Editing Modernism (section)

== Modernism emerges ==
[[File:Wrightfallingwater.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Frank Lloyd Wright]], [[Fallingwater]], [[Mill Run, Fayette County, Pennsylvania|Mill Run]], Pennsylvania (1937). Fallingwater was one of Wright's most famous private residences (completed in 1937).]]
{{See also|Cubism|Expressionism|Modernism (music)|Twentieth-century English literature|American modernism}}

=== 1901 to 1930 ===
[[File:Woluwe-St-Pierre - Hoffmann 050917 (1).jpg|thumb|left|[[Stoclet Palace]] (1905–1911) by [[Modern architecture|Modernist architect]] [[Josef Hoffmann]]]]
[[File:Picasso Portrait of Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler 1910.jpg|thumb|upright|Pablo Picasso, ''Portrait of [[Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler]]'', 1910, [[Art Institute of Chicago]]]]

[[File:Pablo Picasso, 1911, The Poet (Le poète), Céret, oil on linen, 131.2 × 89.5 cm, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice.jpg|thumb|215px|[[Pablo Picasso]], ''[[The Poet (1911 painting)|The Poet]]'', 1911, [[Oil on canvas]], [[Peggy Guggenheim Collection]]. [[Proto-Cubism]] was an early development within modernism that tended to present its subject from multiple points of view.]]
Out of the collision of ideals derived from Romanticism and an attempt to find a way for knowledge to explain that which was as yet unknown, came the first wave of modernist works in the opening decade of the 20th century. Although their authors considered them to be extensions of existing trends in art, these works broke the implicit understanding the general public had of art: that artists were the interpreters and representatives of bourgeois culture and ideas. These "modernist" landmarks include the atonal ending of [[Arnold Schoenberg]]'s [[String Quartets (Schoenberg)|Second String Quartet]] in 1908, the Expressionist paintings of [[Wassily Kandinsky]] starting in 1903, and culminating with his first abstract painting and the founding of the [[Der Blaue Reiter|Blue Rider]] group in [[Munich]] in 1911, and the rise of [[fauvism]] and the inventions of Cubism from the studios of [[Henri Matisse]], [[Pablo Picasso]], [[Georges Braque]], and others, in the years between 1900 and 1910.

An important aspect of modernism is how it relates to tradition through its adoption of techniques like reprise, incorporation, rewriting, recapitulation, revision, and parody in new forms.{{efn|name=Eco90|Each of the types of repetition that we have examined is not limited to the mass media but belongs by right to the entire history of artistic creativity; [[plagiarism]], quotation, parody, the ironic retake are typical of the entire artistic-literary tradition.<br/>Much art has been and is repetitive. The concept of absolute originality is a contemporary one, born with Romanticism; classical art was in vast measure serial, and the "modern" avant-garde (at the beginning of this the 20th century) challenged the Romantic idea of "creation from nothingness," with its techniques of [[collage]], mustachios on the [[Mona Lisa]], art about art, and so on.<ref name="Eco 1990 p. 95">Eco (1990) p. 95</ref>}}{{efn|name=Steiner98p489|The modernist movement which dominated art, music, letters during the first half of the century was, at critical points, a strategy of conservation, of custodianship. Stravinsky's genius developed through phases of recapitulation. He took from [[Guillaume de Machaut|Machaut]], [[Carlo Gesualdo|Gesualdo]], [[Claudio Monteverdi|Monteverdi]]. He mimed [[Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky|Tchaikovsky]] and [[Charles Gounod|Gounod]], the [[Ludwig van Beethoven|Beethoven]] piano sonatas, the symphonies of [[Joseph Haydn|Haydn]], the operas of [[Giovanni Battista Pergolesi|Pergolesi]] and [[Mikhail Glinka|Glinka]]. He incorporated [[Claude Debussy|Debussy]] and [[Anton Webern|Webern]] into his own idiom. In each instance, the listener was meant to recognize the source, to grasp the intent of a transformation that left salient aspects of the original intact.<br/>The history of Picasso is marked by retrospection. The explicit variations on classical pastoral themes, the citations from and ''pastiches'' of [[Rembrandt]], [[Francisco Goya|Goya]], [[Diego Velázquez|Velázquez]], [[Édouard Manet|Manet]], are external products of a constant revision, a 'seeing again' in the light of technical and cultural shifts. Had we only Picasso's sculptures, graphics, and paintings, we could reconstruct a fair portion of the development of the arts from the [[Minoan civilization|Minoan]] to [[Paul Cézanne|Cézanne]].<br/>In 20th-century literature, the elements of reprise have been obsessive, and they have organized precisely those texts which at first seemed most revolutionary. ''[[The Waste Land]]'', ''[[Ulysses (novel)|Ulysses]]'', Pound's ''[[The Cantos|Cantos]]'' are deliberate assemblages, in-gatherings of a cultural past felt to be in danger of dissolution. The long sequence of imitations, translations, masked quotations, and explicit historical paintings in [[Robert Lowell]]'s ''History'' has carried the same technique into the 1970s. [...] In modernism, ''collage'' has been the representative device. The new, even at its most scandalous, has been set against an informing background and framework of tradition. Stravinsky, Picasso, Braque, [[T. S. Eliot|Eliot]], [[James Joyce|Joyce]], [[Ezra Pound|Pound]]—the 'makers of the new'—have been neo-classics, often as observant of [[Western canon|canonic]] precedent as their 17th-century forebears.<ref>Steiner (1998) pp. 489–490</ref>}} 
[[File:Piet Mondrian, 1909, View from the Dunes with Beach and Piers, Domburg, MoMA.jpg|thumb|left|[[Piet Mondrian]], ''View from the Dunes with Beach and Piers, Domburg,'' 1909, oil and pencil on cardboard, [[Museum of Modern Art]], New York City]]
[[T. S. Eliot]] made significant comments on the relation of the artist to tradition, including: "[W]e shall often find that not only the best, but the most individual parts of [a poet's] work, may be those in which the dead poets, his ancestors, assert their immortality most vigorously."<ref name="Eliot19">[[T. S. Eliot]] "Tradition and the individual talent" (1919), in ''Selected Essays''. Paperback edition. (Faber & Faber, 1999).</ref> However, the relationship of modernism with tradition was complex, as literary scholar Peter Child's indicates: "There were paradoxical if not opposed trends towards revolutionary and reactionary positions, fear of the new and delight at the disappearance of the old, [[nihilism]] and fanatical enthusiasm, creativity, and despair."<ref name="Childs2000p17">Childs, Peter [https://books.google.com/books?id=x_WXXDeXqm4C&pg=PA17&lpg=PA17&dq ''Modernism'']{{Dead link|date=February 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} (Routledge, 2000). {{ISBN|0-415-19647-7}}. p. 17. Accessed on 8 February 2009.</ref>

An example of how modernist art can apply older traditions while also incorporating new techniques can be found within the music of the composer [[Arnold Schoenberg]]. On the one hand, he rejected traditional [[tonality|tonal harmony]], the hierarchical system of organizing works of music that had guided musical composition for at least a century and a half. Schoenberg believed he had discovered a wholly new way of organizing sound based on the use of [[Twelve-tone technique|twelve-note rows]]. Yet, while this was indeed a wholly new technique, its origins can be traced back to the work of earlier composers such as [[Franz Liszt]],<ref>Searle, ''New Grove'', 11:28–29.</ref> [[Richard Wagner]], [[Gustav Mahler]], [[Richard Strauss]], and [[Max Reger]].<ref>*Anon. 2000. "[http://encarta.msn.com Expressionism] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091004081452/http://encarta.msn.com/ |date=4 October 2009 }}". Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia 2000</ref><ref>Donald Mitchell, ''Gustav Mahler: The Wunderhorn Years: Chronicles and Commentaries''. Rochester, NY: Boydell Press, 2005.</ref>

