English edit

Noun edit

high modernism (uncountable)

  1. A form of modernity prevalent during the 1950s and 1960s, characterized by an unfaltering confidence in science and technology as means to reorder the social and natural world.
    Synonym: high modernity
    • 2005, Peter Brooker, Andrew Thacker, editors, Geographies of Modernism: Literatures, Cultures, Spaces, Taylor & Francis, →ISBN, page 11:
      It is not just that the borders between high and low have begun to blur significantly after high modernism in the West, bringing some critics to misread the Latin American boom novel as a kind of postmodernism avant la lettre []
    • 2013 September 25, Jonathan Jones, “Dissecting the Exploding Whale: why do modern art shows have odd names?”, in The Guardian[1]:
      The idea that silence suits serious art goes back to the age of high modernism in the 1950s. It is hard to imagine Mark Rothko calling an exhibition "Daddy, I Want to Be a Jewish Artist" or indeed calling it anything at all. His paintings have plain titles such as Red on Maroon.

Further reading edit