The Twentieth Century by Maurice B. Besset
The Twentieth Century is one of a series which attempts to describe the social, political, religious and intellectual climate in which the visual arts developed in a particular period as well as the genesis and attainments of its art and architecture and the features that distinguish its style and the artists who practised it. From the turn of the century Cite Industrielle to the latest in Environments, Conceptual Art and consumer-society architecture, the book surveys the major trends and experiments in painting, sculpture and architecture of the twentieth century. It traces the evolution of modern art from Matisse and the Fauves to some of the latest manifestations of Freud, abstraction, functionalism, futurism, pop art, op art, tachisme, cubism, surrealism, art brut, orphism and machines a habiter. The text attempts to analyze not only changes in style associated with the period but also radical changes in expressive means and new intellectual approaches towards creativity.