The Eiffel Tower with its soaring wrought iron girders, erected for the Paris International Exposition in 1900, was already an icon of modernity when Robert Delaunay painted it in 1924. The whirling propeller forms at the upper left are also symbols of technological advancement, an allusion to pilot Louis Blériot and his unprecedented flight across the English Channel in 1909.

In 1921 Wassily Kandinsky took a teaching position at the newly formed school of modern design, the Bauhaus, in Weimar. A portfolio of twelve prints, Kleine Welten, or Small Worlds, was Kandinsky's first creation after joining the school.

The German expressionist artist Käthe Kollwitz intended to become a painter, but devoted her career to drawing, printmaking, and sculpture. While other artists of her generation experimented with abstraction, Kollwitz never swayed from studying the human form. Her intensely expressive figures communicate strong emotions through facial expressions and gestures.

Part of the group of German Expressionists working in the early 20th century, Max Beckmann is especially well known for his psychologically fraught self-portraits.

The lively Maquillage is a tangible example of the artistic forces surrounding the origins of the Russian avant-garde and its technical innovations. Fragmented volumes represent cubism; deeply saturated yellow, red, and black are evidence of fauvism's influence; and the violent intersections of arcs and rays point to Italian futurism.

The earliest goldweights were made of stone, copper, iron, or basalt. As the trans-Saharan trade routes became more established, the Akan learned the technique of brass casting from their North African trading partners, which allowed them to create figurative goldweights.

Early geometric Asante goldweights, usually taking the shape of a square, rectangle, or polygon, began to be made according to the Portuguese ounce-based weight system after 1500.