In the world of art, in the first decade of the 20th century, young painters such as [[Pablo Picasso]] and [[Henri Matisse]] caused much controversy and attracted great criticism with their rejection of traditional [[perspective (visual)|perspective]] as the means of structuring paintings,<ref>{{cite web| url=http://www.henri-matisse.net/biography.html| title=Biography of Henri Matisse| access-date=15 November 2013| archive-date=12 July 2016| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160712053009/http://www.henri-matisse.net/biography.html| url-status=usurped}}</ref><ref>{{cite web| url=http://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/themes/cubism| title=MoMA| access-date=15 November 2013| archive-date=7 November 2013| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131107003040/http://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/themes/cubism| url-status=live}}</ref> though the Impressionist [[Monet|Claude Monet]] had already been innovative in his use of perspective.<ref>{{cite web| url=http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/cmon/hd_cmon.htm| title=Claude Monet (1840–1926)| access-date=15 November 2013| archive-date=22 November 2013| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131122125447/http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/cmon/hd_cmon.htm| url-status=live}}</ref> In 1907, as Picasso was painting {{Lang|fr|[[Les Demoiselles d'Avignon]]}}, [[Oskar Kokoschka]] was writing ''Mörder, Hoffnung der Frauen'' (''Murderer, Hope of Women''), the first Expressionist play (produced with scandal in 1909), and Arnold Schoenberg was composing his String Quartet No.2 in F sharp minor (1908), his first composition without a tonal center.

A primary influence that led to Cubism was the representation of three-dimensional form in the late works of [[Paul Cézanne]], which were displayed in a retrospective at the 1907 [[Salon d'Automne]].<ref name="Christopher Green">{{cite web| url=http://www.moma.org/collection/details.php?theme_id=10068&displayall=1#skipToContent| title=The Collection| access-date=15 November 2013| archive-date=13 August 2014| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140813112047/http://www.moma.org/collection/details.php?theme_id=10068&displayall=1#skipToContent| url-status=live}}</ref> In Cubist artwork, objects are analyzed, broken up, and reassembled in an abstract form; instead of depicting objects from one viewpoint, the artist depicts the subject from a multitude of viewpoints to represent the subject in a greater context.<ref>[[Jean Metzinger]], ''Note sur la peinture'', Pan (Paris), October–November 1910</ref> Cubism was brought to the attention of the general public for the first time in 1911 at the [[Société des Artistes Indépendants|Salon des Indépendants]] in Paris (held 21 April&nbsp;– 13 June). [[Jean Metzinger]], [[Albert Gleizes]], [[Henri Le Fauconnier]], [[Robert Delaunay]], [[Fernand Léger]] and [[Roger de La Fresnaye]] were shown together in Room 41, provoking a 'scandal' out of which Cubism emerged and spread throughout Paris and beyond. Also in 1911, [[Wassily Kandinsky|Kandinsky]] painted ''Bild mit Kreis'' (''Picture with a Circle''), which he later called the first abstract painting.<ref name=Sheppard>Richard Sheppard, ''Modernism–Dada–Postmodernism''. Northwestern Univ. Press, 2000</ref>{{rp|page=167}} In 1912, Metzinger and Gleizes wrote the first (and only) major Cubist manifesto, ''[[Du "Cubisme"]]'', published in time for the Salon de la [[Section d'Or]], the largest Cubist exhibition to date. In 1912 Metzinger painted and exhibited his enchanting ''[[La Femme au Cheval]] (Woman with a Horse)'' and ''Danseuse au Café ([[Dancer in a Café]])''. Albert Gleizes painted and exhibited his ''[[Les Baigneuses (Gleizes)|Les Baigneuses]]'' [[Les Baigneuses (Gleizes)|(The Bathers)]] and his monumental ''Le Dépiquage des Moissons'' ([[Harvest Threshing]]). This work, along with ''La Ville de Paris'' (''City of Paris'') by [[Robert Delaunay]], was the largest and most ambitious Cubist painting undertaken during the pre-war Cubist period.<ref>Robbins, Daniel, ''Albert Gleizes 1881–1953, A Retrospective Exhibition'' (exh. cat.). The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1964, pp. 12–25</ref>

