How did modernism revolutionize Western culture?

LLIKE 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.

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The Shock of the Avant-GardeDadaist Hugo Ball recites his nonsense poem “Karawane” at the notorious Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich, Switzerland, in 1916. Avant-garde artists such as Ball consciously used their work to overturn familiar artistic conventions and challenge the assumptions of the European middle classes. (Apic/Getty Images)