Of Modernism presents original research by ten contemporary scholars of modern art. By turns provocative, insightful and informative, these essays – written in honour of the eminent art historian Christopher Green – rethink some of the crucial artworks, problems and practices of European modernism, from Les Demoiselles d’Avignon to Orpheus, Cubism to Brutalism, Seurat to Sargent.
 
Professor Christopher Green has made a preeminent contribution to the historiography of European modernism. As a teacher at the Courtauld Institute of Art, his wide-ranging scholarship and generosity of mind have inspired several generations of students, many of whom have gone on to lead distinguished careers in the worlds of art and academia. Of Modernism is a collection written in his honour.
 
Questions about modernism shape the ten essays presented here, from the radical classicism embodied in bulls and bull-fighting, to the contrasting discourses of crystallography and sexual disease which pervade Cubist collage; from the problems of difference provoked by modernist interpretations of distant times and places, to the ‘mystic modern’ which proposed a universal aesthetic as a solution to those ancient problems. In this collection, the canon is open, situating Picasso alongside artists far more obscure, and in the context of a visual culture which is strikingly eclectic and often ephemeral.