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William Merritt Chase In The Studio Analysis

Decent Essays

During the 1870s a new category of art formed known as the Aesthetic Movement, which was based upon not what world was around the art, but the art itself (Pohl 284). This movement originated in England and spread throughout the Americas opposing the current views about art during the time the it arose, which was the ideology that art must always serve some sort of clandestine purpose. Artists who supported the Aesthetic Movement also denied any moral values that people gave to art. The painting that I chose that best fits the ideals of aestheticism is In the Studio, 1880 by William Merritt Chase. During the 19th century industrialization rapidly began to change American culture bringing on consumerism and capitalism, which focused on the …show more content…

This painting displays a female lavishly dressed inside of a room surrounded by beautiful furniture, paintings, books, and other expensive items that consumerism encouraged people to buy during this time period. While consumerism continued to take over the normalizing discourse of American industry these paintings (In the Studio in particular) became a visual guide towards the decoration of department stores – prime areas where people bought material goods during the 19th century. Chase’s ability to cause the viewer to experience emotion in relation to the objects being viewed triggered an immediate sense of visual pleasure. This instant sense of gratification became the most effective example and way to sell commercial products in any capitalist society. Ultimately the Aesthetic Movement arose in relation to the rapidly developing discourse of consumerism focusing on material goods that (according to capitalism) would make them happy and of …show more content…

Artists such as Robert Henri and George Bellows (to name a few of the many) formed the Aschan School in attempt to present the shadows of urban life normally ignored by the Academy. The artwork that emerged from this movement flashed a light upon the changes made by mass media, shifting gender roles, immigration, and the public displays of wealth (primarily in New York). Artwork from the Aschan School exhibited the many dark sides and light sides to the constantly moving urban cities of the Americas establishing a sense of disconnect between the densely populated city, and the idea that these individuals live a life where they are mostly strangers to one another. One primary example of the Aschan School movement was the painting by John Sloan titled Hairdressers Window. This painting was a scene in which a hairdresser is bleaching the hair of one of her clients. In the scene many small, unimportant details are included just as vividly as the humans in the painting, such as the gloves worn by the hairdresser, or the colored flower on the woman’s hat to the right in the painting. Through these many insignificant details Sloan depicts the exact form of realism in urban life during the 20th century. The scene in which he recreated was the

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