The neutrality of this article is disputed. Please see the discussion on the talk page.(March 2008) Please do not remove this message until the dispute is resolved.

Hans Hofmann, "The Gate", 1959–1960, collection: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.

Modernism describes an array of cultural movements rooted in the changes in Western society in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The term covers a series of reforming movements in art, architecture, music, literature and the applied arts which emerged during this period. Image File history File links Unbalanced_scales. ... Topics in Christianity Movements · Denominations Ecumenism · Preaching · Prayer Music · Liturgy · Calendar Symbols · Art · Criticism Important figures Apostle Paul · Church Fathers Constantine · Athanasius · Augustine Anselm · Aquinas · Palamas · Wycliffe Tyndale · Luther · Calvin · Wesley Arius · Marcion of Sinope Pope · Archbishop of Canterbury Patriarch of Constantinople Christianity Portal This box:      Liberal Christianity, sometimes called... Illustration depicting Modernism as the descent from Christianity to atheism. ... American Modernism is an artistic and cultural movement in the USA starting at the turn of the 20th Century with its core period between World War I and World War II. Characteristically, Modernist art has a tendency to abstraction, is innovative, aesthetic, futuristic and self-referential. ... Modernity is a term used to describe the condition of being related to modernism. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Hans Hofmann (1880 - 1966) was an abstract expressionist painter. ... The front of the Guggenheim Museum from 5th Avenue This article refers to the Guggenheim Museum in the upper east side of Manhattan (New York). ... A cultural movement is a change in the way a number of different disciplines approach their work. ... For alternative meanings for The West in the United States, see the U.S. West and American West. ... This article is about the philosophical concept of Art. ... Modern architecture is a broad term given to a number of building styles with similar characteristics, primarily the simplification of form and the elimination of ornament, that first arose around 1900. ... Modernism in musicis characterized by a desire for or belief in progressand science, surrealism, anti-romanticism, politicaladvocacy, general intellectualism, and/or a breaking with tradition or common practice. ... Modernist literature is the literary form of Modernism and especially High modernism; it should not be confused with modern literature, which is the history of the modern novel and modern poetry as one. ... € ...

It is a trend of thought that affirms the power of human beings to create, improve, and reshape their environment, with the aid of scientific knowledge, technology or practical experimentation.^[1] 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, progressive and therefore better, ways of reaching the same end. Social progress is defined as a progress of society, which makes the society better in the general view of its members. ...

Embracing change and the present, modernism encompasses the works of thinkers who rebelled against nineteenth century academic and historicist traditions, believing the "traditional" forms of art, architecture, literature, religious faith, social organization and daily life were becoming outdated; they directly confronted the new economic, social and political conditions of an emerging fully industrialized world. Some divide the 20th Century into movements designated Modernism and Postmodernism, whereas others see them as two aspects of the same movement. For other uses, see Tradition (disambiguation). ... Postmodernism is a term applied to a wide-ranging set of developments in critical theory, philosophy, architecture, art, literature, and culture, which are generally characterized as either emerging from, in reaction to, or superseding, modernism. ...

History

Eugène Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People, 1830, a Romantic work of art.

The first half of the nineteenth century for Europe was marked by a number of wars and revolutions, which reveal the rise of the ideas and doctrines now identified as Romanticism: emphasis on individual subjective experience, the sublime, the supremacy of "Nature" as a subject for art, revolutionary or radical extensions of expression, and individual liberty. By mid-century, however, a synthesis of these ideas with stable governing forms had emerged, partly in reaction to the failed Romantic and democratic Revolutions of 1848. It was exemplified by Otto von Bismarck's Realpolitik and by "practical" philosophical ideas such as positivism. Called by various names—in Great Britain it is designated the "Victorian era"—this stabilizing synthesis was rooted in the idea that reality dominates over impressions that are subjective. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1241x1022, 171 KB) Same image in much smaller size is found at Image:Liberty Leading the People. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1241x1022, 171 KB) Same image in much smaller size is found at Image:Liberty Leading the People. ... Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix (April 26, 1798 – August 13, 1863) was one of the most important of the French Romantic painters. ... Liberty Leading the People (French: ) is a painting by Eugène Delacroix commemorating the July Revolution of 1830, which toppled Charles X. A woman personifying Liberty leads the people forward over the bodies of the fallen, holding the tricolore flag of the French Revolution in one hand and brandishing a... Romantics redirects here. ... For other uses, see Europe (disambiguation). ... Romantics redirects here. ... For the band, see Sublime (band), or their third album Sublime (album). ... The European Revolutions of 1848, known in some countries as the Spring of Nations or the Year of Revolution, were a revolutionary wave which erupted in Sicily and then, further triggered by the revolutions of 1848 in France, soon spread to the rest of Europe and as far afield as... Bismarck redirects here. ... Realpolitik (German: real (realistic, practical or actual) and Politik (politics) refers to politics or diplomacy based primarily on practical considerations, rather than ideological notions. ... Positivism is a philosophy that states that the only authentic knowledge is scientific knowledge, and that such knowledge can only come from positive affirmation of theories through strict scientific method. ... The Victorian era of the United Kingdom marked the height of the British Industrial Revolution and the apex of the British Empire. ... This article is in need of attention. ...

