Avant-garde
A phrase derived from the military "advance guard" is often related to radical groups that broke with convention in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, including Cubism, Surrealism, Futurism, and Constructivism. These groups often advocated for radical aesthetics, artistic revolutions, and social reform, and were frequently tied to such causes. The term "avant-garde" is often contrasted with "modernism," which refers to a movement in which artists focused primarily on advancing art in terms of its own formal characteristics, rather than any kind of social transformation or revolution. The classic adage, "Art into Life!" has been modernized. It was a prevalent theme in avant-garde painting and photography, as opposed to the art-for-art's-sake rejuvenation of modernist architecture.
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