moderns

Moderns is a plural term used to describe people who embrace modernity or modernist sensibilities across various domains, including art, literature, philosophy, and social life. The label is often applied descriptively to those who seek to move beyond traditional forms and values, or to groups identified with contemporary cultural currents. It is commonly contrasted with “ancients” or “traditionalists,” though its precise meaning varies by context.

Historically, the concept emerged in the 19th and early 20th centuries amid rapid urbanization, scientific advances, and secularization. In cultural discourse, “the moderns” referred to writers, artists, and thinkers who pursued new forms and methods to reflect modern experience rather than imitate the past. The term can be neutral, celebratory, or pejorative depending on the speaker and era.

In arts and letters, moderns sought experimentation, novelty, and a break with established conventions. In literature, this included stream-of-consciousness narration and fragmented structures; in visual arts, abstraction and experimentation with perspective and medium; in music and architecture, innovative techniques and materials. Notable figures often associated with modernist sensibilities span many fields, including authors such as James Joyce and Virginia Woolf, painters like Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse, and architects such as Le Corbusier.

In philosophy, sociology, and theology, moderns typically align with rational inquiry, empirical methods, and critical approaches to tradition. Religious modernism, for example, sought to reinterpret doctrine in light of contemporary knowledge. Today, the term remains fluid; “moderns” may refer to adherents of current innovations or to proponents of modernist aesthetics, depending on context. See also modernism, modernity, and postmodernism.