Historian Gay explores the modernist rebellion that, beginning in the 1840s, transformed art, literature, music, and film with its assault on traditional forms. Beginning his epic study with Baudelaire, whose lurid poetry scandalized French stalwarts, Gay traces the revolutionary path of modernism from its Parisian origins to its emergence as the dominant cultural movement in world capitals such as Berlin and New York. This book presents a pageant of heretics that includes (among others) Oscar Wilde, Pablo Picasso, and D.W. Griffith; James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, and T.S. Eliot; Walter Gropius, Arnold Schoenberg, and (of course!) Andy Warhol. Finally, Gay examines the hostility of totalitarian regimes to modernist freedom and the role of Pop Art in sounding the death knell of a movement that dominated Western culture for 120 years.--From publisher description.

Donated by John M. McCaffrey.

A climate for modernism -- Professional outsiders -- Irreconcilables and impresarios -- Painting and sculpture : the madness of the unexpected -- Prose and poetry : intermittences of the heart -- Music and dance : the liberation of sound -- Architecture and design : machinery, a new factor in human affairs -- Drama and movies : the human element -- Eccentrics and barbarians -- Life after death? -- Coda : And Gehry at Bilbao.