The Industrial Age: From Realism to Modernism

1. The Industrial Age: From Realism to Modernism

2. Materialism • The belief that science, technology and industry can know all truth, solve all problems and create human happiness • The Industrial Age: 1850-1910

3. Realism • Great economic boom fueled by science and technology • Railroads: symbol of progress • French Revolution of 1848 (third) • Realism – a sober detachment and practicality; truthful and objective representation of the social world without embellishments • Aim of the arts to depict society as it was

4. Realism in Pictorial Art • Courbet: enraged Parisians with his portrayal of provincial life • Ordinary lives and routine events • A Burial at Ornans (fig.17.21)caused a scandal • Rosa Bonheur’s Plowing the Nivernais: the Dressing of the Vines (fig 17.20)less threatening and political • Photography and print-making

5. Honore Daumier (fig. 17.19) pictured sufferings of poor and caricatured the powerful • Matthew Brady in the US photographed the cruelty of the Civil War (fig. 17.27) • Winslow Homer (fig. 17.23) and Thomas Eakins (fig. 17.24) coupled American practicality with realist technique

6. The Realist Novel • Description of industrial society • The dominant literary form of 19th century • Dickens: protest vs. cruelty to children (David Copperfield, Oliver Twist) • Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary tells of anaïve woman overwhelmed by modern world • Other works deal with illusion and disillusionment

7. Hegel, Marx and Communism • Karl Marx scorned romantic illusions of revolutionaries. Theory of economics and socialism appear in his Communist Manifesto • Influenced by Hegel • Predicted conflict between industrialists and masses – materialism • Communism’s ideal – abolish private ownership • Socialism is the road to communism

8. The Spirit of Progress • Material and scientific progress • Victorians were optimistic about science but doubtful about the injustices brought about by their imperialism

9. Voices of a New Age • Charles Darwin posited that nature obeyed laws of progress, that survival resulted from ‘natural selection’ • Social Darwinism used to justify colonial exploitation of Africa and Asia • Walt Whitman celebrated the diversity of modern human life in Leaves of Grass

10. Monuments of Progress • Many architectural styles: Neoclassic, Gothic, and Renaissance revivals • New buildings included The Crystal Palace, of iron and glass, built for the Great Exhibition in London, 1851 (Joseph Paxton) • Iron used in bridges, industry • Eiffel Tower (fig. 18.8)– tallest building in world for forty years

11. The Modern City • Cities built from scratch: Washington D.C, St. Petersburg in Russia, influenced by Versailles’ rational plan and neoclassical style • Paris’ challenge: Haussmann was appointed by Napoleon to convert Paris into an imperial capital • Broad boulevards and plazas, trees, spaciousness

12. Architect Louis Sullivan, after Great Chicago Fire • Designed the modern skyscraper • Made possible by the elevator • Steel-cage frame • Floral decoration in cast iron from Art Nouveau

13. Verdi’s Operas • Giuseppe Verdi was the national hero of Italian opera • Rigoletto, Il Trovatore, La Traviata • Aida: opening of the Suez Canal • Used Shakespearean characters, intense emotions, and comic genius. Othello, Falstaff • Emphasized action

14. Wagner’s Musical Revolution • Richard Wagner – a flamboyant, arrogant musical genius • Ludwig II: built his dream opera house in Bayreuth • Had love affairs with wives and daughters of patrons and colleagues • Extravagant ideas – saw opera as the synthesis of myth, music, poetry, drama, and painting

15. Used Germanic myths and legends • Innovations: a. orchestra over singing b. Leitmotif (distinct melody associated with character or object) as unifying element c. chromatic harmonies: used all twelve of the tones in a scale; dissolved traditional tonality and made his music emotional • The Ring of the Niebelung: four operas (16 hours) that tell the Nordic gods’ tales

16. Late Romantic Music and Dance • Brahms – a disciple of Beethoven, the last “great” composer • Tchaikovsky wrote1812 Overture, Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty

17. Modernity • The process by which the new, up-to-date, and the contemporary replace the outmoded and traditional. • Artists turned against modernity • Baudelaire (French poet) • Dostoyevsky (Russian novelist)

18. The Last Romantics • Anticipated the coming artistic techniques • Poetry and enigmatic symbolism • Visual arts incorporated plants and designs of Art Nouveau • Music: Debussy • Sculpture: Rodin’s figures (figs. 18.15 and 18.16)

19. Symbolism and Art for Art’s Sake • Baudelaire: his poetry explored connections between sordid and sublime; erotic • Rejected values of industrial society • L’art pour l’art art parallel to the world in a separate universe

20. Art Nouveau • Style of decorative art and architecture that used floral motifs and stressed unity of materials and form • Tiffany’s colored glass • Antoní Gaudí: buildings, churches and parks in Barcelona (fig. 18.20)

21. Debussy’s Musical Impressions • His works explored new harmonies • Evoke dream-like moods and impressions • Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun • Discarded conventional harmony

22. Rodin • Broke with the commemorative public sculpture, such as Bartholdi’s Statue of Liberty (fig. 17.13) • The Gates of Hell from Dante’s Inferno • Tortured figures • The Thinker (fig. 18.15) • Balzac was rejected • Art was private and subjective

23. Impressionism and Beyond • Artists wanted to paint modern life • Impressions of the moment • Defined new techniques of light, color and visual form • The precursor – Manet’s Luncheon on the Grass (fig. 17.22) • Violated painterly tradition • Dance at the Moulin de la Galette (fig. 18.3)

24. Monet and the Impressionists • Paintings rejected by official Salon • 1874 had his own exhibition • Impression, Sunrise (fig. 18.1) and Haystacks at Giverny (fig. 18.2) • Use of light, color, spontaneous technique, detachment and innovative design • Renoir, Morisot, Degas, Pissarro, Cassatt

25. Morisot • Summer’s Day (fig. 18.4) • Discarded conventional subject • Light and motion • Open air • Did not mix paints before applying them • No didactic purpose

26. Renoir • More poetic/emotional than Monet • Informal mood of city life • Dance at the Moulin de la Galette (fig. 18.3) • Accidental pattern of yellow straw hats and prints of women’s dresses • Influenced by Michelangelo in his later years

27. Degas/Cassatt • Arbitrary framing of his subjects • Off-center • The Dancing Class, ballet scene • Influenced by Japanese prints • Friends with the American Mary Cassatt • Flattened perspective • The Boating Party (fig. 18.6)

28. Post-Impressionism: Seurat • Extended impressionist techniques in different directions • Seurat was closest to Monet’s pure impressionism • Urban life, unmixed colors directly applied • A Sunday Afternoon on la Grande Jatte (fig. 18.11) • Pointillism

29. Cézanne • Mont Saint-Victoire (fig. 18.9) in the Mediterranean • Explored the essence of reality • Reduced objects to their basic geometric pattern • Precursor to modern painting, abstract and cubist art such as that by Picasso

30. Gauguin • Wanted to express human feeling, to enter “the mysterious center of thought.” • Primitives of Brittany, northwest France • Sought unique and picturesque • Unnatural colors, heavy lines and flattened shapes: precursor to surrealism, Dali • Manao Tupapau (Spirit of the Dead Watching) (fig. 18.14)

31. van Gogh • Early work showed sympathy for the plight of peasants • Influenced by Impressionists • Uses colors to convey strong emotions • Starry Night (fig. 18.13) swirling lines convey violent energy • Vivid colors, paint applied thickly, with knife. Influenced by Japanese art (fig. 18.12) • Precursor to abstract expressionism