The Art Nouveau Caused By King Leopold II Of Belgium

The rule of King Leopold II instilled disturbing methods of ruling. He enslaved the people of The democratic republic of Congo (Congolese) to gather him resources that would only benefit him. He was willing to do whatever it took to gain resources, even if it meant enslaving the people. “ King Leopold II nearly enslaved many of the Congolese people in order to gain wealth, and to bring power” (Citation) imperialism had a negative impact on the country, it had a long lasting impacts on the country because he depleted them of their resources which means they don't have much to export as a country now. King Leopold II used the people as slaves to gather their resources due to the danger of the work, which resulted in many casualties and injuries. He wanted to rule the country as he wanted rather than what was right for the people. He lied to the Belgian government in order to gain power of the country, by saying that his

Riches in central Africa. In what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo, there was and still is a plethora of natural resources. Rubber, gold, copper, diamonds and more. That natural wealth has definitely hurt Congo in the past rather than helped. Its resources could have made it one of the wealthiest countries in the world. But yet, this future did not hold true for the Congo. At the turn of the 20th century, King Leopold II began to take notice of the central African country. (National Black United Front). King Leopold II communicated all his ideas and intentions through a speech to European missionaries. (Africa Global Network). In it, his words held the key to all things terrible. Soon, Belgium took over the Congo and began one of the

King Leopold’s actions were appalling, even to his own people and as a result he was removed from the throne and the land was annexed by Belgium. Another result was several countries taking notice of Leo’s exploits, and the “Scramble for Africa” Began.

The book, King Leopold’s Ghost covers information from the 1840s (Hochschild 21) to now about the Congo past and present, but King Leopold’s reign of terror was from 1885-1906 (History of the Belgian Congo). The phrase ‘reign of terror’ is not an exaggeration, for King Leopold’s ownership of the Congo was very horrific. It all started when Henry Morton Stanley went in search of

During King Leopold’s time he was scrambling for a way to create wealth, but could not dabble in the trade of Africans because of new abolition laws, then he got lucky. In the Berlin Conference held by Otto Von Bismarck, Africa was divided like a cake; pieces were given to European countries. While they had decided that they were “respecting” human rights, it was also believed that Africans needed to be governed. Through this Leopold gained the territory of the Congo, marking the beginning of colonialism, an era of unequal wealth and poverty.

The second king of Belgians, King Leopold II, were admired throughout European. He was first known for his generous and noble act, sacrificing his time and fortune to benefits the Africans. Of course, Edmund Dene Morel learned the truth behind King Leopold II’s practices of slave labors and eventually brought it to the public eyes. King Leopold II was able to keep the horrific practices of slavery murder, and mutilation of millions in the Congo hidden from the rest of the world for roughly two decades through propagandas. As stated on page 1, “ … the troop, it is said, fought, and defeated local slave-traders who preyed on the population, and for more than a decade European newspaper has praised him for investing his personal fortune in public works to benefit the Africans.” Newspaper bragging about King Leopold II’s selfless service to the Africans was preventing the people from seeing the truth about his true practices.

In the first part of Hochschild’s book, he describes the actions and desires that led King Leopold to seize the Congo Free State, the rules he broke and how he manipulated the nations with his righteousness of combating slavery- even though figured such as George Williams and ____ began speaking out against him. Hochschild describes King Leopold II as rude, revolting and awkward as he was growing up. His characteristics only began to drift towards persuasive and cunning when he discovered his curiosity in the colonization of new land. Conveniently, many European countries had no interest in colonization. When Leopold gained power, and searched for his lovely colony, their ambivalence resulted in him creating a colony on his own account.

Characterized by ambition and restlessness from an early age, King Leopold II of Belgium utilized his desire to make a name for himself, while increasing his personal wealth and power, and deftly harnessed subterfuge in order to convince the Belgian government that his interests in Africa were philanthropic, all the while exploiting and deceiving the native peoples of the Congo. However, it was this same relentless ambition which would eventually lead to Leopold’s being forced to sell his colonial holdings, as the moral limits of the observers and of participants in the king’s imperial system were pushed to their breaking points.

Art Nouveau drew a lot of interest from enthusiast from Europe and even outside Europe. It was the first deliberate attempt at creating a more mixed form of art by combining a variety of styles. It has been known by many names such as the ‘Glasgow Style’ and ‘Jugendstil’. Art nouveau was mainly aimed at escaping the old historical forms of art and replacing them with modernized designs with

Art Nouveau is “New Art” in French; it’s a decorative style that reached its peak internationally in the 1890’s. The style was given different names in each country but they were all variations of “New Art”. It also had very different characteristics depending on the country where the art piece was created. Each of the designers of that time added to his work a personal touch; some of the very famous Art Nouveau period artists include Antoni Gaudi, Josef Hoffman and Alphonse Mucha.

The movement Art Nouveau started in the 1800’s, London, and was the artistic rebellion that promoted freedom, desire to get rid of distinction between low and high art, to bring art to everyday life, to allow poor people to have the same artworks that rich people decorated their

The Art Nouveau designers and artists wanted to revive good workmanship. They also wanted to raise the status of craft. They also wanted to produce genuine modern designs.

Art Nouveau is a simplistic art style that was first introduced in 1880 in France, it then eventually was driven across Europe. The style was the most popular art style at that time, which meant it was produced in many different contexts and affected other art styles such as interior design, architecture, households and jewellery making it a very flexible style. The style was flowing and elegant with a whiplash effect, that resembled stems and blossoms of plants. This was aimed to modernise design and escape the old historical style witch artists started to get tired off, this is because their artwork started to almost resemble a photocopy, leading them to want something new and unique. In the book “ art nouveau in fin-de-siècle France” Debra

When considering Art nouveau, it is more appropriate to label it as a movement as opposed to a style, with the purpose of breaking the previous rules of fine arts, and establishing a new order, in which the new technology of mass production is dismissed, and instead, there is focus on creating decadent, and fine craftmanship. It would be almost impossible to link all the styles within art nouveau and all their separate influences, as each artist had a different interpretation of “new art” and what that really meant. However, looking at the period in context, we can identify a source of great impact: “Japonisme”. [1] Following the treaty between the united states and Japan in 1854, Japanese trade became sought after as highly fashionable as it flowed into western Europe. Inspiration became available to the designers of the time, and many techniques were adopted into Western art. For example, Japanese artworks such as Ukiyo-e prints contained devices such as a flat, two dimensional compositions, and block colours created by woodblocks. Masters such as Hokusai, and Hiroshige drew their inspiration from nature, and it was no coincidence that typical Japanese symbols of nature crept into the works of the Art Nouveau, such as carp, bamboo reeds, cherry blossoms and bodies of water which can all be identified in the works of Rene Lalique, Alphonse Mucha, and influencer William Morris, within his arts and crafts fabric designs and furnishings.

The "Art Nouveau" ("new art") movement was one of the first departures from classical art and design, towards a new modernism. The 'Modernism' and Art Nouveau movements occurred during what was known in France as the "Belle Époque," or "beautiful era" period of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement was primarily influenced by the radical work of Czech (Moravian) artist Alfons Mucha, Swiss decorative artist Eugène Grasset, and English illustrator Aubrey Beardsley ("The Peacock Skirt”) and the ground-breaking architecture and design work of Hector Guimard of Paris and Antoni Gaudí of Barcelona.