The subtleties of language are not lost on Renato Poggioli. In his mind, “language is our greatest historical revealer” [p. 17]. The Concept of a Movement is the chapter that Poggioli devotes to defining avant garde art. Herein, the author details a crucial distinction between the avant garde and other historical periods of artistic practice, not only in terms of old versus new, but also how the artists named their practice. Artists that align themselves to a school, in Poggioli’s mind, comprise an altogether different breed than those that identify with a movement. Most significantly, how the artists thought about their practice, for Poggioli, reveals their category. Art that derives from a school owes its origin to some form of official endorsement or affirmation, which it requires as a necessary element of its creation. School art must be sanctioned, and depends more or less on historical as well as mainstream acceptance. For Poggioli, “the school notion presupposes a master and a method, the criterion of tradition, and the principle of authority” [p. 20]. Conversely, “the followers of a movement always work in terms of an end immanent in the movement itself” [p. 20]. Said end need not be sanctioned, accepted, affirmed, valued, or even understood, by those outside the movement. Where the school presupposes disciples consecrated to a transcendent end, Poggioli believes, the movement holds multiple paths for multiple participants who may or may not arrive in the same location [p. 20]. Art based in the school form also has a qualitatively different energy than that which originates as part of a movement. “The school [art] is preeminently static and classical, while the movement is essentially dynamic and romantic” [p.20]. Innovation remains muted in the school, since it carries the weight of historical precedence, and its proponents produce work in a somewhat limited field, hamstrung by the need for permission. Movements, on the other hand, remain free of precedent, thus, its participants remain free to germinate and generate based on the present moment and their own experience. Poggioli also points to the conceptual difference between the two camps, with an emphasis on diverging views in the artists’ understanding of culture. The school is inconceivable outside the humanistic ideal, the idea of culture as a thesaurus. The movement, instead, conceives of culture not as increment but as creation – or, at least, as a center of activity and energy [p. 20]. This distinction in thought bears scrutiny. Particularly, Poggioli’s use of the term “thesaurus” to describe culture produces a lightning rod [p. 20]. Essentially, artists belonging to a school will always be creating synonyms of the work of their forbearers, in Poggioli’s mind; thus, the work looks backward, and endlessly repeats, reinvents, and rehashes. Artists in the school therefore do not experience time in the present moment, but continually live and create in the past. Artists who adhere to a movement, on the other hand, not only live in the present moment, but understand culture as a social agreement, one that is constantly in flux. Culture endlessly transforms according to individual epoc