The Modernism Movement In The Modernist Movement

Throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth Centuries, the Modernist movement arose as a result of protest against and rejection of traditional art forms. Modernism grew increasingly popular, and was evident through architecture, the visual arts, literature, social and political structure, behavior and faith. There were a variety of movements within the Modernist period, including Futurism, Constructivism, Dadaism, Surrealism and the Bauhaus. The Dada movement grew from political backlash of World War I, and essentially rejected all prior established reason and logic, ultimately recreating art in a never-before-seen irrational way. As well as being anti-war, this controversial art movement rejected the bourgeois and also had strong political associations with the radical left. Similarly, Modernism also largely impacted upon the Bauhaus. The Bauhaus was a school of fine arts and crafts, established in Germany after their defeat in World War I, and is largely considered to be the most influential institution of art and design of its time. These movements can be clearly identified through artworks of that time, such as Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain (1917), symbolic of Dadaism, and Walter Gropius’ Bauhaus Building constructed in 1925-26.

The Dada movement began in approximately 1915 and soon became an international movement involving countless artists, poets and performers. These various artists, large majority being of German and French nationalities, congregated and gathered in the refuge that Zurich offered throughout the First World War. These Dadaists were outraged and angry at the European society for the severity of the war, and thus protested through their work. Their art was a form of ‘shock art’ in which they portray...

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...d the Bauhaus. As discussed, Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain is one of the most iconic artworks of the Dada era. It rejects preexisting traditions and expectations whilst creating contemporary art and making a mockery of the current society. Furthermore, the Bauhaus movement was one, which emphasized the importance of equality between the theory of art and the practice. The school was one of the first and most influential of its kind, recognizing the errors of past curriculum and redefining it’s aims, and has held a lasting impression on the art and design world. The Bauhaus itself was representative of the principles it endorsed, including simplicity, economic sensibility and practicality. Due to the changing social and political factors of the time, various movements characterized the modernist era, and in turn created new definitions of art, design and architecture.