Aftermath: Art in the Wake of World War One

A remarkable study of responses to World War One in Britain, Germany, and France, this groundbreaking book is the first to examine the memorialization and the social and aesthetic impact of the Great War. It explores how memories of the conflict have been filtered through specific cultural forms and political agendas, ranging from memorial painting and sculpture to representations of the destruction of bodies and landscape, and new aesthetic developments in art that offered ways of critiquing and reimagining postwar society. From the presentation of wounded war veterans to critiques of postwar corruption and poverty, Aftermath seeks to broaden the examination of war and memory beyond the modernist canon to show how both traditional and avant-garde art formed part of this process.

Emma Chambers is curator, modern British art, at Tate.