Syncopation of the Jazz Age in the requiem for World War I: Richard Aldington and Otto Dix

The article studies the aesthetic and cultural phenomenon of the Jazz Age and its reflection in Death of a Hero (1929) by Richard Aldington and Metropolis (1928) by Otto Dix. The notion of the Jazz Age has been analyzed in terms of musical, historical and cultural contexts. Based on the works of Aldington and Dix, the author of the article traces the process of "acquiring" the jazz music aesthetic features by literature and pictorial art, which resulted in new forms such as a jazz novel, a musical metaphor and the expressionism jazz style. The connection between the Jazz Age and World War I as well as the lost generation is considered in terms of culture which provides grounds for a comparative analysis of the novel written by Richard Aldington and the triptych painted by Otto Dix. The particular way how the writer and the painter perceived and understood the tragedy of the lost generation is studied. Comparing the novel Death of a Hero and the triptych Metropolis with quite a similar form and content, the author draws attention to two moments showing how the jazz music and culture of the 1920s encouraged the turn from the "radical" modernism of the early 20th century to "academic" modernism. They are: (1) synthesis of verbal, visual and musical images in considering the personality of an artist as a character of a jazz novel (Aldington) and synthesis of visual, musical and, to some extent, narrative principles in a painting (Dix); (2) insight into jazz as a prism of returning to the tradition, its perception and the associated cultural reidentification, peculiar to the second half of the 1920s. Aldington's novel reinterprets the ancient and romantic traditions through the prism of the Jazz Age and the damaged consciousness of the lost generation. The originality of the ancient images interpretation as well as the usage of the ancient tragedy tradition in the construction of the novel form are analyzed. Moreover, the opposition and unity of the aesthetics of jazz and ancient aesthetics are considered. The romantic tradition in the novel is associated with the romanticists' philosophical understanding of music as the basic principle of all arts, the only language of feelings, and references to works of Ludwig van Beethoven and E.T.A. Hoffmann. The work of Dix is studied as an appeal to the tradition of medieval altar painting, the triptych as a genre and the theme of the Last Judgment, interpreted by the artist in the context of the Jazz Age pending the Apocalypse. The comparative analysis of literary and pictorial works in the context of musical jazz aesthetics allows making a conclusion that the phenomenon of the Jazz Age not only contributed to the fusion of musical, literary and pictorial aesthetics, but also became a paramount factor in the formation and cultural reidentification of the consciousness of the post-war generation.

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