In this volume, one of the great polymaths of our time focuses on the often disputed contributors of modern, primarily French, art and literature to contemporary thought. Cutting accros the lines of artistic, literary, political, and social culture, and with an authoritativeness characteristic of all his writing, Shattuck embraces a wide range of themes, including the role of the individual artist, the dynamics of artistic movements, and the nature of conciousness. The essays here range from his celebrated analyses of Dada and the 1935 International Writers´Congress, to groundbreaking studies of MOnet, Magritte, and the art writings of Meyer Schapiro, to fresh considerations of 19th- and 20th- century literatura. A tour de force of aesthethic philosophy and criticism, The Innocent Eye is a "facet-paced, interesting book spun out of a wealth of intimately assimilated culture".