Cubism in the shadow of war

by David Cottington

This groundbreaking book provides a major reassessment of the history and significance of cubism. David Cottington examines the cubist movement and sets it within the complex political, economic and cultural forces of pre-World War I France. Cubism, as a part of the Parisian artistic avant-garde, played an integral role in the turbulent 'Belle Epoque'. The author focuses for the first time on cubism's relation to the particular discourses of nationalism, aestheticism, gender, the social purpose of art - that gave meanings to the experience of modernity in Paris in the decade before the war.