Avant-Garde

Avant-garde [ávong grd]

Noun (plural avant-gardes)

Artists with new ideas and methods: writers, artists, filmmakers, or

musicians whose work is innovative, experimental, or unconventional,
considered as a group (takes a singular or plural verb).

Adjective

1. Artistically new: artistically innovative, experimental, or unconventional

2. Ofavant-garde artists: belonging to the group of writers, artists, filmmakers,

or musicians whose work is innovative, experimental, or unconventional

[Early 20th century. < French , 'before the guard']

-avant-gardism, , n

-avant-gardist, , n

Encarta ® World English Dictionary © & (P) 1998-2005 Microsoft Corporation. All
rights reserved.

Avant-garde (French pronunciation: [avɑ̃ɡaʁd]) means "advance guard" or

"vanguard".[1] The adjective form is used in English, to refer to people or works
that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and
politics.

Wikipedia

^ "Avant-garde definitions". Dictionary.com. Lexico Publishing Group, LLC.

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=avant-garde. Retrieved on 2007-03-14.

Avant-Garde

• (Used in broad sense) Refers to any trailblazing movement — usually artistic or social — led by a small
group of people to open new doors within their realm of interest.
• Originally was used to describe only cutting-edge movements, as time has progressed many
movements have retained the label of avant-garde long after they have ceased to be novel or
groundbreaking.
• The term experimental is often used interchangeably with avant-garde, particularly when focusing on a
specific area of artistic interest- experimental theatre and experimental film.
○ Represents a pushing of the boundaries of what is accepted as the norm or the
status quo, primarily in the cultural realm.
○ Originally used to describe the foremost part of an army advancing into battle
(also called the vanguard) and now applied to any group, particularly of
artists, that considers itself innovative and ahead of the majority.
○ Also refers to the promotion of radical social reforms. It was this meaning that
was evoked by the Saint Simonian Olinde Rodrigues in his essay, "L'artiste, le
 savant et l'industriel," (“The artist, the scientist and the industrialist”, 1825)
which contains the first recorded use of "avant-garde" in its now-customary
sense: there, Rodrigues calls on artists to "serve as [the people's] avant-
garde," insisting that "the power of the arts is indeed the most immediate and
fastest way" to social, political, and economic reform.[5] Over time, avant-
garde became associated with movements concerned with "art for art's sake",
focusing primarily on expanding the frontiers of aesthetic experience, rather
than with wider social reform.
○