This beautiful and authoritative book brings together a number of exceptional works of art whose audacity disrupted the course of art history at the beginning of the 20th century. Major artists including Monet, Mondrian, Malevich, Rothko, Bonnard, Picasso, Munch, Giacometti, Bacon, Léger, Picabia, Matisse, Kupka, and Kandinsky are each represented by a key piece from their oeuvre. The text comprises 20 essays on the individual artists by a team of internationally renowned experts. Additional essays grapple with important questions and current debates within the art world, such as which artists are now making art history, and what gives a work lasting iconic status. The book focuses on well-known, landmark works that are models of the passionate creation of art as well as staples of scholarship on art history.