The Modernist-Postmodernist Tradition: The Subjective-Objectivity of the “Enlightenment” and the Decline of Beauty

In the eighteenth century, Western culture experiences increasing turmoil. Despite Poussin’s earlier championing of the Classical and Christian foundations of the West, those foundations are crumbling. In France and Germany advocates of what is known as the Enlightenment are poised to overthrow the ancien régime. Meanwhile, the English turn to tradition as an alternative to both Scholasticism and anarchy, and its American offshoot experiments with a newly democratized Classicism and Christianity.