Modernism

Odilon Redon, Guardian Spirit of the Waters, 1878
Οδιλον Ρεδων, Γυαρδιαν Σπίριτ οφ θε Ωατερς 

Modernism has all the positive and negative qualities associated with romanticism.
heightened subjectivity, the quest for authenticity and for transcendence, the quest both in experience and in art for a realm of value absent from writers find the disenchanted reality of the modern age; at best an equivocal relationship to modernity.

edmund wilson reads modernism as a third wave of european romanticism (Axel's castle 1931), carried by the french symbolism of the 1860's and by the french, english and german aestheticism of the 1890s.

Ironically, this entails that the first critics of modernism saw it as harking back to literature of the past, rather than as a novelty (which is how we interpret modernist writings as contemporary readers).
Reference:Alistair's compendium p.2 

This 'σχορτ βίδεο' (short video) describes the very basics of modernism in regards to modernist architecture and design. It can help you to grasp the very basics of modernism.