Civilisation Atlantique.
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Larger Image |
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Title |
Civilisation Atlantique. |
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Creator |
Fougeron, Andre (French painter and printmaker, born 1912) |
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Date |
1953 |
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Cultural Context |
French
European
American |
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Subject |
Allusions
Anti-Americanism
Politics & government
Capitalism
Imperialism
Wealth
Corruption
Poverty
Emigration & immigration
Social classes
Economic & social conditions
Domestic life
Child labor
Child laborers
Death
Death & burial
Executions
Electrocutions
Grief
Sadness
Crying
Play (Recreation)
Recreation
Leisure
Holding hands
Ring-around-a-rosy
Shoe shining
Lifting & carrying
Child rearing
Women
Men
Children
Boys
Girls
Mothers
Infants
Dead persons
Couples
Older people
Families
Soldiers
Military personnel
Military life
Immigrants
Working class
Military uniforms
Uniforms
Helmets
Hats
Shoes
Footwear
Suits (Clothing)
Trousers
Neckties
Dresses
Shirts
Children's clothing & dress
Mourning clothing & dress
Baldness
Briefcases
Dogs
Animals
Sweaters
Periodicals
Nudes
Posing
Hosiery
Posters
Political posters
Automobiles
Grilles
Rifles
Firearms
Electric chairs
Chairs
Benches
Tables
Beds
Stoves
Cookery
Bottles
Pails
Coffins
Tents
Shelters
Air raid shelters
Camouflage (Military science)
Buildings
Balconies
Chimneys
Factories
Industrial facilities
Smoke
Smokestacks
Pollution
Air pollution
Ships |
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Description |
"This enormous, collage-like painting is crammed with anti-American allusions. An electric chair sits on the plinth at the top center (the Rosenbergs were electrocuted as Russian spies in 1953). A GI nonchalantly reads a pornographic magazine. The car behind him is surrounded by images redolent of capitalist decadence and imperialist aggression." (Caption, p.14); "France had a strong tradition of large-scale paintings of public import. The examples of the nineteenth-century painters [Jacques-Louis] David, [Théodore] Géricault, and [Gustave] Courbet were particularly vivid, and young French artists now looked to the example of senior figures such as Fernand Léger and Pablo Picasso, both of whom were attached to the PCF [French Communist Party]. In 1951 Picasso was to produce the Massacre in Korea, which implicitly criticized American intervention in the Korean conflict. However, Picasso's eclectic use of modernist idioms conflicted with the uncompromising realism of painters such as Fougeron. Even Fougeron was criticized by the ex-Surrealist Communist critic Louis Aragon for straying onto Trotskyist aesthetic territory with the anti-realist dislocations of scale of his Civilisation Atlantique of 1953. ([… Leon] Trotsky and [André] Breton had argued that art should be revolutionary in its form as well as its politics.) The imagery of Civilisation Atlantique amounted to a denunciation of the stepping-up of American Cold War policy in the early 1950s. Conceived very much as a 'history painting' addressing a broad public, it juxtaposed photographically derived images in a willfully illustrational and populist manner. This was the antithesis of Abstract Expressionism, the embodiment of America's aesthetic latitude." (Excerpt, p.15) |
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Inscription |
Portion of text on 4 posters, top right of painting: PARACHUTISTES COLONIAUX / LA CLOIRE / LA BAGARRE; Bottom right of painting: Fougeron's signature. |
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Work Type |
Paintings |
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Repository |
Galerie Jean-Jacques Dutko (Paris, France) |
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Source |
Hopkins, David. After Modern Art: 1945-2000. Oxford History of Art. Oxford; New York: Oxford UP, 2000. (p.14, fig.5) |
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Rights |
Photograph reproduced in Hopkins courtesy: Galerie Jean Jacques Dutko. © ADAGP, Paris, and DACS, London, 2000. |
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Digital Publisher |
University of Louisville Department of Fine Arts/Allen R. Hite Art Institute Visual Resources Center |
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Format |
image/jpeg |
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Digital File Name |
VRC 826-32.jpg |
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Rating |
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