The main characteristic of this movement was an intellectual belief in science, reason, rationality and progress intended to save the world and establish universal "truth". The main assumptions were the individual and freedom. From a political point of view, it was the era of the creation of an egalitarian social order. From the perspective of art and photography, modernism consciously rejects the established conventions of the past as a model for art, which were considered outdated and irrelevant in the face of changes (industrialization, capitalism, democracy, urbanization). It was a new era, the era of modern man and many artists wanted to reflect this highly innovative era also through photography. A significant part was a question related to the aesthetics of photography and what constitutes it as art. The institutional character of museums, galleries and their curators (e.g. Szarkowski at MoMA) has dictated these rules by establishing canons for “art photography”. “(…) The defining characteristics of photographs according to John Szarkowski such as the thing itself, the details, the frame, the time and the point of view sought to make the medium unique, and particularly different from painting. Modernists favor symbolist rather than narrative photographs, and realism rather than instrumentalism. Modernists believe that pure photography is the embodiment of what photography does best. "(Barrett 2005: