-Modernism, in the fine arts, a break with the past and the 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, the nearly global adoption of capitalism,

rapid social change, and advances in science and the social sciences (e.g., Freudian
theory), Modernists felt a growing alienation incompatible with Victorian morality,
optimism, and convention. New ideas in psychology, philosophy, and political theory
kindled a search for new modes of expression.
Modernism in literature
The Modernist impulse is fueled in various literatures by industrialization
and urbanization and by the search for an authentic response to a much-changed world.
Although prewar works by Henry James, Joseph Conrad, and other writers are
considered Modernist, Modernism as a literary movement is typically associated with
the period after World War I. The enormity of the war had undermined humankind’s
faith in the foundations of Western society and culture, and postwar Modernist
literature reflected a sense of disillusionment and fragmentation. A primary theme
of T.S. Eliot’s long poem The Waste Land (1922), a seminal Modernist work, is the
search for redemption and renewal in a sterile and spiritually empty landscape. With its
fragmentary images and obscure allusions, the poem is typical of Modernism in
requiring the reader to take an active role in interpreting the text.

Eliot’s was not the dominant voice among Modernist poets. In the United
States Robert Frost and Carl Sandburg evocatively described the regions—New
England and the Midwest, respectively—in which they lived. The Harlem
Renaissance produced a rich coterie of poets, among them Countee
Cullen, Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, and Alice Dunbar Nelson. Harriet
Monroe founded Poetry magazine in Chicago in 1912 and made it the most
important organ for poetry not just in the United States but for the English-
speaking world. During the 1920s Edna St. Vincent Millay, Marianne Moore,
and E.E. Cummings expressed a spirit of revolution and experimentation in
their poetry. A sense of disillusionment and loss pervades much American Modernist
fiction. That sense may be centred on specific individuals, or it may be directed toward
American society or toward civilization generally. It may generate a nihilistic,
destructive impulse, or it may express hope at the prospect of change. F. Scott
Fitzgerald skewered the American Dream in The Great Gatsby (1925), Richard
Wright exposed and attacked American racism in Native Son (1940), Zora Neale
Hurston told the story of a Black woman’s three marriages in Their Eyes Were
Watching God (1937), and Ernest Hemingway’s early novels The Sun Also Rises (1926)
and A Farewell to Arms (1929) articulated the disillusionment of the Lost Generation.
Meanwhile, Willa Cather told hopeful stories of the American frontier, set mostly on
the Great Plains, in O Pioneers! (1913) and My Ántonia (1918), John Steinbeck depicted
the difficult lives of migrant workers in Of Mice and Men (1937) and The Grapes of
Wrath (1939), and William Faulkner used stream-of-consciousness monologues and
other formal techniques to break from past literary practice in The Sound and the
Fury (1929).

Across the Atlantic, the publication of the Irish writer James

Joyce’s Ulysses in 1922 was a landmark event in the development of
Modernist literature. Dense, lengthy, and controversial, the novel details the
events of one day in the life of three Dubliners through a technique known
as stream of consciousness, which commonly ignores orderly sentence
structure and incorporates fragments of thought in an attempt to capture the
flow of characters’ mental processes. Portions of the book were considered
obscene, and Ulysses was banned for many years in English-speaking
countries. Other European Modernist authors whose works rejected
chronological and narrative continuity included Virginia Woolf, Marcel
Proust, and the American expatriate Gertrude Stein. The term Modernism is
also used to refer to literary movements other than the European and
American movement of the early to mid-20th century. In Latin American
literature, Modernismo arose in the late 19th century in the works of Manuel
Gutiérrez Nájera and José Martí. The movement, which continued into the
early 20th century, reached its peak in the poetry of Rubén Darío. (See
also American literature; Latin American literature.) Modernism in the
visual arts and architecture
In the visual arts the roots of Modernism are often traced back to painter Édouard
Manet, who, beginning in the 1860s, not only depicted scenes of modern life but also
broke with tradition when he made no attempt to mimic the real world by way
of perspective and modeling. He instead drew attention to the fact that his work of art
was simply paint on a flat canvas and that it was made by using a paintbrush, which
sometimes left its mark on the surface of the composition. The avant-garde movements
that followed—including Impressionism, Post-
Impressionism, Cubism, Futurism, Expressionism, Constructivism, de Stijl,
and Abstract Expressionism—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. They were helped by
advances in building technologies such as the steel frame and the curtain wall.
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
steel-and-glass buildings of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Le
Corbusier embodied this style. In the mid-to-late 20th century this
style manifested itself in clean-lined, unadorned glass skyscrapers and mass
housing projects.