[[File:Macke, August - Promenade - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|[[August Macke]], [[Promenade (Macke)|Promenade]], 1913, [[Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus]], [[Munich]]]]
In 1905, a group of four German artists, led by [[Ernst Ludwig Kirchner]], formed [[Die Brücke]] (The Bridge) in the city of [[Dresden]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Die Brücke (The Bridge) |url=https://www.moma.org/collection/terms/die-brucke-the-bridge |access-date=2025-01-06 |website=The Museum of Modern Art |language=en}}</ref> This was arguably the founding organization for the [[German Expressionist]] movement, though they did not use the word itself. A few years later, in 1911, a like-minded group of young artists formed [[Der Blaue Reiter]] (The Blue Rider) in Munich.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2020-09-04 |title=Shows That Made Contemporary Art History |url=https://magazine.artland.com/the-shows-that-made-contemporary-art-history-the-first-exhibition-of-der-blaue-reiter/ |access-date=2025-01-06 |website=Artland Magazine |language=en-US}}</ref> The name came from [[Wassily Kandinsky]]'s ''Der Blaue Reiter'' painting of 1903. Among their members were [[Wassily Kandinsky|Kandinsky]], [[Franz Marc]], [[Paul Klee]], and [[August Macke]]. However, the term "Expressionism" did not firmly establish itself until 1913.<ref name=Sheppard/>{{rp|page=274}} Though initially mainly a German artistic movement,{{efn|Note the parallel French movement Fauvism and the English [[Vorticism]]: "The Fauvist movement has been compared to [[German expressionist cinema|German Expressionism]], both projecting brilliant colors and spontaneous brushwork, and indebted to the same late 19th-century sources, especially [[Vincent van Gogh|Van Gogh]].<ref>{{cite book |first=Sabine |last=Rewald |article=Fauvism |title=Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History |place=New York, NY |publisher=The Metropolitan Museum of Art |orig-date=2000 |url=http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/fauv/hd_fauv.htm |date=October 2004 |access-date=15 November 2013 |archive-date=14 December 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071214134225/http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/fauv/hd_fauv.htm |url-status=live }} — "Vorticism can be thought of as English Expressionism"</ref><ref name="Grace 1989 26">{{cite book |first=Sherrill E. |last=Grace |title=Regression and Apocalypse: Studies in North American Literary Expressionism |place=Toronto, Canada |publisher=University of Toronto Press |year=1989 |page=26}}</ref>}} most predominant in painting, poetry and the theatre between 1910 and 1930, most precursors of the movement were not German. Furthermore, there have been Expressionist writers of prose fiction, as well as non-German speaking Expressionist writers, and, while the movement had declined in Germany with the rise of [[Adolf Hitler]] in the 1930s, there were subsequent Expressionist works.
[[File:Egon Schiele - Eduard Kosmack - 4702 - Österreichische Galerie Belvedere.jpg|thumb|left|''Portrait of Eduard Kosmack'' (1910) by [[Egon Schiele]]]]
[[File:VillaSavoye.jpg|thumb|left|[[Le Corbusier]], The [[Villa Savoye]] in [[Poissy]] (1928–1931)]]
Expressionism is notoriously difficult to define, in part because it "overlapped with other major 'isms' of the modernist period: with [[Futurism]], [[Vorticism]], Cubism, [[Surrealism]] and [[Dada]]."<ref name="Grace 1989 26">{{cite book |first=Sherrill E. |last=Grace |title=Regression and Apocalypse: Studies in North American Literary Expressionism |place=Toronto, Canada |publisher=University of Toronto Press |year=1989 |page=26}}</ref> Richard Murphy also comments: "[The] search for an all-inclusive definition is problematic to the extent that the most challenging Expressionists," such as the novelist [[Franz Kafka]], poet [[Gottfried Benn]], and novelist [[Alfred Döblin]] were simultaneously the most vociferous anti-Expressionists.<ref name=Murphy>{{cite book |first=Richard |last=Murphy |title=Theorizing the Avant-Garde: Modernism, Expressionism, and the problem of Postmodernity |place=Cambridge, UK |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1999}}</ref>{{rp|page=43}} What, however, can be said, is that it was a movement that developed in the early 20th century mainly in Germany in reaction to the dehumanizing effect of industrialization and the growth of cities, and that "one of the central means by which Expressionism identifies itself as an avant-garde movement, and by which it marks its distance to traditions and the cultural institution as a whole is through its relationship to realism and the dominant conventions of representation."<ref name=Murphy/>{{rp|page=43}} More explicitly: the Expressionists rejected the ideology of realism.<ref name=Murphy/>{{rp|page=43–48}}<ref>Walter H. Sokel, ''The Writer in Extremis''. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1959, especially Chapter One.</ref>
There was a concentrated Expressionist movement in early 20th-century German theater, of which [[Georg Kaiser]] and [[Ernst Toller]] were the most famous playwrights. Other notable Expressionist dramatists included [[Reinhard Sorge]], [[Walter Hasenclever]], [[Hans Henny Jahnn]], and [[Arnolt Bronnen]]. They looked back to Swedish playwright [[August Strindberg]] and German actor and dramatist [[Frank Wedekind]] as precursors of their [[dramaturgy|dramaturgical]] experiments. [[Oskar Kokoschka]]'s ''[[Murderer, the Hope of Women]]'' was the first fully Expressionist work for the theater, which opened on 4 July 1909 in [[Vienna]].<ref>Berghaus (2005, 55–57).</ref> The extreme simplification of characters to mythic [[archetype|types]], choral effects, declamatory dialogue and heightened intensity would become characteristic of later Expressionist plays. The first full-length Expressionist play was ''[[The Son (Hasenclever play)|The Son]]'' by Walter Hasenclever, which was published in 1914 and first performed in 1916.<ref>Rorrison (1998, 475) and Schürer (1997b, ix, xiv).</ref>

Futurism is another modernist movement.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?isbn=311039099X Günter Berghaus, ''Handbook of International Futurism''], Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG, 2018, {{ISBN|311039099X}}</ref> In 1909, the Parisian newspaper ''[[Le Figaro]]'' published [[Filippo Tommaso Marinetti|F. T. Marinetti]]'s first manifesto. Soon afterward, a group of painters ([[Giacomo Balla]], [[Umberto Boccioni]], [[Carlo Carrà]], [[Luigi Russolo]], and [[Gino Severini]]) co-signed the [[Futurist Manifesto]]. Modeled on Marx and [[Friedrich Engels|Engels]]' famous "[[Communist Manifesto]]" (1848), such manifestos put forward ideas that were meant to provoke and to gather followers. However, arguments in favor of geometric or purely abstract painting were, at this time, largely confined to "little magazines" which had only tiny circulations. Modernist primitivism and pessimism were controversial, and the mainstream in the first decade of the 20th century was still inclined towards a faith in progress and liberal optimism.

[[File:Jean Metzinger, 1913, Le Canot, En Canot, Femme au Canot et a l'Ombrelle, Im Boot, approximate dimensions 150 x 116.5 cm.jpg|thumb|left|[[Jean Metzinger]], 1913, ''[[En Canot|En Canot (Im Boot)]]'', oil on canvas, {{convert|146|x|114|cm|in|round=0.5|abbr=on}}, exhibited at Moderni Umeni, [[Mánes Union of Fine Arts|S.V.U. Mánes]], Prague, 1914, acquired in 1916 by [[Georg Muche]] at the Galerie [[Der Sturm]], confiscated by the Nazis circa 1936–1937, displayed at the [[Degenerate Art]] show in Munich, and missing ever since<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://emuseum.campus.fu-berlin.de/eMuseumPlus?service=direct/1/ResultListView/result.t1.collection_list.$TspTitleLink.link&sp=10&sp=Scollection&sp=SfieldValue&sp=0&sp=0&sp=3&sp=SdetailList&sp=0&sp=Sdetail&sp=0&sp=F&sp=T&sp=0|title=Stale Session|website=emuseum.campus.fu-berlin.de}}</ref>]]
[[Abstract art|Abstract]] artists, taking as their examples the Impressionists, as well as [[Paul Cézanne]] (1839–1906) and [[Edvard Munch]] (1863–1944), began with the assumption that color and [[shape]], not the depiction of the natural world, formed the essential characteristics of art.<ref>Rudolph Arnheim, ''Visual Thinking''</ref> [[Western art]] had been, from the [[Renaissance]] up to the middle of the 19th century, underpinned by the logic of [[Perspective (visual)|perspective]] and an attempt to reproduce an illusion of visible reality. The arts of cultures other than the European had become accessible and showed alternative ways of describing visual experience to the artist. By the end of the 19th century, many artists felt a need to create a new kind of art that encompassed the fundamental changes taking place in technology, science and philosophy. The sources from which individual artists drew their theoretical arguments were diverse and reflected the social and intellectual preoccupations in all areas of Western culture at that time.<ref>Mel Gooding, ''Abstract Art'', Tate Publishing, London, 2000</ref> [[Wassily Kandinsky]], [[Piet Mondrian]], and [[Kazimir Malevich]] all believed in redefining art as the arrangement of pure color. The use of photography, which had rendered much of the representational function of visual art obsolete, strongly affected this aspect of modernism.<ref name="impressionism758">Sontag, Susan (1977) On Photography, Penguin, London</ref>

