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
The Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment, which spanned from the late 1500’s to 1700’s, shaped today’s modern world through disregarding past information and seeking answers on their own through the scientific method and other techniques created during the Enlightenment. Newton’s ‘Philsophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica’ and Diderot’s Encyclopedia were both composed of characteristics that developed this time period through the desire to understand all life, humans are capable of understanding the Earth, and a sense of independence from not having to rely on the nobles or church for knowledge.
The post-impressionist they used impressionism’s technique but they wanted to take style to whole new level, these group of artist adopted only technique from the impressionism and added their emotions to their painting and wanted to show their
This essay will explore parallels between the ideas of the scientific revolution and the enlightenment. The scientific revolution describes a time when great changes occurred in the way the universe was viewed, d through the advances of sciences during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The enlightenment refers to a movement that grew out of the new scientific ideas of the revolution that occurred in the late seventeenth to eighteenth century. Although both the scientific revolution and enlightenment encapsulate different ideas, the scientific revolution laid the underlying ideological foundations for the enlightenment movement. A number of parallels
Impressionist aimed at displaying the nature instantly. In essence, they wanted to portray the life through the art of painting. Post-impressionism on the other side was a movement that looked for means of breaking away from impressionists’ naturalism.
Despite the incredible advancements from the scientific world in the late nineteenth century, the rapidly developing industry had its dark side. Telephones, automobiles, and airplanes were in their early stages of development, and were all crashing into people's worlds at an a dangerously fast pace. Contrary to the welcomed progress of such periods as the Enlightenment, the overwhelming influx of new ideas was too much, and, as shown many times throughout history, the arts followed the thoughts of the time. Although this time, it was not the celebration of progress, but a look into the pessimistic side of it. Modernism. Feeling as though they could no longer put their faith in anything, artists turned away from science, religion, and the reliability of the human mind. Painters abandoned reality, writers shunned traditional structure, and musicians ignored logic. The faster the innovations of the early twentieth shot up, the more its weak foundations crumbled, and the arts left the structure completely.
Another conspicuity, besides the circles function as “inspirer”, was that “By the turn of the 19th century, it was common knowledge among the educated classes that scientists were trying to fathom the
There was a time in history when people used science as an everyday issue; there was a time when it was almost legitimate to provide a practical explanation, and when people preferred to ignore the subliming side of nature; people called this time in history the Age of Enlightenment (otherwise known as, the Neoclassical Period). This generation was based on the growth of scientific scrutinizations overwhelming people minds and (in a way) erasing the traditional teachings. It was particularly well-educated individuals who relied upon logic to explain the world and its resources, enabling greater evidence and certitude, which, in return, allowed matters to be more convincing. To support this philosophical movement was the Industrial
One of the most influential painters of the twentieth century was Paul Cezanne. He was willing to break the traditionally accepted artistic practice in order to better portray his artistic creativity. Cezanne was became part of the movement that followed the Impressionists called the Post-Impressionism movement. The artists who were the driving forces behind this movement were Gauguin, Van Gogh, Seurat, and Cezanne. These artists were placed in this grouping because they were the avant-garde artists of the time period, who wanted to be able to express their emotions rather than simply representing what they saw. Cezanne’s Mont Sainte-Victoire seen from The Bibemus Quarry was painted in 1985. Mont Sainte-Victoire is a mountain that is in the South of France and overlooks the Aix-en-Provence, which happens to be the hometown of Paul Cezanne. This work exemplifies the Post-Impressionistic techniques because Cezanne utilized the avant-garde techniques, while at the same time demonstrating the relationship between the artist and the work.