Modernism in music and dance

Composers, including Arnold Schoenberg, Igor Stravinsky, and Anton Webern, sought
new solutions within new forms and used as-yet-untried approaches to tonality.
Schoenberg was the pioneer when he discarded traditional harmonic concepts
of consonance and dissonance, leading to the development of atonality and 12-tone
technique (in which all 12 tones of the octave are serialized, or given an ordered
relationship). Stravinsky’s revolutionary style, variously labeled “dynamism,”
“barbarism,” or “primitivism,” concentrated on metric imbalance and percussive
dissonance and introduced a decade of extreme experimentation that coincided with
World War I, a period of major social and political upheaval.

In dance a rebellion against both balletic and interpretive traditions had its roots in the
work of Émile Jaques-Delcroze, proponent of the eurythmics system of musical
instruction; Rudolf Laban, who analyzed and systematized forms of human motion into
a system he called Labanotation (for further information, see dance notation); and Loie
Fuller, an American actress turned dancer who first gave the free dance artistic status in
the United States. Her use of theatrical lighting and transparent lengths of China silk
fabrics at once won her the acclaim of artists as well as general audiences. She preceded
other modern dancers in rebelling against any formal technique, in establishing a
company, and in making films. By examining a specific aspect of dance, each of these
innovators helped bring about the era of modern dance.

While Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn in 1915 established Denishawn, a
nonballetic school, two of their students brought a new seriousness of style
and initiated modern dance proper. Doris Humphrey emphasized
craftsmanship and structure in choreography, also developing the use of
groupings and complexity in ensembles. Martha Graham began to open up
fresh elements of emotional expression in dance. Humphrey’s dance technique
was based on the principle of fall and recovery, Graham’s on that of
contraction and release. At the same time in Germany, Mary Wigman, Hanya
Holm, and others were also establishing comparably formal and expressionist
styles. As in Duncan’s dancing, the torso and pelvis were employed as the
centres of dance movement. Horizontal movement close to the floor became
as integral to modern dance as the upright stance is to ballet. In the tense,
often intentionally ugly, bent limbs and flat feet of the dancers, modern dance
conveyed certain emotions that ballet at that time eschewed. Furthermore,
modern dance dealt with immediate and contemporary concerns in contrast to
the formal, classical, and often narrative aspects of ballet. It achieved a new
expressive intensity and directness. Another influential pioneer of modern
dance was dancer, choreographer, and anthropologist Katherine Dunham,
who examined and interpreted the dances, rituals, and folklore of the
Black diaspora in the tropical Americas and the Caribbean. By incorporating
authentic regional dance movements and developing a technical system that
educated her students mentally as well as physically, she expanded the
boundaries of modern dance. Her influence continued into the 21st century.

The birth of postmodernism

In the late 20th century a reaction against Modernism set in. Architecture saw a return
to traditional materials and forms and sometimes to the use of decoration for the sake of
decoration itself, as in the work of Michael Graves and, after the 1970s, that of Philip
Johnson. In literature, irony and self-awareness became the postmodern fashion and
the blurring of fiction and nonfiction a favoured method. Such writers as Kurt
Vonnegut, Thomas Pynchon, and Angela Carter employed a postmodern approach in
their work.
Henri Dutilleux
French composer
Henri Dutilleux, (born January 22, 1916, Angers, France—died May 22, 2013, Paris),
French composer who produced a relatively small body of carefully
crafted compositions that were frequently performed outside France, particularly in
Great Britain and the United States.

Dutilleux was born into a creative family that had produced painters and musicians. He
was educated at the Paris Conservatory beginning in 1933 and received the Grand Prix
de Rome in 1938. Because of the outbreak of World War II, Dutilleux’s study in Rome
lasted only four months. In 1942 he worked at the Paris Opéra, and when the war ended
he began an association with Radio France that lasted until 1963. He
taught composition at the École Normale de Musique from 1961 to 1970 and at the Paris
Conservatory in 1970–71. After that time he devoted himself entirely to composing.

Dutilleux wrote in a number of genres, including works for orchestra, various

instrumental combinations, and solo instruments; chamber music; vocal
works; ballets; incidental music for the theatre; and film scores. He destroyed most of
the music he had composed before World War II, and thus his first major work was
a piano sonata premiered in 1948 by his wife, Geneviève Joy. A number of his works
were commissioned or were written for specific performers. These include Symphony
No. 2, subtitled Le Double for the use of a chamber orchestra within the orchestra,
commissioned by the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Koussevitzky Music
Foundation (1959); Métaboles, commissioned by the Cleveland Orchestra and
premiered in 1965; and Tout un monde lointain, for cello and orchestra, written
for Mstislav Rostropovich (1970). Ainsi la nuit, a string quartet, also was commissioned
by the Koussevitzky foundation (1977), and Timbres, espace, mouvement by
Rostropovich for the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C. (1978). L’Arbre
des songres, a concerto for violin, was written for Isaac Stern (1985). Correspondances,
for soprano and orchestra, received its premiere in 2003. Le Temps l’horloge, written
for the American soprano Renée Fleming, premiered in 2007.

