Editing Modernism (section)

== Origins and early history ==
[[File:La Liberté guidant le peuple - Eugène Delacroix - Musée du Louvre Peintures RF 129 - après restauration 2024.jpg|thumb|upright=1.15|[[Eugène Delacroix]]'s ''[[Liberty Leading the People]]'', 1830, a [[Romanticism|Romantic]] work of art]]
{{See also|Literary modernism|Modernist poetry|Modernism in the Catholic Church}}

=== Romanticism and realism ===
{{See also|Romanticism|Realism (art movement)}}
Modernism developed out of Romanticism's revolt against the effects of the [[Industrial Revolution]] and [[bourgeois]] values. Literary scholar [[Gerald Graff]], argues that, "The ground motive of modernism was criticism of the 19th-century bourgeois social order and its world view; the modernists, carrying the torch of Romanticism."{{efn| name=Barth79Replenishment|The ground motive of modernism, Graff asserts, was criticism of the 19th-century bourgeois social order and its world view. Its artistic strategy was the self-conscious overturning of the conventions of bourgeois realism ... the antirationalist, antirealist, antibourgeois program of modernism ... the modernists, carrying the torch of Romanticism, taught us that linearity, rationality, consciousness, cause and effect, naïve illusionism, transparent language, innocent anecdote, and middle-class moral conventions are not the whole story.<ref>Barth (1979) quotation</ref>}}<ref name="Graff73">{{cite periodical |author-link=Gerald Graff |last=Graff |first=Gerald |title=The myth of the postmodernist breakthrough |periodical=[[TriQuarterly]] |volume=26 |date=Winter 1973 |pages=383–417}}</ref><ref name="Graff75">{{cite periodical |author-link=Gerald Graff |last=Graff |first=Gerald |title=Babbitt at the abyss: The social context of postmodern American fiction |periodical=[[TriQuarterly]] |volume=33 |date=Spring 1975 |pages=307–337}}</ref>

[[File:LenbachFürstBismarck1895.jpg|thumb|upright=0.8|left|[[Franz von Lenbach]], ''Fürst Otto von Bismarck'', 1895. A [[Realism (arts)|realist]] portrait of [[Otto von Bismarck]] during his retirement. Modernist artists largely rejected realism.]]
While [[J. M. W. Turner]] (1775–1851), one of the most notable landscape painters of the 19th century, was a member of the [[Romantic movement]], his pioneering work in the study of light, color, and atmosphere "anticipated the French [[Impressionists]]" and therefore modernism "in breaking down conventional formulas of representation; though unlike them, he believed that his works should always express significant historical, mythological, literary, or other narrative themes."<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |url=https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/610274/J-M-W-Turner |title=J.M.W. Turner |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica |date=25 May 2023 |access-date=23 June 2022 |archive-date=30 January 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100130101931/http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/610274/J-M-W-Turner |url-status=live }}</ref>
However, the modernists were critical of the Romantics' belief that art serves as a window into the nature of reality. They argued that since each viewer interprets art through their own subjective perspective, it can never convey the ultimate metaphysical truth that the Romantics sought. Nonetheless, the modernists did not completely reject the idea of art as a means of understanding the world. To them, it was a tool for challenging and disrupting the viewer's point of view, rather than as a direct means of accessing a higher reality.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Josipovici |first=Gabriel |title=The world and the book: a study of modern fiction |date=1994 |publisher=Macmillan |isbn=978-0-333-60901-9 |edition=3rd |location=Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire |chapter=Chapter 7: Modernism and Romanticism}}</ref>

