"That there is a problem about modern art few would deny. Does it, as the art of the past always did, 'express the times', or is it a series of wilful aberrations? Do we have any way of judging its success or failure?"--BOOK JACKET.

"Bypassing art/criticism and art/theory, Britain's social historian approaches the question from a new angle altogether. It is Professor Hobsbawm's thesis that, unlike writers and composers, who have come to terms with mass/production and the technology of infinite repetition, painters still cling to the unique art/object, the product of the artist's own hands.

The result has been a succession of increasingly desperate 'avant/gardes', attempts to find relevance and meaning that - irrespective of the individual artist's talent or even genius - are doomed to failure. Not everyone will accept this analysis, but it is a major contribution to a dilemma of our time, and one which both artists and critics cannot afford to ignore."--BOOK JACKET.