Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-5c6d5d7d68-wp2c8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-08-15T13:52:10.209Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

10 - The Armory show of 1913 and the Decline of Innocence

from 1 - A Dream City, Lyric Years, and a Great War

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2008

Sacvan Bercovitch
Affiliation:
Harvard University, Massachusetts
Get access

Summary

No event more fully captures the rebellion, the divisions, and the evasions of the Lyric Years than the Armory Show that opened in New York on the evening of February 17, 1913, shortly before the Woolworth Building, standing 792 feet high, became the tallest building in the world. In Movers and Shakers, the third part of her four-part autobiography, Intimate Memoirs (1933–37), Luhan discusses several “Revolutions in Art” – and also reprints her own piece, “Speculations, or Post-Impressions in Prose,” written on the occasion of the Armory Show, in which she asserts that “Gertrude Stein is doing with words what Picasso is doing with paint” – “impelling language to induce new states of consciousness.” Luhan thus reinforces her broader claim: that the spirit that inspired the era’s artists also imbued the planners of the Armory Show. Frederick James Gregg and Arthur Davies were co-conspirators with Stein and Picasso in a plot to open the eyes of “the great, blind, dumb New York Public” to art that is “really modern.” Planning the exhibition, they talked “with creepy feelings of terror and delight” about their plan to “dynamite America.” “Revolution – that was what they felt they were destined to provide for these States – and one saw them shuddering and giggling like high-spirited boys daring each other.” The show itself, Luhan concluded, was the most important event of its kind “that ever happened in America” precisely because it had touched the “unawakened consciousness” of people, allowing artists to set them free.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2002

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×