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Art and its impact on society
Art and its impact on society
Breakthroughs in the evolution of art
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Both Realism and Impressionism began in France with both art periods lending to the world unique techniques, aesthetic approaches and subjects in painting. While Impressionism stemmed from Realism, it can be argued Impressionism ultimately lead to continued individual expression in art through out the historical art periods to follow.
The art period of Realism from 1845 to 1900, has roots which trail back to mid 1800s France and developed as a reaction to the often exaggerated emotionalism of the former art period of Romanticism. Realist artists instead strove to depict the seriousness of every day life. To show subjects or scenes just as they were without involvement of religion, mythology or history. McDowall (1918) pointed “At the bottom of realism, in all its variations, seems to be the sense of actual existence; an acute awareness of it, and a vision of things under that form. It is a thoroughly natural feeling, it is, in fact, the primitive attitude of man” (p. 3). In painting, film and literature artists aimed to present things as they appear.
A major social condition that contributed to the emergence of Realism was the Industrial Revolution. With its mass machinery production of products, the Industrial Revolution not only created an explosion of railroads and cities but also an explosion of wealthy middle class and poor working class. The discovery of photography in 1839 by Daguerre and others also resulted in a growing trend to copy everyday life, which in turn sprouted the appeal of realism in art. Buser (2006) noted that during the Industrial Revolution the rules of life were the fundamental ideas of technology, science and practical business sense. Buser (2006) further theorized “Since progress in these...
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...rowther (2005) reflects “One can draw a direct line from the Impressionist, through the Post-Impressionists and Neo-Impressionists, to the Fauves, the Cubists, the Symbolists and ultimately to Abstract Expressionists”. Artists through the ages continued to experiment with new technique allowing modern art to evolve and take shape.
References
Bingham, J. (2009). Impressionism. Chicago, Illinois: Heinemann Library.
Buser, T. (2006). Experiencing art around us. USA: Thompson Wadsworth.
Crowther, J. (2005). Impressionism: more than meets the eye. Retrieved from http://www.artist-perspectives.com/articles/impressionism.htm
Janaro, R.P., & Altshuler, T.C. (2009). The art of being human: the humanities as a technique for living. Pearson Education, Inc.
McDowall, A.S. (1918). Realism: a study in art and thought. London: Constable and Company LTD.
Literary realism has been defined by George J. Becker in an essay called Modern Language Quarterly with three criteria: “verisimilitude of detail…an effort to approach the norm of experience…and an objective, so far as an artist can achieve objectivity, rather than a subjective or idealistic view of human nature and experience” (Pizer 1). This, however, is not the only definition of realism that exists. Donald Pizer proposed to define realism as is applied to the “late nineteenth-century American novel” (2). This is important ...
After World War I, American people and the authors among them were disillusioned by the effects that war had on their society. America required a literature that would expound what had happened and what was happening to their society. The realistic movement of the late 19th century saw authors accurately depict life and its problems. This realistic movement evolved because of many changes and transitions in American culture. In the late 1800's, the United States was experiencing swift growth and change because of a changing economy, society, and culture. The increase of immigrants into America was one of the reasons. Realists endeavored to give a comprehensive picture of modern life by presenting the entire picture. The true definition of literary realism as defined by Encyclopedia Britannica is an approach that attempts to describe life without idealization or romantic subjectivity. Although realism is not limited to any one-century or group of writers, it is most often associated with the literary movement in 19th-century France, specifically with the French novelists Flaubert and Balzac. George Eliot introduced realism into England, and William Dean Howells introduced it into the United States. Realism has been chiefly concerned with the commonplaces of everyday life among the middle and lower classes, where character is a product of social factors and environment is the integral element in the dramatic complications.
Impressionist paintings can be considered documents of Paris capital of modernity to a great extent. This can be seen in their subjects, style of painting, and juxtaposition of the transitive and the eternal.
Realism started in France in the 1830s. It was very popular there for a long time. A man named Friedrich Schiller came up with the word “realism.” Realism is based on contemporary life. There is a very accurate and honest representation of characters in this style of art. Realism tries to combine romanticism and the enlightenment. Life isn’t just about mind and not just about feelings either, it’s about both feelings and reason together. As said in the na...
