Hungarian composer Bela Bartok's musical training began at the family piano, where his mother gave him lessons after realizing that the boy was a musical prodigy: he had perfect rhythm at the age of two, and could play dozens of folk tunes by heart at the age of four. As a young man, Bartok traveled

20th-century music, Anxiety, Bombast, Dissonant, Dramatic, Grand

There have been no limits to the media in which Louise Bourgeois has worked out her personal stories. One of the most imaginative creators on the contemporary scene, she incorporated feminist and psychological concepts into art before they became part of the popular culture. Her hard-to-classify scul

Bombast, Bubblicious, Erotic, Feminist, Modern sculpture, Round, Visceral, Voluminous

Vito Acconci, performance and video artist, has created seminal works of art in the truest sense of the word. Particularly considering his most notorious performance, "Seedbed" (1971), which involved Acconci masturbating on the Sonnabend Gallery floor. For "Seedbed" Acconci performed beneath a sloped

Body art, Bombast, Erotic, In-your-face, Perverse, Profane, Religious

Joel and Ethan Coen cut their teeth on relatively low budget, fringe films. The black-humored brothers' deviant reinterpretations of Hollywood formulas laugh in the face of the studio system. Influenced more by cartoons, B-movies, and exploitation flicks than by pretentious prestige productions, the

Absurd, Bombast, Cartoonish, Grotesque, Playful, Smart, Witty