Central to this synthesis were common assumptions and institutional frames of reference, including the religious norms found in Christianity, scientific norms found in classical physics, especially electromagnetism, and doctrines that asserted that the depiction of external reality from an objective standpoint was not only possible but desirable. Cultural critics and historians label this set of doctrines Realism, though this term is not universal. In philosophy, the rationalist, materialist and positivist movements established a primacy of reason and system. Topics in Christianity Movements · Denominations · Other religions Ecumenism · Preaching · Prayer Music · Liturgy · Calendar Symbols · Art · Criticism Important figures Apostle Paul · Church Fathers Constantine · Athanasius · Augustine Anselm · Aquinas · Palamas · Luther Calvin · Wesley Arius · Marcion of Sinope Archbishop of Canterbury · Catholic Pope Coptic Pope · Ecumenical Patriarch Christianity Portal This box:      Christianity is... Classical physics is physics based on principles developed before the rise of quantum theory, usually including the special theory of relativity and general theory of relativity. ... For other uses of objectivity, see objectivity (disambiguation). ... Contemporary philosophical realism, also referred to as metaphysical realism, is the belief in a reality that is completely ontologically independent of our conceptual schemes, linguistic practices, beliefs, etc. ... For other uses, see Philosophy (disambiguation). ... This article is not about continental rationalism. ... This article primarily focuses on the general concepts of matter and existence. ... This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ...

Against the current ran a series of ideas, some of them direct continuations of Romantic schools of thought. Notable were the agrarian and revivalist movements in plastic arts and poetry (e.g. the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the philosopher John Ruskin). Rationalism also drew responses from the anti-rationalists in philosophy. In particular, Hegel's dialectic view of civilization and history drew responses from Friedrich Nietzsche and Søren Kierkegaard, who were major influences on Existentialism. All of these separate reactions together began to be seen as offering a challenge to any comfortable ideas of certainty derived by civilization, history, or pure reason. Agrarianism is a social and political philosophy. ... Plastic Arts are those visual arts that involve the use of materials that can be moulded or modulated in some way, often in three dimensions. ... This article is about the art form. ... Persephone, by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. ... Upper: Steel-plate engraving of Ruskin as a young man, made circa 1845, scanned from print made circa 1895. ... Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (August 27, 1770 - November 14, 1831) was a German philosopher born in Stuttgart, Württemberg, in present-day southwest Germany. ... In classical philosophy, dialectic (Greek: διαλεκτική) is controversy, Viz. ... Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (October 15, 1844 – August 25, 1900) (IPA: ) was a nineteenth-century German philologist and philosopher. ... Søren Aabye Kierkegaard (IPA: , but usually Anglicized as ;  ) 5 May 1813 – 11 November 1855) was a prolific 19th century Danish philosopher and theologian. ... Existentialism is a philosophical movement that posits that individuals create the meaning and essence of their lives, as opposed to deities or authorities creating it for them. ...

From the 1870s onward, the ideas that history and civilization were inherently progressive and that progress was always good came under increasing attack. Writers Wagner and Ibsen had been reviled for their own critiques of contemporary civilization and for their warnings that accelerating "progress" would lead to the creation of individuals detached from social norms and isolated from their fellow men. Arguments arose that the values of the artist and those of society were not merely different, but that Society was antithetical to Progress, and could not move forward in its present form. Philosophers called into question the previous optimism. The work of Schopenhauer was labelled "pessimistic" for its idea of the "negation of the will", an idea that would be both rejected and incorporated by later thinkers such as Nietzsche. Richard Wagner Wilhelm Richard Wagner (22 May 1813 – 13 February 1883) was a German composer, conductor, music theorist, and essayist, primarily known for his operas (or music dramas as they were later called). ... Henrik Johan Ibsen (March 20, 1828–May 23, 1906) was an extremely influential Norwegian playwright who was largely responsible for the rise of the modern realistic drama. ... Arthur Schopenhauer Arthur Schopenhauer (February 22, 1788 – September 21, 1860) was a German philosopher born in Gdańsk (Danzig), Poland. ... Half empty or half full? Pessimists to respond with half empty Pessimism, from the Latin pessimus (worst), is the decision to evaluate something as a negative when it is uncommon to do so. ... Friedrich Nietzsche, 1882 Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (October 15, 1844 - August 25, 1900) was a highly influential German philosopher. ...

Two of the most disruptive thinkers of the period were, in biology, Charles Darwin and, in political science, Karl Marx. Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection undermined the religious certainty of the general public, and the sense of human uniqueness of the intelligentsia. The notion that human beings were driven by the same impulses as "lower animals" proved to be difficult to reconcile with the idea of an ennobling spirituality. Karl Marx seemed to present a political version of the same proposition: that problems with the economic order were not transient, the result of specific wrong doers or temporary conditions, but were fundamentally contradictions within the "capitalist" system. Both thinkers would spawn defenders and schools of thought that would become decisive in establishing modernism. For other people of the same surname, and places and things named after Charles Darwin, see Darwin. ... Karl Heinrich Marx (May 5, 1818 – March 14, 1883) was a 19th century philosopher, political economist, and revolutionary. ... This article is about evolution in biology. ... Spirituality, in a narrow sense, concerns itself with matters of the spirit. ... For other uses, see Capitalism (disambiguation). ...

Separately, in the arts and letters, two ideas originating in France would have particular impact. The first was Impressionism, a school of painting that initially focused on work done, not in studios, but outdoors (en plein air). Impressionist paintings demonstrated that human beings do not see objects, but instead see light itself. The school gathered adherents despite internal divisions among its leading practitioners, and became increasingly influential. Initially rejected from the most important commercial show of the time, the government-sponsored Paris Salon, the Impressionists organized yearly group exhibitions in commercial venues during the 1870s and 1880s, timing them to coincide with the official Salon. A significant event of 1863 was the Salon des Refusés, created by Emperor Napoleon III to display all of the paintings rejected by the Paris Salon. While most were in standard styles, but by inferior artists, the work of Manet attracted tremendous attention, and opened commercial doors to the movement. This article is about the art movement. ... For other uses , see Painting (disambiguation). ... Claude Monet Painting by the Edge of a Wood. ... Honoré Daumier satirized the bourgeoises scandalized by the Salons Venuses, 1864 The Paris Salon (French: Salon de Paris) is the official art exhibition of the Académie des beaux-arts in Paris, France. ... See also Impressionist (entertainment): A girl with a watering can by Renoir, 1876 Impressionism was a 19th century art movement, which began as a private association of Paris-based artists who exhibited publicly in 1874. ... The Salon des Refusés (Salon of the Rejected) was an art exhibition in Paris. ... This article is about the President of the French Republic and Emperor of the French. ... Édouard Manet - 19th century French painter Mobile_ad-hoc_network - A self configuring wireless network This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ...

