Modernism
noun
An art style in the late 1800s and 1900s that breaks with traditional forms and techniques.
Picasso's work is a great example of modernism in art.

Often appears as...
- modernism in literature
- modernism in art
Usage tips
Academic
noun
Ideas and methods that are different from those used in the past, leading to new inventions or styles.
Modernism plays a huge role in today's rapidly changing technology industry.

Often appears as...
- modernism in tech
- embrace of modernism
noun
An art style in the late 1800s and 1900s that breaks with traditional forms and techniques.
Picasso's work is a great example of modernism in art.

Often appears as...
- modernism in literature
- modernism in art
Usage tips
Academic
noun
Ideas and methods that are different from those used in the past, leading to new inventions or styles.
Modernism plays a huge role in today's rapidly changing technology industry.

Often appears as...
- modernism in tech
- embrace of modernism
Definition 1 of 2

Historical Break
Modernism represents a break from historical styles, focusing on new and experimental techniques.

His modernism-inspired statue ignores classical poses, instead capturing raw emotion.
Cultural Shifts
Typically, modernism reflects cultural shifts and the questioning of traditional values.

Modernism in literature often challenges societal norms and gives voice to new perspectives.
Unique Forms
Artworks labeled as modernism might appear unconventional with abstract or fragmented forms.

Modernism brings a canvas to life with colors and shapes divorced from reality.
Historical Break
Modernism represents a break from historical styles, focusing on new and experimental techniques.

His modernism-inspired statue ignores classical poses, instead capturing raw emotion.
Cultural Shifts
Typically, modernism reflects cultural shifts and the questioning of traditional values.

Modernism in literature often challenges societal norms and gives voice to new perspectives.
Unique Forms
Artworks labeled as modernism might appear unconventional with abstract or fragmented forms.

Modernism brings a canvas to life with colors and shapes divorced from reality.
Historical Break
Modernism represents a break from historical styles, focusing on new and experimental techniques.

His modernism-inspired statue ignores classical poses, instead capturing raw emotion.
Cultural Shifts
Typically, modernism reflects cultural shifts and the questioning of traditional values.

Modernism in literature often challenges societal norms and gives voice to new perspectives.
Unique Forms
Artworks labeled as modernism might appear unconventional with abstract or fragmented forms.

Modernism brings a canvas to life with colors and shapes divorced from reality.
Video examples
The design genius of...
And you know some of them would probably be terrible chairs. Some of them are kind of cool looking. It's like "Hey, why didn't they try that?" It was that hands-on iterative process which is so much like vernacular design and folk design in traditional cultures. And I think that's one of the commonalities between modernism
Video examples
Rob Forbes: Ways of...
and maybe it's self-explanatory, but a city that hasn't been taken over by modernism, that's preserved its kind of architecture and character, and where the bicycle plays an important part of the way in which people get around and where pedestrian rights are protected. And I write a newsletter that goes out every week,
Video examples
The poet who painted...
and the phonograph. Within that divide, through the creation of his most important contribution to poetry, the calligram, Guillaume Apollinaire built a bridge. Apollinaire created the calligram as a poem picture, a written portrait, a thoughts drawing, and he used it to express his modernism
Video examples
How a typeface helped...
every thing that I read is filled with the thing I love. Now, once you understand the history and what happens with typography, you actually have a history of everything before you. And this is the typeface Futura. As previously we've discussed, this is modernism in miniature.
Video examples
National Geographic...
and said that it's real important along the edges to always have the clean edges. He said to kind of go like that. It's a very small difference but if you look, it sort of makes it a little cleaner along the edges. I think that's sort of the modernism eye
Video examples
Why should you read...
is one of the things that makes it so difficult, but it also helps make it enjoyable. And it's one of the reasons that the book is held up as one of the key texts of literary modernism, a movement characterized by overturning traditional modes of writing.
Video examples
Steven Pinker: Human...
in the 15th century; here is a representative example of the depiction of the female form in the 20th century. And, as you can see, there -- something has changed in the way the elite arts appeal to the senses. Indeed, in movements of modernism
Video examples
An eco-modernist...
scholars and scientists in co-authoring an eco modernist manifesto it lays out a new vision of how to protect the environment while ensuring people across the planet can live fulfilling lives Eco modernism is optimistic about
Video examples
Mustafa Akyol: Faith...
That trend is generally called Islamic modernism, and it was advanced by intellectuals and statesmen, not just as an intellectual idea, though, but also as a political program. And that's why, actually, in the 19th century,
Video examples
Bran Ferren: To create...
towards modernism in the 20th century. Isn't it remarkable that, after thousands of years of people doing mostly representational art, that modern art, comparatively speaking, is about 15 minutes old, yet now pervasive.
Video examples
The design genius of...
And you know some of them would probably be terrible chairs. Some of them are kind of cool looking. It's like "Hey, why didn't they try that?" It was that hands-on iterative process which is so much like vernacular design and folk design in traditional cultures. And I think that's one of the commonalities between modernism
Video examples
Rob Forbes: Ways of...
and maybe it's self-explanatory, but a city that hasn't been taken over by modernism, that's preserved its kind of architecture and character, and where the bicycle plays an important part of the way in which people get around and where pedestrian rights are protected. And I write a newsletter that goes out every week,
Video examples
The poet who painted...
and the phonograph. Within that divide, through the creation of his most important contribution to poetry, the calligram, Guillaume Apollinaire built a bridge. Apollinaire created the calligram as a poem picture, a written portrait, a thoughts drawing, and he used it to express his modernism
Video examples
How a typeface helped...
every thing that I read is filled with the thing I love. Now, once you understand the history and what happens with typography, you actually have a history of everything before you. And this is the typeface Futura. As previously we've discussed, this is modernism in miniature.
Video examples
National Geographic...
and said that it's real important along the edges to always have the clean edges. He said to kind of go like that. It's a very small difference but if you look, it sort of makes it a little cleaner along the edges. I think that's sort of the modernism eye
Video examples
Why should you read...
is one of the things that makes it so difficult, but it also helps make it enjoyable. And it's one of the reasons that the book is held up as one of the key texts of literary modernism, a movement characterized by overturning traditional modes of writing.
Video examples
Steven Pinker: Human...
in the 15th century; here is a representative example of the depiction of the female form in the 20th century. And, as you can see, there -- something has changed in the way the elite arts appeal to the senses. Indeed, in movements of modernism
Video examples
An eco-modernist...
scholars and scientists in co-authoring an eco modernist manifesto it lays out a new vision of how to protect the environment while ensuring people across the planet can live fulfilling lives Eco modernism is optimistic about
Video examples
Mustafa Akyol: Faith...
That trend is generally called Islamic modernism, and it was advanced by intellectuals and statesmen, not just as an intellectual idea, though, but also as a political program. And that's why, actually, in the 19th century,
Video examples
Bran Ferren: To create...
towards modernism in the 20th century. Isn't it remarkable that, after thousands of years of people doing mostly representational art, that modern art, comparatively speaking, is about 15 minutes old, yet now pervasive.
Example 1 of 10
Quote examples
Paul Rand
American Designer
I haven't changed my mind about modernism from the first day I ever did it... It means integrity; it means honesty; it means the absence of sentimentality and the absence of nostalgia; it means simplicity; it means clarity. That's what modernism means to me.

