What is modernism?

Modernism (from French moderne - modern) is a generally accepted term for the art of the end of the 19th - the first half of the 20th century. It is applied to schools that are different in their ideological search, combining unrealistic trends in art and literature in one direction. This phenomenon arose at the beginning of the century and became widespread in Europe and in Russia.

Instruction manual

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The philosophical sources of modernism at the turn of the century were new ideological concepts, which were based on the principle of irrationalism, i.e. recognition of the powerlessness of the human mind in cognition of the universe, recognition of its "chaotic" beginning. This understanding corresponded to the alarming worldview of a person of that era, a premonition of events close to a catastrophe or apocalypse. The general designation of crisis, depressive moods was called decadence. For a long time the concepts of "modernism" and "decadence" were identified, however, such an understanding greatly simplifies the meaning of these concepts.

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Modernism as a new art of modernity was generally opposed to traditional art in the choice of themes for creativity, forms, means and methods of embodiment of reality. The ideas of the absurdity and illogicality of the world penetrated into various types of creativity and changed the general idea of ​​the role of the artist, who could perceive the world only subjectively. The modernists imagined themselves to be creators of a new reality and a new art that corresponded to the trends of the time.

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The cultural space of the era of modernism included many independent directions, which were different in their significance and influence on the development of art as a whole: symbolism, existentialism, expressionism, futurism, cubism, imagism, surrealism, etc. Common to them were the principles of the denial of academic culture, the traditions of art of the past era and, as a result, the rejection of the traditional language and the active search for new techniques in depicting the world and man. Sometimes such experiments led to completely meaningless forms of presentation of creative material, for example, “abstruse” language created by cubo-futurists, which fundamentally destroyed the verbal fabric of the text, or a complete rejection of the principles of linear reproduction of phenomena in painting.

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Conventionally, the era of the existence of modernism can be divided into several stages. Early modernism, taking shape in the currents of symbolism, acmeism, futurism in the 10s of the twentieth century, was distinguished by the special force of the denial of the traditional, the shocking and extreme extravagance of works of art. A vivid illustration is the monostich of the leader of Moscow symbolists V. Bryusov, “Oh shut your pale legs, ” which became a concentrated manifestation of formal experiments by modernists.

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During the First World War, the course of Dadaism arose in European literature and painting, which became the embodiment of the extreme absurdity of life, denying both man and art in general. Dadaism has formed the most important techniques of modernist technology: the "dismemberment" of reality into incomplete fragments, the "kaleidoscopic nature" of random events and their chaotic combination.

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In the 1920s and 1930s, one of the most significant trends in the art of modernism arose - surrealism. Current theorist Andre Breton proclaimed the absolutely rebellious nature of surrealism against the foundations of life, morality, humanity. Louis Aragon, Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali "emerged" from the bowels of this direction.

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In the years after the Second World War, modernism was embodied in the areas of the "theater of the absurd", the schools of the "new novel", "pop art", in kinetic art, etc. In the 60-70s, the term "postmodernism" appeared, combining new phenomena in the art of this era and extending to all radical processes of life, including the feminist and anti-racist movements.

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There is another definition of modernism as a complex set of ideological and aesthetic phenomena, including not only avant-garde movements, but also the work of outstanding contemporary artists who have “crossed the limits” of aesthetic views and techniques of modernist schools. This definition makes it possible to put in one row the names of M. Proust, D. Joyce, A. Bely, K. Balmont, J. Anouil, J. Cocteau, F. Kafka, A. Blok, O. Mandelstam and other famous artists of the era modernism.