The French artists who finally broke the mould

Review of The Banquet Years: The Origins of the Avant-Garde in France, 1885 to World War I by Roger Shattuck

For anyone who is fascinated by the multifaceted artistic flowering of culture that began in the late 19^th century, this book is a must read. It is about the emergence in France of an avant-garde, which began soon after the Impressionists and culminated later in Modernism and Surrealism. Shattuck attempts to explain this through 4 artists (Satie, Rousse…