Vorticism

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A movement in early 20th-century art that captures energetic movement and modernity through swirling forms and dynamic compositions
2. An artistic style emphasizing abstraction and the depiction of chaos and motion, reflecting contemporary experiences and perspectives
3. An avant-garde art movement from the early 1900s that highlights energetic motion and abstract forms

Etymology: Vorticism was a short-lived British modernist movement, and its name was coined by the poet Ezra Pound. He built it from "vortex," the Latin-derived word for a whirlpool or spinning mass of water, and the English suffix "-ism," which turns a noun into the name of a doctrine or movement. The result was a label for a group whose energy seemed to swirl around a single point of force. The suffix does most of the work here. "-ism" has been attached to English words since the 1600s to name creeds, systems and artistic schools, so Pound's coinage followed a familiar pattern while borrowing the image of a whirlpool, a mass of motion pulling everything into its centre. Pound used the idea to describe the sharp, angular, machine-inspired art he and his allies were promoting, rather than the softer style they rejected.