Modernist [[architects]] and designers, such as [[Frank Lloyd Wright]]<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://larchmontchronicle.com/gods-work-frank-lloyd-wright-quintessential-american-modernist/|title=God's work: Frank Lloyd Wright, quintessential American Modernist: Larchmont Chronicle|access-date=27 August 2019|archive-date=27 August 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190827005947/https://larchmontchronicle.com/gods-work-frank-lloyd-wright-quintessential-american-modernist/|url-status=live}}</ref> and [[Le Corbusier]],<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.lenmak.com/evolution-modernism-architecture/ |title=The Evolution of Modernism in Architecture and its Impact on the 21st Century |access-date=29 April 2019 |archive-date=25 September 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190925202706/https://www.lenmak.com/evolution-modernism-architecture/ |url-status=dead }}</ref> believed that new technology rendered old styles of building obsolete. Le Corbusier thought that buildings should function as "machines for living in", analogous to cars, which he saw as machines for traveling in.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia| url=https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/137221/Le-Corbusier| title=Le Corbusier| encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica| date=23 August 2023| access-date=23 June 2022| archive-date=3 May 2015| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150503083731/http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/137221/Le-Corbusier| url-status=live}}</ref> Just as cars had replaced the horse, so modernist design should reject the old styles and structures inherited from [[Ancient Greece]] or the [[Middle Ages]]. Following this [[machine aesthetic]], modernist designers typically rejected decorative motifs in design, preferring to emphasize the materials used and pure geometrical forms.<ref name="GEMbook">{{cite web|url=http://www.gsa.gov/graphics/pbs/GEMbook.pdf|title=Growth, Efficiency, and modernism|year=2006|publisher=U.S. General Services Administration|pages=14–15|access-date=18 February 2017|orig-date=2003|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110331105542/http://www.gsa.gov/graphics/pbs/GEMbook.pdf|archive-date=31 March 2011|df=dmy-all}}</ref> The skyscraper is the archetypal modernist building, and the [[Wainwright Building]], a 10-story office building completed in 1891 in [[St. Louis, Missouri]], United States, is among the [[early skyscrapers|first skyscrapers]] in the world.<ref>"Skyscraper." ''The Columbia Encyclopedia''. New York: Columbia University Press, 2008. Credo Reference. Web. 25 March 2011.</ref> [[Ludwig Mies van der Rohe]]'s [[Seagram Building]] in New York (1956–1958) is often regarded as the pinnacle of this modernist high-rise architecture.<ref name=obit>{{cite news |title=Mies van der Rohe Dies at 83; Leader of Modern Architecture |url=https://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/0327.html |quote=Mies van der Rohe, one of the great figures of 20th-century architecture. |work=[[The New York Times]] |date=17 August 1969 |access-date=21 July 2007 |archive-date=1 May 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060501203106/http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/0327.html |url-status=live }}</ref> Many aspects of modernist design persist within the mainstream of [[contemporary architecture]], though previous dogmatism has given way to a more playful use of decoration, historical quotation, and spatial drama.
[[File:Pedestal Table in the Studio.jpg|thumb|[[André Masson]], ''Pedestal Table in the Studio'' 1922, an early example of [[Surrealism]]]]

In 1913—which was the year of philosopher [[Edmund Husserl]]'s ''Ideas'', physicist [[Niels Bohr]]'s quantized atom, [[Ezra Pound]]'s founding of [[imagism]], the [[Armory Show]] in New York, and in [[Saint Petersburg]] the "first futurist opera", [[Mikhail Matyushin]]'s ''[[Victory over the Sun]]''—another Russian composer, [[Igor Stravinsky]], composed ''[[The Rite of Spring]]'', a ballet that depicts [[human sacrifice]] and has a musical score full of dissonance and primitive rhythm. This caused an uproar on its first performance in Paris. At this time, though modernism was still "progressive", it increasingly saw traditional forms and social arrangements as hindering progress and recast the artist as a revolutionary, engaged in overthrowing rather than enlightening society. Also in 1913, a less violent event occurred in France with the publication of the first volume of [[Marcel Proust]]'s important novel sequence ''[[À la recherche du temps perdu]]'' (1913–1927) (''In Search of Lost Time''). This is often presented as an early example of a writer using the [[stream-of-consciousness technique]], but Robert Humphrey comments that Proust "is concerned only with the reminiscent aspect of consciousness" and that he "was deliberately recapturing the past for the purpose of communicating; hence he did not write a stream-of-consciousness novel."<ref>''Stream of Consciousness in the Modern Novel'' (Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California, 1954), p. 4.</ref>

Stream of consciousness was an important modernist literary innovation, and it has been suggested that [[Arthur Schnitzler]] (1862–1931) was the first to make full use of it in his short story "Leutnant Gustl" ("None but the brave") (1900).<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.britannica.com/art/stream-of-consciousness |title=Stream of consciousness (literature) |website=Encyclopedia Britannica |date=7 November 2023 |access-date=27 August 2019 |archive-date=6 August 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190806080748/https://www.britannica.com/art/stream-of-consciousness |url-status=live }}</ref> [[Dorothy Richardson]] was the first English writer to use it, in the early volumes of her [[novel sequence]] ''[[Pilgrimage (novel sequence)|Pilgrimage]]'' (1915–1967).{{efn|[[May Sinclair]] first applied the term "stream of consciousness" in a literary context, in 1918 in her discussion of Richardson's stylistic innovations in a review of ''Leutnant Gustl'' and [[Pilgrimage (novel sequence)|''Pilgrimage'']].<ref>[[May Sinclair]], ''The Egoist'', April 1918</ref>}} Other modernist novelists that are associated with the use of this narrative technique include [[James Joyce]] in ''[[Ulysses (novel)|Ulysses]]'' (1922) and [[Italo Svevo]] in ''[[Zeno's Conscience|La coscienza di Zeno]]'' (1923).<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Weiss |first=Beno |year=1990 |title=Review of Italo Svevo: A double life |journal=Italica |volume=67 |issue=3 |pages=395–400 |doi=10.2307/478649 |jstor=478649}}</ref>

However, with the coming of the Great War of 1914–1918 (World War I) and the [[Russian Revolution]] of 1917, the world was drastically changed, and doubt was cast on the beliefs and institutions of the past. The failure of the previous status quo seemed self-evident to a generation that had seen millions die fighting over scraps of earth: before 1914, it had been argued that no one would fight such a war, since the cost was too high. The birth of a machine age, which had made major changes in the conditions of daily life in the 19th century had now radically changed the nature of warfare. The traumatic nature of recent experience altered basic assumptions, and a realistic depiction of life in the arts seemed inadequate when faced with the fantastically surreal nature of [[trench warfare]]. The view that mankind was making steady moral progress now seemed ridiculous in the face of the senseless slaughter, described in works such as [[Erich Maria Remarque]]'s novel ''[[All Quiet on the Western Front]]'' (1929). Therefore, modernism's view of reality, which had been a minority taste before the war, became more generally accepted in the 1920s.

In literature and visual art, some modernists sought to defy expectations mainly to make their art more vivid or to force the audience to take the trouble to question their own preconceptions. This aspect of modernism has often seemed a reaction to [[consumerism|consumer culture]], which developed in Europe and North America in the late 19th century. Whereas most manufacturers try to make products that will be marketable by appealing to preferences and prejudices, [[High modernism|high modernists]] reject such consumerist attitudes to undermine conventional thinking.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Best-Laid Plans |url=https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/04/19/reviews/980419.19graylt.html?__hsfp=1773666937&__hssc=12316075.1.1525305600145&__hstc=12316075.07430159d50a3c91e72c280a7921bf0d.1525305600142.1525305600143.1525305600144.1 |access-date=2025-01-07 |website=archive.nytimes.com}}</ref> The art critic [[Clement Greenberg]] expounded this theory of modernism in his essay ''[[Avant-Garde and Kitsch]]''.<ref name="ReferenceA">[[Clement Greenberg]], ''Art and Culture,'' Beacon Press, 1961</ref> Greenberg labeled the products of consumer culture "[[kitsch]]", because their design aimed simply to have maximum appeal, with any difficult features removed. For Greenberg, modernism thus formed a reaction against the development of such examples of modern consumer culture as commercial [[popular music]], [[Film|Hollywood]], and advertising.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Tate |title=Kitsch |url=https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/k/kitsch |access-date=2025-01-07 |website=Tate |language=en-GB}}</ref> Greenberg associated this with the revolutionary rejection of capitalism.

