One of the first pieces of art I looked at was the "Leopard and Deer" by Robert A. Chanler. His piece exudes a very gory depiction of a leopard attacking a dear. I think that this reminds me a lot of one of the thematic elements of modernist literature which is the grotesque. In "In Our Time" by Ernest Hemingway there is a lot of gory grotesque descriptions which I believe relate to this painting along with many others in the Armory Gallery collection such as Andrew Dasburg's "Lucifer". I think that this one painting is very attention grabbing which is why it is like "In Our Time". These pieces are very striking and intriguing because of their strange and grotesque features and I think that makes them very modern because they are less private and are more open and interesting.
I also found the painting by Marcel Duchamp called "Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2" to be very interesting and relative to Modernist Literature. The painting is very fragmented looking, almost Picasso-esque, and very choppy and divided reminding me of the fragmentation often found in that of Modernist works such as "In Our Time" by Ernest Hemingway. The way that Hemingway's book was written was a very fragmented way. There are chapters that are numbered and then there are chapters that are named. The numbered chapters are so very different from the named chapters because the numbered ones are narrated by an unknown character while the others are narrated by different people which the readers are aware of their identities. This relates back to the painting because I feel that it is hard to identify the identity of who is in this painting and what it is about, much like the numbered chapters of In Our Time.
The third painting that I thought had a very modern twist on it was the Eugene Higgins "Hunger under a Bridge". This one was particularly striking to me because it reminded me of the alienation we see in the thematic elements of such modern works. The tempera painting shows a lone man who appears to be starving and maybe even cold, obviously poor. The alienation it reminded me of most was that of Krebs in "In Our Time". He had many friends before the war and when he returned they didn't care for him, he didn't care for women, he didn't have a job, and he was no longer pious. I think that Krebs feels as alone and as poor as this man who is so hungry under the bridge. The man in the painting may have once been rich or well off and has been reduced to starving and I think that is a form of alienation in itself. I think that alienation was something that wasn't very advertised or so much addressed in the past so it has a some what modern feel.
In the artwork drawing by Elmer Livingston MacRae, he draws the beach and names the work "On the Beach". this brings us to a beautiful aspect of nature which we have been emphasizing a lot in our class this semester. The people in this drawing are playing at the beach. When I look at this picture I imagine that they are looking straight at beautiful view of the ocean sunset or something of the like. This reminds of the way Nick goes into nature with his father, his uncle, and his friends. Nick, from "In Our Time" seems to be very into nature, fishing, and the outdoors. I think that the Modernist literature and art relates on the thematic level of nature a lot because I think it is shown as an escape from life. Nature in Modernist literature and art lets the people be more aware of how to get away and grow somewhere else away from "the village".
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