The Modern Age

The modern Age

1. The decline of English Imperialism (India, for example) and the affirmation of new countries (Africa);

2. The First and the Second world wars (violent, cruel, shocking wars);

3. The birth of Totalitarianism (Italy, Germany, Spain);

4. The birth of Mass society;

5. The Russian Revolution and the affirmation of Socialism;

6. The birth of Communism.

Because of these complex events it was obvious the production of a complex art and the search of some new techniques (Experimentations).

Consequences of historical events:

1. There is the decline of English imperialism and so England lost many of its colonial possessions, for example the supremacy on India. There is a shift from “Ethnocentrism” to “Cultural Relativism”: during the campaign of conquest England tried to impose their point of view on the submitted (as seen in John Ruskin’s conception of “The white man burden”). With this phenomenon of decolonization, the “Western point of view” disappears and all the country has the right of imposing their point of view, there is no more a universal point of view.

2. The world wars and the birth of totalitarianism influenced and changed the conditions of man, who didn’t accept the world and the society that besides him. These are the main effects of his condition:

• Lack of orientation;

• The individual disappears, he doesn’t want to be part of society;

• Isolation;

• Ruthlessness;

• Atomization;

• Paralysis, the incapability of communicate and move, under an oppressive and totalitarian regime.