Modernism often rejects 19th-century realism when the latter is understood as focusing on the embodiment of meaning within a naturalistic representation. Instead, some modernists aim at a more 'real' realism, one that is uncentered. For instance, [[Pablo Picasso|Picasso's]] 1907 [[Proto-Cubism|Proto-Cubist]] painting ''[[Les Demoiselles d'Avignon]]'' does not present its subjects from a single point of view, instead presenting a flat, two-dimensional [[picture plane]]. ''The Poet'' of 1911 is similarly decentered, presenting the body from multiple points of view. As the [[Peggy Guggenheim Collection]] comments, "Picasso presents multiple views of each object, as if he had moved around it, and synthesizes them into a single compound image."<ref>The painting is in the Peggy Guggenheim Collection. See: https://www.guggenheim-venice.it/en/art/works/the-poet/ {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230805145510/https://www.guggenheim-venice.it/en/art/works/the-poet/ |date=5 August 2023 }}.</ref>

Modernism, with its sense that "things fall apart," is often seen as the [[apotheosis]] of Romanticism. As August Wilhelm Schlegel, an early German Romantic, described it, while Romanticism searches for metaphysical truths about character, nature, [[Conceptions of God|higher power]], and meaning in the world, modernism, although yearning for such a metaphysical center, only finds its collapse.<ref>Schlegel, as an early German romantic, declared, "Only when striving toward truth and knowledge can a spirit be called a philosophical spirit". [https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aesthetics-19th-romantic/ See '19th Century Romantic Aesthetics' in ''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'']. The idea of Romanticism as an internalized quest is commonplace. Harold Bloom, for instance, has written extensively on Romanticism as 'The Internalisation of Quest-Romance' in ''Romanticism and Consciousness'', New York: Norton, 1970, pp.3–24.</ref>

=== The early 19th century ===
{{See also|Impressionism}}
[[File:Crystal_Palace_General_view_from_Water_Temple.jpg|thumb|[[The Crystal Palace]] at Sydenham (1854). At the time it was built, the Crystal Palace boasted the greatest area of glass ever seen in a building.]]
In the context of the Industrial Revolution (~1760–1840), influential innovations included [[Steam engine|steam-powered industrialization]], especially the development of railways starting in Britain in the 1830s,<ref>{{cite book |first=Stuart |last=Hylton |year=2007 |title=The Grand Experiment: The birth of the Railway Age, 1820–1845 |publisher=Ian Allan Publishing}}</ref> and the subsequent advancements in physics, engineering, and architecture they led to. A major 19th-century engineering achievement was the [[The Crystal Palace|Crystal Palace]], the huge cast-iron and plate-glass exhibition hall built for the [[Great Exhibition|Great Exhibition of 1851]] in London.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2024-12-05 |title=Crystal Palace {{!}} Description, History, & Facts |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Crystal-Palace-building-London |access-date=2025-01-06 |website=www.britannica.com |language=en}}</ref> Glass and iron were used in a similar monumental style in the construction of major railway terminals throughout the city, including  [[London King's Cross railway station|King's Cross station]] (1852)<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.lner.info/co/GNR/kingscross.shtml |series=LNER Encyclopedia |title=The Great Northern Railway: Kings Cross Station |access-date=19 November 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150429044237/http://www.lner.info/co/GNR/kingscross.shtml |archive-date=29 April 2015}}</ref> and [[Paddington Station]] (1854).<ref>{{cite book |first=R.V.J. |last=Butt |date=1995 |title=The Directory of Railway Stations |location=Yeovil |publisher=Patrick Stephens |page=180}}</ref> These technological advances spread abroad, leading to later structures such as the [[Brooklyn Bridge]] (1883)<ref>{{Cite web |title=NYC's Bucket List Walk |url=https://www.nyctourism.com/articles/guide-to-the-brooklyn-bridge/ |access-date=2025-01-06 |website=New York City Tourism + Conventions |language=en-US}}</ref> and the [[Eiffel Tower]] (1889), the latter of which broke all previous limitations on how tall man-made objects could be.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2017-10-30 |title=Eiffel Tower history, architecture, design & construction |url=https://www.toureiffel.paris/en/the-monument/history |access-date=2025-01-06 |website=www.toureiffel.paris |language=en}}</ref> While such engineering feats radically altered the 19th-century urban environment and the daily lives of people, the human experience of time itself was altered with the development of the [[electric telegraph]] in 1837,<ref>{{cite book |first=Geoffrey |last=Hubbard |year=1965 |title=Cooke, and Wheatstone, and the Invention of the Electric Telegraph |publisher=[[Routledge]] & Kegan Paul |place=London, UK |page=78}}</ref> as well as the adoption of "[[standard time]]" by British railway companies from 1845, a concept which would be adopted throughout the rest of the world over the next fifty years.<ref>{{cite journal |first=Ian R. |last=Bartky |date=January 1989 |title=The adoption of standard time |journal=[[Technology and Culture]] |volume=30 |issue=1 |pages=25–56 |doi=10.2307/3105430 |jstor=3105430 |s2cid=111724161 |url=https://zenodo.org/record/1235143 |access-date=3 October 2020 |archive-date=26 November 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201126015659/https://zenodo.org/record/1235143 |url-status=live }}</ref>

