The 1920s were a time of great enjoyment and a time that was viewed as carefree and celebratory due to the recent win for the Allied Powers over Germany and the Central Powers in World War one. The twenties were also a great economic time period when all was healthy with the economy in not only Paris, but the U.S. and other “Allies” countries as well. Paris not only was a rising country because of their joint victory in the war, but also because of the many artists, authors, and other various cultural innovators that were flocking to Paris at the time.
I have always been extremely interested in the two world wars, particularly the first one and the cultural aspects of the times as well. My interest was also sparked last year when we studied the 1920’s in the US and I would like to learn about what that time period was like for another country or city in the world such as Paris. I would like to focus my Honors Project on the time period of the 1920’s in Paris.
Paris is one of the world's most important places of experiments made in art and literature. In the 1920’s, Salvador Dali, Pablo Picasso, and the “Lost Generation” of English-speaking writers that consisted of Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, James Baldwin, Gertrude Stein, and Ezra Pound (just to name a few) came to live in Paris.
For this project I would like to re-read the Great Gatsby by Scott Fitzgerald (because according to my past experiences of reading books twice I tend to gain a lot more from them the second time they are read by me). I would also like to possibly read Earnest Hemmingway’s most well known novel, the old man and the sea. Since however only one of these two pieces of writing were technically written during the 1920’s, some other books that I propose I read are, Journey to the End of Night by Louis-Ferdinand Celiné, and The Crazy Years: Paris in the Twenties by William Wiser.
As a part of this project I would like to research and find any kind of art museums that are showing art that resemble or have something to do with Paris in the 1920’s and the art that was being produced at the time such as art done by the artist, Pablo Picasso. As a stem slightly off of this project I might like to incorporate researching the style of, surrealism and art deco since that was what was being “born” in the Parisian 1920’s and then try to incorporate that newly gained knowledge into trying my own hand at surrealism and art deco or writing an additional research paper on art from the Parisian 1920’s since art history is a subject that I am considering making my major in college.
Finally photography was also just becoming established as a form of art during the 1920s in Paris and so maybe I could do an additional assignment or even just one big on-going assignment where I research photography from the 1920s in Paris and again, try my hand at recreating it. I could somehow collect all my final photographs and display them in some way (perhaps a photo journal or a blog) as part of a final presentation of my honors project.
I am looking forward to taking this honors project head-on and I feel that I will enjoy learning about and researching Paris in the 1920s as a whole.
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