""Never before have the conditions of life changed so swiftly and enormously as they have changed for mankind in the last fifty years. We have been carried along ... [and] we are only now beginning to realize the force and strength of the storm of change that has come upon us."" "When British visionary author H.G. Wells wrote this passage in 1933 he knew he was living in a time of absolute transformation. Essential Modernism chronicles how artists, responding to the violence of World War I and the unprecedented modernization of the world, tried to change society." "Written as a guide to the Corcoran Gallery of Art's presentation of the groundbreaking exhibition Modernism: Designing a New World 1914-1939, Essential Modernism brings into focus the foundation and meaning of Modernism - the defining movement of twentieth-century art,design, and culture. It clarifies many of the ideas and principles underpinning the aesthetic and visual appearance of much art, architecture, graphic and product design, film, and theater design created in the first half of the twentieth century." "Illustrated with almost 100 images from the exhibition, Essential Modernism tells the story of how artists reacted to the unprecedented violence and destruction they had witnessed during World War I; and their experimental search for ways to create a better world through art."--BOOK JACKET.