1.2 Existentialism

Art 109A: Contemporary Art (Art Since 1945)
Westchester Community College
Professor Melissa Hall
Postwar Europe and Existentialism

Postwar Europe
The atmosphere in Paris after the close
of World War II was grim
Ed Clark, View along Quai du Louvre (today Quai François Mitterrand) down the Seine toward
Ponte Des Arts with the Eiffel Tower in the distance, 1946. Time Life

Postwar Europe
Wartime depravations, the human cost
of battle, and the humiliation of four
long years of German occupation were
enough to cause feelings of despair.
Ed Clark, cover of LIFE Magazine, 1946. Time Life

Postwar Europe
But the war’s end also brought
revelations of atrocities that were
staggering in their enormity
Buchenwald Concentration Camp, April 16, 1945
LIFE

Postwar Europe
Buchenwald Concentration Camp, April 16, 1945
LIFE
“Freedom . . . for Paris came with the liberation
of the city in August 1944, after four years of
German occupation, but the peace was not
easy. As the occupying forces retreated, in their
wake came revelations of Nazi atrocities and of
the full horror of the concentration camps — first
in the press following the Russian troops’ arrival
at Auschwitz in January 1945, and then on the
return of deportees in May . . . .”
Francis Morris, “Introduction,” Paris Post War: Art and
Existentialism 1945-55, Tate Gallery, 1993, p. 15

Postwar Europe
Mushroom cloud of smoke billowing 20,000 ft. in the air after atomic explosion over
the city of Hiroshima, August 6, 1945
LIFE
“Then in August 1945 the atomic explosions at
Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which brought an end
to the global war, introduced a devastating new
dimension both for the individual and for world
politics . . . “

Postwar Europe
Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre attended the ceremony of 6th
Anniversary of Founding of Communist China in Beijing on 1 October 1955 in
Tiananmen square.
Wikimediahttps://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Simone_de_Beauvoir_%26_
“As Simone de Beauvoir commented: ‘the war
was over; it remained on our hands like a great,
unwanted corpse, and there was no place on
earth to bury it.'”

Existentialism
Disillusionment and despair caused
many to turn to the Existentialist
philosophy of Jean Paul Sartre, who
proclaimed that human beings must
struggle to define their own existence.
Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism and Humanism, first published in 1948

Existentialism
One of the founding principles of
Sartre’s philosophy was the concept
that “existence precedes essence.”
“We mean that man first of all exists,
encounters himself, surges up in the world
and defines himself afterwards.”
Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism and Humanism

Existentialism
Sartre was rejecting the Humanist
beliefs that had prevailed in Europe
since the Renaissance

Humanism
Places man on a pedestal
Presumes man’s “greatness” as a
given
Michelangelo, David, 1508
“One may understand by humanism a theory
which upholds man as the end-in-itself and as
the supreme value.”
Jean Paul Sartre

Existentialism
Sartre used the metaphor of a paper-
knife (or paper knife) to make his point
Image source: http://www.vicinodesign.nl/VD0010-00.htm
“When we think of God as the
creator, we are thinking of him,
most of the time, as a supernal
artisan . . . . Thus, the
conception of man in the mind
of God is comparable to that of
the paper-knife in the mind of
the artisan: God makes man
according to a procedure and
a conception, exactly as the
artisan manufactures a paper-
knife, following a definition and
a formula.”
Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism and
Humanism

Existentialism
As Nigel Warburton explains:
“What he meant by this was
that, in contrast to a designed
object such as a penknife – the
blueprint and purpose of which
pre-exist the actual physical
thing – human beings have no
pre-established purpose or
nature, nor anything that we
have to or ought to be. Sartre
was an ardent atheist and so
believed that there could be no
Divine Artisan in whose mind
our essential properties had
been conceived.”
Nigel Warburton, A Student’s Guide to
Jean Paul Sartre’s Existentialism and
Humanism

Existentialism
“Nor did he believe there to be
any other external source of
values: unlike for example,
Aristotle, Sartre did not believe
in a common human nature
which could be the source of
morality. The basic given of the
human predicament is that we
are forced to choose what we
will become, to define
ourselves by our choice of
action: all that is given is that
we are, not what we are.
Whilst a penknife’s essence is
pre-defined (it isn’t really a
penknife if it hasn’t got a blade
and won’t cut); human beings
have no essence to begin
with.” ”
Nigel Warburton, A Student’s Guide to
Jean Paul Sartre’s Existentialism and
Humanism

Existentialism
According to Sartre, there is no
“blueprint” or “divine creator”
“If man as the existentialist sees him is
not definable, it is because to begin with
he is nothing. He will not be anything until
later, and then he will be what he makes
of himself. Thus, there is no human
nature, because there is no God to have a
conception of it. Man simply is.”
William Blake, The Ancient of Days (God as an Architect), 1794

Existentialism
Existentialism proposed that man is
responsible for inventing himself
through his actions
Will Rodes, A Lump of Clay, Flickr

Existentialist “Angst”
One of the consequences of Sartre’s
philosophy is the overwhelming sense
of “abandonment” that humans feel in
a world where “god” does not exist,
since it means there are no rules to
guide us
Image source:
http://www.oakwoodsys.com/solutions/Pages/solutions.aspx

Image source:
“By using the word ‘abandonment’ in a
metaphorical way Sartre emphasises the
sense of loss caused by the realisation
that there is no God to warrant our moral
choices, no divinity to give us guidelines
as to how to achieve salvation. The
choice of word stresses the solitary
position of human beings alone in the
universe with no external source of
objective value.”
Nigel Warburton, A Student’s Guide to Jean Paul
Sartre’s Existentialism and Humanism

Radical freedom
Responsibility of making choices in
the absence of rules
Image source:
“That is what “abandonment” implies, that
we ourselves decide our being. And with
this abandonment goes anguish.”

1.2 Existentialism

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1.2 Existentialism