Despite continuing technological advances, the ideas that history and civilization were inherently progressive and that such advances were always good came under increasing attack in the 19th century. Arguments arose that the values of the artist and those of society were not merely different, but in fact oftentimes opposed, and that society's current values were antithetical to further progress; therefore, civilization could not move forward in its present form. Early in the century, the philosopher [[Schopenhauer]] (1788–1860) (''[[The World as Will and Representation]]'', 1819/20) called into question previous optimism.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Kay |first=Nichee |date=2019-07-15 |title=The Optimism in Arthur Schopenhauer's Pessimistic Philosophy |url=https://nchky.medium.com/the-optimism-in-arthur-schopenhauers-pessimistic-philosophy-f7e8b2d20a03 |access-date=2025-01-06 |website=Medium |language=en}}</ref> His ideas had an important influence on later thinkers, including [[Friedrich Nietzsche]] (1844–1900).<ref name="Stanford">{{cite encyclopedia |year=2017 |title=Søren Kierkegaard |encyclopedia=Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |publisher=Stanford University |url=http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kierkegaard/ |department=Metaphysics Research Lab |access-date=30 November 2014 |archive-date=25 February 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170225014254/https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kierkegaard/ |url-status=live }}</ref> Similarly, [[Søren Kierkegaard]] (1813–1855)<ref name="Stanford" /> and Nietzsche<ref name="Collinson">{{cite book |last=Collinson |first=Diané |title=Fifty Major Philosophers: A reference guide |publisher=Routledge |year=1987 |place=London, UK}}</ref>{{rp|page=120}} both later rejected the idea that reality could be understood through a purely objective lens, a rejection that had a significant influence on the development of [[existentialism]] and [[nihilism]].

[[File:Edouard Manet - Olympia - Google Art Project 3.jpg|thumb|left|[[Édouard Manet]], ''[[Olympia (Manet)|Olympia]]'', 1863–65, [[Oil on canvas]], [[Musée d'Orsay]]. Olympia's confrontational gaze caused great controversy when the painting was first exhibited at the 1865 [[Salon (Paris)|Paris Salon]], especially as a number of details identified her as a ''[[Demimonde|demi-mondaine]],'' or [[courtesan]]. These include the fact that the name "Olympia" was associated with prostitutes in 1860s Paris. Conservatives condemned the work as "immoral" and "vulgar".]]
Around 1850, the [[Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood]] (a group of English poets, painters, and art critics) began to challenge the dominant trends of industrial [[Victorian England]] in "opposition to technical skill without inspiration."<ref name="Bloomsbury">{{cite book |title=The Bloomsbury Guide to English Literature |publisher=Prentice Hall |year=1990 |editor-last=Wynne-Davies |editor-first=Marion |place=New York, NY}}</ref>{{rp|page=815}} They were influenced by the writings of the art critic [[John Ruskin]] (1819–1900), who had strong feelings about the role of art in helping to improve the lives of the urban working classes in the rapidly expanding industrial cities of Britain.<ref name="Bloomsbury" />{{rp|page=816}} Art critic [[Clement Greenberg]] described the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood as proto-modernists: "There the proto-modernists were, of all people, the Pre-Raphaelites (and even before them, as proto-proto-modernists, the German [[Nazarene movement|Nazarenes]]). The Pre-Raphaelites foreshadowed [[Édouard Manet|Manet]] (1832–1883), with whom modernist painting most definitely begins. They acted on a dissatisfaction with painting as practiced in their time, holding that its realism wasn't truthful enough."<ref name="Greenberg">{{cite periodical |last=Greenberg |first=Clement |date=February 1980 |title=Modern and Postmodern |url=http://www.sharecom.ca/greenberg/postmodernism.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190901163630/http://www.sharecom.ca/greenberg/postmodernism.html |archive-date=1 September 2019 |access-date=15 June 2006 |volume=54 |issue=6 |series=William Dobell Memorial Lecture, Sydney, Australia, 31&nbsp;October 1979 |periodical=Arts}}</ref>

