Like the scientists and intellectuals who were part of this increasingly unsettled modern culture, creative artists rejected old forms and old values. Modernism in architecture, art, literature, and music meant constant experimentation and a search for new kinds of expression. Even today the modernism of the first half of the twentieth century seems strikingly fresh and original. And though many people still find the varied modern visions of the arts strange and perhaps disturbing, these decades, so dismal in many respects, stand as one of Western society’s great artistic eras.