Quote examples
James Fenton
British Poet
The voice is raised, and that is where poetry begins. And even today, in the prolonged aftermath of modernism, in places where 'open form' or free verse is the orthodoxy, you will find a memory of that raising of the voice in the term 'heightened speech.

Quote examples
Will Self
English Author
As for critical writing about modernism, its moments of lucidity are but fulgurations illuminating the dark and incomprehensible landscape of its subject's unabashed difficulty.

Quote examples
Ali Smith
Scottish Writer
People tend to see modernism as the opposite of a celebration. They see it as a fracturing and an art built round an absence, but it's really a celebration of our existence.

Quote examples
Skeet Ulrich
American Actor
Because of the need to remove all modernism, we stayed in the middle of nowhere all day long, living out of tents. It was cold. It definitely set the scene.

Quote examples
Margaret MacMillan
Canadian Historian
Modernism was born in part out of the need to find fresh ways of expression, to describe a new world that was unlike anything that had gone before.

Quote examples
Ma Yansong
Chinese Architect
We try to turn buildings into landscapes - defying the idea of modernism which sees nature and buildings as two distinct elements.

Quote examples
Peter Gay
American Historian
What interests me, and has always interested me, has been modernism.

Quote examples
Christian Lacroix
French Designer
French design hardly exists, except as artificial modernism.

Quote examples
Daniel Barenboim
Argentinian Musician
When you get to be 103, modernism is a very wide concept.

Quote examples
Paul Rand
American Designer
I haven't changed my mind about modernism from the first day I ever did it... It means integrity; it means honesty; it means the absence of sentimentality and the absence of nostalgia; it means simplicity; it means clarity. That's what modernism means to me.

Quote examples
James Fenton
British Poet
The voice is raised, and that is where poetry begins. And even today, in the prolonged aftermath of modernism, in places where 'open form' or free verse is the orthodoxy, you will find a memory of that raising of the voice in the term 'heightened speech.

Quote examples
Will Self
English Author
As for critical writing about modernism, its moments of lucidity are but fulgurations illuminating the dark and incomprehensible landscape of its subject's unabashed difficulty.

Quote examples
Ali Smith
Scottish Writer
People tend to see modernism as the opposite of a celebration. They see it as a fracturing and an art built round an absence, but it's really a celebration of our existence.

Quote examples
Skeet Ulrich
American Actor
Because of the need to remove all modernism, we stayed in the middle of nowhere all day long, living out of tents. It was cold. It definitely set the scene.

Quote examples
Margaret MacMillan
Canadian Historian
Modernism was born in part out of the need to find fresh ways of expression, to describe a new world that was unlike anything that had gone before.

Quote examples
Ma Yansong
Chinese Architect
We try to turn buildings into landscapes - defying the idea of modernism which sees nature and buildings as two distinct elements.

Quote examples
Peter Gay
American Historian
What interests me, and has always interested me, has been modernism.

Quote examples
Christian Lacroix
French Designer
French design hardly exists, except as artificial modernism.

Quote examples
Daniel Barenboim
Argentinian Musician
When you get to be 103, modernism is a very wide concept.

Example 1 of 10
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