Two of the most significant thinkers of the mid-19th century were biologist [[Charles Darwin]] (1809–1882), author of ''[[On the Origin of Species|On the Origin of Species through Natural Selection]]'' (1859), and political scientist [[Karl Marx]] (1818–1883), author of ''[[Das Kapital]]'' (1867). Despite coming from different fields, both of their theories threatened the established order. Darwin's [[theory of evolution]] by [[natural selection]] undermined [[Religious views on truth|religious certainty]] and the idea of [[Anthropocentrism|human uniqueness]]; in particular, the notion that human beings are driven by the [[Instinct|same impulses]] as "lower animals" proved to be difficult to reconcile with the idea of an ennobling [[spirituality]].<ref>{{cite book |title=The Norton Anthology of English Literature |volume=2 |edition=7th |place=New York, NY |publisher=[[W. W. Norton & Company]] |year=2000 |pages=1051–1052}}</ref> Meanwhile, Marx's arguments that there are fundamental contradictions within the [[capitalist system]] and that workers are [[Labor rights|anything but free]] led to the formulation of [[Marxist theory]].<ref>{{cite book |first=Craig J. |last=Calhoun |year=2002 |title=Classical Sociological Theory |place=Oxford, UK |publisher=[[Wiley-Blackwell]] |pages=20–23}}</ref>

[[African art]] had an important influence on modernist art, which was inspired by their interest in abstract depiction.<ref name="African Influences in Modern Art">Murrell, Denise. [http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/aima/hd_aima.htm "African Influences in Modern Art"], ''[[The Metropolitan Museum of Art]]'', April 2008. Retrieved on 31 January 2013.</ref><ref name=":8">{{cite encyclopedia |title=Art and architecture, History of African |encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of African History |publisher=[[Fitzroy Dearborn]] |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=umyHqvAErOAC&pg=PA636 |last=Lawal |first=Babatunde |date=2005 |editor-last1=Shillington |editor-first1=Kevin |pages= |isbn=1-57958-245-1}}</ref>

[[File:Redon spirit-waters.jpg|thumb|[[Odilon Redon]], ''Guardian Spirit of the Waters'', 1878, charcoal on paper, [[Art Institute of Chicago]]. Describing his work, Redon explained, "My drawings ''inspire'', and are not to be defined. They place us, as does music, in the ambiguous realm of the undetermined."<ref name="Goldwater">{{cite book | title = Artists on Art | first1 = Robert | last1 = Goldwater | first2 = Marco |last2 = Treves | publisher = Pantheon | year = 1945 | isbn = 0-394-70900-4}}</ref>]]

