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Friedrich Nietzsche postulated that "great style emerges when the beautiful triumphs over the monstrous", yet there is hardly a term that causes more problems in aesthetic debate than "style". Associated with artificiality and appearance, preferring allegory and mystery to realism, style was considered an antiquated concept at the beginning of the 20th century. Karl-Heinz Bohrer's essays defend the principle of style as a prerequisite for all artistic expression – and show that Nietzsche's reflections on style laid the foundations for modern art. What is more, they reveal the deficits of a society that rejects style in the name of an overrated "authenticity".

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