Many have condemned realist art for “sacrificing beauty for exactitude and obviating conceptual integrity if favour of in-your-face reality”. They argue that the glorification of ordinary, banal subjects may in fact be a pathetic attempt to ignore the drab realities of contemporary life by attempting to ‘spice up’ commonplace objects. Perhaps they think that modern technology and flashy photographical equipment defeats the purpose of original realist art, and provides a far more accurate reproduction of contemporary life. I however, beg to differ. For the realist artist, the vast world is their subject and their aim is to present this world through their art in what they see as their honest representation of it. To label realism as obsolete is to call these artists’ sincere opinions obsolete. People often fail to remember that the world is constantly changing and the ‘ordinary’ doesn’t always remain so. The writer J.P. Stern remarked once that realism is “the creative acknowledgment of the data of social life at a recognisable moment in history”. True, photography and digital technology may produce a more accurate reproduction of real life but representation-wise, a genuine hand-made artwork may in fact offer a far more meaningful result- not merely due to the allowance for modification and
Realism occurs everyday, one may not know but its the reason why know not everyone gets to live their lives to a happy ending, its the reason why sometimes you can't get everything you want in your life. Realism is the attitude or practice of accepting a situation as it is and being prepared to deal with it accordingly. Realism is a trend which takes place in the nineteenth century during which literature depicted life "as is," and focuses on real life. This literary movement frequently depicted everyday life; it follows the rule of a phenomenal world and that nothing is added to your life. It is the reverse job of what a filter would do to all the troubles that one may encounter later in life. Realism is represented in Kate Chopin's short stories The Story of an Hour and A Pair of Silk Stockings. In both the short stories, the main characters get to face a dream/fantasy that they’ve always wanted to encounter; something rare that lasted only for a short amount of time. The freedom that each character got was some sort of new freedom that they never experienced before. For example in The Story of an Hour, the main character Louise Mallards is feels oppressed because she can't live for herself. She realizes at the end that her husband was alive the whole time and that her short fantasy came to an end. She thought that it would last forever until the death of her but she was wrong. Another example of realism is A Pair of Silk Stockings, the main character of this story was Little Mrs Sommers. She finds fifteen dollars on the floor and this feeling of having this much money eventually controls her until its all gone. Her lack of being able to control herself and curiosity controls her and the money. W...
When talking about such a diverse subject as Art, opinions on the matter of influences, and even the title of “The First…”, begins to become a bit touchy. When it comes to being the ‘first, true modern art style”, Impressionism usually comes to everyone’s mind, although that can often be greatly debated. I, myself am at a toss-up of whether or not I fully agree or disagree with this argument, however, for the sake of this discussion, I will say that my opinion lies in favor of agreement.
Realism was an offshoot of Romanticism, too, but was a much larger movement. It occurred around the 1840s to the 1890s. This mov...
Realism is a style of writing which shows how things are in life. It showed how mostly every person thought life was just perfect. They were not seeing the
Impressionist painting was the beginning of a cultural shift away from religious and mythic themes, to subjects and styles that are less static such as everyday life of the general people, and the fleeting moments around them. As history progresses, so does art and the movements they create. The impressionism movement started in an already war-ravaged France where the evolution of ideals and way of life were as impermanent as the subject of the paintings of the time.
Fiske writes that Watt and Williams “….tend to define it by its content. Watt traces its origins to the rise of the novel in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.” And Williams “…whose historical perspective covers the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, lists three main characteristics of realism in drama: he finds that it has a contemporary setting, that it concerns itself with secular action … and that it is “socially extended”.
Impressionism grew out of and followed immediately after the Barbizon school. A distinctive feature of the work of the Impressionists was the application of paint in touches of mostly pure colour rather than blended; their pictures appeared more luminous and colourful even than the work of Delacroix, from whom they had learned the technique. To the modern eye, the accepted paintings of the salon artists of the day seem pale and dull.
In this essay, I will contrast and compare the two art movements, Impressionism, and Post-Impressionism. I will be concentrating on the works of the two leading artists of these styles Claude Monet and Vincent van Gogh.
In conclusion, the art of the 19th century was composed of a sequence of competing artistic movements that sought to establish its superiority, ideologies and style within the artistic community of Europe. These movements, being Romanticism, Realism, Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, ultimately spread far beyond the confines of Europe and made modern art an international entity which can still be felt in today’s artistic world.
In order to explore new venues of creativity Modernists tinkered with the perception of reality. During the Renaissance, the depiction of a subject was very straight forward. A painting had to look like what it represented. The truth was absolute and right and wrong were clearly defined. For Modernists, the world is much more obscure. In Impressionist paintings, lines are not definite and things tend to blur together. Faces usually do not differentiate one person from another.