Six Characters in Search of an Author, by Luigi Pirandello, creates a powerful vision of this fragmented, modern world. Modernist artists responded to this new and disturbing sense of a world made up of unreliable, constantly shifting bits and pieces, by experimenting with new forms to reflect and express this new vision of reality. This led to forms of art and literature that dealt with the fragmented ideas, images and values of their times. In brief, many of the ideas that had seemed so certain in the 19th century no longer could be trusted in the 20th. The value of progress, a nineteenth century ideal, came under fire, as people observed the chaos wrought by two world wars, nazism, fascism, communism and other destructive isms of the 20th century.Įven science, that beloved discipline of the 19th century, came under suspicion, as people observed the misuses of science and technology to create more destructive weapons, massive pollution, and the destruction of the environment.
More destructive weapons, massive pollution, destruction of the environment Two world wars, nazism, fascism, communism and other destructive isms of the 20th century New Areas of Uncertainty in the 20th CenturyĮinstein's theory of relativity and Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle It no longer seemed likely that human beings were on their way to knowing everything about a clear and rational universe. Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle was even more disturbing, since it asserted that the very act of observing distorted what was being observed. The nature of knowledge itself came into question as Einstein's theory of relativity suggested that what one could observe and measure was a function of where one was while observing. Human beings, too, came into doubt, as Sigmund Freud and his followers discovered and explored the unconscious, breaking down the belief in a single, solid and knowable personality for each human being.
The twentieth century developed as a period of questions and doubts about practically everything, including the physical world itself, as scientists discovered the subatomic particles and mostly empty space that underlay the seeming solidity of matter.
MODERNISM: ART'S RESPONSE TO THE FRAGMENTATION OF EVERYTHING
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