The fundamental thrust of Postmodernism's solution was toward a new impersonalism, the use of the unconscious and superconscious, a reflection of medievalism. This was accompanied by fragmentariness, dispersion, eclecticism, irony with respect to the absolute (which appears under various names: "totality," "canon," "center," "logocentrism," "metaphysics," etc.) In other words, postmodernism works against two major postulates, that of the individual and the absolute, whose tortuous dividedness gave rise to the inexorbaly tragic sense of Modernism, combining extreme optimism and extreme pessimism. The man of Modernity is Goethe's Faust, Dostoevsky's Raskolnikov and Nietzsche's Zarathustra. He aims for the absolute and tries to encompass it with his own personality. The collapse of this aspiration marked the end of the entire epoch of Modernity. Modernism, with all its diverse philosophical and artistic schools-Symbolism, Expressionism, Futurism, Cubism, Dada, Suprematism, Constructivism, Surrealism, psychoanalysis-enacted the inability of the individual to encompass and subjugate the trans-individual, which assails it from all sides, including from within itself. Diagnosing this condition could be expressed pessimistically, as in Kafka, or optimistically, as in Mayakovsky; as the terror of alienation or the ecstasy of collectivism. But in either case, it marked the end of Modernity. Beyond it loomed the epoch of postmodernity, which Nikolai Berdyaev called a "new middle ages," by analogy with the pre-modern age. For Berdyaev, this signalled "the end of humanism, individualism, the formal liberalism of the culture of modernity." -- http://www.focusing.org/epstein.html
Modernism and the Visual Arts
An art movement that deliberately disassociated itself from the traditional or real forms of expression which were characteristic of many styles in the arts of the late nineteenth and twentieth century. Modernism refers to this period's interest in new types of paints and other materials, in expressing feelings and ideas, in creating abstractions and fantasies, rather than representing what is real. The “Father of Modernism” is often thought to be Frenchman Paul Cezanne.
Modernism and Architecture
[...] the 20th Century’s two most influential architects: Frank Lloyd Wright, the Father of Modernism, and Giuseppe Terragni, Father of the International Style.
Modernism and Art Deco
Movement in the decorative arts and architecture that originated in the 1920s and developed into a major style in western Europe and the United States during the 1930s. Its name was derived from the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes, held in Paris in 1925, where the style was first exhibited. Art Deco design represented modernism turned into fashion. Its products included both individually crafted luxury items and mass-produced wares, but, in either case, the intention was to create a sleek and antitraditional elegance that symbolized wealth and sophistication.
Modernism and Art Nouveau
Ornamental style of art - literary meaning "new art" - that flourished between about 1890 and 1910 throughout Europe and the United States. Art Nouveau is characterized by its use of a long, sinuous, organic line and was employed most often in architecture, interior design, jewelry and glass design, posters, and illustration. It was a deliberate attempt to create a new style, free of the imitative historicism that dominated much of 19th-century art and design. Art Nouveau developed first in England and soon spread to the European continent, where it was called Jugendstil in Germany, Sezessionstil in Austria, Stile Floreale (or Stile Liberty) in Italy, and Modernismo (or Modernista) in Spain. The term Art Nouveau was coined by a gallery in Paris that exhibited much of this work.
Modernism and Futurism
Early 20th-century artistic movement that centred in Italy and emphasized the dynamism, speed, energy, and power of the machine and the vitality, change, and restlessness of modern life in general. The most significant results of the movement were in the visual arts and poetry.
The Etymology of the Word Modern
Having said that, let us look at the etymology of the word modern and see how society has regarded it. During the Middle Ages, modernus originated from modo, meaning 'recently, just now' (Calinescu, 1987/96, p. 13). This shows us how we can say that the novel is always modern (Bakhtin), but not necessarily modernist. This is an important
distinction, something which seems to be forgotten too often. Modern, then, was opposed to antiquus, although this diachronic relationship was only developed late in the Latin language (Calinescu 1987/96, p. 14). Racing forward to the Renaissance we find that here the antique/modern diachronism still exists and that at this point antiquity was favoured. However, it was also at this point when people began to criticise antiquity because they were dissatisfied with clinging to the past. Francis Bacon began to polemically argue that it was actually his contemporaries which were the ancients, since they had a foundation built on a far larger history than was available to the antique people (Calinescu, 1987/96, p. 25). The reason Bacon argued such a thing was obviously in order to break the belief that the ancient times were better than the present. At this point, however, the antique was still
preferred and around this time the decorum of the neo-classicism took shape. -- http://www.sprog.auc.dk/~steen/pomo.html