Modernism started/existed before World War I, but that war is what, in my mind, is always what I think of when I think of 19th century artistic styles crashing down and something new and (to my mind) rather ugly rising up in its place.

But modernism – even when ugly – did do good work. It explored new territory, discovered new things, and brought us material of value.

I once read something – don’t remember if it was a book or an article (or an article about a book?) – where the argument was made that Lord Of The Rings, for all that it is criticized as deliberately rejecting the modern world, draws heavily on some of the best discoveries of modern literature. The argument was that the book couldn’t have been written by a 19th century author; some of its more subtle and sophisticated effects only became possible thanks to modernist devices, techniques, and insights. The same is true of the visual arts: we have incorporated the best insights so thoroughly that we don’t even realize that those ideas didn’t exist a century or two ago.

It therefore seems to me more accurate to describe it as a movement that did valuable work in its time – but it is a new time now.

“the first duty for every true artist at this moment of history is an act of spiritual fidelity to the timeless traditions of art-making, and an uncompromising, unmitigated hatred towards the dictatorship of modernism.

There is no timeless tradition of art-making. Artists don’t just make new art; they improve on what’s already been done. In every discipline – dance, music, theater, visual arts, literature, film, and so on – artists continue to seek more sophisticated, more expressive techniques, improving on what’s gone before. They develop more relevant, more contemporary visions of the world around them, and more sophisticated and relevant interpretations of what it all means. That artists draw upon the past but ultimately seek to transcend what prior artists have done is the timeless tradition of art.