The Cold WarArts

Fighting the Reds:JosephMcCarthy

The Cold War• The two sides and their differences: military,

economic, but also cultural. The US tried to showthat American intelligentsia enjoyed morefreedom of action as opposed to Stalinism.

• The US needed to show the rest of the world thattogether with being an economic, political andmilitary superpower, it was also culturallymeaningful. Culture, of course, could become apowerful ideological weapon. If Paris had beenthe center of the world during the two WorldWars, the cultural reawakening shifts to NewYork

New York would become the center of the artistic world.

With New York came an specifically American postwar artMovement, 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 AbstractExpressionism 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 todecrease limitations on the artist and allow for the free-swinging motion of the arm.

Jackson PollockPollock represents one of the streams of Expressionism, namelyAction painting. Painting became an irrational, instinctive, andimpusive 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 CensorshipThe 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 forartists 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 enmitybetween McCarthy and Trumanthroughout the time they wereboth in office. McCarthy soughtto characterize Truman and theDemocratic party as soft on oreven in league with theCommunists, referring to "twentyyears of treason" on the part ofthe 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 officein 1952.

Where did his power come from?

After winning re-election in 1952, McCarthy, Senator from Wisconsin, became chairman of the PermanentInvestigations Subcommittee, a position he used to launch many of his investigations of government officials and agencies. Everybody was suspicious of Anti-American activities.

McCarthyism was mainly used against Democratsassociated with the New Deal policies introduced by FranklinD. Roosevelt in the 1930s. Harry S. Truman and members ofhis Democratic administration were accused of being soft on communism. Truman was portrayed as a dangerous liberaland McCarthy's campaign helped the Republican candidate,Dwight Eisenhower, win the presidential election in 1952.

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: A dangerous weapon

The case of Edward Murrow, See It Now

Murrow launched one of of the mostprominent attacks on McCarthy'smethods in an episode of the TVdocumentary series “See it Now”,which was broadcast on March 9, 1954.

The Murrow report, together with the televisedarmy-McCarthy hearings of the same year, were the majorcauses of a nationwide popular opinion backlash againstMcCarthy, in part because for the first time his statementswere 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)