Description

Children’s Literature and the Avant-Garde luminously shows how avant-garde artists rely on self-proclaimed manifestoes and herald the reorganisation of the literary and artistic fields of children’s literature. Proposing a “great literature for the small,” for a “new child” in a new society, their vision is inspired by the Russian revolutionary movement in Denmark in the Twenties and supported in England by the strong feelings about childhood initiated by John Ruskin. Avant-garde artists experiment different techniques and trends, such as Expressionism and Cubism in Hungary, Abstract Expressionism and Color Field painting characteristic of Pop Art after the Second World War in the United States, Surrealism and other artistic movements, as well as psychoanalysis, in France. Such a forward approach thus succeeds in conveying innovative matters of perception, a rebellion against a rigid set of conventions, which constitutes a major challenge to creation in the international field, as this set of brilliant essays suggests.