Overview

"The Little Renaissance."

In the second decade of the twentieth century, the American arts experienced what historians call "The Little Renaissance," a period of awakening among practitioners of all the arts and among the reading, viewing, and listening public. New styles and new ideas were born in literature, painting, sculpture, photography, music, and theater that would affect those arts for the rest of the century—and new art forms, including film and modern dance, came into their own. Behind these changes were artists, many of them young and college-educated, who discussed spirituality and the new psychology of Sigmund Freud and who believed that meaning lay in the expression of the inner self. Photographer and gallery owner Alfred Stieglitz spoke for most of the painters, writers, playwrights, and dancers of his time when he explained that his art was "the subconscious pushing through the conscious, driven by an urge coming...

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