avant-garde
English meaning: Avant-garde
English Definition
(English)Avant-garde (French: advance guard) describes artists, writers, and intellectuals who push boundaries and challenge conventional aesthetics, forms, and ideas. Historically avant-garde movements include Dadaism, Surrealism, Futurism, Abstract Expressionism, and Conceptual Art. Each rejected prevailing norms to explore new possibilities. The avant-garde is self-consciously experimental, often controversial.
English Definition
Works or artists that are experimental, innovative, or ahead of their time; the leading edge of a cultural or artistic movement that challenges established conventions. The term derives from French military terminology (advance guard).
Example
“Duchamp's 'Fountain' (1917) — a urinal submitted as sculpture — was the ultimate avant-garde provocation, questioning what art is and who has the authority to define it.”
In English: “Duchamp's readymades were radical avant-garde gestures that transformed the philosophy of art.”
Synonyms
- vanguard
- experimental art
- cutting-edge
Antonyms / Opposites
- traditionalism
- academic art
- conservatism
Literary Heritage
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty, — that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty, — that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”
Images
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Language information
- Language
- English
- English
- Script
- Latin
- Family
- Indo-European
- Speakers
- 1.5B