modernismi

Modernismi refers to a broad cultural and artistic movement that emerged in the late 19th century and flourished through the 1920s, and in some places into the 1930s. It sought to break away from traditional forms and to reflect the realities of modern life—industrialization, urbanization, scientific developments, and changing perceptions of time and identity.

The movement is characterized by experimentation with form, perspective, and expression. It often foregrounded subjectivity, ambiguity, and fragmentation; traditions were questioned, and new techniques were developed in literature (stream of consciousness, interiority), in visual arts (abstraction, nonrepresentational forms), in music (dissonance, atonality in some strands), and in architecture (functional design, new materials).

Notable strands and figures include literature: James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Franz Kafka, Marcel Proust; visual arts: Pablo Picasso, Wassily Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian; architecture: Le Corbusier, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe; music: Igor Stravinsky, Arnold Schoenberg. Regional variations developed in Europe and North America, with movements such as German Expressionism, French avant-garde, Russian formalism, and the American Harlem Renaissance as overlapping modernist currents.

The legacy of modernismi lies in its challenge to realism and its emphasis on new forms of perception; it influenced later movements such as postmodernism and contemporary experimental practice. In non-English contexts, modernismi is often used to describe local adaptations of modernist ideas, while maintaining the common aim of reflecting modern influence on art and society.