One of the author's first arguments is a common one, but one that I think is an oversimplification: That after WWI art started depicting the awfulness that Euro

One of the author's first arguments is a common one, but one that I think is an oversimplification: That after WWI art started depicting the awfulness that Europeans had suddenly been exposed to, and therefore became "unpatronable" in the traditional sense since it wasnt pretty pictures of lily pads anymore. Look up fin de siecle Vienna if you aren't familiar with it. Decades before the war, artists in every discipline were pushing in weird directions (not necessarily in a bad way!). I think its important to recognize this. Then more than now art was an important aspect of everyday life, and I dont think they write in history books that "many people in Austria and Germany were going batshit crazy" was an important part of the classic WWI "powderkeg".