Fin de Siecle by Shearer West

“Within this discourse of degeneration, art had a prominent place. Critics pointed to recent developments in the style and subject-matter of paintings as evidence of social degeneracy, artists deliberately exploited the ‘degenerate’ aspects of society as a means of subverting the established order, and the history and purpose of art itself was seen through the evolutionary model of progress, decline and natural selection.”

-Shearer West, 1993