---
title: "Modernity | Art History II"
description: "Modernity in Art History II is the shift toward speed, urban life, and new ideas after the Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution, shaping modern art."
canonical: "https://fiveable.me/art-renaissance-to-modern-times/key-terms/modernity"
type: "key-term"
subject: "Art History II – Renaissance to Modern Era"
unit: "Unit 8"
---

# Modernity | Art History II

## Definition

Modernity is the rise of modern life, values, and forms after the Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution. In Art History II, it explains why artists moved away from tradition and toward new subjects like technology, speed, and city life.

## What It Is

Modernity in Art History II is the cultural shift into modern life, where artists and thinkers respond to industrial growth, new technologies, and changing social values. It is not just a date range. It is a way of seeing the world as faster, more urban, more secular, and less tied to old traditions.

In this course, modernity matters because it changes what art is supposed to do. Instead of only honoring religion, rulers, or classical ideals, artists begin to focus on daily life, motion, machines, crowds, factories, and the feeling of living in a changing world. The subject often shows up as a break from older standards of beauty and order.

Modernity grows out of the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution. Enlightenment ideas pushed reason, progress, and individual thinking, while industrialization transformed labor, cities, and daily routines. As railroads, factories, and mass communication expanded, artists saw both excitement and anxiety in modern life. That tension is part of the meaning of the term.

A big visual clue is that modernity often values change over permanence. Artists working in a modern framework may fragment forms, show movement, or reject polished traditional composition. They are not simply copying reality. They are trying to capture how life feels in a new era.

Futurism is one of the clearest examples. Futurist artists celebrated technology, speed, and innovation, and they openly rejected older artistic traditions. When you see a work emphasizing motion, energy, and a machine-age worldview, you are seeing modernity at work in the image, not just in the background history.

## Why It Matters

Modernity is the idea that helps you connect social change to artistic change. In Renaissance to Modern Era art, movements do not appear out of nowhere. They grow from shifts in how people live, work, and think, and modernity is the label for that shift into industrial, urban, and more secular life.

It matters most when you are comparing older art with avant-garde art. A Renaissance altarpiece, a Baroque palace ceiling, and a Futurist painting all come from different assumptions about the world. Modernity marks the moment when artists stop assuming tradition should be preserved and start asking how art can express speed, conflict, alienation, or progress.

It also gives you a way to read visual choices. Fragmented forms, bold movement, unusual viewpoints, and machine imagery are not random style choices. They often signal a modern mindset. That makes modernity a useful lens for interpreting not only Futurism, but also later modern art movements that respond to city life and mass culture.

## Connections

### Enlightenment

The Enlightenment supplies part of the worldview behind modernity. Its emphasis on reason, individual thought, and progress helps explain why artists and writers began trusting new ideas instead of only inherited traditions. In art history, this shift supports a move toward questioning authority and rethinking what art should represent.

### Industrial Revolution

The Industrial Revolution gives modernity its material force. Factories, machinery, rail travel, and urban growth changed the pace of life and the look of the modern city. Artists reacting to modernity often respond directly to these changes by showing movement, industry, crowds, or technology in their work.

### [anti-traditionalism](/art-renaissance-to-modern-times/key-terms/anti-traditionalism)

Anti-traditionalism is a major attitude inside modernity. Instead of treating older art rules as permanent, artists reject academic expectations and invent new ways to compose, paint, and represent experience. This is exactly what happens in avant-garde movements that see the past as something to break away from.

### Futurist Manifesto

The Futurist Manifesto gives a direct statement of modernity's values. It praises speed, technology, and forward motion while dismissing the past. If modernity is the broad cultural condition, the manifesto is one of its loudest artistic declarations.

## On the AP Exam

A quiz item or image ID will usually ask you to connect modernity to what you see in a work. You might need to explain why a painting filled with motion, machines, or fragmented forms reflects a modern worldview instead of a traditional one. In an essay, you can use the term to show how industrialization and urban life influenced style and subject matter.

If the prompt asks you to compare movements, modernity is the bridge that links social history to visual analysis. You can say that a work belongs to modernity because it rejects older ideals, experiments with form, and responds to the speed of modern life. That is especially useful for Futurism, where the theme of progress is built into the art itself.

## Key Takeaways

- Modernity is the shift into modern life shaped by reason, industry, urbanization, and changing values.
- In Art History II, the term helps explain why artists began breaking from older traditions and classical rules.
- Modernity often shows up visually through motion, fragmentation, technology, and scenes of city life or machines.
- Futurism is a strong example because it celebrated speed and innovation while rejecting the past.
- If a work feels like it is trying to capture the energy of a new age, modernity is probably part of the explanation.

## FAQs

### What is modernity in Art History II?

Modernity is the cultural shift into modern life after the Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution. In art history, it describes the world that produced new styles, new subjects, and a break from older artistic traditions. You often see it in art that focuses on technology, city life, and change.

### How is modernity different from modern art?

Modernity is the broader historical condition, while modern art is the artistic response to that condition. Modernity includes industrialization, urbanization, and new ways of thinking. Modern art is what many artists made when they reacted to those changes.

### Why is Futurism connected to modernity?

Futurism celebrates the same things modernity highlights, especially speed, machines, and innovation. Futurists rejected traditional art and tried to show motion and energy instead. That makes Futurism one of the clearest artistic expressions of modern life.

### How do you identify modernity in a work of art?

Look for signs of change, movement, and modern urban or industrial life. Fragmented forms, bold experimentation, and machine imagery can all point to modernity. The bigger clue is whether the work seems to embrace or respond to the new world of the 19th and early 20th centuries.

## Related Study Guides

- [8.2 Futurism](/art-renaissance-to-modern-times/unit-8/futurism/study-guide/rJLxbbVQ1ffobrtY)

## About This Document

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