Arrière-garde as avant-garde: The Paradox of Interwar Realism

How do we historicize recurring aesthetic forms? In his talk, which addresses themes from his recent book Realism after Modernism, Fore explores the return to figuration in European art of the 1920s, asking if it is possible that the reappearance of aesthetic strategies from the 19^th century during the interwar period did not mark a regression to an older set of artistic practices, but, to the contrary, may have heralded a new aesthetic paradigm.

Co-sponsored by the Department of German Studies and the Department of Comparative Literature.