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styled Manifestoes (clearly echoing Marx’s celebrated Communist Manifesto of

1848). The Surrealists were fond of manifestoes; they were inspired by the work of
Freud and endeavoured to paint their dreams and subconscious perceptions. Andre
Breton in the 1920’s ran the Surrealist school as a strict and exclusive society.

The art world had changed; dealers replaced patrons. Artists developed greater
independence and the confidence to assert their own identities. As Schoenberg said,
“Whether one calls oneself conservative or revolutionary, whether one composes in a
conventional or progressive manner, whether one tries to imitate old styles or is

destined to explore new idea, whether one is a good composer or not, one must be
convinced of the infallibility of one’s own fantasy and one must believe in one’s own
inspiration.”

Thus, all these Modernist manifestoes were designed to not show what Modernism
was, but rather how one school of Modernists was different to all the other schools
of Modernists. There were surprisingly many of them: Post-impressionism, Neo-

impressionism, Expressionism, Symbolism, Orphism, Cubism, Futurism, Suprematism,
Neoplasticism, Surrealism, Fauvism and Dadaism.

In other words, politically and ideologically, Modernism was more of a carnival than a
cult.

Towards a definition of Modernism
Modernism was about expressing the intense subjective reality of the acceleration,

fragmentation and dislocation of modernity, by spurning centuries-old artistic
conventions. Creative destruction, even confrontation, was the watch-word. “Make it
new!” said Ezra Pound. “Set fire to the old hypocrisies,” said Virginia Woolf. Picasso
called it “the sum of all destructions” – perhaps the best single definition. The Kaiser
called it “gutter art”. Robert Hughes called it The Shock of the New (the title of his
1980 book and BBC-Time Life television series). The message seems to be that to
th
engage artistically with the 20 century world, innovation had to be met with
innovation. But the suddenness of these innovations, the most radical in the history
of culture, the forms they took, and their simultaneous appearance across every
branch of the arts, remain an enigma.

One of Eliot’s memorable lines (in The Four Quartets) says

“Humankind cannot bear too much reality.”