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From the Fin-de-Siècle to the
Dawn of Modernism
6 or 12 classes
The Paris Exposition Universelle of 1900 made a glorious salute to the turning of a century. It also marked the mid-point of a half-century of enormous change, 1875–1925, beginning in the recovery from one war and ending in the aftermath of another. In the arts, however, it was a different matter, spanning Impressionism, Postimpressionism, Expressionism, Cubism, and Surrealism, from the last flowering of the Romantic era to the birth of the Modern. There were similar changes in music, literature, and theater. The six-week course would explore all this in the French context. The twelve-week one would include parallel developments in the rest of Europe (especially in music), and the triumphant entrance of American music, literature, and art on the stage of world culture.