Modernity & Modernism

Modernity tends to refer to the social relations associated with the rise in capitalism and has close links with the modernism movement. The era most relevant to advertising is late modernity, which took place in the early 1900’s. Modernity was seen as a new way of thinking in terms of political, social and artistic movements.

Modernism, which originated in the 19^th and 20^th centuries, was a rebellion against realism. Although this movement is associated more with fine art, with artists such as Picasso and Bauhaus totally reinventing the perception of how art should look, fine art and advertising have always had close links. Before modernism adverts basically consisted of an image and a paragraph of blurb on the product. However throughout the modernist period adverts began to use a lot more appealing and artistic images and layouts that went with the trend of modernist art.