simplistic "definition" [maybe] of Modernism, for the doubter(s) on the list....with TRP allusions

[Mark Kohut]

Historical periods, ages, which are hard to fix and always border-arguable have an overarching tacit dimension of shared, lived-in "truths".
Akin to the old 'sky as dome' metaphor or water for fishes.
 
The world of Dante. 
 
The world of Mont Saint Michele and Chartes as limned by Henry Adams, a Pynchon fave influence.
 
The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth Century Philosophers, see the book, which Ian McEwan
has said he once gave to our beloved author....(surely for M & D 'research"?)
 
P.S. (Our beloved author seems VERY big on understanding the ethos, the climate of accepted ideas for periods of History)
 
Until "Modernism" ,artists in the time of their time,  worked variations on the ethos [this is more metaphor than literal, ya unnerstand];
 the greatest artists fleshed the deepest, or fullest variations on the Age's lived-in truths.

Then, sometime, whenever, Modernism happened:  
With Modernism there was no longer a dome, OR
 to continue the early metaphor,  even the surrounding water could be challenged.
 
Artists pierced the sky.  Hence the birth of the avant-garde; the attack on Everything.
Artists crawled onto shore with new 'legs' in unknown artistic ways.
 
The Simpleton
 
P.S. Read all of Paul Nightingale's deeper words and sources to really "get' it. I'm trying to.


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