=== The late 19th century ===
{{See also|Post-Impressionism|Neo-Impressionism}}

Art historians have suggested various dates as starting points for modernism. Historian [[William Everdell]] argued that modernism began in the 1870s when metaphorical (or [[ontological]]) continuity began to yield to the discrete with mathematician [[Richard Dedekind]]'s (1831–1916) [[Dedekind cut]] and [[Ludwig Boltzmann]]'s (1844–1906) [[statistical thermodynamics]].<ref name="Everdell" /> Everdell also believed modernism in painting began in 1885–1886 with post-Impressionist artist [[Georges Seurat]]'s development of [[Divisionism]], the "dots" used to paint ''[[A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte]]''. On the other hand, visual art critic [[Clement Greenberg]] called German philosopher [[Immanuel Kant]] (1724–1804) "the first real modernist",<ref>Frascina and Harrison 1982, p. 5.</ref> although he also wrote, "What can be safely called modernism emerged in the middle of the last century—and rather locally, in France, with [[Charles Baudelaire]] (1821–1867) in literature and [[Édouard Manet|Manet]] in painting, and perhaps with [[Gustave Flaubert]] (1821–1880), too, in prose fiction. (It was a while later, and not so locally, that modernism appeared in music and architecture)."<ref name=Greenberg/> The poet Baudelaire's ''[[Les Fleurs du mal]]'' (''The Flowers of Evil'') and the author Flaubert's ''[[Madame Bovary]]'' were both published in 1857. Baudelaire's essay "[[The Painter of Modern Life]]" (1863) inspired young artists to break away from tradition and innovate new ways of portraying their world in art.

Beginning in the 1860s, two approaches in the arts and letters developed separately in France. The first was [[Impressionism]], a school of painting that initially focused on work done not in studios, but outdoors (''[[en plein air]]'').<ref>{{Cite web |last=Samu |first=Authors: Margaret |title=Impressionism: Art and Modernity {{!}} Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History |url=https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/imml/hd_imml.htm |access-date=2025-01-06 |website=The Met’s Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History |language=en}}</ref> Impressionist paintings attempted to convey that human beings do not see objects, but instead see light itself. The school gathered adherents despite internal divisions among its leading practitioners and became increasingly influential. Initially rejected from the most important commercial show of the time, the government-sponsored [[Paris Salon]], the Impressionists organized yearly group exhibitions in commercial venues during the 1870s and 1880s, timing them to coincide with the official Salon. In 1863, the [[Salon des Refusés]], created by [[Napoleon III|Emperor Napoleon III]], displayed all of the paintings rejected by the Paris Salon. While most were in standard styles, but by inferior artists, the work of [[Édouard Manet|Manet]] attracted attention and opened commercial doors to the movement. The second French school was [[Symbolism (arts)|symbolism]], which literary historians see beginning with Charles Baudelaire and including the later poets [[Arthur Rimbaud]] (1854–1891) with [[A Season in Hell|Une Saison en Enfer]] (''A Season in Hell'', 1873), [[Paul Verlaine]] (1844–1896), [[Stéphane Mallarmé]] (1842–1898), and [[Paul Valéry]] (1871–1945). The symbolists "stressed the priority of suggestion and evocation over direct description and explicit analogy," and were especially interested in "the musical properties of language."<ref>''The Oxford Companion to English Literature'', ed. [[Margaret Drabble]], Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996, p. 966.</ref>

[[Cabaret]], which gave birth to so many of the arts of modernism, including the immediate precursors of film, may be said to have begun in France in 1881 with the opening of the [[Le Chat Noir|Black Cat]] in [[Montmartre]], the beginning of the ironic monologue, and the founding of the Society of Incoherent Arts.<ref>Phillip Dennis Cate and Mary Shaw, eds., ''The Spirit of Montmartre: Cabarets, Humor, and the Avant-Garde, 1875–1905''. New Brunswick, NJ: [[Rutgers University]], 1996.</ref>

[[File:Bonheur Matisse.jpg|thumb|left|[[Henri Matisse]], ''[[Le bonheur de vivre]]'', 1905–1906, [[Barnes Foundation]], [[Merion, PA]]. An Early [[Fauvism|Fauvist]] masterpiece.]]

