modernism

modernism
/mod"euhr niz'euhm/, n.
1. modern character, tendencies, or values; adherence to or sympathy with what is modern.
2. a modern usage or characteristic.
3. (cap.) Theol.
a. the movement in Roman Catholic thought that sought to interpret the teachings of the Church in the light of philosophic and scientific conceptions prevalent in the late 19th and early 20th centuries: condemned by Pope Pius X in 1907.
b. the liberal theological tendency in Protestantism in the 20th century.
4. (sometimes cap.) a deliberate philosophical and practical estrangement or divergence from the past in the arts and literature occurring esp. in the course of the 20th century and taking form in any of various innovative movements and styles.
[1730-40; MODERN + -ISM]

* * *

In the arts, a radical break with the past and concurrent search for new forms of expression.

Modernism fostered a period of experimentation in the arts from the late 19th to the mid-20th century, particularly in the years following World War I. In an era characterized by industrialization, rapid social change, advances in science and the social sciences (e.g., Darwinism, Freudian theory), Modernists felt a growing alienation incompatible with Victorian morality, optimism, and convention. The Modernist impulse is fueled in various literatures by industrialization and urbanization, by the search for an authentic response to a much-changed world. Among English-language writers, the best-known Modernists are T.S. Eliot, James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, and Virginia Woolf. Composers, including Arnold Schoenberg, Igor Stravinsky, and Anton Webern, sought new solutions within new forms and used as-yet-untried approaches to tonality. In dance a rebellion against both balletic and interpretive traditions had its roots in the work of Émile Jaques-Delcroze, Rudolf Laban, and Loie Fuller. Each of them examined a specific aspect of dance
such as the elements of the human form in motion or the impact of theatrical context
and helped bring about the era of modern dance. In the visual arts the roots of Modernism are often traced back to painter Édouard Manet, who beginning in the 1860s broke away from inherited notions of perspective, modeling, and subject matter. The avant-garde movements that followed
are generally defined as Modernist. Over the span of these movements, artists increasingly focused on the intrinsic qualities of their media
e.g., line, form, and colour
and moved away from inherited notions of art. By the beginning of the 20th century, architects also had increasingly abandoned past styles and conventions in favour of a form of architecture based on essential functional concerns. In the period after World War I these tendencies became codified as the International style, which utilized simple, geometric shapes and unadorned facades and which abandoned any use of historical reference; the buildings of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier embodied this style. After World War II the style manifested itself in clean-lined, unadorned glass skyscrapers and mass housing projects.

* * *

      in Roman Catholic church history, a movement in the last decade of the 19th century and first decade of the 20th that sought to reinterpret traditional Catholic teaching in the light of 19th-century philosophical, historical, and psychological theories and called for freedom of conscience. Influenced by non-Catholic biblical (Bible) scholars, Modernists contended that the writers of both the Old and the New Testaments were conditioned by the times in which they lived and that there had been an evolution in the history of biblical religion. Modernism also reflected a reaction against the increasing centralization of church authority in the pope and the Roman Curia (papal bureaucracy).

      In France the movement was closely associated with the writings of Alfred Firmin Loisy (Loisy, Alfred Firmin), who was dismissed in 1893 from his teaching position at the Institut Catholique in Paris for his views about the Old Testament canon. These views, later expressed in La Religion d'Israel (1900; “The Religion of Israel”), and his theories on the Gospels in Études évangéliques (1902; “Studies in the Gospels”) were both condemned by François Cardinal Richard, the archbishop of Paris. In England George Tyrrell (Tyrrell, George), an Irish-born Jesuit priest, was dismissed from his teaching post and from the Jesuits for his views on papal infallibility and for a doctrine that minimized the intellectual element of revelation and thus seemed to contradict the teachings of the First Vatican Council (1869–70). His theories influenced others, notably the French layman Édouard Le Roy. Also in England, a scholar, Baron Friedrich von Hügel (von Hügel, Friedrich, Baron Von Hügel), was critical of some methods of church government and defended the right of Loisy and Tyrrell to publish their views; he did not, however, reject the papacy or share some of Tyrrell's philosophical opinions. In Italy the writings of Loisy and Tyrrell influenced the priest-scholars Ernesto Buonaiuti and Giovanni Semeria, the novelist Antonio Fogazzaro, and other Catholics. In Italy, as also in Germany, concern with reform of church institutions was a more prominent theme than rejection of doctrine.

