Modernism rejected the style of the past and proposed a floral style with its inspiration from nature. Architecture, furniture, wallpaper and various other art objects had an elegance often decorated with plant motifs. Others used strong geometric forms contrasting the industrial and natural world. Out of modernism came Symbolism as a reaction against Realism and Impressionist.
A broad trend in twentieth-century art and literature emphasizing aesthetic innovation and themes that comment upon contemporary life. Modernist art flaunts difficult, often aggressive or disruptive, forms and styles; it frequently challenges traditional "realistic" art and criticizes mass popular entertainment. Thematically, modernism displays a fascination with technology, city life, and problems of personal identity. It embraces both political critique and spiritual exploration. Expressionism, surrealism, and atonal music are some typical manifestations of modernism. Modernism's impact has been felt in experimental cinema, art cinema, and some mainstream commercial filmmaking.
genre of art and literature that makes a self-conscious break with previous genres
An art form usually associated with the non-representational, formally organized branch of modern art, as opposed to the organic and/or fantastic branches.
Movement of the late 19th-20th centuries during which artists made a deliberate departure from the traditional art of the past. Modernist artists were intersted in experimenting with new types of paints and media, in creating and expressing abstractions and fantasies, rather than representing something in the external world.
A movement in Western art that developed in the second half of the 19th century and sought to capture the images and sensibilities of the age.
refers to the overall art movement from the late 1800s to the early 1970s in which artists were primarily interested in how they presented their artistic ideas and issues rather than reproducing the world as it appears visually. This focus on the cultivation of individual style and artistic process led many modern artists toward an abstracted use of the elements of art. The new creative possibilities encouraged a great diversity of activity, and artists experimented with new visual formats and ideas. Reflecting this artistic diversity, Modernism can be considered as a larger heading under which a number of different art movements such as Impressionism, Fauvism, Expressionism, Cubism, Dada, Surrealism, and Abstract Expressionism all flourished in succession.
An historical period and attitude from the early to mid-20th century, characterized by experimentation, abstraction, a desire to provoke, and a belief in progress. Modern artists strove to go beyond that which had come before. Works of modern art may be visually different and yet share the same commitment to questioning artistic conventions. Modern Art is oriented towards developing new visual languages (rather than preserving and continuing those of the past) and takes the form of a series of periods, schools, and styles.
In its broadest sense, this term refers to European writing and art form approximately 1914, the beginning of World War I, to about 1945, the end of World War II. Although many writers of this tie continued to work with the forms of fiction and poetry that had been in place since the nineteenth century, others such as James Joyce (1882-1941), Virginia Woolf (1882-1941), William Faulkner (1897-1962), Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926), and Thomas Mann (1875-1955) broke with the past, introducing experimentation and innovation in structure, style, and language. Modernism can refer to a spirit of innovation and experimentation, or the break with nineteenth-century aesthetic and literary thinking and forms, or the exploration of psychological states of mind, alienation, and social rupture that characterized the era between the two world wars.
An art movement starting in the late nineteenth century using abstractions to express ideas.
A style or movement that understands the manifestation of progress to be in science and its achievements; it rejects the past, holding the idea that to live by past ideas and values is to regress.
the deliberate departure from tradition and the use of innovative forms of expression that distinguish many styles in the arts and literature of the 20th century
Modern literary practices. Also, the principles of a literary school that lasted from roughly the beginning of the twentieth century until the end of World War II. Modernism is defined by its rejection of the literary convention s of the nineteenth century and by its opposition to conventional morality, taste, traditions, and economic values. Many writers are associated with the concepts of Modernism, including Albert Camus, Marcel Proust, D. H. Lawrence, W. H. Auden, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, William Butler Yeats, Thomas Mann, Tennessee Williams, Eugene O'Neill, and James Joyce.
The dominant theory guiding the creation of art from the 1860s through the 1960s. In the mid-nineteenth century, a growing middle class, the increasing capitalism of the art market, and the gradual secularization and industrialization of society all contributed to a radical shift in the role of art in society. This new sentiment manifested itself in a variety of styles, but common throughout was the idea that art should be valued for its own sake. Artists abandoned traditional subjects of historical and religious scenes, experimenting instead with formal elements of color, space, and light.
International cultural movement after World War I expressing disillusionment with tradition and interest in new technologies and visions.
the philosophies and practices of modern art, most of which are anti-traditional and formally innovative. The historical period of Modernism was from approximately 1900 to 1950.
was the major movement in art from the late nineteenth to the late twentieth century. Many art movements, from Impressionism to Minimalism, fall under the umbrella of this category. Essentially modern art dealt with the "purity" of depiction. The modern artist struggled further and deeper to find the purest and most complete form of self-expression. The viewer‘s interpretation or reaction was not considered part of the process of art making or as a significant part of the experience of art, as it will be in postmodernism.
style of the 1920s and 1930s, which rejected ornamentation in favor of geometric forms and smooth surfaces
A term that refers rather broadly to literature and art produced under the influence of "modernity"; that is, in response to the conditions of the modern world, with its technological innovation, increased urbanization, and accompanying sense of a world changing too quickly to comprehend. Modernists tended to self-consciously oppose traditional forms, which they believed to be out of step with the modern world. Recently, critics have noted the variety of ways artists and writers labeled "modernist" approach their work, and the allusive poetry of T. S. Eliot, the spare prose of Ernest Hemingway, the political poetry of Langston Hughes, the radical linguistic experimentation of Gertrude Stein, and the regionalist work of Sherwood Anderson have all fallen into the category of modernism.
the general trend in the methods, styles, and philosophy of artists involving a break with the traditions of the past and a serach for new modes of expression. (See post-modern).
style from early twentieth century, based on a rejection of traditional approaches in favor of more industrial, unornamented genres.
the cultural movement that reached a peak in Western society in the early and mid 20th century. It is characterised by positivism, logic, science and technology. Think of modern art, transport, etc.
An art style that aims to use new materials used such as paints and other materials, new ways of self-expression involving feelings and fantasies, innovative use of colour, bold brushstrokes and the requirement for the audience to interpret the art instead of merely viewing it. This approach contrasted with the more traditional forms of artistic expression of the late 19th and 20th century.
Style that breaks with traditional art forms and searches for new modes of expression (early 20th century).
European and American literary and artistic movement that arose and flourished during the first half of the twentieth century. Modernism can be understood as in large part an avant-garde reaction to mass culture and to middle-class Victorian values and tastes. Its techniques and aesthetic principles are illustrated in the works of Picasso, Stravinsky, Klee, Proust, Joyce, Eliot, Faulkner, and others.
Modernism is a trend of thought that affirms the power of human beings to make, improve, deconstruct and reshape their built and designed environment, with the aid of scientific knowledge, technology and practical experimentation, thus in its essence both progressive and optimistic. The term covers many political, cultural and artistic movements rooted in the changes in Western society at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century. Broadly, modernism describes a series of reforming cultural movements in art and architecture, music, literature and the applied arts which emerged in the decades before 1914.
Modernism in music is characterized by a desire for or belief in progress and science, surrealism, anti-romanticism, political advocacy, general intellectualism, and/or a breaking with tradition or common practice. Ezra Pound's modernist slogan, "Make it new," in music. Modern music is often thought to begin with, or just after, Debussy's impressionism, rising to rhetorical, if not commercial, dominance after World War Two, and then being gradually superseded by postmodern music.