The Arts That Shaped America: Arts of the 1920s

Art by definition is the conscious production or arrangement of sounds, colors, forms, movements, or other elements in a manner that affects the sense of beauty, specifically the production of the beautiful in a graphic or plastic medium. Whether it was shown visually or musically, the arts of the twenties were reflective of the time period. Even in books, the extravagance that people lived in was evident.

The music of the twenties was on the opposite end of the spectrum from the music that had been its predecessor. With a quicker tempo, dynamics different then anything before it, dances that were of the youth and viewed as taboo, and powered by brass and rhythm instruments , jazz had become a mainstream for the youth of the twenties (Handley). In stark contrast of the Beethoven and the “usual” waltzes that people danced to, jazz was in your face and frowned down upon. According to the older generation, and quoted in the New York American, “Moral disaster is coming to hundreds of young American girls through the pathological, nerve-irritating, sex-exciting music of jazz orchestras" (Ward, Burns). In the 1920s, Jazz and Blues became very popular. Singers and musicians like Fat Waller, "Jelly Roll' Morton, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Lucille Bogan could be heard world wide. Bing Crosby, Annette Hanshaw, Al Jolson, Maria Anderson and George Gershwin were also making in big in the music world.

George Gershwin composed some of the most noticeable blues pieces of the nineteen twenties. Rhapsody in Blue, An American in Paris, and Piano Concerto in F, Rhapsody No. 2. Louis Armstrong, by far the king of the trumpet is the poster boy for pure jazz. With his revolutionary playing, he was able to break the trend of the typical “Dixieland” jazz music with his solos alone.

During the nineteen twenties films were becoming more popular, creating five major studios and three minor studios (“Films History of The 1920s.”) The five major studios, some of which are still around today, were: Warner Brothers, Paramount Pictures (originally named Famous players), Mutual Film Corporation, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and Fox Film Corporation. Warner Bros. Pictures, incorporated in 1923 by the brothers (Jack, Harry, Albert, and Sam); the studio's first principal asset was Rin Tin Tin. MGM, first named Metro-Goldwyn Pictures - in 1924 formed from the merger of Metro Pictures (1915), Samuel Goldwyn Picture Corporation (1917), and the Louis B. Mayer Pictures Company (1918). RKO (Radio-Keith-Orpheum) Pictures, evolved from the Mutual Film Corporation (1912), went into business in 1928 as a inferior of RCA. Adolph Zukor's Famous Players and Jesse Lasky's Feature Play - merged in 1916 to form Famous Players-Lasky. Fox Film Corporation, founded by William Fox, later became 20th Century Fox, formed through merger of Twentieth Century Company and Fox in 1935.

In the 1920s actors such as Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy, The Marx Brothers, and Buster Keaton were mainstays on the silver screen. Though mostly silent films they were a mainstay in theaters. Even now-a-days all their movies are played on television. They have proven to last the span of time and still find an audience in today's

society.

Through the twenties, artists were fascinated by the architecture of buildings. Many of the artists of the twenties based their work off of their surroundings. Thus creating new styles of art such as: Precisionism (a style in which an object is rendered realistically, but with an emphasis on its geometrical form), New Classicist, Art Deco and the Immaculates (Joachimmides, Rosenthal).

This obsession with their environment can be seen in their work for instance: in Edward Hoppers piece Nighthawks, though painted in 1942, still depicts the style of art in the nineteen twenties (Joachimmides, Rosenthal). In the piece Hopper shows a typical,