcibly or suddenly is the meaning of the word irrupted which is not a word that I have seen used often. Then in the next sentence, Barzun describes the Cubist Decade

I discovered this article which might help:

Discovering the Many Facets of Cubism:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/27/art...

The Brooklyn Museum seems to feel that the Cubist Decade was from 1910 - 1920.

http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/opencol...

Arthistory.net had a fairly good write-up on cubism and had as its time period the decade before World War I. World War I was the death knell to the Cubist movement.

http://www.arthistory.net/artstyles/c...

Page 617:

Barzun states:"Why should this attitude have been common enough to find multiplied expression in a period of steady improvement in the means of life? Perhaps poetic minds are never satisfied; perhaps improvement always raises expectations higher than its own level. Perhaps the very busy-ness of the changing world was felt as hostile by the contemplative seekers of beauty and perfection. The three explanations singly or together probably account for the various individual judgements that led toward a common conclusion. What is certain is that part of the Nineties' desire to create also went with a program of active retreat."

What did readers think that Barzun meant by this? Why were there so many contradictions? Why did creativity bring the desire not to create during this period of time?

Page 618:

"When a French newspaper in 1895 opened a survey on the question "Are We Decadent." it cited the "crises" in parliamentary government, rebellion in the colonies, the falling birthrate, and the strange turn in the arts."

Could an American newspaper in 2009 open a survey or poll to the question "Are We Decadent"? What kind of answers do you think this survey would receive?

What signs or events or strange occurrences would people cite as either proof or disproof of decadence?