I thought the readings this week were absolutely fantastic.  I was really intrigued by the avant-garde artists who viewed war as "the world's only hygiene" (Perloff 144). In the writings that Perloff cites during the years leading up to the war, the artists are disturbingly antagonistic.  I do understand that they were fed up with the blasé art to which Europe was in bondage.  However, considering the millions who died during WWI, their idealism is a bit off-putting.  Certainly, I say this with retrospective knowledge of the remainder of the twentieth century.  

Nevertheless, I do admire the intensity of artists like Dada, who wanted to "make literature with a gun in [his] pocket" (143).  Even more impressive were the Russian artists Goncharova and Larionov whose vision of nationalism "promot[ed] an exclusively Russian art." Really, this is mind-boggling!  My hat goes off to these performance artists who endeavored for revolution in a world where high-culture had become formulaic. 

Appollonaire addresses the beauty of newness in Thunder's Palace, "You can see that what's simplest and newest is / Nearest to what's called antique beauty..." (Apollonaire 227)  Industry and modernity usher the art world into a completely new era, where simplicity is praised in technology and utility.  Several lines in this poem reminded me of one of my favorite murals, which is housed in the National Palace in Mexico: 

As you can see, the artist, Diego Rivera (who was a communist and included Marx, Lenin, Trotsky in this mural) depicts industry as being the coming savior of the Mexican people.  Although this is just a tiny section of a massive mural (that took Rivera from 1929-1945 to complete), I think it demonstrates the beauty Apollonaire describes about the things that are new (since that which was old [genocide] resulted from bourgeouis expansionism).