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Nietzsche's View Of The Western Bourgeois Society

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The late 19th and early 20th centuries brought forth a modern approach to science, intellectual affairs, and the arts. Before 1914, these ideas were a result of the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment periods. During this time period there were a series of new inventions, which included electric lights, phonographs, cinema, and automobiles. One of these developments that “opened the way to a modern consciousness” was with developments in science. Science was a field that dealt with cold hard facts and reason, which is different from the religious beliefs that many individuals were used to seeing. Many believed that the Scientific laws of the time would give rise to an understanding of the physical world, however the “new” physics altered …show more content…

During this time a group of intellectual individuals attacked optimistic ideas and gave glory to irrational ideas. Friedrich Nietzsche was one of these individuals that glorified the irrational. He believed that the Western bourgeois society was incapable of any creativity because of the rational expense of emotions, passions, and instincts. Besides Nietzsche disbelieving in the Western bourgeois society, he believed that the weakness for the Western Civilization lies on Christianity. He believed that European’s have killed God and should head up their own masses, create their own values, and lead the masses at the forefront of a higher kind of human referred to as superman. Along with Nietzsche, Henri Bergson was another intellectual individual that gave glory to irrational ideas. Bergson was a French professor who was known for believing in rational and scientific knowledge used as a practical instrument, but did not believe that these arrived at the truth (or told the truth). In fact, he believed that reality was the “life force” that spread all over living things, however it could not be analyzed into parts because reality needs to be experienced as a whole. Along with the intellectual individuals of Nietzsche, Bergson, and Sorel, Sigmund Freud was an individual that undermined any optimism about the rationalities of the human mind. His ideas were published in one of his …show more content…

Instead of artists applying brushstrokes towards paintings that encompassed realistic ideas, a new type of theme was known in the early 19th and late 20th centuries. This new theme of art came from Impressionism, which was a movement in France that dealt with painting outside of the studio or museums and painting nature directly. However, these painters did not only paint scenes from nature but also streets, cabarets, rivers, and busy boulevards, wherever human beings were present. Impressionists’ painting referred to originality seen in past artworks by utilizing bright colors, dynamic brushstrokes, and a smaller scale. By the 1880s a new style of painting had emerged in France and other European nations, which was Post-Impressionism. Post-Impressionism was different from Impressionism in that Post-Impressionism emphasized not only on color and light but also focused more on structure and form. Also, these types of paintings used color and line to express a personal sense of reality that was different from Impressionism. As Post-Impressionism shifted from objective reality to subjective reality, Post-Impressionism was the beginning of modern art. Two of the most famous Post-Impressionists are Paul Cezanne and Vincent van Gogh, whose famous paintings are Mont Sainte-Victoire and Starry Night, separately. Both of their paintings made use of the

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