Although Dutilleux’s works bore influences of Claude Debussy, Albert Roussel,

and Maurice Ravel, as well as of jazz, he wrote in a highly individual modernist style that
conveyed a sense of spirituality. He had an affinity for variation form and liked to quote
from other works, including his own. Though his body of work was small—he was
known as a slow, painstaking worker—it was impressive.

Dutilleux was the recipient of many honours, including the Grand Prix National de la
Musique (1967). The Koussevitzky International Recording Award for 1976 went to a
recording of Tout un monde lointain, and a number of other recordings received Grands
Prix du Disque. In 1994 Dutilleux received the Japan Art Association’s Praemium
Imperiale prize for music. In 2005 he received the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize,
considered the world’s most prestigious music award. He was a Commander of
the Legion of Honour, and in 1981 he was made an honorary member of the American
Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.
Robert Rauch

Henning Larsen
Danish architect

Larsen, Henning

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Born:

August 20, 1925 Denmark

Died:

June 22, 2013 (aged 87) Copenhagen Denmark

Awards And Honors:

 Praemium Imperiale (2012)

Movement / Style:

Modernism

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Henning Larsen, in full Henning Göbel Larsen, (born August 20, 1925, Videbæk,
Denmark—died June 22, 2013, Copenhagen), Danish architect known for his site-
specific design philosophy grounded in the Scandinavian Modernist tradition, best
exemplified in such buildings as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia,
and the Harpa Reykjavík Concert Hall and Conference Centre in Iceland.

Larsen studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts

in Copenhagen (1950), London’s Architectural Association (1951–52), and
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1952). His early design work included a
collaboration with fellow Danish architect Arne Jacobsen on the iconic Ant chair. In
1959 he founded the firm Henning Larsen Architects. From the beginning the firm took
an experimental approach to architecture and focused on entering international
architectural competitions. Larsen won first prize for such entries as designs
for Stockholm University (unbuilt) and the University of Trondheim in Norway (first
stage completed 1978, second stage completed 1994). With the Trondheim project,
Larsen established ideas about light and space that he would continue to integrate into
his design work throughout his career. The campus was conceived as a small city
enclosed in a single structure. It comprised 12 buildings—housing labs, classrooms, and
lecture halls—that were connected by large glass-covered “streets.” Larsen focused on
allowing abundant natural light to flow throughout the space, taking advantage of
Norway’s light-filled summer nights, and incorporated a glass roof that could be
partially opened.

Among Larsen’s most important projects was the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Riyadh
(1984), which his firm was awarded after winning a design competition. The building’s
simple limestone exterior enclosed an interior that comprised a variety of intimate and
public spaces, reflecting traditional Middle Eastern Islamic architecture through
a Modernist lens. Its three wings centred on a triangular four-story lobby, around which
barrel-vaulted walkways led to a central plaza in each wing. The indoor fountains and
patterned marble floors likewise echoed the Islamic tradition. Larsen was awarded
the Aga Khan Award for Architecture for the ministry in 1989. He continued designing
for sites worldwide, including the Danish embassy in Riyadh (1988),
the Malmö (Sweden) City Library (1999), the Würth Art Gallery in Schwäbisch Hall,
Germany (2000), and the Copenhagen Opera (2004).

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In 2012 he received the Japan Art Association’s Praemium Imperiale prize

for architecture. In 2013 Henning Larsen Architects, along with Studio Olafur
Eliasson and Icelandic firm Batteríið Architects, received the Mies van der Rohe Award
for architecture for the Harpa Reykjavík Concert Hall and Conference Centre (2011).
With a site on the shores of Faxa Bay, the architects drew their inspiration from
the northern lights and the surrounding Icelandic scenery to create a multifaceted glass
structure whose mass echoed Iceland’s rocky coast and whose glass panels reflected the
light from the bay and from the sky to create a constantly changing light show.
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Rachel Cole
Kenny Clarke

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HomeEntertainment & Pop CultureMusic, Contemporary GenresJazz Music

Kenny Clarke
American musician

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Alternate titles: Kenneth Spearman Clarke, Klook

By The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica • Edit History

Kenny Clarke

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Born:

January 9, 1914 Pittsburgh Pennsylvania

Died:

January 25, 1985 (aged 71) France

Movement / Style:

Modernism bebop

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Kenny Clarke, byname of Kenneth Spearman Clarke, also called Klook, (born
Jan. 9, 1914, Pittsburgh, Pa., U.S.—died Jan. 25, 1985, Montreuil-sous-Bois, near Paris,
Fr.), American drummer who was a major exponent of the modern jazz movement of the
1940s.

