The Twentieth Century The innovations of postimpressionism,
combined with the influence of Cézanne and a new current of
interest in the art of Africa, to give rise to the early 20th-
century movements of fauvism, led by Matisse and Rouault, and
cubism, created by Picasso and Braque. Picasso's work, spanning
seven decades, provided in its enormous variety of styles a
working vocabulary for many of the major art movements of the
20th cent. After World War I a further reaction against the
decorative and formal emphasis of prewar art resulted in the
emergence of surrealism and Dada. Paris had become the artistic
center of Europe in the 19th cent. and the school of Paris
continued as a source of aesthetic inspiration in the 20th cent.
In sculpture, a new emphasis on relatively static, simplified
forms was shown in the works of Aristide Maillol and the
Romanian Constanin Brancusi, who worked in Paris and whose
strong, exquisite style had a profound influence on 20th-century
sculpture. Other major sculptors of the mo