Call for Papers: Utopia and Dystopia in the French Landscapes and
Cityscapes of the 1930s

Appel à communications: « l’Utopie et dystopie dans les paysages
ruraux et urbains de la peinture française des années 1930 »

Following the theme of theme of this year's EAM conference, this panel
seeks contributions on Utopian, or contrarily, dystopian themes in
landscape and cityscape painting of 1930s France. A troubled period in
French history, the 1930s were marked by a political pessimism
regarding the feasibility of the Third Republic, and in the aesthetic
realm, a sense of crisis. In painting, this period saw a turn to the
imagined or fictionalized landscape or cityscape. In contrast to the
observational experiments and simplifications which had marked the
work of Cezanne, the landscapes of the 1930s operate in an allegorical
language, functioning as the site of a psychological projection in
which two parallel tendencies can be detected, each with their
relationship to the past clearly stated. The first is Utopic, oriented
somewhat desperately towards the idyllic canvases of Puvis de
Chavannes and Poussin, while the second is dystopic, presenting a
ruined, empty, or apocalyptic terrain onto which the pessimistic
narratives about the present or future are projected.

Welcoming papers on all artistic tendencies, this panel seeks to
relate these features to political sympathies and the cultural politics
of this period, with special attention to the way in which these
paintings articulate anxieties or fantasies regarding class relations,
industrialization, or national and imperialistic identity.

The fourth international conference of the EAM (European Avant-Garde
and Modernism, Art, and Literature Conference) is being held this year
in Helsinki, Finland, from August 29-31, 2014.

Please send an abstract of 200 words by January 30th through the online
submission form, here:
https://ilmo.contio.fi/meetingsmillabstract/abstract.aspx.
Participants will be informed about the acceptance of the papers by
February 30, 2014. Conference information can be found here:
http://www.eam2014.com/