This exhibition proposes a new interpretation of the relationship between classicism and modern art in the first half of the 20th century. The key to this interpretation is the notion of form. Formalism, a theoretical position which placed greater emphasis on form over content in the work of art, was fundamental to the birth of the new, avant-garde art of the 20th century and to its break with the art of the previous century. In addition, formalism encouraged one key trend of modern art, which was the quest for a new classicism in the 1920s and 1930s.