Jan 25, 2018 17:51
6 yrs ago
1 viewer *
French term

trouver des échos inquiétants

French to English Art/Literary Art, Arts & Crafts, Painting
Context: an artists' manifesto contesting current views of contemporary decorative arts.

Full paragraph: "S’il est incontestable que les questions d’art décoratif depuis 1900 et l’Exposition de 1925 passionnent effectivement le public, il n’en demeure pas moins que, depuis quelque temps, les vociférations et les haros qui accueillent généralement, dès sa naissance, chaque évolution esthétique, quelle qu’elle soit, augmentent d’intensité et semblent même trouver des échos inquiétants. Les attaques contre l’art moderne, c’est-à-dire l’art le plus représentatif du temps et le plus conditionné par l’époque, se font de plus en plus vives. Et le fait même que plusieurs revues autorisées aient songé à ouvrir des enquêtes sur un débat qui, somme toute, ne pourrait être qu’un épisode de la vieille querelle des anciens et des modernes, montre l’importance du conflit. (…) En effet, il ne s’agit pas seulement aujourd’hui de se contenter de compter les points qui sont à l’actif de l’avant-garde et du traditionalisme dans une phase critique de l’éternel balancement action-réaction, mais de résoudre toute une série de problèmes artistiques étroitement liés et que viennent compliquer des faits sociaux, techniques, psychologiques et économiques entièrement nouveaux."

There are a number of elements in the paragraph above which I'm unsure about and which I'd love to discuss with you if you have some ideas... Here, I wanted to focus on what the phrase "trouver des échos inquiétants". I'm wondering whether this refers to the "quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns" mentioned a little later. Or is it simply that these views are projected more widely today, hence the echoes?

I'd love to hear what you think!

Thanks,
Una

Discussion

David Vaughn Jan 25, 2018:
echoes it just means that other people are piping up to say the same or similar things.

Proposed translations

18 hrs
Selected

have worrying repercussions

Although today's reactions could echo (ha ha) those of the Ancients v. Moderns, I think, like the other answerers, that here it is a question of "echoes" coming from wider projections - more media coverage - more types of media...
My understanding is that all new art provokes protests, criticism, outrage; but at the present time, the fact that 'usual' reactions are intensified can be seen as more worrying - not just that today's society, with new technological, economic characteristics etc. (cf the end of your text) complicates things, but that, for example, it would seem, again from your extract, that it is felt necessary to open an "official" debate on what would previously have been seen as a normal phenomenon, i.e., the refusal of the innovative by traditionalists.

disturbing and troubling have been suggested in other answers and seem perfectly OK to me also.
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4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "Thanks, I like this reading of the text."
15 hrs

...and seem even to echo one another in alarming ways

The shouting and uproar prompted by each new aesthetic development seem to echo the reaction to the previous development, in ways that are alarming/disturbing.
Peer comment(s):

neutral David Vaughn : The suggestion in bold type is OK, but the "Explanation" is a misreading of the text. "Troubling" is perhaps a good synonym for "inquiétants"
38 mins
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2 hrs

find uncomfortable echoes

uncomfortable via worrysome

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Note added at 2 jours 20 heures (2018-01-28 13:55:31 GMT)
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Or:
...bring the same old reactions.
Peer comment(s):

neutral Rachel Fell : worrisome, though
3 hrs
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