[originaltext] One important thing about art movements is that their popular

One important thing about art movements is that their popularity can be affected by social conditions, which are themselves often affected by historical events. As an example, look at what happened in the United States early in the 20th century, around the time of the Great Depression. The art movement known as the Regionalism had begun in the United States even before the Depression occurred. But it really flourished in the 1930’s, during the Depression years. Why? Well, many artists who had been living in big cities were forced by the economic crisis to leave those big cities and move back to their small towns in rural America. Some of these artists came to truly embrace the life in small towns and to eject city life in so-called "sophisticated society." These artists, or more specifically, certain painters, really built the regionalist movement. They created things from everyday life in small towns or farming areas. And they depicted the really big glorified or romanticized country life, showing it as stable, wholesome, and embodying important American traditions. And this style became very popular, in part because of the economic conditions of the time. You see, the Depression had caused many Americans to begin to doubt their society. But regionalist artists painted scenes that glorified American values, scenes that many Americans could easily identify with. So the movement helped strengthen people’s faith in their country, faith that had weakened as the result of the Depression. But in the 1940’s, before and after the Second World War, American society began to take on a much more international spirit, and Regionalism, with its focus on small town life, lost a lot of popularity.