Modernism was a broad movement across the arts, roughly from the late nineteenth century through the mid twentieth, marked by a deliberate break with inherited academic tradition and a search for new forms suited to a rapidly industrializing and urbanizing world. In painting and sculpture it encompassed a rapid succession of styles that abandoned illusionistic representation in favor of abstraction and formal experiment. In architecture it rejected historical ornament in favor of function expressed openly through new materials such as steel and reinforced concrete. In music it extended tonal harmony toward its breaking point and, in some composers, abandoned it altogether. In film, a medium modernism found already young, directors including Akira Kurosawa brought techniques of fragmented narrative, subjective viewpoint, and formal rigor associated with modernist sensibility to international acclaim in the decades after the Second World War. Because Modernism spans so many art forms and national traditions with differing timelines, historians treat it less as a single style than as a shared attitude toward tradition and innovation, expressed differently from one art form to the next.
Facts
Disputed
Start YearModernism's starting point is dated differently by art form and by historian, from Manet's challenges to academic painting in the 1860s to the more commonly cited turn of the century flowering across the arts; 1880 is a conventional midpoint marker, not a fixed origin. End YearSome historians place Modernism's close at the end of the Second World War, when Postmodern currents began emerging; others argue Modernist practice continued in some art forms, including architecture and music, well into the later twentieth century, so no single end date is fully agreed. Founded In PlaceFrance; the movement is generally dated to the middle and later 19th century and traced to a local origin there before it spread across national traditions. 1 Key PrincipleA self-conscious rejection of inherited tradition and a search for newer means of cultural expression suited to a changing world. 1 Connections
Associated With
Source Gardner's Art Through the AgesFred S. Kleiner (after Helen Gardner)
Source Gardner's Art Through the AgesFred S. Kleiner (after Helen Gardner)
Expressed In
Source Encyclopaedia BritannicaEncyclopaedia Britannica editors
Source Ballet and Modern Dance: A Concise HistoryJack Anderson
Source Encyclopaedia BritannicaEncyclopaedia Britannica editors
Source The New Grove Dictionary of Music and MusiciansStanley Sadie, editor (successive editions)
Source History of the TheatreOscar G. Brockett and Franklin J. Hildy
Movement Members
Source Encyclopaedia BritannicaEncyclopaedia Britannica editors
Case Study House programme, mid-century modernist design.
Kevin Roche's modernist office design.
Richard Meier's late-modernist design.
Neutra's modernist design.
Source Ballet and Modern Dance: A Concise HistoryJack Anderson
Louis Kahn's modernist design.
Saarinen's expressionist mid-century modernist design.
Source UNESCO World Heritage Centre
Sources
1. Wikipedia
Wikimedia FoundationModernism, The late 19th century section
What can be safely called modernism emerged in the middle of the last century -- and rather locally, in France
Modernism, lead section
characterized by a self-conscious rejection of tradition and the search for newer means of cultural expression
- Movement Members: Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe article, lede
- Movement Members: Barcelona Pavilion, Barcelona Pavilion article
- Movement Members: Farnsworth House, Farnsworth House article
- Movement Members: 860-880 Lake Shore Drive, 860-880 Lake Shore Drive article
- Movement Members: Seagram Building, Seagram Building article
- Movement Members: S. R. Crown Hall, S. R. Crown Hall article
- Movement Members: Neue Nationalgalerie, Neue Nationalgalerie article
Movement Members: Igor Stravinsky, Igor Stravinsky, Wikipedia summary lead, movement
He is widely considered one of the most important and influential composers of the 20th century and a pivotal figure in modernist music.
Movement Members: The Rite of Spring, The Rite of Spring, Wikipedia summary lead, in-movement
Regarded as among the first modernist works, the music influenced many of the 20th century's leading composers
View the Source 2. Encyclopaedia Britannica
Encyclopaedia Britannica editors, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.entry: ModernismView the Source Ballet and Modern Dance: A Concise History
Jack Anderson, Princeton Book Company- Movement Members: Martha Graham, chapter on the founders of American modern dance, section on Graham
- Expressed In: Dance, chapter on the founders of American modern dance
Gardner's Art Through the Ages
Fred S. Kleiner (after Helen Gardner), Cengage Learning- Associated With: International Style, chapter on the International Style and mid-century Modernist architecture
- Associated With: Bauhaus, chapter on the Bauhaus
UNESCO World Heritage Centre
UNESCOMovement Members: Villa Tugendhat, Tugendhat Villa in Brno, ref. 1052View the Source History of the Theatre
Oscar G. Brockett and Franklin J. Hildy, PearsonExpressed In: Theatre, chapters on modernist and post-naturalist Western theatre
The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians
Stanley Sadie, editor (successive editions), Oxford University PressExpressed In: Music, entry: twentieth century modernist music
Dissenting Readings (1 dissenting reading)
End Year
Architectural historian and critic Charles Jencks dated the symbolic death of Modern architecture not to 1945 but to 3:32pm on 15 July 1972, the demolition of the Pruitt-Igoe housing scheme in St Louis, arguing that Modernism's authority in architecture persisted for decades after the Second World War before Postmodern practice displaced it.
A dissenting reading, from an independent laneWikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Modernism one single style?
No. Modernism spans painting, sculpture, architecture, music and film across many national traditions with differing timelines, from the late nineteenth century through the mid twentieth, so historians treat it less as a single style than as a shared attitude toward tradition and innovation, expressed differently from one art form to the next: abstraction in painting, function expressed through new materials in architecture, harmony pushed to its breaking point or abandoned in music.
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