Includes bibliographical references (p. 774-803) and index.

Foreword : a short history of History of modern art -- The art of looking -- Experience and interpretation -- A book that moves with the times -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- What's new : chapter-by-chapter revisions -- 1. The origins of modern art -- Making art and artists : the role of the critic -- What does it mean to be an artist? : from academic emulation toward romantic originality -- Making sense of a turbulent world : the legacy of neoclassicism and Romanticism -- 2. The search for truth : early photography, realism, and impressionism -- New ways of seeing : photography and its influence -- Only the truth : realism -- Seizing the moment : impressionism and the avant-garde -- Nineteenth-century art in the United States -- 3. Post-impressionism -- The poetic science of color : Seurat and the neo-impressionists -- Form and nature : Paul Cézanne -- The triumph of imagination : symbolism -- An art reborn : Rodin and sculpture at the fin-de-siècle -- Primitivism and the avant-garde : Gauguin and Van Gogh -- A new generation of prophets : the Nabis -- Montmartre : at home with the avant-garde -- 4. The origins of modern architecture and design -- Safeguarding culture : revivalist tendencies in nineteenth-century architecture -- "A return to simplicity" : the arts and crafts movement and experimental architecture -- Experiments in synthesis : modernism beside the hearth -- Palaces of iron and glass : the influence of industry -- "Form follows function" : the Chicago School and the origins of the skyscraper -- 5. Art Nouveau and the beginnings of Expressionism -- With beauty at the reins of industry : aestheticism and Art Nouveau -- Toward Expressionism : late nineteenth-century avant-garde painting beyond France --

6. The new century : experiments in color and form -- Fauvism -- "Purity of means" in practice : Henri Matisse's early career -- "Wild beasts" tamed : Derain, Vlaminck, and Dufy -- Religious art for a modern age : Georges Rouault -- The Belle Époque on film : the Lumière brothers and Lartigue -- Modernism on a grand scale : Matisse's art after Fauvism -- Forms of the essential : Constantin Brancusi -- 7. Expressionism in Germany -- From Romanticism to Expressionism : Corinth and Modersohn-Becker -- Spanning the divide between Romanticism and Expressionism : Die Brücke -- The spiritual dimension : Der Blaue Reiter -- Expressionist sculpture -- Self-examination : Expressionism in Austria -- 8. Cubism -- Immersed in tradition : Picasso's early career -- Beyond Fauvism : Braque's early career -- "Two mountain climbers roped together" : Braque, Picasso, and the development of Cubism -- An adaptable idiom : developments in cubist painting in Paris -- Other agendas : Orphism and other experimental art in Paris, 1910-14 -- 9. Early-twentieth century architecture -- Modernism in harmony and nature : Frank Lloyd Wright -- Temples for the modern city : American classicism 1900-15 -- New simplicity versus Art Nouveau : Vienna before World War I -- Tradition and innovation : the German contribution to modern architecture -- Toward the International style : the Netherlands and Belgium -- 10. European responses to Cubism -- Fantasy through abstraction : Chagall and the metaphysical school -- "Running on shrapnel" : futurism in Italy -- "Our vortex is not afraid" : Wyndham Lewis and Vorticism -- A world ready for change : the avant-garde in Russia -- Utopian visions : Russian constructivism --

11. Picturing the wasteland : Western Europe during World War I -- The world turned upside down : the birth of Dada -- "Her plumbing and her bridges" : Dada come to America -- "Art is dead" : Dada in Germany -- Idealism and disgust : the "new objectivity" in Germany -- 12. Art in France after World War I -- Eloquent figuration : Les Maudits -- Dedication to color : Matisse's later career -- Celebrating the good life : Dufy's later career -- Eclectic mastery : Picasso's career after the war -- Sensuous analysis : Braque's later career -- Austerity and elegance : Léger, Le Corbusier, and Ozenfant -- 13. Clarity, certainty, and order : de Stijl and the pursuit of geometric abstraction -- The de Stijl idea -- Mondrian : seeking the spiritual through the rational -- Van Doesburg, de Stijl, and Elementarism -- De Stijl realized : sculpture and architecture -- 14. Bauhaus and the teaching of modernism -- Audacious lightness : the architecture of Gropius -- The building as entity : the Bauhaus -- The Vorkurs : basis of the Bauhaus curriculum -- Die Werkmeistern : craft masters at the Bauhaus -- From Bauhaus Dessau to Bauhaus U.S.A. -- 15. Surrealism and its discontents -- Breton and the background to Surrealism -- "Art is a fruit" : Arp's later career -- Hybrid menageries : Ernst's Surrealist techniques -- "Night, music, and stars" : Miró and organic-abstract Surrealism -- Methodical anarchy : André Masson -- Enigmatic landscapes : Tanguy and Dalí -- Surrealism beyond France and Spain : Magritte, Delvaux, Bellmer, Matta, and Lam -- Women and Surrealism : Oppenheim, Cahun, Tanning, and Carrington -- Never quite "one of ours" : Picasso and Surrealism -- Pioneer of a new Iron Age : Julio González -- Surrealism's sculptural language : Giacometti's early career -- Surrealist sculpture in Britain : Moore -- Bizarre juxtapositions : photography and surrealism --

