I Want To Build A Time Machine

[VoodooDali]

If anyone knows how, I'd appreciate the plans. I know a lot of springs and coils are involved, possibly a can of spam... I've begun my collection already.

Seriously, folks. I was thinking today about how the artists, writers and composers that we think are really important turn out not to be after a 100 years or so go by. I'm sure if I looked at a list of what people were reading in 1901--who they thought was really important--I probably never heard of most of them. (I looked it up: here are the top ten selling authors of 1901--Winston Churchill, Maurice Thompson, Bertha Runkle, Gilbert Parker, Irving Bachellor (2 bestsellers), Elinor Glyn, Harold McGrath, Maurice Hewlitt, George Barr McCutcheon. Never heard of all but one.) I was also thinking of how Bach in his time was mainly known as a great organist, and his compositions were not widely known or performed in his time. He was re-discovered by Felix Mendelsohn in the 1800's. It's hard to believe knowing what we know now. History has a way of sifting out the few greats. So--my question is: of the twentieth century, who are the greatest painters, sculptors, writers and composers? Who will be remembered 200 years from now?
I tried to focus only on my own country, the USA (which was hard for me). My basic criteria was that the artist had to be both prolific and influential.
Painter: Andy Warhol
Sculptor: Richard Serra
Writer: This is so hard. Ernest Hemingway (I'm actually not a huge fan, but he brought the journalistic style to novel writing) & Raymond Chandler (for bringing the language of the streets to literature)
Poet: Robert Lowell (for starting confessional poetry) / ee cummings (for helping to start experimental poetry) / Allan Ginsberg (for popularizing beat poetry)
Composer: Louis Armstrong (for popularizing jazz) This is a hard category, b/c there are so many forms of music composition now.

[Curdis]

The time machine must only work into the future because otherwise we would have had visitors from the future by now!

Painter: Picasso
Sculpter: Moore
Writer: Issac Asimov
Poet: Bob Dylan
Composer: Henri Mancini

Selected because of the liklihood of them being remembered, rather than any personal preference (I prefer Brancussi or Giocommetti as sculpters). All spelling errors are intintional.

[VoodooDali]

That's what I went through thinking about this--some of the people that I know are important I don't necessarily care for...like Hemingway.

I realize also that I left out photography and film, but it just gets too overwhelming when you add all that in. Also limiting it to the USA made it incredibly difficult. Certainly Picasso is the force to be reckoned with in art of the twentieth century--every artist has to answer to him.

Sci-Fi writing is probably more important than academia realizes at this point, since it is the only fiction to take on technology...in a way the interpersonal novel of the nineteenth century has maybe done all it can do. So-I really wanted to put in HG Wells and Jules Verne, but they are British.

[C Elegans]

Those who have participated in really reforming an area, is usually remembered.

Artists: Picasso, Duchamp, Warhol

Poets: Eliot, Paz, Yeats

Writers: Joyce, Proust, Hemingway

Composers: Shostakovitch, Schönberg, Stravinsky, Schnittke

Popular music: Armstrong, Gershwin, Beatles, Bowie

(Note that my choices does not reflect my personal taste - for instance, I fell asleep every ten pages or so when reading "Remembrance of things past", and I find some of Schnittke's work somewhat headache-inducing. )

[fable]

Voodoo Dali writes:
It's hard to believe knowing what we know now. History has a way of sifting out the few greats.

I've gotten into this discussion on an international list devoted to music. For what it's worth, my POV is that history doesn't sift out greats, but what the majority of any given group find particularly in tune with their current views, and the views they've been taught.

For example, one person I'm aware of had the audacity to laugh at a certain obscure 20th century opera composer, because he was still virtually unknown--if he was unknown after so many years, this man reasoned, "history" had shown that he wasn't worth listening to. A group of us then proceeded to point out that there are many reasons a composer or a given work may or may not achieve popularity, none of them having to do with quality; and that "history" is a euphemism people appeal to when they want named backup and don't have it. In 1830, Mozart's operas
were enormously popular. In 1900, they were virtually unperformed. Today, they're enormously popular. We can't presuppose a verdict to history, as though history was finite; in 2200 the pendulum may swing back, again.

What history does do, IMO, is sift out a lot of pop culture ephemera over time. The Beatles not only created a fashion, they also wrote damn good music, and it survives. There were also many Beatles soundalikes at the time trying to cash in on the popularity, and none of them are remembered or heard today.

So--my question is: of the twentieth century, who are the greatest painters, sculptors, writers and composers? Who will be remembered 200 years from now?

From my opinions above, you've probably already figured out that I can't answer that question. What I can tell you are the names of people whom I think contributed a great deal to their art, and who have a chance at being known 50 years from now.

I think Picasso will fade as an "innovator," which he wasn't, and some of his art (like Guernica) survive on its own eloquence. Andy Warhol will vanish, except as a footnote for his importance to an artistic movement. Klee will remain, and Kandinsky, Moholy-Nagy, too, and even Feininger (one of my faves) will hang in there: they're still affecting architecture, if not painting, and their work speaks to people in a way that the abstract, technique-for-technique's sake works of our current period don't.

Don't have the time to discuss music or literature, right now. Maybe later.

[THE JAKER]

Originally posted by fable:
<STRONG> In 1830, Mozart's operas
were enormously popular. In 1900, they were virtually unperformed. Today, they're enormously popular</STRONG>

Well, they're enormously popular among the incredibly small portion of the population that cares about classical music. (no offense)

Painting: Pollock, Mondrian, Picasso (cubist period) Warhol (these people will be in the art history book.)
Literature: I disagree with Hemingway, he's already falling out of favor following in the footsteps of Faulkner. Chandler is a nice choice but I dont think most people read him anymore either-try to discuss the plot of the long goodbye with people and get blank stares. Maybe Fitzgerald.
Music: Elvis
Sculpture: I wish it would be Serra but I imagine probably Oldenburg.
Poet: i don't think poetry is going to survive as an art form - just be subsumed into screenplay writing.

[C Elegans]

Originally posted by fable:
<STRONG>I think Picasso will fade as an "innovator," which he wasn't, and some of his art (like Guernica) survive on its own eloquence. Andy Warhol will vanish, except as a footnote for his importance to an artistic movement. Klee will remain, and Kandinsky, Moholy-Nagy, too, and even Feininger (one of my faves) will hang in there: they're still affecting architecture, if not painting, and their work speaks to people in a way that the abstract, technique-for-technique's sake works of our current period don </STRONG>

I actually hope you are right about Picasso, IMO he has been vastly over-rated during the 20th century.

Kandinsky is one of my personal favorites.

posted by Jaker:
<STRONG>Chandler is a nice choice but I dont think most people read him anymore either-try to discuss the plot of the long goodbye with people and get blank stares.

</STRONG>

That's a pity. I think The Long Goodbye has a great story, and great characters. IMO Chandler is a much better stylist than Hemingway, and I believe Chandler would have got much more recognition if he had written traditional novels instead of crime novels, since this is (or at least was then) usually considered less "art".

[THE JAKER]

I think Chandler is important, and a lot of the style and ideas that he created live on and are actually pretty inseparable from American culture (and world culture) at this point, but I don't think that many people are actually reading him anymore. He's probably too hard for most people.

for me, I like Chandler as a novelist, but his novels are not good crime novels, and they're not necessarily the best hard-boiled novels either - IMO Dashiell Hammett was better at hard boiled, and lots of people are better at crime. I think Chandler was more unique than any genre sortof like Dorothy L Sayers - her books are not the best crime novels, but they are really good books.

Now gimme a gimlet!