Art in America – The collapse of a culture is felt before it is formalized. The earliest traces of fragmentation appear as fault lines, shifts in facades and fashions, cracks in the smooth surface of an established style. In The Sleepwalkers (1931–32), a roiling trilogy about the decline of Belle Epoque Europe, the Austrian novelist Hermann Broch writes, “Behind all my repugnance and weariness there is a very positive conviction, the conviction that nothing is of more importance to any epoch than its style.” – read more