      The reaction of Rome included the suspension or excommunication of certain priests and scholars who were associated with the movement, the placement of books on the Index of Forbidden Books, the establishment in 1903 by Pope Leo XIII of the Pontifical Biblical Commission to monitor the work of Scripture scholars, and the formal condemnation in 1907 in the papal encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis and the decree Lamentabili Sane Exitu of the Curia's Holy Office. In order to ensure enforcement, the priest-scholar Umberto Benigni organized, through personal contacts with theologians, a nonofficial group of censors who would report to him those thought to be teaching condemned doctrine. This group, known as Integralists (or Sodalitium Pianum, “Solidarity of Pius”), frequently employed overzealous and clandestine methods and hindered rather than helped the combating of Modernism. On June 29, 1908, Pius X (Pius X, Saint) publicly admitted that Modernism was a dead issue, but at the urging of Benigni on Sept. 1, 1910, he issued Sacrorum antistitum, which prescribed that all teachers in seminaries and clerics before their ordination take an oath denouncing Modernism and supporting Lamentabili and Pascendi.

* * *


Universalium. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Нужно сделать НИР?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Modernism — • Etymologically, modernism means an exaggerated love of what is modern, an infatuation for modern ideas Catholic Encyclopedia. Kevin Knight. 2006. Modernism     Modernism      …   Catholic encyclopedia

  • Modernism — is the generally accepted term to describe the sweeping changes that took place, particularly in the arts and literature, between the late nineteenth century and the beginning of the Second World War. There is, however, no clear demarcation by… …   Dictionary of sociology

  • modernism —    Modernism, or the modern movement, in architecture is usually defined as a mode deriving from the work of the early Le Corbusier and of Walter Gropius and his colleagues at the Bauhaus in 1930s Germany, culminating in the work of Mies Van der… …   Encyclopedia of contemporary British culture

  • modernism — MODERNÍSM, modernisme, s.n. 1. Însuşirea de a fi modern, caracterul a ceea ce este modern; atitudine modernă; preferinţă (exagerată) faţă de tot ceea ce este nou, modern. 2. Curent sau tendinţă din arta şi literatura sec. XX, care neagă tradiţia… …   Dicționar Român

  • Modernism — Mod ern*ism, n. 1. Modern practice; a thing of recent date; esp., a modern usage or mode of expression. [1913 Webster] 2. Certain methods and tendencies which, in Biblical questions, apologetics, and the theory of dogma, in the endeavor to… …   The Collaborative International Dictionary of English

  • MODERNISM —    Modernism (modanizumu) manifested itself first in Europe, with notable modernist writers, such as James Joyce and T. S. Eliot. Its influence was quickly felt in Japan by such writers as Yokomitsu Riichi, Kawabata Yasunari, Hori Tatsuo, Ito Sei …   Japanese literature and theater

  • modernism — (n.) 1737, deviation from the ancient and classical manner [Johnson, who calls it a word invented by Swift ], from MODERN (Cf. modern) + ISM (Cf. ism). From 1830 as modern ways and styles. Used in theology since 1901. As a movement in the arts… …   Etymology dictionary

  • modernism — ► NOUN 1) modern ideas, methods, or styles. 2) a movement in the arts or religion that aims to break with traditional forms or ideas. DERIVATIVES modernist noun & adjective modernistic adjective …   English terms dictionary

  • modernism — [mäd′ərn iz΄əm] n. 1. a) modern practices, trends, ideas, etc., or sympathy with any of these b) an instance of this; a modern idiom, practice, or usage 2. [often M ] any of several movements variously attempting to redefine Biblical and… …   English World dictionary

  • Modernism — For other uses of the word, see Modernism (disambiguation). For the period in sociology beginning with the industrialization, see Modernity. Hans Hofmann, The Gate , 1959–1960, collection: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Hofmann was renowned not… …   Wikipedia

  • Modernism —    One of the forms assumed by fin de siècle art is Modernism, which can be regarded as the Catalan variant of the radical innovating currents which appeared all over Europe in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century: art nouveau, art… …   Encyclopedia of contemporary Spanish culture

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”