Some modernists saw themselves as part of a revolutionary culture that included political revolution. In Russia after the 1917 [[Russian Revolution|Revolution]], there was indeed initially a burgeoning of avant-garde cultural activity, which included [[Russian Futurism]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Goodale |first=Ian |title=LibGuides: Soviet Futurism: Home |url=https://guides.lib.utexas.edu/c.php?g=1039648&p=7539734 |access-date=2025-01-07 |website=guides.lib.utexas.edu |language=en}}</ref> However, others rejected conventional politics as well as artistic conventions, believing that a revolution of [[political consciousness]] had greater importance than a change in political structures. But many modernists saw themselves as apolitical. Others, such as [[T. S. Eliot]], rejected mass popular culture from a conservative position. Some even argue that Modernism in literature and art functioned to sustain an [[elitism|elite]] culture that excluded the majority of the population.<ref name="ReferenceA"/>

[[Surrealism]], which originated in the early 1920s, came to be regarded by the public as the most extreme form of modernism, or "the avant-garde of modernism".<ref name="DebordSurrealismModernism">[[Guy Debord]], 18 November 1958, as quoted in [http://www.notbored.org/surrealism.html ''Supreme Height of the Defenders of Surrealism in Paris and the Revelation of their Real Value''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101125214229/http://notbored.org/surrealism.html |date=25 November 2010 }}, Situationist International No. 2</ref> The word "surrealist" was coined by [[Guillaume Apollinaire]] and first appeared in the preface to his play ''[[The Breasts of Tiresias|Les Mamelles de Tirésias]]'', which was written in 1903 and first performed in 1917.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Surreal Lives |url=https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/first/b/brandon-surreal.html |access-date=2025-01-07 |website=archive.nytimes.com}}</ref> Major surrealists include [[Paul Éluard]], [[Robert Desnos]],<ref name="Diary of a Genius">[[Salvador Dalí|Dalí, Salvador]], ''[http://www.bartleby.com/66/82/15682.html Diary of a Genius]'' quoted in ''The Columbia World of Quotations'' (1996) {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090406060625/http://www.bartleby.com/66/82/15682.html |date=6 April 2009 }}</ref> [[Max Ernst]], [[Hans Arp]], [[Antonin Artaud]], [[Raymond Queneau]], [[Joan Miró]], and [[Marcel Duchamp]].<ref name=grove>Dawn Ades, with Matthew Gale: "Surrealism", ''The Oxford Companion to Western Art''. Ed. Hugh Brigstocke. Oxford University Press, 2001. Grove Art Online. [[Oxford University Press]], 2007. Accessed 15 March 2007, [http://www.groveart.com/ GroveArt.com] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080821130425/http://www.groveart.com./ |date=21 August 2008 }}</ref>

By 1930, modernism had won a place in the political and artistic establishment, although by this time modernism itself had changed.

=== Modernism continues: 1930–1945 ===
Modernism continued to evolve during the 1930s. Between 1930 and 1932 composer [[Arnold Schoenberg]] worked on ''[[Moses und Aron]]'', one of the first operas to make use of the twelve-tone technique,<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |entry=Schoenberg [Schönberg], Arnold (Franz Walter) |encyclopedia=Grove Music Online |language=en |doi=10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.25024 |date=2001 |last1=Neighbour |first1=O.W.|title=Schoenberg &#91;Schönberg&#93;, Arnold |isbn=978-1-56159-263-0 }}</ref> [[Pablo Picasso]] painted in 1937 ''[[Guernica (Picasso)|Guernica]]'', his cubist condemnation of [[fascism]],<ref>{{Cite web |date=2024-12-11 |title=Guernica {{!}} Description, History, & Facts |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Guernica-by-Picasso |access-date=2025-01-07 |website=www.britannica.com |language=en}}</ref> while in 1939 [[James Joyce]] pushed the boundaries of the modern novel further with ''[[Finnegans Wake]]''. Also by 1930 modernism began to influence mainstream culture, so that, for example, ''[[The New Yorker]]'' magazine began publishing work, influenced by modernism, by young writers and humorists like [[Dorothy Parker]],<ref>Caren Irr, "A Gendered Collision: Sentimentalism and modernism in Dorothy Parker's Poetry and Fiction" (review). ''American Literature'', Volume 73, Number 4, December 2001 pp. 880–881.</ref> [[Robert Benchley]], [[E. B. White]], [[S. J. Perelman]], and [[James Thurber]], amongst others.<ref>Catherine Keyser, "Robert Benchley and Dorothy Parker 'In Broadway Playhouses': Middlebrow Theatricality and Sophisticated Humour". ''Modernist Cultures'', Volume 6, pp. 121–154.</ref> Perelman is highly regarded for his humorous short stories that he published in magazines in the 1930s and 1940s, most often in ''The New Yorker'', which are considered to be the first examples of [[surrealist humor]] in America.<ref>[[Donald Barthelme]], 1982 interview in ''[[Partisan Review]]'', Volume 49, p. 185.</ref> Modern ideas in art also began to appear more frequently in commercials and logos, an early example of which, from 1916, is the famous [[London Underground]] logo designed by [[Edward Johnston]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.20thcenturylondon.org.uk/server.php?show=conObject.2902 |work=Exploring 20th Century London |publisher=Renaissance London/[[Museums, Libraries and Archives Council|MLA]] |title=A full alphabet of Johnston wood letter types |access-date=28 April 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120327102633/http://www.20thcenturylondon.org.uk/server.php?show=conObject.2902 |archive-date=27 March 2012 }}</ref>

One of the most visible changes of this period was the adoption of new technologies into the daily lives of ordinary people in Western Europe and North America. Electricity, the telephone, the radio, the automobile—and the need to work with them, repair them and live with them—created social change.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Technology Timeline (1752-1990) |url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/telephone-technology-timeline/ |access-date=2025-01-07 |website=www.pbs.org |language=en}}</ref> The kind of disruptive moment that only a few knew in the 1880s became a common occurrence. For example, the speed of communication reserved for the stock brokers of 1890 became part of family life, at least in middle class North America. Associated with urbanization and changing social mores also came smaller families and changed relationships between parents and their children.

