This revision of avant-garde history traces a direct line back from John Cage, pop and conceptual art, through the Futurists, to Whitman, Emerson, Ruskin, Carlyle and Wordsworth, showing how the art of everyday objects, often thought an exclusively contemporary phenomenon, actually began as far back as 1800. In recovering the links between such seemingly disparate figures, this work is intended to provide a better understanding of modern culture.