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Origin of modernist
Explanation
An artist who belonged to a 19th- and 20th-century art movement that rejected old ideas and styles was called a modernist. Virginia Woolf is one example of a modernist writer. The philosophy behind modernist art and writing was basically that the old Victorian ways of expressing artistic vision weren't keeping up with the changes in society. Modern industry, the growth of cities, and reactions to World War I were all factors that affected modernists' break with the old style. Modernist painters included the Impressionists (like Manet and Monet). Philosopher Immanuel Kant, psychologist Sigmund Freud, and composer Arnold Schoenberg are all also considered to be modernists.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Milton and Lyman Stewart were religious zealots who were horrified by the encroachment of modernist ideas on society.
From Salon ● Aug. 13, 2026
George Balanchine, the great modernist choreographer, forbade his male dancers to wear long hair or beards.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 3, 2026
The grass frames the foreground, and Freeman is depicted in a fuchsia dress inside a linear, glass-fronted modernist home.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 12, 2026
Architects Billie Tsien and Tod Williams brushed off criticism, saying that Obama himself was inspired by the chunky works of the modernist Romanian sculptor.
From Barron's ● Jun. 4, 2026
He found his voice in poetry, the new modernist variety.
From "The Mona Lisa Vanishes" by Nicholas Day
He developed a surprising reputation as an interpreter of Rachmaninoff and other romantics disliked by modernists.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 10, 2026
They recall the geometric economy of modernists Elie Nadelman and Constantin Brancusi.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 22, 2025
Back then, the trial was considered an argument between fundamentalists and modernists — but there was debate.
From Salon ● May 30, 2023
This would include the early 20th-century American modernists — especially those of the Stieglitz circle — whose efforts the museum has too often displayed, until recent years, near its escalators or elevators.
From New York Times ● Apr. 27, 2023
Your advanced modernists, with Marinetti at their head, find their best stimulus to creative effort in the clang and clatter of machinery.
From Punch or the London Charivari, Volume 158, March 24, 1920. by Various
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