[[File:Underground.svg|thumb|right|upright=0.9|[[London Underground]] logo designed by [[Edward Johnston]]. This is the modern version (with minor modifications) of one that was first used in 1916.]]
Another strong influence at this time was [[Marxism]]. After the generally primitivistic/irrationalism aspect of pre-World War I modernism (which for many modernists precluded any attachment to merely political solutions) and the [[neoclassicism]] of the 1920s (as represented most famously by [[T. S. Eliot]] and [[Igor Stravinsky]]—which rejected popular solutions to modern problems), the rise of [[fascism]], the [[Great Depression]], and the march to war helped to radicalize a generation. [[Bertolt Brecht]], [[W. H. Auden]], [[André Breton]], [[Louis Aragon]], and the philosophers [[Antonio Gramsci]] and [[Walter Benjamin]] are perhaps the most famous exemplars of this modernist form of Marxism. There were, however, also modernists explicitly of 'the right', including [[Salvador Dalí]], [[Wyndham Lewis]], T. S. Eliot, [[Ezra Pound]], the Dutch author [[Menno ter Braak]] and others.<ref>Pericles Lewis, "Modernist Writing and Reactionary Politics" (review). ''Modernism/modernity'', Volume 8, Number 4, November 2001, pp. 696–698.</ref>

Significant modernist literary works continued to be created in the 1920s and 1930s, including further novels by [[Marcel Proust]], [[Virginia Woolf]], [[Robert Musil]], and [[Dorothy Richardson]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=McCracken |first1=Scott |last2=Winning |first2=Jo |date=November 2015 |orig-date=August 17, 2015 |title=The Long Modernist Novel: An Introduction |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/282975494 |journal=Modernist Cultures |via=Research Gate}}</ref> The American modernist dramatist [[Eugene O'Neill]]'s career began in 1914, but his major works appeared in the 1920s, 1930s and early 1940s. Two other significant modernist dramatists writing in the 1920s and 1930s were [[Bertolt Brecht]] and [[Federico García Lorca]]. [[D. H. Lawrence]]'s ''[[Lady Chatterley's Lover]]'' was privately published in 1928, while another important landmark for the history of the modern novel came with the publication of [[William Faulkner]]'s ''[[The Sound and the Fury]]'' in 1929. In the 1930s, in addition to further major works by Faulkner, [[Samuel Beckett]] published his first major work, the novel ''[[Murphy (novel)|Murphy]]'' (1938). Then in 1939 James Joyce's ''[[Finnegans Wake]]'' appeared. This is written in a largely [[idioglossia|idiosyncratic language]], consisting of a mixture of standard English [[lexical item]]s and [[Neologism|neologistic]] [[multilingual]] [[pun]]s and [[portmanteau]] words, which attempts to recreate the experience of sleep and dreams.<ref>James Mercanton (1967). ''Les heures de James Joyce''. Diffusion PUF.</ref> In poetry T. S. Eliot, [[E. E. Cummings]], and [[Wallace Stevens]] were writing from the 1920s until the 1950s. While [[modernist poetry in English]] is often viewed as an American phenomenon, with leading exponents including Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, [[Marianne Moore]], [[William Carlos Williams]], [[H.D.]], and [[Louis Zukofsky]], there were important British modernist poets, including [[David Jones (artist-poet)|David Jones]], [[Hugh MacDiarmid]], [[Basil Bunting]], and [[W. H. Auden]]. European modernist poets include [[Federico García Lorca]], [[Anna Akhmatova]], [[Constantine Cavafy]], and [[Paul Valéry]].
[[File:Joyce oconnell dublin.jpg|thumb|upright=0.55|left|James Joyce statue on [[North Earl Street]], Dublin, by Marjorie FitzGibbon]]

The modernist movement continued during this period in [[Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic|Soviet Russia]]. In 1930 composer [[Dimitri Shostakovich]]'s (1906–1975) opera ''[[The Nose (opera)|The Nose]]'' was premiered, in which he uses a [[Musical montage|montage]] of different styles, including [[folk music]], [[popular song]] and atonality. Among his influences was [[Alban Berg]]'s (1885–1935) opera ''[[Wozzeck]]'' (1925), which "had made a tremendous impression on Shostakovich when it was staged in Leningrad."<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.boosey.com/pages/opera/moreDetails?musicID=896|title=Dmitri Shostakovich Nose – Opera|website=www.boosey.com|access-date=27 August 2019|archive-date=30 March 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190330215009/http://www.boosey.com/pages/opera/moreDetails?musicID=896|url-status=live}}</ref> However, from 1932 [[socialist realism]] began to oust modernism in the Soviet Union,<ref name="Sergei V. Ivanov pp. 28">Sergei V. Ivanov, ''Unknown Socialist Realism. The Leningrad School'', pp. 28–29. {{ISBN|978-5-901724-21-7}}</ref> and in 1936 Shostakovich was attacked and forced to withdraw his 4th Symphony.<ref>Michael Steinberg, ''The Symphony: A Listener's Guide''. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995, pp. 541–545.</ref> Alban Berg wrote another significant, though incomplete, modernist opera, ''[[Lulu (opera)|Lulu]]'', which premiered in 1937. Berg's [[Violin Concerto (Berg)|Violin Concerto]] was first performed in 1935. Like Shostakovich, other composers faced difficulties in this period.

In Germany [[Arnold Schoenberg]] (1874–1951) was forced to flee to the U.S. when Hitler came to power in 1933, because of his modernist atonal style as well as his Jewish ancestry.<ref name="Oxford Music Online">{{Cite web|url=https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/|title=Oxford Music|website=Oxford Music Online|access-date=10 September 2021|archive-date=22 July 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230722092211/https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/|url-status=live}}</ref> His major works from this period are a [[Violin Concerto (Schoenberg)|Violin Concerto]], Op. 36 (1934/36), and a [[Piano Concerto (Schoenberg)|Piano Concerto]], Op. 42 (1942). Schoenberg also wrote tonal music in this period with the Suite for Strings in G major (1935) and the [[Chamber Symphony No. 2 (Schoenberg)|Chamber Symphony No. 2]] in E{{music|flat}} minor, Op. 38 (begun in 1906, completed in 1939).<ref name="Oxford Music Online" /> During this time Hungarian modernist [[Béla Bartók]] (1881–1945) produced a number of major works, including ''[[Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta]]'' (1936) and the ''[[Divertimento for String Orchestra (Bartók)|Divertimento for String Orchestra]]'' (1939), [[String Quartet No. 5 (Bartók)|String Quartet No. 5]] (1934), and [[String Quartet No. 6 (Bartók)|No. 6]] (his last, 1939). But he too left for the US in 1940, because of the rise of [[fascism]] in Hungary.<ref name="Oxford Music Online" /> [[Igor Stravinsky]] (1882–1971) continued writing in his [[neoclassical style]] during the 1930s and 1940s, writing works like the ''[[Symphony of Psalms]]'' (1930), [[Symphony in C (Stravinsky)|Symphony in C]] (1940), and ''[[Symphony in Three Movements (Stravinsky)|Symphony in Three Movements]]'' (1945). He also emigrated to the US because of [[World War II]]. [[Olivier Messiaen]] (1908–1992), however, served in the French army during the war and was imprisoned at [[Stalag VIII-A]] by the Germans, where he composed his famous ''[[Quatuor pour la fin du temps]]'' ("Quartet for the End of Time"). The quartet was first performed in January 1941 to an audience of prisoners and prison guards.<ref>Rebecca Rischin. ''For the End of Time: The Story of the Messiaen Quartet''. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003, p. 5.</ref>

