Mexican Muralism

PermalinkToday's AMIT,
Lead: At the root of the explosion of graffiti on American public spaces was the revolutionary artistic movement known as Mexican Muralism.

Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: Murals have been around since prehistoric times, but the modern genesis of the term in part originated with the Mexican "muralista" art movement. In the years following the Mexican revolution, during the 1920s and 1930s, native art, often with a powerful political message, began to decorate blank walls all over Mexico. Varying in quality, murals helped turn the cities into works of art. Muralists used open public spaces to call attention to a troubled society’s dreams, needs and hopes, revealing the need for social transformation. These murals could not be quickly eradicated, though the authorities tried. They were in-your-face, provocative, and demonstrated insistent demands by the artists for social justice.

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Belle Huntington II

PermalinkToday's AMIT, ,
Lead: Born of humble circumstances in Richmond, Arabella Yarrington Huntington in 1900 was considered by many to be the richest woman in the world.

Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: After helping to build the first transcontinental railroad, Collis Potter Huntington went south to explore investment opportunities. During his stays at a Richmond, Virginia boardinghouse, he fell in love with the daughter of the owner who also served as barmaid, Arabella. She was thirty years his junior but a vivacious and beautiful woman. She moved to New York, became his mistress, and bore him a son in 1870.

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Cole Porter’s Breakthrough

PermalinkToday's AMIT, ,
Lead: The 1940s were not a good decade for Cole Porter.

Intro.: "A Moment in Time" with Dan Roberts.

Content: Though he was one of the hottest properties in Broadway with a seemingly endless stream of successes in the 1930s and though his music and lyrics represented the epitome of sophistication and wit, during the war decade Porter went through a long period of personal and professional discouragement.

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Mexican Muralism

PermalinkToday's AMIT, , ,
Lead: At the root of the explosion of graffiti on American public spaces was the revolutionary artistic movement known as Mexican Muralism.

Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: Murals have been around since prehistoric times, but the modern genesis of the term in part originated with the Mexican "muralista" art movement. In the years following the Mexican revolution, during the 1920s and 1930s, native art, often with a powerful political message, began to decorate blank walls all over Mexico. Varying in quality, murals helped turn the cities into works of art. Muralists used open public spaces to call attention to a troubled society’s dreams, needs and hopes, revealing the need for social transformation. These murals could not be quickly eradicated, though the authorities tried. They were in-your-face, provocative, and demonstrated insistent demands by the artists for social justice.

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Bayeux Tapestry II

PermalinkToday's AMIT, ,
Lead: To commemorate its victory on the battlefield at Hastings in 1066, the Norman aristocracy used a wonderful work of art, the Bayeux Tapestry.

Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: The generations that followed the Norman invasion were not easy ones for England’s new rulers. Despite connections of blood between King William the Conqueror and the old Saxon royal house, most native Englishmen and all of the supplanted Saxon aristocracy considered William and his house to be usurpers, illegitimate pretenders to the throne. The Normans resorted to harsh tactics to bring the Saxons into line, ruthless suppressing land claims and planting armed garrisons all around the country.

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Bayeux Tapestry I

PermalinkToday's AMIT, ,
Lead: Propaganda comes in many forms. One of the most elaborate pieces of propaganda, this one from the 11th Century, was stitched.

Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: The islands of Great Britain and Ireland have been immigrant destinations for centuries. Since before Roman times, wave after wave of continental invaders have braved the treacherous waters of North Sea or Channel to find habitation on the main island or the Emerald Isle just to the west. The white cliffs of southern England shimmered just at the edge of sight and Roman, missionary, Viking, Briton, Angle, Saxon, and Jute established homes and fortunes only to be challenged to defend their inheritance from subsequent marauders.

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The Armory Art Show III

PermalinkToday's AMIT,
 

Lead: While the works therein displayed stunned the audiences and shifted American art, not everyone was thrilled with the contents of the Armory Show.

Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: The International Exhibition of Modern Art opened on February 17, 1913 in New York. Its theme? The New Spirit. American modernist poet William Carlos Williams joined in with the ninety thousand who attended saying, “I went to it and gasped with all the rest.” In New York the press was generally sympathetic to the display of Cezanne, Picasso, Gauguin, Matisse, Van Gogh, yet others were not so sanguine.

 

 


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The Armory Art Show II

PermalinkToday's AMIT,
Lead: In 1913 a group of artistic innovators, rebels in another formulation, brought to the 69th Regiment Armory in New York a transformation of American art.

Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: They were known as the The Eight. Realistic painters, former newspaper artists from Philadelphia, yet they were strongly influenced by and drawn to the revolutionary transformation of European art particularly by the Impressionists. Their work demonstrated that while most American artists drew their inspiration from the salon style of universities and art academies, this approach was not universal.

 


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