Modernism is a cultural movement focused on the future, on social change, on technology originating in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It was founded as a reaction against the more conservative Realism movement that preceded it.
To a large extent it is about context and needing to understand the context and the background to a work before you can understand the work itself.
The invention and development of photography largely coincided with the rise of modernism, and the technology was embraced as art by many followers of the movement. Documentary photography was apropriated as art as well as the abstract and avante garde.
Alexander Rodchenk and Jean-Eugne Atget are notable photgraphers of the early 20th century part of the movement.
Florence Henri's “Composition with ball and mirror” from 1930 shows the strong compositional aspect to modernist phtography.
Postermodernism arose in the latter part of the 20th Century as a recation to the then-prevailing modernsm. It strives against the hard classifications of modernism, and is more playful with meanings and cultural references – it's about works for everybody more than works for those who understand. It is highly represented in modern contemporary culutre's adoption of the everyday as a worthy subject. Where modernism adheres to rules and convention, postmodernism breaks free of them.
Japanese photographer Miwa Yanagi's image, from her “My Grandmother” series illustrates the freedom of postmoderinsm in photography.
References:
Roberts, Helene. "Art History Through the Camera's Lens", 1995
Warner Marien, Mary, "Photography: A Cultural History", 2006
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