Museums have become a crucible for questions of the role that traditional art and art history should play in contemporary art. Friedrich Nietzsche argued in the nineteenth century that museums can be no more than mausoleums for effete (fine) art. Over the course of the twentieth century, however, curators dispelled such blanket pessimism by…

Examines the background to and the stylistic characteristics of the Art Nouveau movement in its literary and artistic manifestations, emphasizing its nature as a synthesis of various contemporary, artistic, and intellectual trends. (SJL)