Odilon Redon, Guardian Spirit of the Waters, 1878, charcoal on paper, The Art Institute of Chicago.

The second school was Symbolism, marked by a belief that language is expressly symbolic in its nature and a portrayal of patriotism, and that poetry and writing should follow connections that the sheer sound and texture of the words create. The poet Stéphane Mallarmé would be of particular importance to what would occur afterwards. Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (831x1028, 213 KB)Photograph of Guardian Spirit of the Waters, 1878, by Odilon Redon in the public domain. ... Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (831x1028, 213 KB)Photograph of Guardian Spirit of the Waters, 1878, by Odilon Redon in the public domain. ... Self portrait, 1880, Musée dOrsay. ... 1878 (MDCCCLXXVIII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). ... On the western edge of Grant Park in Chicago, Illinois, is the Art Institute of Chicago, one of the premier art museums and schools in the United States, known especially for the extensive collection of impressionist and American art in its museum. ... Portrait of Stéphane Mallarmé by Édouard Manet. ...

At the same time social, political, and economic forces were at work that would become the basis to argue for a radically different kind of art and thinking. Chief among these was steam-powered industrialization, which produced buildings that combined art and engineering in new industrial materials such as cast iron to produce railroad bridges and glass-and-iron train sheds—or the Eiffel Tower, which broke all previous limitations on how tall man-made objects could be—and at the same time offered a radically different environment in urban life. Industrialisation (or industrialization) or an industrial revolution (in general, with lowercase letters) is a process of social and economic change whereby a human society is transformed from a pre-industrial to an industrial state . ... Cast iron usually refers to grey cast iron, but can mean any of a group of iron-based alloys containing more than 2% carbon (alloys with less carbon are carbon steel by definition). ... The Eiffel Tower (French: , ) is an iron tower built on the Champ de Mars beside the Seine River in Paris. ...

The miseries of industrial urbanism, and the possibilities created by scientific examination of subjects brought changes that would shake a European civilization which had, until then, regarded itself as having a continuous and progressive line of development from the Renaissance. With the telegraph's harnessing of a new power, offering instant communication at a distance, the experience of time itself was altered. This article is about the European Renaissance of the 14th-17th centuries. ... Telegraphy (from the Greek words tele = far away and grapho = write) is the long distance transmission of written messages without physical transport of letters, originally over wire. ...

The breadth of the changes can be sensed in how many modern disciplines are described, in their pre-twentieth century form, as being "classical", including physics, economics, and arts such as ballet or architecture. A magnet levitating above a high-temperature superconductor demonstrates the Meissner effect. ... Face-to-face trading interactions on the New York Stock Exchange trading floor. ... For other uses, see Ballet (disambiguation). ... This article is about building architecture. ...

The beginning of modernism, 1890–1910

Piet Mondrian, Composition No. 10, 1939-42, oil on canvas, 80 x 73 cm, private collection.

William Everdell has argued that Modernism began with Richard Dedekind's division of the real number line in 1872 and Boltzmann's statistical thermodynamics in 1874; but Clement Greenberg wrote, "What can be safely called Modernism emerged in the middle of the last century—and rather locally, in France, with Baudelaire in literature and Manet in painting, and perhaps with Flaubert, too, in prose fiction. (It was a while later, and not so locally, that Modernism appeared in music and architecture)."^[2] The "avant-garde" was what Modernism was called at first, and the term remained to describe movements which identify themselves as attempting to overthrow some aspect of tradition or the status quo. ^[3] Download high resolution version (882x968, 82 KB) 1939-42. ... Download high resolution version (882x968, 82 KB) 1939-42. ... Piet Mondrian, 1924 Pieter Cornelis (Piet) Mondriaan, after 1912 Mondrian, (pronounced: Dutch IPA: , later Pete Mon-dree-on, IPA: ) (b. ... William Romeyn Everdell is an American teacher and author. ... Richard Dedekind Julius Wilhelm Richard Dedekind (October 6, 1831 – February 12, 1916) was a German mathematician who did important work in abstract algebra and the foundations of the real numbers. ... In mathematics, a Dedekind cut, named after Richard Dedekind, in a totally ordered set S is a partition of it, (A, B), such that A is closed downwards (meaning that for all a in A, x ≤ a implies that x is in A as well) and B is closed upwards... In mathematics, the real numbers may be described informally as numbers that can be given by an infinite decimal representation, such as 2. ... Ludwig Boltzmann Ludwig Boltzmann (February 20, 1844 – September 5, Austrian physicist famous for the invention of statistical mechanics. ... Statistical mechanics is the application of statistics, which includes mathematical tools for dealing with large populations, to the field of mechanics, which is concerned with the motion of particles or objects when subjected to a force. ... Clement Greenberg (January 16, 1909 - May 7, 1994) was an influential American art critic closely associated with the abstract art movement in the United States. ... “Baudelaire” redirects here. ... “Manet” redirects here. ... Gustave Flaubert Gustave Flaubert (December 12, 1821 – May 8, 1880) was a French writer who is counted among the greatest Western novelists. ... A work similar to Marcel Duchamps Fountain Avant garde (written avant-garde) is a French phrase, one of many French phrases used by English speakers. ...

