Talk:Modernism

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Organization

Maybe it's just me but I find the structure of this article confusing/incoherent/illogical. So I have moved the sections "Definition" and "Modernism, Romanticism, Philosophy and Symbol" to the very end for now into an "Appendix". They may contain useful ideas that can be incorporated later into other sections. rwood128 142.167.29.248 (talk) 15:10, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

"Both revolutionary and traditional"

An example of how modernist art can be both revolutionary and traditional is the music of the composer Arnold Schoenberg. On the one hand Schoenberg rejected traditional tonal harmony, the hierarchical system of organizing works of music that had guided music making for at least a century and a half...

Does the source for this part specifically describe modernism as "traditional", as opposed to merely describing certain ideas used by a given artist or another?

From my knowledge the postmodernists are usually the ones staking claim to this sort of recombination of old and new, as seen in their use of the terms bricolage and remixing, this type of wording could be pretty controversial if not supported with a specific quote. Orchastrattor (talk) 20:44, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

Move "Romanticism and Realism" header into its own section

Rather than combining the early history of modernism with a discussion on its relationship to romanticism, let's move it to its own section. It's important for understanding modernism, but right now the section is too long, and kind of confusing because it's talking about two different things at once. We can then rename the existing heading to "Early 19th century", and refocus it on historical information. Any strong objections?

My [recent edit] probably makes this worse, but I think a clear comparison between Romanticism and modernism is key to the whole article, and figured it was a net positive contribution, if a little clumsy.

Absent-annotator (talk) 06:56, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

I see what you mean and have started to address the issue by moving an entire paragraph about modernism's literary impact back into the overview section, where it was already being discussed (after merging the two paragraphs, they go so well together it almost seems like another editor split them for an unknown reason.

Another change that I'm considering is to just change the sub-section's name to "Early 19th century" rather than "Romanticism and realism". I'm not certain there's enough content there to justify creating an entire new sub-section, especially after taking out that paragraph about literary modernism. Mr. UnderhiIl (talk) 17:08, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

After further edits I have in fact gone ahead and split off the discussion of Romanticism and realism and made a new section for "Early 19th century". Hopefully this resolves the issue to everyone's satisfaction. Mr. UnderhiIl (talk) 04:56, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

short description

I was going to change the hatnote at the top of the article to say what it was about before For other uses of the word... (see WP:HNS), when I noticed that the short description currently reads Philosophical and art movement.

First, modernism is not a philosophical movement per se. Second, shouldn't it be artistic movement?

Would the following be better: Cultural and artistic movement?

Cheers, Patrick (talk) 20:35, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

Yes, that would be better. Newimpartial (talk) 21:17, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

Done. (And philosophy is still mentioned in the lead.) Patrick (talk) 16:20, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

Title

The term "modernism" is very broad, and the current article is devoted apparently to the narrowest of definitions, a 1920s-1960s artistic movement, thus creating enormous confusion for me (I have read few sources on the subject) and probably to other editors as well. I have added a source at the bottom of the article that on p. 13 contains a comparison of definitions of "modernism". Tobolczyk [1] offers three (text is mine, order is changed by me from the widest to the narrowest sense, the modernist movement is at the bottom of the list in the source, too):

1. any grouping of artists (or even "climate of ideas") with desire for change and break with the past, typically involving the ideal of Enlightenment. This is the sense that gave rise to the opposing (also "modern") trend of postmodernism;
2. an artistic tendency, especially pronounced in the 1910s-1970s, against the "timeless" historic art styles. This tendency had started way before the 20th century, see Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns and Modern art;
3. the particular modernist movement as described in this article.

I proposed, in order to avoid the confusion, moving this article to Modernist movement to match the definition in the lead, and yielding the Modernism title to a disambiguation. Alternative might be to change the definition in the lead to include the broader sense of the term and add some clarifications into the "Overview and definitions" section. As-is, the second paragraph of this section ("modernism can be defined as a broad cultural, social, or political initiative") clearly implies the broadest meaning of #1, not the movement described in the lead and this article in general.

The "History" section might also benefit from the explanation of different meaning of modernism (for example, using the Tobolczyk work as cited here. I am hereby seeking comments on these proposals. Викидим (talk) 20:16, 27 October 2024 (UTC)