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Jet Age Aesthetic: The Glamour of Media in Motion
Current price:
$43.00
Publication Date: March 17th, 2020
Publisher:
Yale University Press
ISBN:
9780300247466
Pages:
228
Description
A stunning look at the profound impact of the jet plane on the mid-century aesthetic, from Disneyland to Life magazine
Vanessa R. Schwartz engagingly presents the jet plane’s power to define a new age at a critical moment in the mid-20th century, arguing that the craft’s speed and smooth ride allowed people to imagine themselves living in the future. Exploring realms as diverse as airport architecture, theme park design, film, and photography, Schwartz argues that the jet created an aesthetic that circulated on the ground below.
Visual and media culture, including Eero Saarinen’s airports, David Bailey’s photographs of the jet set, and Ernst Haas’s experiments in color photojournalism glamorized the imagery of motion. Drawing on unprecedented access to the archives of The Walt Disney Studios, Schwartz also examines the period’s most successful example of fluid motion meeting media culture: Disneyland. The park’s dedication to “people-moving” defined Walt Disney’s vision, shaping the very identity of the place. The jet age aesthetic laid the groundwork for our contemporary media culture, in which motion is so fluid that we can surf the internet while going nowhere at all.
Praise for Jet Age Aesthetic: The Glamour of Media in Motion
“Thoughtful and amply documented.”—Virginia Postrel, American Scholar
“The jet age’s promise of motionless speed and comfort has now found its realization elsewhere, notably in the ongoing electronic and web revolutions. Schwartz’s smart analysis shows us elegantly where such perceptions originated, and invites us to consider further its implications.”—Guillaume De Syon, Journal of Modern History
“Jet Age Aesthetic is a landmark achievement, laying the foundation for a new kind of critical history of the present.”—W. J. T. Mitchell, author of What Do Pictures Want?
“Decades before the Internet, there was the Jet Age. In this visually delicious study, Vanessa Schwartz returns to a time just before our own, when all that was solid took to the air and the future became as weightless as a cloud out the window. Just sit back and enjoy the ride. You’ll be amazed at what you see.”—Fred Turner, author of The Democratic Surround: Multimedia and American Liberalism from World War II to the Psychedelic Sixties
“Vanessa Schwartz’s archaeology of the jet age has taught me that the railway journey of the nineteenth century was not the last word but rather the beginning of a new story.”—Wolfgang Schivelbusch, author of The Railway Journey
“Gracefully written, engagingly narrated, and accompanied by brilliantly selected images, this is a book that anyone interested in the post–WWII world can read with pleasure and profit.”—Edward Dimendberg, University of California, Irvine
“A dazzling and stylish journey through the art and culture of the jet age. Beautifully illustrated, this important book offers a new way of understanding the modernity of the 1950s and 1960s.”—Lynda Nead, author of The Tiger in the Smoke: Art and Culture in Post-War Britain
