The Mechanical paradise

Episode number 1 of Series “The Shock of the New Series”.
This opening episode, of an 8-part series, covers the blend of art and industry, and shows how a growing belief in technology and the machine heralded the arrival of modernity. The Eiffel Tower in Paris, designed by an engineer not an architect, established the cult of dynamism, spread through railway stations, by automobile and the increasing advances in technology. The Cubists put onto canvas what is visually interpreted. Picasso and Braque’s influence by African carving distortions modified relationships and thought, and led to collage using industrial items and household objects incorporated on the canvas. Delaunay’s light through structure, Apollinaire’s poetry, Marinetti, Duchamp and Picabia blended all forms of artistic expression at once.