Revelation of Modernism: Responses to Cultural Crises in Fin-de-siecle Painting - hardcover

Boime reappraises specific works by Van Gogh, Seurat, Cezanne, and Gauguin from a perspective more appreciative of the individuals' inner conflicts, offering a new understanding of a period fraught with apocalyptic fears and existential anxieties. Boime rejects popular notions of "art for art's sake" and rethinks an entire movement to suggest that history, rather than expressive urge, is the driving force that shapes art. He reconsiders familiar masterpieces from a fresh perspective, situating the art in the contexts of history both real and speculative, of contemporary philosophy, and of science to depict modernism as a development that ultimately failed.