A Modern Dance with Death: Percy Delf Smith and the Aesthetic of Direct Experience

Simple item page
dc.contributorBergmann, Bettina
dc.contributorFitz-Gibbon, Desmond
dc.contributor.advisorLee, Anthony
dc.contributor.authorShaw, Clara
dc.date.accessioned2020-05-25T16:15:53Z
dc.date.available2020-05-25T16:15:53Z
dc.date.gradyear2020en_US
dc.date.issued2020-05-25
dc.description.abstractIn 1919, immediately following the First World War, the English artist Percy Smith produced a series of seven etchings entitled Dance of Death 1914-1918. Contemporaries responded enthusiastically to his inventive treatment of the subject. This paper reinterprets the series in its historical and social context to better understand its original emotional impact. During the war, censorship created a chasm between the home front and the Western Front. Towards the end of the conflict, soldiers began producing writings and visual art that presented an unfiltered image of the war, which an uneasy public began to crave. These frontline accounts brought the daily perils of the Tommies home, and contained what historian Samuel Hynes called the “aesthetic of direct experience.” This quality of authenticity became a prized ingredient in the public’s eye. Smith illustrated his own military experience through the reimagining of a recognized Medieval trope. The series vicariously transports viewers to the front line, following Death as he meanders through the war zone, pausing here and there to either spare or collect a soldier. By conflating the factual with the macabre, Smith expanded the aesthetic of direct experience to expose not only the war’s physical trauma but its psychological toll. Despite the War’s centennial and reinvigoration of scholarship on its art, Smith’s contributions have remained largely unstudied. My research draws heavily on unpublished archival material housed in the Percy Smith Foundation in Cheshunt, England, and early published sources.en_US
dc.description.sponsorshipArt Historyen_US
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10166/6026
dc.language.isoen_USen_US
dc.rights.restrictedpublicen_US
dc.subjectWorld War Oneen_US
dc.subjectPercy Delf Smithen_US
dc.subjectPercy Smithen_US
dc.subjectDance of Deathen_US
dc.subjectBritish Arten_US
dc.subjectEtchingen_US
dc.titleA Modern Dance with Death: Percy Delf Smith and the Aesthetic of Direct Experience
dc.typeThesis
mhc.degreeUndergraduateen_US
mhc.institutionMount Holyoke College

Files

Original bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Thumbnail Image
Name:
Clara Shaw_ Thesis_Lits (2).pdf
Size:
6.71 MB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Description:
Senior Honors Thesis
Download

Collections

Student Theses and Honors Collection