Clarke’s music studies in high school embraced vibraphone, piano, trombone, and
theory, but it was as a drummer that he began his professional career in 1930. His
experience included engagements with Roy Eldridge, Louis Armstrong, Coleman
Hawkins, Ella Fitzgerald, Benny Carter, and Henry Allen. In 1939 he joined Teddy Hill’s
band, at that time a refuge for several embryo modernists, and in 1946 he formed an
association with Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. In April 1952 he helped found
the Modern Jazz Quartet but left before the group became popular. He settled
in France in 1956 and was coleader there of the Kenny Clarke–Francy Boland Band from
1960 until its dissolution in 1973.
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Clarke was a chief element in the modernist movement in the 1940s, revolutionizing the
drummer’s role by moving the principal timekeeping rhythms to the ride cymbal and by
interjecting musical comments to the soloist by “dropping bombs” on the bass
drum and snare drum with unexpected fills and underscorings.
Paul Rudolph

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Paul Rudolph
American architect

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Alternate titles: Paul Marvin Rudolph

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Rudolph, Paul: Orange County Government Center

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Born:

October 23, 1918 Kentucky

Died:

August 8, 1997 (aged 78) New York City New York

Movement / Style:

Modernism

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Paul Rudolph, in full Paul Marvin Rudolph, (born October 23, 1918,
Elkton, Kentucky, U.S.—died August 8, 1997, New York, New York), one of the most
prominent Modernist architects in the United States after World War II. His buildings
are notable for creative and unpredictable designs that appeal strongly to the senses.

Rudolph received a bachelor’s degree in architecture from Alabama Polytechnic

Institute in 1940 and received a master’s degree at Harvard University, where he studied
under Walter Gropius. During World War II he served (1943–46) with the U.S. Navy as
a supervisor of ship construction at the Brooklyn Naval Yard.
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In the late 1940s and early ’50s Rudolph practiced architecture in Sarasota, Florida, first
as a designer of private residences for the firm of Twitchell and Rudolph and later
working independently. His early designs used the glass walls and austere geometry of
the International Style but attracted attention by their ingenious construction and
attractive lines. Rudolph came to believe that a building’s form should develop from and
be integrated with its interior uses and structure, and this led him to break up a
building’s masses into distinctly articulated units that are interesting from both the
outside and the inside. His early orchestrations of different units were regular and
rather symmetrical, as in the Mary Cooper Jewett Arts Center for Wellesley College
(1955–58).

From 1958 to 1965 Rudolph was chairman of the department of architecture at Yale
University. His School of Art and Architecture at Yale University (1958–63), with its
complex massing of interlocking forms and its variety of surface textures, is typical of
the increasing freedom, imagination, and virtuosity of his mature building approach.
Considered one of the most defining designs of his career, the 10-story building featured
an interior that appeared seamless, flowing, and shot with light. (In 1969 the building
was set on fire by student protestors.) Rudolph’s Boston Government Service Center
(1963) and the Endo Laboratories in Garden City, New York (1962–64), continued a
trend toward complex, irregularly silhouetted, and dynamic structures that contain
dissimilar but harmoniously combined masses, shapes, and surfaces.

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In 1965 Rudolph left Yale to practice in New York City. His practice grew in size and
volume and embraced master plans for urban communities as well as designs for
campuses and educational buildings, office buildings, and residential projects. Other
important works by Rudolph include the IBM Complex at East Fishkill, New York (1962;
with Walter Kiddle), and the Burroughs Wellcome Corporate Headquarters, Research
Triangle Park, at Durham, North Carolina (1969).

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By the late 1960s, Rudolph’s reputation had begun to decline in the United States, as his
abstract Modernistic aesthetic began to be eclipsed by the growing popularity of
Postmodernism’s revival of historical styles and ornamentation. He continued, however,
to find an audience for his designs in Asia. Working from his historic brownstone on
Beekman Place in New York City, famous in design circles for the architect’s
controversial Modernistic renovation in the 1960s, Rudolph drafted monolithic high-
rise projects for such cities as Hong Kong, Singapore, and Jakarta, Indonesia.
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