Suchergebnisse

La photographie a-t-elle marqué la fin de l'aura dont était auparavant entourée l'œuvre d'art ? L'article tente de suggérer une réponse en comparant la réaction face à la peinture de deux romanciers également épris d'art italien, Stendhal qui n'a rien connu de la photographie et John Ruskin qui était photographe. Leurs approches sont extrêmement différentes, mais l'écart tient à un profond bouleversement dans la manière d'envisager la production artistique, la photographie, fort utile à Ruskin, n'a été pour lui qu'un outil dans une très large révision des critères d'évaluation. L'aura s'est effacée quand on est passé de la collection privée chère à Stendhal au musée ouvert au public.

The 1950s were the heyday of cinema in Europe. Rather than competing with Hollywood studios, European film companies preferred to stick to old, well established recipes. Germany recycled one of its cultural traditions, Heimat. Despite the poverty of their plots and the weakness of their protagonists, the Heimatfilme succeeded by celebrating an unspoilt, soothing wilderness. The Italian counterpart of Heimatfilme was melodrama. If family dramas remained much appreciated in the Peninsula, the filmmakers were clever enough to shift their characters from an ill-defined epoch to the contemporary world. So, while urban Germany was pining for its wild, empty mountains, rural Italy was contemplating its domestic comforts to come. With the Carry On series, Britain was loyal to comedies, which filled the main part of the programmes. The plots – which merely dealt with private affairs – were humorous, harmless, always deprived of authentic social background. The European cinemas of the 1950s were directed towards large, mostly 'popular' audiences of people who used to leave their houses and gather in town centres on Saturday evenings. These cinemas did not produce any masterpieces but they were the most characteristic, and the most appreciated, form of entertainment in the middle of the century. It was not art, but it was 'popular' culture.