The Cold War
Arts
Fighting the Reds:Joseph
McCarthy
The Cold War
• The two sides and their differences: military,
economic, but also cultural. The US tried to show
that American intelligentsia enjoyed more
freedom of action as opposed to Stalinism.
• The US needed to show the rest of the world that
together with being an economic, political and
military superpower, it was also culturally
meaningful. Culture, of course, could become a
powerful ideological weapon. If Paris had been
the center of the world during the two World
Wars, the cultural reawakening shifts to New
York
New York would become the center of the artistic world.
With New York came an specifically American postwar art
Movement, Abstract Expressionism. After the horror of the
war Artists gave up the idea of a mimetic representation of
the real, and began to explore color and shapes. As opposed
to the “social art” of the post-depression years, this new art
movement did not have a particular ideological valence. It
intended to be equidistant from left and right.
Abstract Expressionism
(1940-70)
World War II brought many Surrealists from Europe to
America. Psychic automatism, the aspect of Surrealism
in which the conscious mind is surpassed and the free
flow of images is released, was the basis of Abstract
Expressionism. Unlike Surrealism, the imagery of Abstract
Expressionism was nonobjective and the application of
the paint represented the feelings or explosive energy of
the painter.
The action painters used dynamic gesturely motions such
as splashing or dripping to apply the paint in an uninhibited,
unplanned manner. The works became large in scale to
decrease limitations on the artist and allow for the freeswinging motion of the arm.
Jackson Pollock
Pollock represents one of the streams of Expressionism, namely
Action painting. Painting became an irrational, instinctive, and
impusive art form.
Number 1 (Lavender
Mist)
Number 8
The questions Pollock’s painting raises:
Where are the characters?
What is the motif?
What happened to the mimetic side of painting?
Mark Rothko
Willem de Kooning
The representation of objects would later return with Pop Art
(1955-75)
The subjects are popular figures or everyday objects, like
soup cans or the American flag. Pop Art elevated mundane
objects to art status
Andy Warhol
Warhol and Pop Art
John McHale originally coined the term "Pop art" in 1954
What about the Soup?
?
Warhol had a very positive view of ordinary culture and felt
the Abstract Impressionists had taken great pains to
ignore the splendor of modernity. The Campbell's Soup
Can series, along with his other series, provided him a
chance to express his positive view of modern culture.
How far did the Soup go?
The original Campbell's Soup Cans is a part of the
Museum of Modern Art permanent collection. A portrait
named Campbell's Soup Cans II is part of the permanent
collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, IL.
Abstract Art and Censorship
The McCarthy era after World War II was a time of extreme
Artistic censorship in the United States. Since the subject
matter was often totally abstract it became a safe strategy for
artists to pursue this style. Abstract Art could be seen as
apolitical. Or if the art was political, the message was largely
for the insiders.
BACKGROUND:
Communism was a growing concern in the United States.
This concern was worsened by the actions of the Soviet
Union in Eastern Europe, the fall of China to the Maoists,
the Soviets' development of the atomic bomb, as well as
other developments.
With this background, Senator McCarthy claimed that
Communists where shaping the policies of the State
Department and the Government at large.
The term “the term "McCarthyism" was coined by
Washington Post cartoonist Herbert Block. Block and other
opponents of McCarthy and his methods used the word
as a synonym for baseless defamation and mudslinging.
Later, it would be embraced by McCarthy and some of his
Supporters:
"McCarthyism is Americanism with its sleeves rolled,"
McCarthy said in a 1952 speech, and later that year he
published a book entitled McCarthyism: The Fight for America.
His obsessions:
Everything that smelled of Communism: This implied the army
(ill-fated), authors as well as books. The State Department bowed to
McCarthy andordered its overseas librarians to remove from their
shelves "material by any controversial persons, Communists,
fellow travelers, etc."
Some libraries actually burned the newly-forbidden books.
Shortly after this, in one of his carefully oblique public criticisms
of McCarthy, President Eisenhower urged Americans:
"Don't join the book burners. […] Don't be afraid to go in your
library and read every book."[28]
Dealings with the democratic and Republican administrations
There was considerable enmity
between McCarthy and Truman
throughout the time they were
both in office. McCarthy sought
to characterize Truman and the
Democratic party as soft on or
even in league with the
Communists, referring to "twenty
years of treason" on the part of
the Democrats. Truman, in turn,
once referred to McCarthy as
"the best asset the Kremlin has,"
Those who expected that party loyalty
would cause McCarthy to tone down
his accusations of Communists being
harbored within the government were
soon disappointed. Eisenhower had
never been an admirer of McCarthy,
and their relationship became more
hostile once Eisenhower was in office
in 1952.
Where did his power come from?
After winning re-election in 1952, McCarthy, Senator from
Wisconsin, became chairman of the Permanent
Investigations Subcommittee, a position he used to launch
many of his investigations of government officials and
agencies. Everybody was suspicious of Anti-American
activities.
McCarthyism: A dangerous weapon
This witch-hunt and anti-communist hysteria became known as
McCarthyism. Some left-wing artists and intellectuals were
unwilling to live in this type of society and people such
as, Richard Wright, James Baldwin, and Chester Himes went to
live and work in Europe. Anyone could be accused of being a
Soviet spy
McCarthyism was mainly used against Democrats
associated with the New Deal policies introduced by Franklin
D. Roosevelt in the 1930s. Harry S. Truman and members of
his Democratic administration were accused of being soft on
communism. Truman was portrayed as a dangerous liberal
and McCarthy's campaign helped the Republican candidate,
Dwight Eisenhower, win the presidential election in 1952.
The case of Edward Murrow, See It Now
Murrow launched one of of the most
prominent attacks on McCarthy's
methods in an episode of the TV
documentary series “See it Now”,
which was broadcast on March 9, 1954.
The Murrow report, together with the televised
army-McCarthy hearings of the same year, were the major
causes of a nationwide popular opinion backlash against
McCarthy, in part because for the first time his statements
were being publicly challenged by news figures
McCarthy’s downfall: On December 2nd, 1954, the Senate
voted to "condemn" Senator Joseph McCarthy. After that,
he decayed both physically and mentally, and became a
heavy drinker. Basically, he drank himself to death.
Just burnt himself up
Herb Block, Joseph McCarthy,
Washington Post (4th March, 1954)