Saturday, January 19, 2013

19th Century Art Movements


 Concentration on the Ordinary:
Literature became more focused on the individual, basically the ordinary individual’s experience of ordinary life. Some realist writers like Flaubert paid excruciating attention to details and others like Kafka and Baudelaire worked with symbols. Impressionism seemed to pay less attention to lines and details and allowed colors and brushstrokes to take charge and let the viewer’s eye assemble and interpret the painting. It also depicted ordinary life events.  Perhaps industrialization, scientific discoveries and progress had shifted the focus of the arts onto the rising middle class. Materialism and social re-structuring possibly caused a sense of alienation and uncertainty which inspired artists to explore their rapidly changing environment through their work and depictions of how ordinary people navigated life.

1 comment:

Ian J said...

Laura, I too believe this new movement of Impressionism certainly brought new ideals, most of which focused on the ongoing industrialization in society. This was especially seen in Englans, Russia, and other European nations before it spread to the rest of the world. It is certainly seen in, not only the work of Kafka and Flaubert as you mentioned, but in that of John Stuart Mills and Cherneskevsky (I don't think I spelled that near to right at all).