Charles Baudelaire is credited with coining the term "modernité" in his 1864 essay "The Painter of Modern Life", to designate the fleeting, ephemeral experience of life in an urban metropolis, and the responsibility art has to capture that experience.
Characteristics of modern (post second World War) societies that have capitalistic economies and democratic political structures, and are highly industrialized and divided into social classes based on economic status. These characteristics include regular pattern of everyday life, urbanization, influx of women at all levels of employment and business, secular outlook, sexual freedom, sharp reduction in birth rate and death rate, centralized bureaucratic government, standardized education system, and pervasive use of technology specially in communications.
