The simplest way to do so is by exploring Tom Wolfe's book.
Wolfe explains that artists rely on the "culturati", or high society members whose thoughts and actions are under the spot light at all times, to get their work noticed. These individuals like the newest of the new because it gives them a form of social status which separates them from the rest of society, and by all means if they can understand the newest modes of fashion and discuss them intelligently, all for the better. "The Boho Dance", as Wolfe calls it, occurs because it is the "culturati"-who tend to be the museum curators, the art critics, etc.-who will decide what art is fashionable and what art is not; they tell the world which artists are the greatest and which are like children dabbling in finger paints. So all any artist could truly hope for was a member of the culturati noticing their work and hopefully supporting them and funding them. The biggest dream of an artist is to be a name, Wolfe says; to be known, popular, to become a member of "culturati" because you are the creator of the current fashion. Essentially, to be genius because those art critics and those high society members say you are genius, and the rest of society, who try to catch up so hard with the "culturati" and never quite make it, flounders to support the new craze which is usually dead and gone by the time they all grasp it.
What basically happens is that the chic of these "culturati" will put greater and greater emphasis on art theory. They do this around the 1920's and 1930's more and more simply because the art work of the Modern movement is becoming so odd. In other words, so abstract or distorted that it takes great understanding of the artist and the artwork's meaning to actually like it. But it is simply because the art was becoming so odd that the "culturati" ate it up. It was different, it was new, and if you could claim you understood it and explain how you understood it when no one else did, you were definitely chic.
