Déjà Vu: Cultural Crisis and Malaise in Early 20th Century Europe

Expressions of the 17th Century Crisis

Growing Uncertainties: What is true? What lies ahead? What is the nature of human kind? What is authority and where is it located?

Science: Einstein and his theories of relativity (1905 and 1911); Heisenberg's principle of uncertainty in science (1927)

Psychology: Freud (1856-1939); Civilization and Its Discontents (1930)

Politics: disillusionment with Parliamentary democracy; mass democracy; the rise of fascism

Jose Ortega y Gasset, The Revolt of the Masses (1930)

The Effects of the Great War: Paul Valery The Intellectural Crisis (1919)

T. S. Elliot, The Wasteland (1922)

Eric Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front (1928)

Art: Concerns about dehumanization and Pictures of Despair

Influence of African Art

Picasso and cubism: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907)

Max Beckman: The Night (1918-1919)