The function of the modern artist was not to convey beauty, but to convey new truths. — Eric R. Kandel

Science may explain aspects of art but it will not replace the inspiration that art evokes...

In Vienna, Modernism had three main characteristics. The first was the new view of the human mind as being largely irrational by nature. ...they questioned what constitutes reality, what lies below the surface appearances of people, objects, and events. ...They discovered that ...people harbor not only unconscious erotic feelings, but also unconscious aggressive impulses that are directed against themselves as well as against others. Freud later called these dark impulses the death instinct.

Modernism began in the mid-nineteenth century as a response not only to the restrictions and hypocrisies of everyday life, but also as a reaction to the Enlightenment's emphasis on the rationality of human behavior. ...The founders of the Royal Society thought of God as a mathematician who had designed the universe according to logical and mathematical principles. The role of the scientist—the natural philosopher was to... decipher the codebook that God had used in creating the cosmos.