The global trauma of World War II, particularly the events that took place at Auschwitz and Hiroshima, caused dramatic changes in the visual arts. New ideas and criticisms of culture and society had come about, and artists were responding--consciously and unconsciously--to the war.
New ideas about the arts had emerged shortly after the war. The long-standing notion that the arts make society more civilized and raise people above their instincts of fear and violence was proven untrue. Consequently, art's very right to exist came into question. In 1949, Theodor Adorno stated in his essay, "Cultural Criticism and Society", that "to go on writing poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric". He argued that new rules and conventions for art must be found and the old ones must be abandoned.
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