L’invention d’un art moderne, national et « latin »: Guillaume Apollinaire et la défense des avant-gardes parisiennes durant la Première Guerre mondiale

Abstract

ABSTRACT During the Great War, Guillaume Apollinaire tried to drive back the attacks against foreign avant-garde painters in France, by demonstrating the compatibility of their art with the country’s aesthetic and spiritual values, as well as with those of ‘Latin’ civilization as a whole. Upon his return from the front line, he started working again as a journalist and embarked on a campaign aiming to legitimize Cubism and Futurism. These movements, composed mostly of French, Spanish and Italian creators, offered Apollinaire the possibility to enhance the Parisian avant-gardes’ ‘Latin’ essence. Thus, he elaborated on a conceptual synthesis reconciling this avant-garde art with French classicism, and with the latter’s Greco-Roman origins. Analyzing various texts written by Apollinaire between 1915 and 1918, I explore in this article the main thematic axes underlying his reflection upon a modern, national and Latin art.