How modernism broke with tradition

Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, performing arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and subjective experience. What does its break with tradition help us understand about how art responds to a changing world? The lessons trace this break through new approaches to artistic practice, cultural inheritance, and modern life.

3 articles, 1 video, 1 book

The reading path

1. Read
   

   modernism · Wikipedia · 60+ min read

   Modernist composer Arnold Schoenberg rejected traditional tonal harmony, the hierarchical system that had guided musical composition for at least a century and a half. Modernists did not completely reject art as a means of understanding the world. They saw it as a tool for challenging and disrupting the viewer's point of view, rather than directly accessing a higher reality. Architect Kenzō Tange (1913 to 2005) combined traditional Japanese styles with modernism and designed major buildings on five continents.

2. Read
   

   The Triumph of German Industrial Modernism · Palladium Magazine · 12 min read

   The Werkbund's founders rejected the English Arts and Crafts movement's nostalgic escape into handicraft. For modernism, they argued that modern life would be redeemed through disciplined cooperation between artists and industry, not retreat.

3. Read
   

   The Revolutionary Tapestry of Nigerian Modernism · Hyperallergic

   The Zaria Art Society's works show Nigerian modernism's desire to break traditions and create something vibrant and new, befitting a post-independence country. Jimo Akolo's (1935 to 2023) "Fulani Horsemen" (1962) uses geometric design, bold linework and colors.

4. Watch
   

   Lost Chapters of Modernism: Case Studies in Reconstruction | MoMA LIVE · YouTube · 1 hr 51 min watch

   The program examines case studies in reconstructing modernist works that were unrealized, lost, destroyed, or ephemeral, including Adrian Sudhalter's research on Tristan Tzara's unrealized Dadaglobe anthology.

5. Book
   

   To the Lighthouse · Bookshop.org

   To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf describes the Ramsays and their guests on holiday on the Isle of Skye, then follows time winding through their lives as they face change.

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