Final answer:
Modernism in the arts refers to a specific period starting around 1900 and coming into its own in the 1920s. It expressed a set of common attitudes and assumptions that centered on a rejection of established authority.
Step-by-step explanation:
Modernism in the arts refers to a specific period starting around 1900 and coming into its own in the 1920s. It expressed a set of common attitudes and assumptions that centered on a rejection of established authority. Some important features of modern societies during this time included the rejection of melodrama, skepticism toward the post-Victorian middle class, and a reaction against the complacency of the bourgeoisie. In painting, modernism is defined by various artistic movements such as Surrealism, late Cubism, Bauhaus, De Stijl, and Dada, along with the abstractions of artists like Piet Mondrian and Wassily Kandinsky. The end of modernism and beginning of postmodernism is a hotly contested issue, with some considering it to have ended around 1940.