In painting, during the 1920s and 1930s and the [[Great Depression]], modernism was defined by Surrealism, late Cubism, [[Bauhaus]], [[De Stijl]], [[Dada]], German Expressionism, and modernist and masterful color painters like [[Henri Matisse]] and [[Pierre Bonnard]] as well as the abstractions of artists like [[Piet Mondrian]] and [[Wassily Kandinsky]] which characterized the European art scene. In Germany, [[Max Beckmann]], [[Otto Dix]], [[George Grosz]] and others politicized their paintings, foreshadowing the coming of World War II, while in America, modernism is seen in the form of [[American Scene painting]] and the [[social realism]] and [[Regionalism (art)|Regionalism]] movements that contained both political and social commentary dominated the art world. Artists like [[Ben Shahn]], [[Thomas Hart Benton (painter)|Thomas Hart Benton]], [[Grant Wood]], [[George Tooker]], [[John Steuart Curry]], [[Reginald Marsh (artist)|Reginald Marsh]], and others became prominent. Modernism is defined in Latin America by painters [[Joaquín Torres-García]] from Uruguay and [[Rufino Tamayo]] from Mexico, while the [[Mexican muralism|muralist movement]] with [[Diego Rivera]], [[David Siqueiros]], [[José Clemente Orozco]], [[Pedro Nel Gómez]] and [[Santiago Martínez Delgado]], and [[Symbolism (arts)|Symbolist]] paintings by [[Frida Kahlo]], began a renaissance of the arts for the region, characterized by a freer use of color and an emphasis on political messages.

Diego Rivera is perhaps best known by the public world for his 1933 mural, ''[[Man at the Crossroads]]'', in the lobby of the RCA Building at [[Rockefeller Center]]. When his patron [[Nelson Rockefeller]] discovered that the mural included a portrait of [[Vladimir Lenin]] and other communist imagery, he fired Rivera, and the unfinished work was eventually destroyed by Rockefeller's staff.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Diego Rivera |url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/rockefellers-rivera/ |access-date=2025-01-07 |website=www.pbs.org |language=en}}</ref> [[Frida Kahlo]]'s works are often characterized by their stark portrayals of pain. Kahlo was deeply influenced by indigenous Mexican culture, which is apparent in her paintings' bright colors and dramatic symbolism.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Frida Kahlo |url=https://www.moma.org/artists/2963 |access-date=2025-01-07 |website=The Museum of Modern Art |language=en}}</ref> Christian and Jewish themes are often depicted in her work as well; she combined elements of the classic religious Mexican tradition, which were often bloody and violent.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Frida Kahlo |url=https://frida-kahlo-foundation.org/biography.html |access-date=2025-01-07 |website=frida-kahlo-foundation.org}}</ref> Frida Kahlo's Symbolist works relate strongly to surrealism and to the [[magic realism]] movement in literature.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Plessis |first=Alicia du |date=2022-03-13 |title="The Two Fridas" by Frida Kahlo - Double Self-Portrait Analysis |url=https://artincontext.org/the-two-fridas-by-frida-kahlo/ |access-date=2025-01-07 |website=Art in Context |language=en-US}}</ref>

Political activism was an important piece of David Siqueiros' life, and frequently inspired him to set aside his artistic career. His art was deeply rooted in the [[Mexican Revolution]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Siqueiros Speaks |url=https://www.nga.gov/learn/teachers/lessons-activities/self-portraits/siqueiros.html |access-date=2025-01-07 |website=www.nga.gov}}</ref> The period from the 1920s to the 1950s is known as the Mexican Renaissance, and Siqueiros was active in the attempt to create an art that was at once Mexican and universal.<ref>{{Cite web |title=What Was the Mexican Renaissance? Post-Revolutionary Murals and Messages from Kahlo, Rivera, and More |url=https://www.artspace.com/magazine/art_101/book_report/phaidon-art-in-time-mexican-renaissance-54556 |access-date=2025-01-07 |website=Artspace |language=english}}</ref> The young [[Jackson Pollock]] attended the workshop and helped build [[float (parade)|floats]] for the parade.

During the 1930s, radical [[left-wing politics|leftist politics]] characterized many of the artists connected to surrealism, including [[Pablo Picasso]].<ref>Lewis, Helena. ''Dada Turns Red''. 1990. University of Edinburgh Press. A history of the uneasy relations between surrealists and Communists from the 1920s through the 1950s.</ref> On 26 April 1937, during the [[Spanish Civil War]], the [[Basque Country (autonomous community)|Basque]] town of [[Gernika]] was [[Bombing of Guernica|bombed]] by Nazi Germany's Luftwaffe.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Nazis test new air force, Luftwaffe, on Basque town of Guernica {{!}} April 26, 1937 |url=https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/nazis-test-luftwaffe-on-guernica |access-date=2025-01-07 |website=HISTORY |language=en}}</ref> The Germans were attacking to support the efforts of [[Francisco Franco]] to overthrow the Basque government and the Spanish Republican government. Pablo Picasso painted his mural-sized ''[[Guernica (Picasso)|Guernica]]'' to commemorate the horrors of the bombing.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Pablo Picasso (Pablo Ruiz Picasso) - Guernica |url=https://www.museoreinasofia.es/en/collection/artwork/guernica |access-date=2025-01-07 |website=www.museoreinasofia.es |language=en}}</ref>

During the [[Great Depression]] of the 1930s and through the years of World War II, American art was characterized by social realism and [[American Scene painting]], in the work of [[Grant Wood]], [[Edward Hopper]], [[Ben Shahn]], [[Thomas Hart Benton (painter)|Thomas Hart Benton]], and several others.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2016-06-05 |title=America after the Fall: Painting in the 1930s |url=https://www.artic.edu/exhibitions/1952/america-after-the-fall-painting-in-the-1930s |access-date=2025-01-07 |website=The Art Institute of Chicago |language=en}}</ref> ''[[Nighthawks (painting)|Nighthawks]]'' (1942) is a painting by Edward Hopper that portrays people sitting in a downtown diner late at night.<ref>{{Citation |last=Hopper |first=Edward |title=Nighthawks |date=1942 |url=https://www.artic.edu/artworks/111628/nighthawks |access-date=2025-01-07}}</ref> It is not only Hopper's most famous painting, but one of the most recognizable in American art. The scene was inspired by a diner in [[Greenwich Village]]. Hopper began painting it immediately after the [[attack on Pearl Harbor]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Oehler |first=Sarah Kelly |date=2020-03-24 |title=Nighthawks as a Symbol of Hope |url=https://www.artic.edu/articles/808/nighthawks-as-a-symbol-of-hope |language=en}}</ref> After this event there was a large feeling of gloominess over the country, a feeling that is portrayed in the painting. The urban street is empty outside the diner, and inside none of the three patrons is apparently looking or talking to the others but instead is lost in their own thoughts. This portrayal of modern urban life as empty or lonely is a common theme throughout Hopper's work.<ref>{{Cite magazine |last=Schjeldahl |first=Peter |date=2020-06-01 |title=Edward Hopper and American Solitude |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/06/08/edward-hopper-and-american-solitude |access-date=2025-01-07 |magazine=The New Yorker |language=en-US |issn=0028-792X}}</ref>

