Symbolism Overview
Symbolism is a late-nineteenth-century literary movement centred mostly around the work of poets such as Stéphane Mallarmé, Arthur Rimbaud, Paul Verlaine, Philippe Villiers de L’Isle-Adam,…
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Intellectual Currents
This section focusses on the historical, sociological, philosophical, economic, political, and scientific context of modernism. Entries cover individuals, coteries, movements, and events. The primary criterion…
Expressionism
Expressionism was one of the foremost modernist movements to emerge in Europe in the early years of the twentieth-century. It had a profound effect on…
McTaggart, John McTaggart Ellis (1866–1925)
Cambridge philosopher, metaphysician, and mystic John McTaggart Ellis McTaggart was a key figure in initiating modernist shifts in philosophy by challenging traditional understandings of Christian…
Hsiao Chin (Xiao Qin) [蕭勤] (1935--)
Hsiao Chin is an abstract painter who was born in Shanghai, China, to an affluent Christian family. His father Hsiao Yu-mei [蕭友梅] founded the Shanghai…
Koyré, Alexandre (1882–1964)
Born Alexandr Vladimirovich Koyranskiy (Александр Владимирович Койранский) in Taganrog, Russia, Alexandre Koyré moved to Paris, France, as a student where he was active, with varying…
Can Xue 殘雪 (pen name of Deng Xiaohua 鄧小華) (1953–)
Can Xue (pen name of Deng Xiaohua) is a Chinese writer and literary critic whose work has gained a following for its avant-garde themes and…
de Chirico, Giorgio (1888–1978)
The modern Italian painter Giorgio de Chirico was born in the port city of Volos in the Grecian province of Thessaly. After training in Athens…
Marburg School
The Marburg School is a term used to describe a group of Neo-Kantian philosophers at the University of Marburg in the second half of the…
Vitalism
Vitalism is a philosophy of life that ascribes a vital principle or animating life-force to the processes of living organisms. Against the assertions of mechanistic…
Existentialism
Existentialism is the term given to an interdisciplinary school of thought that focuses on the lived experience of human beings. Existentialism was especially popular in…
Tarkovsky, Andrei (1943–1986)
The cinema of Andrei Tarkovsky stands at the zenith of high-modernist cinema. Amongst the many technical achievements that characterize Tarkovsky’s total art approach to cinema,…
Char, René (1907–1988)
The French poet René Char exemplified key aspects of modernism. Initially associated with Surrealism, he collaborated with poets such as André Breton and Paul Eluard,…
Pragmatism
Pragmatism is a method of inquiry that deems an object or belief adequately ‘true’ if it has utility for an individual or a collective. It…
James, William (1842–1910)
William James was an American psychologist and philosopher who worked across those fields to investigate the nature of consciousness, experience and free will. A founding…
The Vienna Circle
In 1922 Moritz Schlick (1882–1936) transformed the Verein Ernst Mach (Ernst Mach Society), a weekly reading group concerned with logical positivism, into an international assembly…
Bloch, Ernst (July 8, 1885, Ludwigshafen - August 4, 1977, Tübingen)
Ernst Bloch was a German Marxist philosopher. Fleeing the Nazis in 1934, he lived in exile in Switzerland, France, Czechoslovakia, and the US. In 1949…
Duncan, Isadora (1877- 1927)
Frequently credited with the invention of modern dance, Isadora Duncan was a choreographer, dancer, educator, international star, and author of a bestselling autobiography My Life…
Faktura
Faktura, literally “texture,” is related to the Russian avant-garde’s preoccupation with the fundamental principles of the creative process. The term, applied to a work of…
Naghi, Mohamed Musa (1888–1956)
The painter Mohamed Naghi is remembered today alongside Mahmoud Mukhtar (1891–1934) and Mahmoud Said (1897–1964) as one of the core members of the so-called first…
Geometric Abstraction and Concrete Art in South America
Nonfigurative painting based on structural and geometric principles in South America can be traced back to 1923 in the works of Argentine painter and theoretician…
Carnap, Rudolf (1891–1970)
Rudolf Carnap was a German-American philosopher, and was widely regarded as one of most important of the 20th century. Politically engaged and inclined toward utopianism,…
Colson, Jaime (1901–1975)
One of the founders of the modernist movement in twentieth-century Dominican art, Jaime Colson worked in a variety of media that included drawing and painting.…
Koraïchi, Rachid (1947--)
Born in Ain Beida, Algeria to a Sufi family, Rachid Koraïchi’s art is often framed within a tradition of Sufi spirituality in which aesthetics and…
Kieślowski, Krzysztof (1941–1996)
Krzysztof Kieślowski was a highly influential Polish filmmaker in the tradition of auteur cinema. Kieślowski tackled the tension between the political, spiritual, and ethical, and…