How WWI gave birth to modernism

How World War I changed art

How World War I changed art

How World War I changed art

How World War I changed art

How World War I changed art

How World War I changed art

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Editor's note: This is the ninth in a series on the legacies of World War I appearing on CNN.com/Opinion in the weeks leading up to the 100-year anniversary of the war's outbreak. Ruth Ben-Ghiat is guest editor for the series. Ara Merjian is associate professor of Italian Studies at New York University, where he is an affiliate of the Institute of Fine Arts and the Department of Art History. He is the author of "Giorgio de Chirico and the Metaphysical City: Nietzsche, Paris, Modernism" (Yale University Press, June 2014).

(CNN) -- The years preceding World War I in Europe are generally referred to as the "Belle Epoque" -- a cultural and economic golden age. The period was hardly one of utter utopia for all citizens. But in the wake of the conflagration that would shake the globe beginning in August 1914, it came later to be seen as a period of calm before the storm. Its cultural practices, too, seem tinged with an almost naive optimism.

Ara Merjian

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How WWI gave birth to modernism