modernism: definition

Modernism was a broad movement encompassing all the avant-garde isms of the first half of the 20th century. Although different modern-isms were often incompatible (and occasionally antagonistic) they all rejected the dominance of Naturalism and Academicism in favour of experimental art. The common trend was to seek answers to fundamental questions about the nature of art and human experience.

All modern-isms shared a common feeling that the modern world was fundamentally different from what had passed before and that art needed to renew itself by confronting and exploring its own modernity. For some this meant rejecting the industrial in favour of the primitive (Primitivism), for others a celebration of technology and machinery (Futurism).

In Modernism generally, the artist's exploration of his or her vision was paramount. Although this trend was already evident in the 19th century, it became an orthodoxy for Modernists. Certain modern-isms began to question what art is, what it is for and what it supports. Through this process artistic activity and cultural critique became more closely identified with each other. The Dadaists displaced the individual entirely, replacing him with the unconscious.

Modern-isms contested between themselves whether art should explore emotions and states of mind (Expressionism), spiritual order (Neo-Plasticism), social function (Constructivism), the unconscious (Surrealism), the nature of representation (Cubism) or the social role of art in a capitalist, bourgeois society (Dadaism). Many of these trends overlapped with one another.

Art increasingly became a means of discovering truth, whether a peculiarly modern truth (Futurism) or a universal truth (Suprematism).

Jean Arp - Overturned Blue Shoe with Two Heels Under a Black Vault (1925)

The unconscious, valued for its creative powers, became central to many modern-isms, not least for the Dadaists and Surrealists who tapped into it as the source of authentic, irrational creativity. The title of Arp's work is intended to be humorous and make us pay more attention to the work itself. Arp compared his creativity to natural forces of growth. The shapes in Overturned evoke the change and movement of living organisms and are meant to refute the rationalising preference for fixed forms and definite meanings in favour of the uncertain and the undefined.

Pablo Picasso - Carafe, Jug, and Fruit Bowl (1909)

Cubism, of which this painting is an example, is regarded as the most important modern-ism. Like many modern-isms, it makes intellect central to art. It systematically explores the relation between art and what it represents, thereby completely abandoning the Naturalistic aim to paint things 'simply' as they appear to the observer. Instead, Cubists sought to convey an object's existence in time and space, representing the object from different vantages. They explored how paintings are constructed, and how they function as works of art, making explicit the questions: what is art? And: what does art represent?