The "post" in postmodernism implies less a chronological succession than an opposition, and an intimate connection. The term postmodernism is sometimes accused of being '...the inflated focus for such a range of contradictory investments' (Hebdige, 1992: 331) that sorting out its precise relationship to what went before is difficult. But, though postmodernism can be defined as having a number of sources, such as '...the recrudescence of the cultural avant garde, the penetration of cultural life by the commodity form, [or] the exhaustion of certain classical bourgeois ideologies,'(Eagleton, 1995: 68) its primary source, and its principle subject for critique, is modernism. In the various ways in which modernity serves as its focus, postmodernism justifies its title.

The earliest reaction to the changes in the media of artistic production (ie., post-Impressionism) had been a movement way from those aspects of the changes that tended to undermine the unique status of the arts. In the same fashion, the modernist undertaking continued to discover and to fill roles that permitted art to survive while avoiding the problems raised by technology. The abstract painting, for example, was not something that could be produced by photography and was therefore able to retain its privileged status. Modernism sought to '...change the world rather than mimic it' (Eagleton, 1986: 133). It was in search of the social coherence that could result from changes in social organisation and of the unifying aesthetic principles that, it was believed, resided in the universal forms to which modernism resorted.

This reaction of modernity was directed against the increasing commodification of art inherent in the rise of new technologies. It took two forms. Artists, in many media, adopted an anti-bourgeois position that was a direct reaction to the changes in the modes of artistic production. But they either elected to view art as '...a sacred realm above money and commerce'(Williams, 1989: 51) or took the revolutionary view that art could be '...the liberating vanguard of popular consciousness' (Williams, 1989: 51). In either case, modernity could be defined as '...a strategy whereby the work of art resists commodification' (Eagleton, 1986: 140), holding out against those forces that would reduce it to a mere exchangeable object.

Yet, as the modern movement advanced, its anti-bourgeois fervour all but vanished. Modernism soon '...achieved comfortable integration into the new international capitalism' (Williams, 1989: 51), and its forms and techniques were gradually absorbed into the cultural mainstream. This did not stop modernists from attempting to claim that their strategies remained, essentially, anti-bourgeois. But the innovative artistic aspects of modernism were, throughout the century, coopted by popular culture and advertising with great speed. Although by mid-century modernism engaged in a new self-critical phase and pledged, among other things, to '...stem the reduction of art in general to entertainment' (Foster, 1985: 130), this was beyond the control of an art establishment increasingly committed to the status quo.

Some common words found in the essay are:
Futurists Constructivists, Postmodernism Modernism, Impressionists Impressionist, eagleton 1992, foster 1985, Monthly Review, modern art, Left Review, London Verso, Bay Press, London Phaidon, 1992 131, eagleton 1992 131, 1989 51, williams 1989, Modern Culture, Grain Essays, williams 1989 51, 1992 134, art modern, 1985 130, artistic production, foster 1985 130, eagleton 1992 134, modern art heart,
Approximate Word count = 1733
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)