this is how george grosz saw berlin in his work funeral procession of 1918-- a city on the verge of chaos. in france, the sequel to victory was a period of stability. in this era of reconstruction, many artists who had been involved with cubism before 1914 injected into their work a new realism and order. fernand leger was one of these. his painting, mechanical elements, is an image of the machine not as destroyer, but as the precise, yet infinitely powerful tool with which a new france would be built. it was at this point picasso remade his links with the classical past. matisse continued to paint untroubled evocations of life in the south of france. in germany, the sequel to defeat was revolution-- a bitter struggle between nationalists and revolutionaries. grosz's observations of nationalist brutality made him one of the left's most powerful propagandists. "i felt the ground shaking beneath my feet," he said. "and the shaking was visible in my work." his caricatures of weimar germany reject a society depraved by greed and power. grosz's contempt was shared by wider artistic development

this is how george grosz saw berlin in his work funeral procession of 1918-- a city on the verge of chaosin france, the sequel to victory was a period of stability. in this era of reconstruction, many artists who had been involved with cubism before 1914 injected into their work a new realism and order. fernand leger was one of these. his painting, mechanical elements, is an image of the machine not as destroyer, but as the precise, yet infinitely powerful tool with which a new france would be built. it was at this point picasso remade his links with the classical past. matisse continued to paint untroubled evocations of life in the south of france.