16. American art before World War II -- America undisguised : the eight and social criticism -- 291 Gallery and the Stieglitz circle -- Coming to America : the Armory Show -- Sharpening the focus on color and form : Synchromism and Precisionism -- The Harlem Renaissance -- Painting the American scene : regionalists and social realists -- Social protest and personal pain : Mexican artists -- The avant-garde advances : toward American abstract art -- Sculpture in America between the wars -- 17. Abstract Expressionism and the new American sculpture -- Mondrian in New York : the tempo of the metropolis -- Entering a new arena : modes of abstract Expressionism -- The picture as event : experiments in gestural painting -- Complex simplicities : color field painting -- Drawing in steel : constructed sculpture -- Textures of the surreal : biomorphic sculpture and assemblage -- Expressive vision : developments in American photography -- 18. Postwar European art -- Revaluations and violations : figurative art in France -- A different art : Abstraction in France -- "Pure creation" : concrete art -- Postwar juxtapositions : figuration and abstraction in Italy and Spain -- "Forget it and start again " : the CoBrA artists and Hundertwasser -- Figures in the landscape : British painting and sculpture -- Marvels of daily life : European photographers -- 19. Nouveau Réalisme and pop art -- "Extroversion is the rule" : Europe's new realism -- "This is tomorrow" : pop art in Britain -- Signs of the times : pop art in the United States -- Getting closer to life : happenings and environments -- "Just look at the surface" : the imagery of everyday life -- Rosenquist, Wesselmann, and Indiana -- Poetics of the "new Gomorrah" : West Coast artists -- Personal documentaries : the snapshot aesthetic in American photography --

20. Playing by the rules : sixties abstraction -- Drawing the veil : post painterly abstraction -- At an oblique angle : Diebenkorn and Twombly -- Forming the unit : hard-edge painting -- Seeing things : op art -- New media mobilized : motion and light -- The limits of modernism : minimalism -- Complex unities : pohtography and minimalism -- 21. Modernism in architecture at mid-century -- "The quiet unbroken wave" : the later work of Wright and Le Corbusier -- Purity and proportion : the international style in America -- Internationalism contextualized : developments in Europe, Latin America, Asia, and Australia -- Breaking the mold : experimental housing -- Arenas for innovation : major public projects -- 22. Conceptualism and activist art -- Art as language -- Conceptual art as cultural critique -- Extended arenas : performance art and video -- The medium is the message : early video art -- When art becomes artist : body art -- Radical alternatives : feminist art -- Erasing the boundaries between art and life : later feminist art -- Invisible to visible : art and racial politics -- 23. Post-minimalism -- Big outdoors : earthworks and land art -- Visible statements : monuments and public sculpture -- Metaphors for life : process art -- Body of evidence : figurative art -- Animated surfaces : pattern and decoration -- Figure and ambiguity : new image art --

24. Postmodernism -- Postmodernism in architecture -- "Complexity and contradiction" : the reaction against Modernism sets in -- In praise of "messy vitality" : postmodernist eclecticism -- Ironic grandeur : postmodern architecture and history -- What is a building? : deconstruction -- Structure as metaphor : architectural abstractions -- Flexible spaces : architecture and urbanism -- Postmodern practices : breaking art history -- 25. Painting through history -- Primal passions : neo-Expressionism -- Regarding representation : painting and photography in the 1980s -- Searing statements : painting as social conscience -- In the empire of signs : Neo-Geo -- The sum of many parts : abstraction in the 1980s -- Wall of fame : graffiti and cartoon artists -- Painting art history -- 26. Contemporary art and the renegotiation of modernism -- Commodity art -- Postmodern arenas : installation art -- Strangely familiar : British and American sculpture -- Reprise and reinterpretation : art history as art -- Meeting points : exploring a postmodern abstraction -- 27. Contemporary art and globalization -- Lines that define us : locating and crossing borders -- Growing into identity -- Skin deep : identity and the body -- The art of biography -- Globalization and arts institutions -- Bibliography -- Glossary -- Index -- Credits.