A movement in nonobjective art, originating in the Soviet Union and flourishing from 1917 to 1922 and concerned with planes and volumes as expressed in modern industrial materials such as glass and plastic.
culture
The sum of human endeavors, including the basic political, economic, and social institutions and the values, beliefs, and arts of those who share them.
Dada
[DAH-dah] An early-twentieth-century artistic movement, named after a nonsense word that was rooted in a love of play, encouraged deliberately irrational acts, and exhibited contempt for all traditions.
de Stijl
[duh STILE] Dutch, "the style"; an artistic movement associated with a group of early-twentieth-century Dutch painters who used rectangular forms and primary colors in their works and who believed that art should have spiritual values and a social purpose.
epic theater
A type of theater, invented by Brecht, in which major social issues are dramatized with outlandish props and jarring dialogue and effects, all designed to alienate middle-class audiences and force them to think seriously about the problems raised in the plays.
existentialism
[eg-zi-STEN-shuh-liz-uhm] A twentieth-century philosophy focusing on the precarious nature of human existence, with its uncertainty, anxiety, and ultimate death, as well as on individual freedom and responsibility and the possibilities for human creativity and authenticity.
International style
In twentieth-century architecture, a style and method of construction that capitalized on modern materials, such as ferro-concrete, glass, and steel, and that produced the popular "glass box" skyscrapers and variously shaped private houses.
logical positivism
A school of modern philosophy that seeks truth by defining terms and clarifying statements and asserts that metaphysical theories are meaningless.
mass
In religion, the ritual celebrating the Eucharist, or Holy Communion, primarily in the Roman Catholic Church. The Mass has two parts, the Ordinary and the Proper; the former remains the same throughout the church year, whereas the latter changes for each date and service. The Mass Ordinary is composed of the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei; the Mass Proper includes the Introit, Gradual, Alleluia or Tract, Sequence, Offertory, and Communion. In music, a musical setting of certain parts of the Mass, especially the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Benedictus, and Agnus Dei. The first complete Mass Ordinary was composed by Guillaume de Machaut [mah-SHOH] (about 1300-1377) in the fourteenth century.
Neoclassicism
In the late third century b.c., an artistic movement in the disintegrating Hellenistic world that sought inspiration in the Athenian Golden Age of the fifth and fourth centuries b.c.; and, since 1970, Neoclassicism has been a highly visible submovement in Post-Modernism, particularly prominent in painting and architecture, that restates the principles of Classical art-balance, harmony, idealism.
serial music
A type of musical composition based on a twelve-tone scale arranged any way the composer chooses; the absence of a tonal center in serial music leads to atonality.
Socialist Realism
A Marxist artistic theory that calls for the use of literature, music, and the arts in the service of the ideals and goals of socialism and/or communism, with an emphasis in painting on the realistic portrayal of objects.
stream-of-consciousness
A writing technique used by some modern authors in which the narration consists of a character's continuous interior monologue of thoughts and feelings.
Suprematism
[suh-PREM-uh-tiz-uhm] A variation of abstract art, originating in Russia in the early twentieth century, characterized by the use of geometric shapes as the basic elements of the composition.
Surrealism
[suh-REE-uhl-iz-uhm] An early-twentieth-century movement in art, literature, and theater, in which incongruous juxtapositions and fantastic images produce an irrational and dreamlike effect.
twelve-tone scale
In music, a fixed scale or series in which there is an arbitrary arrangement of the twelve tones (counting every half-tone) of an octave; devised by Arnold Schoenberg.
