modernist
/ˈmɒd.ən.ɪst/ (bre, ipa) · /ˈmɑː.dɚ.nɪst/ (ame, ipa) · /ˈmä-dər-nist/ (ame, mw) · /ˈmɒdənɪst/ (bre, ipa) · /ˈmɑːdərnɪst/ (ame, ipa)
modernist — adjective
- modernistpositive
- more modernistcomparative
- most modernistsuperlative
1. describing a building, painting, book, or other work that follows the early 20th
describing a building, painting, book, or other work that follows the early 20th-century art and design movement which broke with older styles and looked for new forms — like flat roofs, plain walls, and stories told without a clear beginning, middle, and end.
The new library has a modernist look, with clean white walls and big square windows.
attributive: modernist + [noun] for buildings
Constanza wrote her thesis on the modernist poetry that came out of Paris in the 1920s.
modernist + art-form noun (poetry, painting, novel)
Critics first laughed at Yan's modernist chairs, but the museum bought three of them last year.
The house in the photo is a modernist design from 1928, with a flat roof and no decoration on the front.
Adisa prefers a modernist approach to her novels and rarely writes a clear ending.
- avant-garde
even more strongly suggests breaking with tradition; can apply to today's experimental work, while 'modernist' usually points to roughly 1900-1945
- contemporary
broader and neutral — means 'belonging to today' without the 1900-1945 art-movement link
- traditional
follows older styles instead of breaking with them
- classical
rooted in long-established forms and rules
用法筆記
Almost always attributive (before a noun: a modernist building, modernist art). Subject of the noun it modifies is typically a creative work or its maker (building, poem, painter, design).
常見錯誤
modernist — noun
1. a painter, writer, architect, or other artist whose work belongs to the early 20
a painter, writer, architect, or other artist whose work belongs to the early 20th-century movement that turned away from older rules — for example by using broken time, plain shapes, or stories that jump between voices.
Iris taught her students that James Joyce was one of the great modernists of the early 20th century.
modernist as a count noun: one of the modernists / a modernist
Most modernists rejected the long, decorated buildings that their parents' generation loved.
plural subject describing a whole group of artists
Defne is a modernist at heart and paints only in straight lines and three colors.
The exhibition brings together fifty modernists from across Europe and South America.
Eitan grew up reading the modernists and still keeps a worn copy of Woolf on his desk.
- avant-gardist
rare; stresses being ahead of one's time more than belonging to the specific 1900-1945 movement
- experimentalist
wider — any artist who tries new methods, not tied to the modernist period
- traditionalist
an artist who keeps to older, established styles
文法句型
a modernist + (in/of) + [art form]
用法筆記
Countable. Often used in the plural 'the modernists' to refer to the group of early 20th-century artists as a whole. Frequently followed by a field-narrowing phrase (a modernist in architecture, a modernist of the 1920s).