Definition of modernity

Modernism is defined as a historical and artistic period that extended from 1865 AD until the end of World War II, and coincided with the progress of industry and technology, so that it appeared as a response to the inherited traditions, beliefs, and ideas presented by the great thinkers. Such as: the Austrian psychologist Sigmund Freud, the German philosopher Karl Marx, the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, and the British scientist Charles Darwin. Thus, old prevailing beliefs were reconsidered in an attempt to change them, so modernity adopts the new ideas, beliefs, and customs of the West, and it is also based on science. , logic, and democracy.

Modernism in literature

Writers in the modernist period rebelled against the accepted method of telling stories, and against the vertical poetry that was prevalent in the nineteenth century, and they adopted free poetry as an alternative, in addition to telling stories in a spontaneous and unorganized manner, and one of the methods used in literature was the stream of consciousness method ( In English: Stream-of-Consciousness), which is a style that ignores the usual structure of the sentence, and is characterized by the dispersal of text ideas to represent the dispersed mental state of the characters in the story, novel, or poem, in order to reflect the psychological state of individuals as a result of the effects left by the World War; Some of the books were considered obscene and indecent, and some of them were banned; Such as: the novel Ulysses by Irish writer James Joyce, which was banned for many years in English-speaking countries.

Modernism in art

Artists and painters of the Modernist period rejected the conservative values of ancient art; Modernism rejected the realistic depiction of things that artists had used before, and relied on the method of innovation and experimentation with colors and shapes. Paintings and artworks in the modernist period were also characterized by their focus on different social and political values. Artists around the world used modern images, materials, and techniques in their artwork because they felt they better reflected the realities and hopes of modern societies.