Introduction | Modernism 1900-1950
Popular culture 1900-1950 | High culture 1950-2000
Pop culture 1950-2000 | Culture and technology
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Introduction

The 1900 world still looked Victorian, with fussy design and a split between respectable art – the opera house, the concert hall, the art gallery – and popular entertainment (music hall, vaudeville). You needed to go to Paris to seek out the latest trends in painting, music, dance. On the journey there, you could read long novels and symbolist poems. When you arrived, you might be lucky enough to stay with someone who owned a gramophone.

The 2000 world looked futuristic, with space-age design and all art forms past and present available in your own home through television, radio or colour reproduction. Specialist magazines and cable channel programmes catered for all interests, from opera to rap music, from impressionist great masters to new conceptual artists, from dada poetry to slamming. The arts had become cultural industries – and all were about to enter the digital age.

Art and culture changed more radically during the 20th century than in any previous era. Never in history had there been so many artists of all kinds, from painters to poets, film-makers to novelists, radio broadcasters to singers. As well as a revolution in the traditional arts of painting, music and writing, there were exciting developments in architecture and design. Most profound of all, new art forms such as cinema, radio and pop music completely changed the texture of daily life.

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