modernism

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.

For example, it had nothing to do with the chance music of John Cage or the meticulously plotted complications of Milton Babbitt and Elliott Carter, the American heroes of ’70s modernism.

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 22, 2026

Emerging in the late ’60s and hitting its stride by the ’80s, postmodernism is defined as a reaction against that less-is-more, strict-type of modernism that came from Europe.

From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 13, 2026

“So are people that have been obsessing on modern art and modernism all their lives — they’re gonna be confounded by it.”

From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 8, 2026

“Dreamworld” opens, in the section “Waking Dream,” with harbingers of Surrealism—fusing classicism and modernism, reality and fantasy—by Giorgio de Chirico, whom Apollinaire described as a painter of things beyond the observable.

From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 27, 2025

Faced with the twin rebellions of dissonant modernism and the mass market, the classical tradition found an ace up its sleeve and played it with impeccable timing.

From "The Story of Music" by Howard Goodall