Modernism

Modernism is a broad cultural, artistic, and philosophical movement that emerged in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and persisted into the mid-20th century. It arose as a response to Victorian realism and academic art, seeking to break with tradition and to reflect the realities of a rapidly changing world. Modernists emphasized experimentation, new technologies, and fresh modes of perception, often questioning the assumptions underlying art, representation, and social life.

It developed across Europe and North America in the context of industrialization, urbanization, and upheavals such as world wars. Modernism encompassed diverse movements in different fields: Cubism, Futurism, Expressionism, Dada, and Surrealism in the visual arts; innovations in narrative form and voice in literature; new approaches to rhythm, tonality, and structure in music; and functional, abstract design in architecture and design.

Common features include a break with established realism, attention to form and process, and an interest in subjectivity, fragmentation, and ambiguity. Critics associate modernism with a self-consciousness about art, experimentation with perspective and time, and a willingness to challenge audience expectations and mass culture.

Notable figures include writers James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Marcel Proust, and Franz Kafka; painters Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Wassily Kandinsky, and Piet Mondrian; musicians Arnold Schoenberg, Igor Stravinsky, and Alban Berg; architects Le Corbusier, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Walter Gropius, and Frank Lloyd Wright.

Modernism influenced subsequent art and theory, shaping later avant-garde currents and laying groundwork for postmodernism. The term is used differently across disciplines and regions, reflecting a variety of aims, methods, and historical contexts.