In the 1890s a strand of thinking began to assert that it was necessary to push aside previous norms entirely, instead of merely revising past knowledge in light of current techniques. The growing movement in art paralleled such developments as the Theory of Relativity in physics; the increasing integration of the internal combustion engine and industrialization; and the increased role of the social sciences in public policy. It was argued that, if the nature of reality itself was in question, and if restrictions which had been in place around human activity were falling, then art, too, would have to radically change. Thus, in the first fifteen years of the twentieth century a series of writers, thinkers, and artists made the break with traditional means of organizing literature, painting, and music. Two-dimensional analogy of space-time curvature described in General Relativity. ... An internal combustion engine is an engine that is powered by the expansion of hot combustion products of fuel directly acting within an engine. ... Industrialisation (or industrialization) or an industrial revolution (in general, with lowercase letters) is a process of social and economic change whereby a human society is transformed from a pre-industrial to an industrial state . ... The social sciences are a group of academic disciplines that study human aspects of the world. ...

Sigmund Freud offered a view of subjective states involving an unconscious mind full of primal impulses and counterbalancing self-imposed restrictions, a view that Carl Jung would combine with a belief in natural essence to stipulate a collective unconscious that was full of basic typologies that the conscious mind fought or embraced. Jung's view suggested that people's impulses towards breaking social norms were not the product of childishness or ignorance, but were instead essential to the nature of the human animal, the ideas of Darwin having already introduced the concept of "man, the animal" to the public mind. Sigmund Freud (IPA: ), born Sigismund Schlomo Freud (May 6, 1856 – September 23, 1939), was an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist who founded the psychoanalytic school of psychology. ... This article does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... Jung redirects here. ... Collective unconscious is a term of analytical psychology originally coined by Carl Jung. ...

Friedrich Nietzsche championed a philosophy in which forces, specifically the 'Will to power', were more important than facts or things. Similarly, the writings of Henri Bergson championed the vital 'life force' over static conceptions of reality. What united all these writers was a romantic distrust of the Victorian positivism and certainty. Instead they championed, or, in the case of Freud, attempted to explain, irrational thought processes through the lens of rationality and holism. This was connected with the century-long trend to thinking in terms of holistic ideas, which would include an increased interest in the occult, and "the vital force". Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (October 15, 1844 – August 25, 1900) (IPA: ) was a nineteenth-century German philologist and philosopher. ... Friedrich Nietzsche, 1882 Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (October 15, 1844 - August 25, 1900) was a highly influential German philosopher. ... Henri-Louis Bergson (October 18, 1859–January 4, 1941) was a major French philosopher, influential in the first half of the 20th century. ... Romantics redirects here. ...

Out of this collision of ideals derived from Romanticism, and an attempt to find a way for knowledge to explain that which was as yet unknown, came the first wave of works, which, while their authors considered them extensions of existing trends in art, broke the implicit contract that artists were the interpreters and representatives of bourgeois culture and ideas. These "modernist" landmarks include Arnold Schoenberg's atonal ending to his Second String Quartet in 1908, the expressionist paintings of Wassily Kandinsky starting in 1903 and culminating with his first abstract painting and the founding of the Blue Rider group in Munich in 1911, and the rise of cubism from the work of Picasso and Georges Braque in 1908. Arnold Schoenberg, Los Angeles, 1948 Arnold Schoenberg (pronounced [ˈaːrnɔlt ˈʃøːnbɛrk]) (13 September 1874 – 13 July 1951) was an Austrian and later American composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School. ... Atonality in a general sense describes music that departs from the system of tonal hierarchies that are said to characterized the sound of classical European music from the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries. ... The Austrian composer Arnold Schönberg published four string quartets, distributed over his lifetime. ... Year 1908 (MCMVIII) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a leap year starting on Tuesday of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ... The Scream by Edvard Munch (1893) which inspired 20th century Expressionists Portrait of Eduard Kosmack by Egon Schiele Rehe im Walde by Franz Marc Elbe Bridge I by Rolf Nesch On White II by Wassily Kandinsky, 1923. ... Wassily Kandinsky (Russian: Василий Кандинский, first name pronounced as [vassi:li]) (December 16 [O.S. December 4] 1866 – December 13, 1944) was a Russian painter, printmaker and art theorist. ... Year 1903 (MCMIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display calendar) of the Gregorian calendar or a common year starting on Wednesday of the 13-day slower Julian calendar. ... Cover of Der Blaue Reiter almanac. ... For other uses, see Munich (disambiguation). ... Year 1911 (MCMXI) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Saturday of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ... Pablo Picasso, Le guitariste, 1910 Juan Gris, Portrait of Picasso, 1912, oil on canvas Georges BraqueWoman with a guitar, 1913 Juan Gris, Still Life with Fruit Dish and Mandolin, 1919, oil on canvas Cubist villa in Prague, Czech Republic Cubist House of the Black Madonna, Prague, Czech Republic, 1912 Cubism... A young Pablo Picasso Pablo Picasso, formally Pablo Ruiz Picasso, (October 25, 1881 - April 8, 1973) was one of the recognized masters of 20th century art. ... Violin and Candlestick, Paris, spring 1910, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Georges Braque (May 13, 1882 – August 31, 1963) was a major 20th century French painter and sculptor who, along with Pablo Picasso, developed the art movement known as cubism. ...

