Modernism

The following is a brief description and introduction to Modernism. To see and hear examples of Modernist painting and poetry, simply click on the links provided!

(modernist poetry), and modernist painting seriously challenges all aspects of form.
 * Modernism:** a trend of thought that affirms the power of human beings to create, affect, and reshape their environment, but not always for the better. It encompasses a reformation movement in almost every art discipline, including, but not limited to, architecture, music, literature

The first half of the nineteenth century was marked by a number of wars and revolutions that revealed a rise of ideas and doctrines now viewed as Romanticism, in which the sublime supremacy of “Nature” was held as ideal. But from at least 1870, the idea that history, mankind and civilization are inherently progressive, and that progress is always a good thing, increasingly came under attack. A notable change began to be seen in the art world (remember, art attempts to mimic life to some extent): Charles Darwin, with his //Origin of Species//, made it hard to reconcile the ideas of spirituality and animal impulses, and Karl Marx’s //Communist Manifesto// helped to point out the flaws in society, especially capitalist ones. Sigmund Freud’s developments in psychology also influenced the movement, among many others. These ideas, often reinforced by warring countries during this period and following, brought about an entirely new way of looking at things. Impressionists such as Monet began demonstrating that human beings do not actually see objects for themselves, but rather the light reflecting off of them. Picasso and Braque began to distort perspective and space with Cubism, and idea soon copied by architects such as Guggenheim. Artists such as Dali seriously challenged the notion of reality with Surrealism, and authors began looking at language as a means of symbolism more than ever before. As the notion began to develop that all truth is subjective and, therefore, different for everybody, authors such as Virginia Woolf began to experiment with techniques such as stream of consciousness that helped lead readers to their own conclusions. As a result, poetry became an even more efficient means of making connections through visual stimulants and audio textures to frame silence. Imagery became king. The result was a new standard for perspective in modernism and the reaction to it, coined postmodernism, which lacks a clear central hierarchy or organizing principle and embodies extreme complexity. Each usage of postmodernism is inevitably related to some argument about the nature of knowledge, a branch of philosophy known as epistemology. Jorge Louis Borges’s experimentations with magical realism are considered by some as postmodernism. Unfortunately, there are not many specific dates with which to divide any of these schools of thought. Postmodernists argue that a global, decentralized society such as ours inevitably creates responses and perspectives that are postmodern, including the rise of “metanarratives”, or narratives that reinforce the idea of a global community. Some now argue that the period of postmodernism period has already ended, giving rise to pseudomodernism.