I don’t remember where, but I recently saw a compelling argument that modern art has a revival after each war where a big chunk of the population served—the two world wars, Korea, and Vietnam, in the last hundred years of American history—and that it’s a form of processing war trauma. In this model, the alienation, meaninglessness, and inimical-to-nature aspect are useful for communicating about or post-processing the trauma of war.
Chapter 1:
I don’t remember where, but I recently saw a compelling argument that modern art has a revival after each war where a big chunk of the population served—the two world wars, Korea, and Vietnam, in the last hundred years of American history—and that it’s a form of processing war trauma. In this model, the alienation, meaninglessness, and inimical-to-nature aspect are useful for communicating about or post-processing the trauma of war.