Powerfully influential in this wave of modernity were the theories of Sigmund Freud and Ernst Mach, who argued, beginning in the 1880s, that the mind had a basic and fundamental structure, and that subjective experience was based on the interplay of the parts of the mind. All subjective reality was based, according to Freud's ideas, on the play of basic drives and instincts, through which the outside world was perceived. Ernst Mach developed a well-known philosophy of science, often called "positivism," according to which the relations of objects in nature were not guaranteed but only known through a sort of mental shorthand. This represented a break with the past, in that previously it was believed that external and absolute reality could impress itself, as it was, on an individual, as, for example, in John Locke's empiricism, with the mind beginning as a tabula rasa. For other persons named John Locke, see John Locke (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Tabula rasa (disambiguation). ...

This wave of the modern movement broke with the past in the first decade of the twentieth century, and tried to redefine various artforms in a radical manner. Leading lights within the literary wing of this movement (or, rather, these movements) include: For other uses, see Literature (disambiguation). ...

Composers such as Schoenberg, Stravinsky, and George Antheil represent modernism in music. Artists such as Gustav Klimt, Picasso, Matisse, Mondrian, and the movements Les Fauves, Cubism and the Surrealists represent various strains of Modernism in the visual arts, while architects and designers such as Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius, and Mies van der Rohe brought modernist ideas into everyday urban life. Several figures outside of artistic modernism were influenced by artistic ideas; for example, John Maynard Keynes was friends with Woolf and other writers of the Bloomsbury group. Rafael Alberti Rafael Alberti (El Puerto de Santa María,16 December 1902 - El Puerto de Santa María,28 October 1999) was a Spanish poet, a member of the Generation of 27. ... Gabriele dAnnunzio (12 March 1863, Pescara – 1 March 1938, Gardone Riviera, province of Brescia) was an Italian poet, writer, novelist, dramatist and daredevil, who went on to have a controversial role in politics as a precursor of the fascist movement. ... Guillaume Apollinaire Guillaume Apollinaire (August 26, 1880 – November 9, 1918) was a poet, writer, and art critic. ... Louis Aragon (October 3, 1897 - December 24, 1982), French historian, poet and novelist. ... Djuna Barnes, ca. ... Basil Cheesman Bunting (March 3, 1900 – April 17, 1985) was a British modernist poet. ... Mário de Sá-Carneiro (1890-1916) was a Portuguese novelist and poet. ... Constantine P. Cavafy, also known as Konstantin or Konstantinos Petrou Kavafis, or Kavaphes (Greek Κωνσταντίνος Π. Καβάφης) (April 29, 1863 – April 29, 1933) was a major Alexandrine poet who worked as a journalist and civil servant. ... Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau (5 July 1889 – 11 October 1963) was a French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, boxing manager and filmmaker. ... // Joseph Conrad (born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski; 3 December 1857 – 3 August 1924) was a Polish-born English novelist. ... Thomas Stearns Eliot, OM (September 26, 1888 – January 4, 1965), was a poet, dramatist and literary critic. ... Paul Éluard was the nom de plume of Eugène Grindel (December 14, 1895 - November 18, 1952), a French poet. ... William Cuthbert Faulkner (born William Falkner), (September 25, 1897–July 6, 1962) was an American author. ... H.D. in the mid 1910s Hilda Doolitle(September 10, 1886, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, United States – September 27, 1961, Zürich, Switzerland), prominently known only by her initials H.D., was an American poet, novelist and memoirist. ... Hugo von Hofmannsthal Hugo von Hofmannsthal (February 1, 1874 – July 15, 1929), was an Austrian novelist, librettist, poet, dramatist, narrator, and essayist. ... In 1915, Max Jacob and Pablo Picasso Max Jacob (July 12, 1876 – March 5, 1944) was a French poet, painter, writer, and critic. ... This article is about the writer and poet. ... Kafka redirects here. ... David Herbert Richards Lawrence (11 September 1885 – 2 March 1930) was an English writer of the 20th century, whose prolific and diverse output included novels, short stories, poems, plays, essays, travel books, paintings, translations, literary criticism, and personal letters. ... Wyndham Lewis in 1916 Percy Wyndham Lewis (November 18, 1882 – March 7, 1957) was a Canadian-born British painter and author. ... Federico García Lorca Federico García Lorca (June 5, 1898 – August 19, 1936) was a Spanish poet and dramatist, also remembered as a painter, pianist, and composer. ... Marianne Moore photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1948 Marianne Moore (December 11, 1887 - February 5, 1972) was a Modernist American poet and writer. ... Robert Musil (November 6, 1880, Klagenfurt, Austria – April 15, 1942, Geneva, Switzerland) was an Austrian writer. ... Almada Negreiros São Tomé and Príncipe, April 7, 1893-Lisbon, July 15, 1970 was a Portuguese painter,poet and writer. ... Fernando Pessoa Fernando António Nogueira de Seabra Pessoa (pron. ... Ezra Pound in 1913. ... Proust redirects here. ... Pierre Reverdy (13 September 1889 - 17 June 1960) was a French poet associated with surrealism and cubism. ... Gertrude Stein (February 3, 1874 – July 27, 1946) was an American writer who became a catalyst in the development of modern art and literature. ... Wallace Stevens Wallace Stevens (October 2, 1879 – August 2, 1955) was a major American Modernist poet. ... Tristan Tzara () (April 16, 1896 – December 25, 1963) was a Romanian poet and essayist. ... For other people of the same name, see Valery. ... Robert Walser (April 15, 1878 near Biel/Bienne, Switzerland – December 25, 1956 near Herisau, Switzerland), was a German-speaking Swiss writer. ... William Carlos Williams Dr. William Carlos Williams (sometimes known as WCW) (September 17, 1883 – March 4, 1963), was an American poet closely associated with modernism and Imagism. ... For the American writer, see Virginia Euwer Wolff. ... Yeats redirects here. ... Arnold Schoenberg, Los Angeles, 1948 Arnold Schoenberg (pronounced [ˈaːrnÉ”lt ˈʃøːnbÉ›rk]) (13 September 1874 – 13 July 1951) was an Austrian and later American composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School. ... Igor Stravinsky. ... George Antheil (June 8, 1900 – February 12, 1959) was an American composer and pianist of German and Lutheran descent, born in Trenton, New Jersey. ... For other uses, see Music (disambiguation). ... Gustav Klimt (July 14, 1862 – February 6, 1918) was an Austrian Symbolist painter and one of the most prominent members of the Vienna Art Nouveau (Vienna Secession) movement. ... A young Pablo Picasso Pablo Picasso, formally Pablo Ruiz Picasso, (October 25, 1881 - April 8, 1973) was one of the recognized masters of 20th century art. ... Self-Portrait in a Striped T-shirt (1906). ... Piet Mondrian, 1924 Pieter Cornelis (Piet) Mondriaan, after 1912 Mondrian, (pronounced: Dutch IPA: , later Pete Mon-dree-on, IPA: ) (b. ... The Dessert: Harmony in Red (1908) by Henri Matisse Les Fauves (French for wild beasts), a short-lived movement of early Modernist art, emphasized paint itself and the use of deep color over the representational values retained by Impressionism, even with its focus on light and the moment. ... Pablo Picasso, Le guitariste, 1910 Juan Gris, Portrait of Picasso, 1912, oil on canvas Georges BraqueWoman with a guitar, 1913 Juan Gris, Still Life with Fruit Dish and Mandolin, 1919, oil on canvas Cubist villa in Prague, Czech Republic Cubist House of the Black Madonna, Prague, Czech Republic, 1912 Cubism... Max Ernst. ... The Mona Lisa is one of the most recognizable artistic paintings in the Western world. ... This article is about building architecture. ... All Saints Chapel in the Cathedral Basilica of St. ... Charles-Edouard Jeanneret, who chose to be known as Le Corbusier (October 6, 1887 – August 27, 1965), was a Swiss-born architect and writer, who is famous for his contributions to what now is called Modern Architecture. ... Walter Adolph Georg Gropius (May 18, 1883 – July 5, 1969) was a German architect and founder of Bauhaus. ... Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (born Maria Ludwig Michael Mies) (March 27, 1886 - August 17, 1969) was an architect and designer. ... For other uses, see City (disambiguation). ... Keynes redirects here. ... The Bloomsbury Group or Bloomsbury Set or just Bloomsbury, as its adherents would generally refer to it, was an English group of artists and scholars that existed from around 1905 until around World War II. // History The group began as an informal socialwe have been great to society assembly of...

The explosion of modernism 1910–1930

Pablo Picasso, Le guitariste, 1910, oil on canvas, 100 x 73 cm, Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris.

On the eve of the First World War a growing tension and unease with the social order, seen in the Russian Revolution of 1905 and the agitation of "radical" parties, also manifested itself in artistic works in every medium which radically simplified or rejected previous practice. In 1913, the year of Einstein's first paper on the General Theory of Relativity, Niels Bohr's quantized atom, Edmund Husserl's Ideas, Ezra Pound's founding of Imagism, and the New York Armory Show, famed Russian composer Igor Stravinsky, working for Sergei Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes, composed Rite of Spring for a ballet, choreographed by Vaslav Nijinsky that depicted human sacrifice, and young painters such as Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse were causing a shock with their rejection of traditional perspective as the means of structuring paintings—a step that none of the Impressionists, not even Cézanne, had taken. Download high resolution version (786x1097, 182 KB)Le guitariste by Pablo Picasso (1910) The two-dimensional work of art depicted in this image is in the public domain in the United States. ... Download high resolution version (786x1097, 182 KB)Le guitariste by Pablo Picasso (1910) The two-dimensional work of art depicted in this image is in the public domain in the United States. ... Picasso redirects here. ... Year 1910 (MCMX) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Friday [1] of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ... The Musée National dArt Moderne is an art museum in Paris, France, located within the Centre Georges Pompidou. ... Centre Georges Pompidou (constructed 1971–1977 and known as the Pompidou Centre in English) is a complex in the Beaubourg area of the IVe arrondissement of Paris, near Les Halles and the Marais. ... “The Great War ” redirects here. ... ‹ The template below (Expand) is being considered for deletion. ... Year 1913 (MCMXIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Tuesday of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ... Einstein redirects here. ... Two-dimensional analogy of space-time curvature described in General Relativity. ... Niels Henrik David Bohr (October 7, 1885 – November 18, 1962) was a Danish physicist who made fundamental contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum mechanics, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922. ... Edmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl (IPA: ; April 8, 1859 – April 26, 1938) was a philosopher, known as the father of phenomenology. ... Ezra Pound in 1913. ... Ezra Pound was one of the prime movers of Imagism. ... Armory Show poster. ... A composer is a person who writes music. ... Igor Stravinsky. ... Portrait of Sergei Diaghilev by Valentin Serov (1904) Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev (Russian: / Sergei Pavlovich Dyagilev), also referred to as Serge, (March 31, 1872 – August 19, 1929) was a Russian art critic, patron, ballet impresario and founder of the Ballets Russes from which many famous dancers and choreographers would later arise. ... Léon Bakst: Firebird, Ballerina, 1910 There was also the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo from 1932 to 1963 The Ballets Russes was a ballet company established in 1909 by the Russian impresario Serge Diaghilev and resident first in the Théâtre Mogador and Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris... The Rite of Spring is a ballet with music by the Russian composer Igor Stravinsky. ... Vaslav Nijinsky as Vayou in Nikolai Legats revival of Marius Petipas The Talisman, St. ... Human sacrifice is the act of killing a human being for the purposes of making an offering to a deity or other, normally supernatural, power. ... Picasso redirects here. ... Henri Matisse (December 31, 1869 – November 3, 1954) was a French artist, noted for his use of color and his fluid, brilliant and original draughtsmanship. ... See also Impressionist (entertainment): A girl with a watering can by Renoir, 1876 Impressionism was a 19th century art movement, which began as a private association of Paris-based artists who exhibited publicly in 1874. ... Vase of Flowers (1876) Oil on canvas Paul Cézanne (January 19, 1839 – October 22, 1906) was a French painter who represents the bridge from impressionism to cubism. ...

These developments began to give a new meaning to what was termed 'Modernism': It embraced disruption, rejecting or moving beyond simple Realism in literature and art, and rejecting or dramatically altering tonality in music. This set modernists apart from 19th century artists, who had tended to believe in 'progress'. Writers like Dickens and Tolstoy, painters like Turner, and musicians like Brahms were not 'radicals' or 'Bohemians', but were instead valued members of society who produced art that added to society, even if it were, at times, critiquing less desirable aspects of it. Modernism, while it was still "progressive" increasingly saw traditional forms and traditional social arrangements as hindering progress, and therefore the artist was recast as a revolutionary, overthrowing rather than enlightening. For other uses, see Realism (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Literature (disambiguation). ... This article is about the philosophical concept of Art. ... For other uses, see Music (disambiguation). ... Dickens redirects here. ... Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy(Lyof, Lyoff) (September 9 [O.S. August 28] 1828 – November 20 [O.S. November 7] 1910) (Russian: , IPA:  ), commonly referred to in English as Leo Tolstoy, was a Russian writer – novelist, essayist, dramatist and philosopher – as well as pacifist Christian anarchist and educational reformer. ... Joseph Mallord William Turner (23 April 1775[1] – 19 December 1851) was an English Romantic landscape painter, watercolourist and printmaker, whose style can be said to have laid the foundation for Impressionism. ... Johannes Brahms Johannes Brahms (May 7, 1833 – April 3, 1897) was a German composer of the Romantic period. ...

Futurism exemplifies this trend. In 1909, F.T. Marinetti's first manifesto was published in the Parisian newspaper Le Figaro; soon afterward a group of painters (Giacomo Balla, Umberto Boccioni, Carlo Carrà, Luigi Russolo, and Gino Severini) co-signed the Futurist Manifesto. Modeled on the famous "Communist Manifesto" of the previous century, such manifestoes put forward ideas that were meant to provoke and to gather followers. Strongly influenced by Bergson and Nietzsche, Futurism was part of the general trend of Modernist rationalization of disruption. Futurism was a 20th century art movement. ... Year 1909 (MCMIX) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Thursday of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ... Le Figaro (English: ) is one of the leading French morning daily newspapers. ... Giacomo Balla (July 24, 1871 - March 1, 1958) was an Italian painter. ... Unique Forms of Continuity in Space (Museum of Modern Art, New York) Umberto Boccioni (October 19, 1882–August 16, 1916) was an Italian painter and sculptor and a member of the Futurist movement. ... Carlo Carrà Carlo Carrà (11 February 1881-13 April 1966) was an Italian painter, a leading figure of the futurist movement that flourished in Italy during the beginning of the 20th century. ... Luigi Russolo ca. ... Gino Severini (April 7, 1883 – February 26, 1966), was an Italian painter and a leading member of the Futurist movement. ... The Futurist Manifesto was written in 1909 by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti and issued to provide a concise collection of Futurists thoughts, beliefs and intentions, in a declaratory form. ... Malayalam editon of the Manifesto The Communist Manifesto, also known as The Manifesto of the Communist Party, first published on February 21, 1848 by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, is one of the worlds most historically influential political tracts. ...

Modernist philosophy and art were still viewed as being part, and only a part, of the larger social movement. Artists such as Klimt and Cézanne, and composers such as Mahler and Richard Strauss were "the terrible moderns"—those farther to the avant-garde were more heard of than heard. Polemics in favour of geometric or purely abstract painting were largely confined to 'little magazines' (like The New Age in the UK) with tiny circulations. Modernist primitivism and pessimism were controversial, but were not seen as representative of the Edwardian mainstream, which was more inclined towards a Victorian faith in progress and liberal optimism. Gustav Klimt (July 14, 1862 – February 6, 1918) was an Austrian Symbolist painter and one of the most prominent members of the Vienna Art Nouveau (Vienna Secession) movement. ... Cezanne redirects here. ... “Mahler” redirects here. ... This article is about the German composer of tone-poems and operas. ... The New Age was a British literary magazine, noted for its wide influence under the editorship from 1907 to 1922 of A. R. Orage. ...

However, the Great War and its subsequent events were the cataclysmic upheavals that late 19th century artists such as Brahms had worried about, and avant-gardists had embraced. First, the failure of the previous status quo seemed self-evident to a generation that had seen millions die fighting over scraps of earth—prior to the war, it had been argued that no one would fight such a war, since the cost was too high. Second, the birth of a machine age changed the conditions of life—machine warfare became a touchstone of the ultimate reality. Finally, the immensely traumatic nature of the experience dashed basic assumptions: Realism seemed to be bankrupt when faced with the fundamentally fantastic nature of trench warfare, as exemplified by books such as Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front. Moreover, the view that mankind was making slow and steady moral progress came to seem ridiculous in the face of the senseless slaughter of the Great War. The First World War, at once, fused the harshly mechanical geometric rationality of technology with the nightmarish irrationality of myth. “The Great War ” redirects here. ... Johannes Brahms Johannes Brahms (May 7, 1833 – April 3, 1897) was a German composer of the Romantic period. ... Erich Maria Remarque (June 22, 1898 – September 25, 1970) was the pseudonym of Erich Paul Remark, a German author. ... For the films, see All Quiet on the Western Front (1930 film) and All Quiet on the Western Front (1979 film). ... Ypres, 1917, in the vicinity of the Battle of Passchendaele. ...

