As an aesthetic phenomenon, Modernism refers to a period that ended in the late 1930’s to early 1940’s. The term "modernism" was first used in Germany in the 1890’s, the period in which Modernism is said to have appeared. Unlike such terms as "Romanticism" or Classicism", Modernism does not refer to the qualities of works of art in a particular period: it is based on the idea that works of art represent a rupture, a break with the past.

Historians say that Modernism is the result of the general transformation of society caused by industrialism and technology during the 19 th century. It was in the big urban centers of Europe that the industrial innovations, the social tensions and the economic problems of modernity were most intensely manifested. Therefore, it was also in those cities that the first manifestations of modern art appeared. During the two decades before World War I, the legitimacy and authority of public institutions were decreasing. Those public institutions were no longer universally accepted after World War I and this vacuum was filled by the arts.

Many artists believed it was now the function of art to define and to orient the expectations of both the individual and the collectivity. This vision of the function of art reflects an entire moment in the history of western societies, especially European societies. Marked by the revolutionary effects of industrialism, this moment in history also reflected the collective belief that conventions and institutions were not eternal: like any social formation in a capitalistic system, those institutions were subject to perpetual change.

Greenburg, an influential mid 20th century art critic (30s-80s) maintained that in the modern era, each of the arts had been progressing toward what is autonomous and irreducible in the medium--or purely of the medium-- toward self-definition. For example, intrinsic to painting is the flat surface, the rectangular shape of the surface, and the properties of the pigment. Subject matter was deemed a part of literature, and tactile elements the domain of sculpture. Kitsch was the antithesis to "modern."

In the 80 he summed [modernism] up as "defined by the simple aspiration to quality, aesthetic value, and excellance for its own sake, as an end in itself. Art for art's sake...nothing else. Immanuel Kant claims that the aesthetic realm is autonomous, transcending social and moral considerations. It follows that art of quality is "international, universal and transcendant."

Because Greenburg had the backing of powerful artists, dealers, collectors, critics and historians, and museum directors, curators and trustees, he held sway until the 1970's when he became the foil of a new breed--the "anti-modernists", or the post-modernists. It is unclear if postmodernism is really a break from "modernism" or a continuation of it.[The deconstruction of the Modernism may prove to be the concept's ultimate contribution to culture.]

[A major feature of Modernism is that] artists no longer needed to apprentice to a master in orsder to attain excellance. They simply had to get on board with a cutting-edge movement (aka. the Avante Garde) before it became old-hat