Modernism  

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

Revision as of 23:28, 5 February 2008

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Modernism is a artistic and cultural movement which has its roots in mid-19th century France, generally defined by new forms of art, architecture, music and literature emerging in the decades before 1914 as artists rejected 19th century artistic traditions such as romanticism.

High modernism is the golden age of modernism. It peaked from 1910 to 1930.

In music, it was characterized by atonality, in architecture by the lack of ornament, in literature by the stream of consciousness technique and the lack of chronological narrative and finally, in the visual arts by lack of representation. Generally, Modernists celebrated novelty and innovation.

Some see Modernism as an ongoing development (Richard Kostelanetz), others (Stephen Bayley and John Carey) as a distinct era of ephemeral taste. It can be argued that architectural modernism died with the demolition of the Pruitt-Igoe buildings in 1972, design-modernism died in 1981 with the formation of the Memphis Design Group.

Compare modern and modernity

Character

Modernism is a tendency rooted in the idea that the "traditional" forms of art, architecture, literature, religious faith, social organization and daily life had become outdated; therefore it was essential to sweep them aside. In this it drew on previous revolutionary movements, including liberalism and communism. Modernism encouraged the re-examination of every aspect of existence, from commerce to philosophy, with the goal of finding that which was "holding back" progress, and replacing it with new, and therefore better, ways of reaching the same end. In essence, the modernist movement argued that the new realities of the industrial and mechanized age were permanent and imminent, and that people should adapt their world view to accept that the new equaled the good, the true and the beautiful.

See: neophilia

See also

• Anti-modernism
• Modern architecture
• Modern art
• Modernist architecture
• Medium specificity
• International style (architecture)
• Postmodern art

Further reading

• Bad Modernisms
• Modernism, Mass Culture, and the Aesthetics of Obscenity (2000) - Allison Pease
• The First Moderns : Profiles in the Origins of Twentieth-Century Thought (1998) - William R. Everdell
• The Culture of Time and Space, 1880-1918 (1983) - Stephen Kern