Thus in the 1920s, modernism, which had been such a minority taste before the war, came to define the age. Modernism was seen in Europe in such critical movements as Dada, and then in constructive movements such as Surrealism, as well as in smaller movements such as the Bloomsbury Group. Each of these "modernisms", as some observers labelled them at the time, stressed new methods to produce new results. Again, Impressionism was a precursor: breaking with the idea of national schools, artists and writers adopted ideas of international movements. Surrealism, Cubism, Bauhaus, and Leninism are all examples of movements that rapidly found adopters far beyond their original geographic base. The 1920s they were sexy referred to as the Jazz Age or the Roaring Twenties, usually applied to America. ... DaDa is a concept album by Alice Cooper, released in 1983. ... Max Ernst. ... The Bloomsbury Group or Bloomsbury Set or just Bloomsbury, as its adherents would generally refer to it, was an English group of artists and scholars that existed from around 1905 until around World War II. // History The group began as an informal socialwe have been great to society assembly of... Pablo Picasso, Le guitariste, 1910 Juan Gris, Portrait of Picasso, 1912, oil on canvas Georges BraqueWoman with a guitar, 1913 Juan Gris, Still Life with Fruit Dish and Mandolin, 1919, oil on canvas Cubist villa in Prague, Czech Republic Cubist House of the Black Madonna, Prague, Czech Republic, 1912 Cubism... For information about British gothic rock band, see Bauhaus (band). ... Vladimir Lenin in 1920 Leninism refers to various related political and economic theories elaborated by Bolshevik revolutionary leader Vladimir Lenin, and by other theorists who claim to be carrying on Lenins work. ...

Illustration of the Spirit of St. Louis

Exhibitions, theatre, cinema, books and buildings all served to cement in the public view the perception that the world was changing. Hostile reaction often followed, as paintings were spat upon, riots organized at the opening of works, and political figures denounced modernism as unwholesome and immoral. At the same time, the 1920s were known as the "Jazz Age", and the public showed considerable enthusiasm for cars, air travel, the telephone, and other technological advances. Illustration of Spirit of St. ... Illustration of Spirit of St. ... For other uses, see The Spirit of St. ... The Jazz Age , 1929 movie poster: A Scathing Indictment of the Bewidered Children of Pleasure. ... Car redirects here. ... Aviation encompasses all the activities relating to airborne devices created by human ingenuity, generally known as aircraft. ... For other uses, see Telephone (disambiguation). ...

By 1930, modernism had won a place in the establishment, including the political and artistic establishment, although by this time modernism itself had changed. There was a general reaction in the 1920s against the pre-1918 modernism, which emphasized its continuity with a past while rebelling against it, and against the aspects of that period which seemed excessively mannered, irrational, and emotionalistic. The post-World War period, at first, veered either to systematization or nihilism and had, as perhaps its most paradigmatic movement, Dada. Year 1930 (MCMXXX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display 1930 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... For other uses, see Paradigm (disambiguation). ... DaDa is a concept album by Alice Cooper, released in 1983. ...

While some writers attacked the madness of the new modernism, others described it as soulless and mechanistic. Among modernists there were disputes about the importance of the public, the relationship of art to audience, and the role of art in society. Modernism comprised a series of sometimes contradictory responses to the situation as it was understood, and the attempt to wrestle universal principles from it. In the end science and scientific rationality, often taking models from the 18th Century Enlightenment, came to be seen as the source of logic and stability, while the basic primitive sexual and unconscious drives, along with the seemingly counter-intuitive workings of the new machine age, were taken as the basic emotional substance. From these two poles, no matter how seemingly incompatible, modernists began to fashion a complete weltanschauung that could encompass every aspect of life. The Age of Enlightenment (French: ; Italian: ; German: ; Spanish: ; Swedish: ) was an eighteenth-century movement in Western philosophy. ... A world view, also spelled as worldview is a term calqued from the German word Weltanschauung (look onto the world). The German word is also in wide use in English, as well as the translated form world outlook. ...

Modernism's second generation (1930–1945)

By 1930, Modernism had entered popular culture. With the increasing urbanization of populations, it was beginning to be looked to as the source for ideas to deal with the challenges of the day. As modernism gained traction in academia, it was developing a self-conscious theory of its own importance. Popular culture, which was not derived from high culture but instead from its own realities (particularly mass production) fueled much modernist innovation. By 1930 The New Yorker magazine began publishing new and modern ideas by young writers and humorists like Dorothy Parker, Robert Benchley, E.B. White, S.J. Perelman, and James Thurber, amongst others. Modern ideas in art appeared in commercials and logos, the famous London Underground logo, designed by Edward Johnston in 1919, being an early example of the need for clear, easily recognizable and memorable visual symbols. Year 1930 (MCMXXX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display 1930 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Academia is a collective term for the scientific and cultural community engaged in higher education and research, taken as a whole. ... Popular culture (or pop culture) is the widespread cultural elements in any given society that are perpetuated through that societys vernacular language or lingua franca. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Mass production is the production of large amounts of standardised products on production lines. ... For other uses, see New Yorker. ... Dorothy Parker (August 22, 1893 – June 7, 1967) was an American writer and poet, best known for her caustic wit, wisecracks, and sharp eye for 20th century urban foibles. ... Robert Charles Benchley (September 15, 1889 – November 21, 1945) was an American humorist best known for his work as a newspaper columnist and film actor. ... Elw