Modern Drawing

Abstract

The idea of modern has a strong chronological connotation. By “modern” we generally mean as historians. that which is part and parcel of the most recent epoch in history—the epoch to which we in the nineteen-sixties seem still to belong. We may debate endlessly the backward limit of the “modern period.” but most of us would certainly choose some salient event, or chain of events in the half century immediately preceding World War I. These events, depending on our interests, might be primarily political or sociological in nature, or alternatively they might be more relevant to abrupt shifts in morals or taste.