Esprit de corps

Analyzing the all-encompassing changes in modern art between the outbreak of World War I and the Paris Exposition des Arts Décoratifs of 1925, Kenneth Silver's study demonstrates how deeply involved the members of the Parisian avant-garde were in French society and its dominant values and relationships. The book examines a crucial episode in the story of modern art, and delineates the many ways in which art is interwoven with politics and propaganda, with fashion and cultural mythology, and with public policy and personal ambition. The author reinterprets some of the masterpieces of modern art--from Matisse and Picasso to Léger and Le Corbusier--and shows how their creators refer, consciously or not, to the cataclysms of the Great War and its aftermath.