How did art and literature change in the lost generation?

During the Lost Generation, art and literature underwent a dramatic shift, reflecting the deep disillusionment and fractured sense of identity experienced after World War I. Traditional storytelling, structured poetry, and realism were challenged, giving way to modernism, which embraced experimentation, ambiguity, and themes of alienation.

In literature, writers like Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and T.S. Eliot rejected the flowery prose of the past, favoring concise, raw, and fragmented narratives that mirrored the uncertainty of postwar life. Hemingway's stark minimalism, Fitzgerald's critique of excess, and Eliot's fragmented poetry reflected a generation struggling to find meaning in a world that felt irreparably broken.

Art took a similar turn—cubism, surrealism, and expressionism flourished, as painters like Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dalí sought new ways to depict reality. The chaotic, abstract compositions mirrored the fractured world around them, expressing themes of disorientation and inner turmoil.

The Lost Generation didn't just produce art—it redefined it, setting the stage for the modernist movement that still influences literature, film, and visual arts today.