Vincent van Gogh was one of many artists who self taught himself, who transformed the appearance of Post-Impressionism incessantly. His main focuses were his paintings, which he mostly painted in oil mediums. In his time, he has produced lot of paintings, most of which were of cityscapes, figure and landscape scenery. Unlike Pablo
During the seventeenth century, the scientific revolution in Europe was at its peak, changing people’s lives through the new techniques of the scientific method. Citizens of western civilizations had previously used religion as the lens through which they perceived their beliefs and customs in their communities. Before the scientific revolution, science and religion were intertwined, and people were taught to accept religious laws and doctrines without questioning; the Church was the ultimate authority on how the world worked. However, during this revolution, scientists were inspired to learn and understand the laws of the universe had created, a noble and controversial move toward truth seeking. The famous scientists of the time, such as Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Newton, were known to be natural philosophers, intending to reveal God’s mystery and understand (through proof) the majesty of God. Throughout previous centuries, people had hypothesized how the world and natural phenomenon may work, and new Protestant ideals demanded constant interrogation and examination. Nevertheless, some of these revelations went against the Church’s teachings and authority. If people believed the Church could be wrong, then they could question everything around them, as well. As a result, the introduction of the scientific method, a process by which scientists discovered and proved new theories, was revolutionary because it distinguished what could be proved as real from what was simply
Among the most controversial figures of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries are Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud. The rhetoric of the first of these men, Karl Marx, both inspired revolutions in China, Russia, and Cuba, as well as led to his expulsion from Germany, France and Belgium. As for Freud, Yale history professor Peter Gay notes in his biography of the psychologist: “[He] has been called a genius, founder, master, a giant among the makers of the modern mind, and, no less emphatically, autocrat, plagiarist, fabulist, the most consummate of charlatans.” (xvi). Though Marx is perhaps best described as a political theorist and Freud a psychologist, there is a great deal of overlap in the work of the two intellectuals. Most importantly, Sigmund Freud and Karl Marx shared a fervent dissatisfaction with society and its oppressive mechanisms. Yet the source of this oppression was not a point of agreement among the two thinkers. Where Marx advocated class struggle and bourgeois domination as the main obstacles to a harmonious, peaceful society, Freud contended that the fundamental barrier to such a society is human nature itself, which, in his opinion, consists of a constant struggle between a desire for pleasure and the constraints of reality; while Marx believed that Communism could bring about societal contentment, Freud held that the pleasure which man derives from aggressiveness precludes the possibility of collective peace and, concurrently, the restraint with
During the Modern Era of the late 19th century and the early 20th century, many artists were turning away from the idea of painting realistic images. Photography, having just been developed for public use a few decades earlier, made artists of the day focus less on painting as an precise copy of what is seen, as had been done for centuries. Since the Middle Ages, most artists painted exact representations of life. Starting in the late 1800s, though, many artists were starting to embrace the theory of art as an impression of what is seen. Impressionism, the art movement that began in the 1870s in France, was the first real development of this new concept of painting. Impressionists, such as Claude Monet, sought to put on canvas how they
For as long as science has existed to satisfy man's appetite for knowledge and exploration, there have been people with the belief that science is none other than man's attempt to play God. The 19th century was a time of enlightenment where philosophical thought began and man's concern to better himself in a psychological form developed.
Beyond the simple fact that one (post-impressionism) cannot have existed without the other (impressionism) the revolutionary technique shared by both movements; small, generally circular or curved strokes, brilliant colors, use of light, and subject matter that reached beyond the traditional scope ties them together in a unique and easily identifiable manner. One cannot view Monet’s Impressions: soleil levant and Van Gogh’s Starry Night without instantly seeing the undeniable similarities; both artists’ use of light and deliberate brush strokes leave the viewer with little doubt about the artistic movements from which they came.
The “scientific mind”, or how people think about the world, has changed multiple times throughout history. Before the 1700s, people had a more religious-based point of view on life; the church was considered to be far more important than it is today. With the church’s iron grip over society and its people, it came with a shock as the 1700s passed by and more and more people started to think for themselves. The acceptance of having more freedom, when it came to religion and change, changed the world forever.During the scientific revolution, Isaac Newton, Rene Descartes, and Francis Bacon all came up with principal scientific