In 1936 Alfred Barr, director of the Museum of Modern Art, drew a flowchart of recent art developments to accompany “Cubism and Abstract Art,” one of the museum’s defining exhibitions. Printed on the catalog cover and styled with the look of empirical rigor, the diagram outlines a complex and seemingly inexorable momentum from figuration, at […]

Original source: https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2023/01/19/feinting-spells-cubism-and-the-trompe-loeil-tradition/