The theories of [[Sigmund Freud]] (1856–1939), [[Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing|Krafft-Ebing]] and other [[Sexology|sexologists]] were influential in the early days of modernism. Freud's first major work was ''[[Studies on Hysteria]]'' (with [[Josef Breuer]], 1895). Central to Freud's thinking is the idea "of the primacy of the unconscious mind in mental life", so that all subjective reality was based on the interactions between basic drives and instincts, through which the outside world was perceived. Freud's description of subjective states involved an unconscious mind full of primal impulses, and counterbalancing self-imposed restrictions derived from social values.<ref name=Bloomsbury/>{{rp|page=538}}
[[File:Matissedance.jpg|thumb|upright=1.35|[[Henri Matisse]], ''[[The Dance (second version)|The Dance]],'' 1910, [[Hermitage Museum]], [[Saint Petersburg|St. Petersburg]], Russia. At the beginning of the 20th century, [[Henri Matisse]] and several other young artists, including the pre-cubist [[Georges Braque]], [[André Derain]], [[Raoul Dufy]] and [[Maurice de Vlaminck]] revolutionized the Paris art world with "wild",

multi-colored, expressive landscapes and figure paintings that the critics called [[Fauvism]]. Henri Matisse's second version of ''[[The Dance (painting)|The Dance]]'' signifies a key point in his career and in the development of modern painting.<ref>Russell T. Clement. ''Four French Symbolists''. [[Greenwood Press]], 1996. p. 114.</ref>]]

The works of [[Friedrich Nietzsche]] (1844–1900) were another major precursor of modernism,<ref>Robert Gooding-Williams, "Nietzsche's Pursuit of Modernism",
''New German Critique'', No. 41, Special Issue on the Critiques of the Enlightenment. (Spring–Summer, 1987), pp. 95–108.</ref> with a philosophy in which psychological drives, specifically the "[[will to power]]" (''Wille zur macht''), were of central importance: "Nietzsche often identified life itself with 'will to power', that is, with an instinct for growth and durability."<ref>Bernd Magnus, "Friedrich Nietzsche". ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' Online Academic Edition. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2013. Web. 19 November 2013.</ref><ref>{{cite encyclopedia |url=https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/414670/Friedrich-Nietzsche |title=Friedrich Nietzsche |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica |date=11 October 2023 |access-date=23 June 2022 |archive-date=29 April 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150429071256/http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/414670/Friedrich-Nietzsche |url-status=live }}</ref> [[Henri Bergson]] (1859–1941), on the other hand, emphasized the difference between scientific, clock time and the direct, subjective human experience of time.<ref name=Collinson/>{{rp|page=131}} His work on time and consciousness "had a great influence on 20th-century novelists" especially those modernists who used the "[[stream of consciousness]]" technique, such as [[Dorothy Richardson]], [[James Joyce]], and [[Virginia Woolf]] (1882–1941).<ref>''The Bloomsbury Guides to English Literature: The Twentieth Century'', ed. Linda R. Williams. London: Bloomsbury, 1992, pp. 108–109.</ref> Also important in Bergson's philosophy was the idea of ''élan vital'', the life force, which "brings about the creative evolution of everything."<ref name=Collinson/>{{rp|page=132}} His philosophy also placed a high value on [[intuition]], though without rejecting the importance of the intellect.<ref name=Collinson/>{{rp|page=132}}

Important literary precursors of modernism included esteemed writers such as [[Fyodor Dostoevsky]] (1821–1881), whose novels include ''[[Crime and Punishment]]'' (1866) and ''[[The Brothers Karamazov]]'' (1880);<ref>David Denby, ''New Yorker'', 11 June 2012, "Can Dostoevsky Still Kick You in the Gut?"</ref> [[Walt Whitman]] (1819–1892), who published the poetry collection ''[[Leaves of Grass]]'' (1855–1891); and [[August Strindberg]] (1849–1912), especially his later plays, including the trilogy ''To Damascus'' 1898–1901,''A Dream Play'' (1902) and ''The Ghost Sonata'' (1907). [[Henry James]] has also been suggested as a significant precursor to modernism in works as early as ''[[The Portrait of a Lady]]'' (1881).<ref>[[M. H. Abrams]], ''A Glossary of Literary Terms''. (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1999), p. 299.</ref>