# Modernism

Modernism is both a philosophical movement and an art movement that arose from broad transformations in Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new forms of art, philosophy, and social organization which reflected the newly emerging industrial world, including features such as urbanization, new technologies, and war. Artists attempted to depart from traditional forms of art, which they considered outdated or obsolete.
Modernist innovations included abstract art, the stream-of-consciousness novel, montage cinema, atonal and twelve-tone music, and divisionist painting. Modernism explicitly rejected the ideology of realism and made use of the works of the past by the employment of reprise, incorporation, rewriting, recapitulation, revision and parody. Modernism also rejected the certainty of Enlightenment thinking, and many modernists also rejected religious belief. A notable characteristic of modernism is self-consciousness concerning artistic and social traditions, which often led to experimentation with form, along with the use of techniques that drew attention to the processes and materials used in creating works of art.

## Quotes

* Art without content is like sex without intimacy: technically sufficient, but emotionally empty.
** Describing modernism and formalism in an interview with Ann Stubbs on New York City's WBAI (1981)

## External links

* Encyclopedic article on Modernism on Wikipedia
* Media related to Modernism on Wikimedia Commons
* The dictionary definition of modernism on Wiktionary
Art movements :
| Medieval | Byzantine · Merovingian · Carolingian · Ottonian · Romanesque · Gothic (International Gothic) |
| Renaissance | Early Netherlandish · High Renaissance · Mannerism |
| 17th century | Baroque · Caravaggisti · Classicism · Dutch Golden Age |
| 18th century | Rococo · Neoclassicism · Romanticism |
| 19th century | Nazarene · Realism / Realism · Historicism · Biedermeier · Gründerzeit · Barbizon school · Pre-Raphaelites · Academic · Aestheticism · Macchiaioli · Art Nouveau · Peredvizhniki · Impressionism · Post-Impressionism · Neo-impressionism · Divisionism · Pointillism · Cloisonnism · Les Nabis · Synthetism · Kalighat painting · Symbolism · Hudson River School |
| 20th century | Bengal School of Art · Amazonian pop art · Cubism · Orphism · Purism · Synchromism · Expressionism · Constructivism · Scuola Romana · Abstract expressionism · Kinetic art · Neue Künstlervereinigung München · Der Blaue Reiter · Die Brücke · New Objectivity · Dada · Fauvism · Neo-Fauvism · Precisionism · Bauhaus · De Stijl · Art Deco · Op art · Vienna School of Fantastic Realism · Pop art · Photorealism · Futurism · Metaphysical art · Rayonism · Vorticism · Suprematism · Surrealism · Color Field · Minimalism · Minimalism (visual arts) · Art & Language · Nouveau réalisme · Social realism · Lyrical abstraction · Tachisme · COBRA · Action painting · International Typographic Style · Fluxus · Lettrism · Letterist International · Situationist International · Conceptual art · Installation art · Land art · Performance art · Endurance art · Systems art · Video art · Neo-expressionism · Neo-Dada · Outsider art · Lowbrow · New media art · Young British Artists · Cybernetic art |
| 21st century | Art intervention · Hyperrealism · Neo-futurism · Stuckism International · Remodernism · Sound art · Superstroke · Superflat · Relational art · Video game art |
| Related topics | List of art movements · Folk art · Abstract art · Modern art · Modernism · Late modernism · Late modernism · Postmodern art · Avant-garde · Graffiti |