Postwar Art

After the devastation of World War I, in which millions of people died, artists expressed their disillusionment with society. Art that emerged in the postwar period showed a marked departure from past forms. Artists rejected traditional ways of expressing their ideas, and dramatists, novelists, and poets all took bold new steps. In the plays of Bertolt Brecht, characters would often step out of their roles and directly address the audience. In painting and sculpture, artists turned to expressionism—using shapes, line, and color to communicate complex emotions to the audience. Spanish painter Pablo Picasso, who worked in Paris, helped create a style of art called cubism, which used shapes to show the abstract structures of the objects they painted instead of accurately depicting their physical appearances.

The Bloomsbury Group

The Bloomsbury group was one of London's foremost intellectual and artistic circles. Members of this group...