Modern artists make jokes through juxtapositions. Cubism offers the Ur-example: a Victorian tassel hanging in an angular modern setting. This comedy of styles is by no means the only kind of comedy in modern art, but because it is formalist—based on juxtaposing forms in unlikely ways—it’s uniquely modern. Examples can be found in the collages of Schwitters and Cornell, the sculptures of Picasso and Calder, the paintings of Klee, Léger, Miró, and Gerald Murphy. Like the comedy of manners, which flourishes in periods when manners are changing but a generally accepted idea of manners is still vivid in people’s minds, the comedy of styles flourishes in periods when styles are in flux but the idea of stylistic homogeneity remains credible. Perhaps this is why it has been more difficult to sustain a comedy of styles since World War II. In the early decades of...

 

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