The aesthetics of reaction: tradition, faith, identity & the visual arts in France, 1900-1914

Abstract

A study that explores the complex relationship between nationalism, traditionalism and the critique of modern culture in France in the decades preceding the First World War. Coinciding with the explosive challenge to established forms and subject matter in the visual arts promoted by avant-garde circles in Paris, conservatives attempted to reassert values ostensibly rooted in the character and culturalgenealogy of the French nation. This anti-modernist reaction was promoted by nationalist critics and political theorists who sought to salvage French culture as part of a broader project that challenged liberal democratic institutions put in place under the Third Republic. Neil McWilliam's study analyses the various fronts on which this attempted cultural counter-revolution was pursued--from art production and art criticism to the ways in which different histories produced during the period attempted to define what was distinctively French about the nation's art, from the middle ages to the modern period. The book offers the first comprehensive overview of nationalism's impact on pre-war French art, which it complements with synthetic studies of three figures affected by these political and artistic debates: the painters Maurice Denis (Catholic revival) and Emile Bernard ('Renaissance française), as well as the critic Joachim Gasquet (Action française). In such a way, the book goes beyond previous accounts to highlight contradictions and complexities in pre-war artistic discourse that enrich our understanding of the ideological stakes involved in clashes over modernity, tradition and identity in pre-war France.