ABSTRACT
This chapter begins and ends with major international wars. In the 1920s, inevitable and severe differences of opinion developed and crystallized within American society as the nation emerged from the First World War an increasingly urban and industrialized international power, rapidly growing self-indulgent and consumer-oriented. Literary and intellectual figures, perhaps suffering a loss of moral innocence in the wake of World War I, also expressed a similar range of moods—from depression to devitalization. In 1943, perhaps because of the exigencies of World War II, Burchfield abruptly altered his style and retreated into the private world of his dreams once again. For the next twenty years, he created an unprecedented sequence of nature paintings and, what is rare in American art, he developed a brilliant style in old age. Just as modernists had reconsidered their artistic directions after World War I, so Social Realists were forced to reevaluate their attitudes during World War II.
