THE BANQUET YEARS

by Roger Shattuck ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 4, 1958

A quadruplicate study proposes the avant guerre artists, Henri Rousseau, Alfred Henri Jarry, Erik Satie and Guillaume Appollinaire, as significant figures in their own time and influences in the avant garde areas to come. Against the artistic and social montage are placed the four who had ""the wisdom to know themselves and...the courage to be themselves"", to defy the conventions of the 18th century in their lives and in their works and to impress some riddles along with their accomplishments on their contemporaries and successors. Rousseau, the paradox of modern art, linked his primitivism to modernism, is considered as legend or truth in his naif presentations; Satie and his two careers in music is presented as the self-willed composer in whom experiment and inertia were constants; Jarry in his writings and theater lived up to the role he created, ""the last sublime debauchee of the Renaissance""; Appollinaire, poet and critic, interpreted and instructed in spite of the extravaganza of his life. A wide spectrum of deviants, this cleverly and clearly marks the artistic upheaval sparked by these dedicated non-conformists and offers a panel of cultural history unusual for a serious audience.

Pub Date: May 4, 1958

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Harcourt, Brace

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1958

Categories: NONFICTION