The following passage (paragraph 2) mainly adds to the development of the text by At the end of the nineteenth century, western European nations were at the height of their powers. It was a
time of prosperity—the cities of London, Paris, and Berlin were capitals of commerce and art. It was an age
that prized rational thinking and realism above all else. However, the outbreak of World War I in 1914
shattered that world. Four years later, millions of people were dead, and land was scarred by trenches and
battles. The artists and writers who emerged in the postwar period wanted a new way of thinking about the
world and representing it in their art.