''[[American Gothic]]'' is a painting by [[Grant Wood]] from 1930 portraying a [[pitchfork]]-holding farmer and a younger woman in front of a house of [[Carpenter Gothic]] style, it is one of the most familiar images in 20th-century [[Visual art of the United States|American art]].<ref>{{Citation |last=Wood |first=Grant |title=American Gothic |date=1930 |url=https://www.artic.edu/artworks/6565/american-gothic |access-date=2025-01-07}}</ref> Art critics had favorable opinions about the painting; like [[Gertrude Stein]] and [[Christopher Morley]], they assumed the painting was meant to be a satire of rural small-town life.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2020-10-09 |title=Portraits of America: Grant Wood's American Gothic |url=https://magazine.artland.com/stories-of-iconic-artworks-grant-woods-american-gothic/ |access-date=2025-01-07 |website=Artland Magazine |language=en-US}}</ref> It was thus seen as part of the trend towards increasingly critical depictions of rural America, along the lines of [[Sherwood Anderson]]'s 1919 ''[[Winesburg, Ohio]]'', [[Sinclair Lewis]]'s 1920 ''[[Main Street (novel)|Main Street]]'', and [[Carl Van Vechten]]'s ''The Tattooed Countess'' in literature.<ref name="slate">Fineman, Mia, [http://www.slate.com/id/2120494/ The Most Famous Farm Couple in the World: Why American Gothic still fascinates.] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110907021557/http://www.slate.com/id/2120494 |date=7 September 2011 }}, ''[[Slate (magazine)|Slate]]'', 8 June 2005</ref> However, with the onset of the Great Depression, the painting came to be seen as a depiction of steadfast American pioneer spirit.

The situation for artists in Europe during the 1930s deteriorated rapidly as the Nazis' power in Germany and across Eastern Europe increased. ''[[Degenerate art]]'' was a term adopted by the [[Nazi]] regime in Germany for virtually all modern art.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Tate |title=Degenerate art |url=https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/d/degenerate-art |access-date=2025-01-07 |website=Tate |language=en-GB}}</ref> Such art was banned because it was un-German or [[Jewish Bolshevism|Jewish Bolshevist]] in nature, and those identified as degenerate artists were subjected to sanctions. These included being dismissed from teaching positions, being forbidden to exhibit or to sell their art, and in some cases being forbidden to produce art entirely. [[Degenerate Art Exhibition|Degenerate Art]] was also the title of an exhibition, mounted by the Nazis in [[Munich]] in 1937.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Degenerate Art |url=https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/3868#:~:text=In%201937,%20740%20modern%20works,inferiority%20and%20society's%20moral%20decline. |access-date=2025-01-07 |website=The Museum of Modern Art |language=en}}</ref> The climate became so hostile for artists and art associated with modernism and [[Abstract art|abstraction]] that many left for the Americas. German artist [[Max Beckmann]] and scores of others fled Europe for New York.<ref>{{Cite news |date=1997-10-11 |title=Exiles and Emigrés:Artists Who Fled (Published 1997) |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1997/10/11/style/IHT-exiles-and-emigresartists-who-fled.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241130184134/https://www.nytimes.com/1997/10/11/style/IHT-exiles-and-emigresartists-who-fled.html |archive-date=30 November 2024 |access-date=2025-01-07 |language=en |url-status=live }}</ref> In New York City a new generation of young and exciting modernist painters led by [[Arshile Gorky]], [[Willem de Kooning]], and others were just beginning to come of age.<ref>{{Cite news |date=2005-10-16 |title='New Art City' (Published 2005) |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/16/books/chapters/new-art-city.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220620205413/https://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/16/books/chapters/new-art-city.html |archive-date=20 June 2022 |access-date=2025-01-07 |language=en |url-status=live }}</ref>

Arshile Gorky's portrait of someone who might be Willem de Kooning is an example of the evolution of [[Abstract Expressionism]] from the context of figure painting, Cubism and Surrealism. Along with his friends de Kooning and [[John D. Graham]], Gorky created bio morphically shaped and abstracted figurative compositions that by the 1940s evolved into totally abstract paintings. Gorky's work seems to be a careful analysis of memory, emotion and shape, using line and color to express feeling and nature.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Seitz |first=William Chapin |url=https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1991_300062248.pdf |title=Arshile Gorky: paintings, drawings, studies |date=1962 |publisher=The Museum of Modern Art: Distributed by Doubleday, Garden City, N.Y. |location=New York}}</ref>

=== Attacks on early modernism ===
{{anchor|Criticisms of modernism}}
[[File:Franz Marc-The fate of the animals-1913.jpg|thumb|right|upright=1.15|[[Franz Marc]], ''[[Fate of the Animals|The fate of the animals]]'', 1913, oil on canvas. The work was displayed at the exhibition of [[Degenerate art|"Entartete Kunst"]] ("degenerate art") in [[Munich]], [[Nazi Germany]], 1937.]]
Modernism's stress on [[freedom of expression]], experimentation, [[Radicalism (historical)|radicalism]], and [[primitivism]] disregards conventional expectations. In many art forms this often meant startling and alienating audiences with bizarre and unpredictable effects, as in the strange and disturbing combinations of motifs in Surrealism or the use of extreme [[Consonance and dissonance|dissonance]] and atonality in modernist music. In literature this often involved the rejection of intelligible plots or characterization in novels, or the creation of poetry that defied clear interpretation. Within the [[modernism in the Catholic Church|Catholic Church]], the specter of [[Protestantism]] and [[Martin Luther]] was at play in anxieties over modernism and the notion that doctrine develops and changes over time.<ref name="Lamport Gordon Marty 2017 p. 525">{{cite book | last1=Lamport | first1=M.A. | last2=Gordon | first2=B. | last3=Marty | first3=M.E. | title=Encyclopedia of Martin Luther and the Reformation | publisher=Rowman & Littlefield Publishers | issue=v. 2 | year=2017 | isbn=978-1-4422-7159-3 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ih8wDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA525 | access-date=2023-05-11 | page=525 | archive-date=11 May 2023 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230511220140/https://books.google.com/books?id=Ih8wDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA525 | url-status=live }}</ref>

From 1932, [[socialist realism]] began to oust modernism in the Soviet Union,<ref name="Sergei V. Ivanov pp. 28"/> where it had previously endorsed Russian Futurism and [[constructivism (art)|Constructivism]], primarily under the homegrown philosophy of [[Suprematism]].

The [[Nazism|Nazi]] government of Germany deemed modernism [[narcissism|narcissistic]] and nonsensical, as well as "Jewish" (see [[Antisemitism]]) and "Negro".<ref>Kühnel, Anita. [https://www.moma.org/collection/details.php?theme_id=10077 "Entartete Kunst", from ''Grove Art Online''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150509014614/http://www.moma.org/collection/details.php?theme_id=10077 |date=9 May 2015 }}, MoMA website.</ref> The Nazis exhibited modernist paintings alongside works by the [[mental illness|mentally ill]] in an exhibition entitled "[[Degenerate Art]]". Accusations of "formalism" could lead to the end of a career, or worse. For this reason, many modernists of the post-war generation felt that they were the most important bulwark against totalitarianism, the "[[sentinel species|canary in the coal mine]]", whose repression by a government or other group with supposed authority represented a warning that individual liberties were being threatened. Louis A. Sass compared madness, specifically [[schizophrenia]], and modernism in a less fascist manner by noting their shared disjunctive narratives, surreal images, and incoherence.<ref>Sass, Louis A. (1992). ''Madness and Modernism: Insanity in the Light of Modern Art, Literature, and Thought''. New York: Basic Books. Cited in Bauer, Amy (2004), "Cognition, Constraints, and Conceptual Blends in Modernist Music", in ''The Pleasure of Modernist Music''. {{ISBN|1-58046-143-3}}.</ref>