Housekeeping
Contact your tutor: gemma.marmalade@beds.ac.uk
Contact your unit and support coordinator: mo.lea@beds.ac.uk
Please refer to BREO for course outline and information
All lectures are recorded and available on Breo
Please be prepared with a note book and pen to note take throughout
this lecture
ATTENDANCE, PUNCTUALITY, LISTENING, RESPECT
ENGAGEMENT are all prerequisites of your attendance here.
AND
What to expect today...
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Refresher of ‘context’
•
Refresher of essay question
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What was the ‘Enlightenment’?
•
Timeline of History
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Where the ‘Enlightenment’ began
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What is ‘Modernism’ in respect of the ‘Enlightenment’?
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An Introduction to ‘Modernism’
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Set ‘Lecture Questions’ B
Refresher : CONTEXT AND ESSAY QUESTION
•
What is ‘context’? The circumstances that form a
setting for an idea and in terms of which it can only be
fully understood or assessed. The surrounding and
connecting influences, direct or indirect.
•
Essay Question What is Modernism? Choose three
examples found in a museum, gallery or book from the
period of modernity. Discuss why it is ‘modern’ rather
than just ‘a product of its time’.
The Enlightenment to Postmodernism: a
chronological tour
Part 1
Art and Culture’s new dawn of reason
What was the Enlightenment?
•
A Philosophical movement throughout the 18th C (key: C=
Century, Remember: 16th C refers to the 1500’s, 17th C refers to
1600’s etc.)
•
Critical period of Western Civilisation
•
Definition: “A time of illumination”
•
Era defined as such because a group of writers, scholars,
artists and scientists actively sought the use of rational
thought to rid the world of superstition and ignorance
•
Mankind’s coming of age
•
The emancipation of the human consciousness from
ignorance and error
•
Liberation of the human mind, human rights and
democracy
•
Unshackled from religious ideas and traditional doctrine
through the use of observation, evidence, rational data,
reason and verifiable mathematics and science
An Experiment of a bird in the air pump, Joseph Wright
1768
TIMELINE
476
1300
DARK AGES
1400
RENAISSANCE
1620
1680
AGE OF REASON
1768
1800
1900
ENLIGHTENMENT
MODERN ERA
Napoleon
Birth of Christ
Wright painting
Fall of Roman Empire
Prelude to Enlightenment
based in maths and
science
started to question
established ideas
established and
controlled by the Roman
Catholic Church
Born out of the age of
reason
Example of ‘reason’
GEOCENTRISM
Concept set about by Roman Catholic Church.
Example of a traditional idea upheld by the
Church.
HELIOCENTRISM
Galileo lived in age of reason.
Through observation with scientific analysis and study of the sky at night
he championed this notion.
WHERE THE ENLIGHTENMENT BEGAN...
The Fathers
of the
Enlightenment
Francis Bacon
Rene Descartes
Born in France
Born in England
1561
Science can free ordinary people from ignorance and
live more happily
1596
Influenced rationalism using mathematics, deduction and modern science
Stressed the importance of maths and science to show precise, verifiable data.
His work influenced thinkers that nature has an orderly system and can be
understood by mere mortals
“I think therefore I am” and the ‘clock analogy’
Isaac Newton
Born England 1643
Considered one of the greatest scientists
who ever lived
During the Plague, he wrotePhilosophiæ Naturalis Principia
Mathematica, Latin for "Mathematical
Principles of Natural Philosophy"
established three laws of gravity as
inspired by seeing an apple drop from a
tree
“If I have seen further than others it is by
standing on the shoulders of giants”
Opinions
Enlightenment
was a political
device to justify
the French
Revolution, to
legitimise an
agenda...
Radical Enlightenment: Spinoza;
democracy, racial and sexual
equality, liberty of lifestyle, full
freedom of thought and
expression.
Eradication of religious authority
from law and education,
separation of Church and State
Enlightenment was born as a
Protestant reaction against
Catholic counter-revolution...
Moderate Enlightenment:
Descartes, Newton;
support for critical review but
reform with tolerance to tradition
based belief
defining the ENLIGHTENMENT...
•
Immanuel Kant: ‘Answering
the Question, What is
Enlightenment?’ 1784
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If scientists could discover
truth through reason,
philosophers could follow suit
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Enlightenment was hopeful,
optimistic and stood for
progress and new values
TIMELINE
476
1300
1400
1620
1680
1768
1800
1900
Reign of Louis XIV
DARK AGES
RENAISSANCE
AGE OF REASON
ENLIGHTENMENT
MODERN ERA
Napoleon
Emperor of the French
reign
Birth of Christ
Wright painting
Fall of Roman Empire
Galileo
Newton
Bacon and Descartes
Kant
When the 18th century began, the robust vigour of the grand style of Louis XIV, King of France, was
diminishing.
The Enlightenment grew out of the Age of Louis in the 17th C (1600’s) and led to the era of Revolutions at the
end of the 18th C (1700’s).
Heritage and foundation in the Baroque style in art and fashion.
The grandiose Baroque style of the 17th century, its flamboyance and drama gave way, in the 18th century, to
the lighthearted Rococo.
Rococo; decorative, taste of aristocracy, beautiful, pleasure and riches.
Rococo style represents only one aspect of the 18th-century art. Some of the most important ideas of the time
were not expressed by the Rococo style - instead expressed in the geometric, rigidly symmetrical, and formal
plans.
Palace of Versailles
A political and impressive
example or architecture
Grandiose and dramatic like
Baroque, playful like Rococo
but orderly and geometric in
design and operation as a result
of the intelligent, reasonthinking enlightenment age.
An example of the fusion of
these themes
More paradoxes
Counter current - the spirit of Romanticism, which
granted emotion, imagination and intuition primacy
over reason and intellect.
Neoclassicism sought to rationalise and explain (and
perfect) everything; Romanticism revelled in the
unexplainable, the sublime and the beautiful.
A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas
of the Sublime and Beautiful is a 1757 treatise on
aesthetics written by Edmund Burke. It attracted the
attention of prominent thinkers such as Kant.
In short, the ‘beautiful’ according to Burke, is what is
well-formed and aesthetically pleasing, whereas the
‘sublime’ is what has the power to compel and
destroy us. The preference for the Sublime over the
Beautiful was to mark the transition from the
Neoclassical to the Romantic era.
Lady of Shalott, 1888
John Waterhouse
Simple lines of dress, short hair and
bare arms harked to classic Greek
tradition, 1800’s
TIMELINE
476
1300
1400
1620
1680
1768
1800
1900
Reign of Louis XIV
DARK AGES
RENAISSANCE
ENLIGHTENMENT
AGE OF REASON
MODERN ERA
Napoleon
Emperor of the French
reign
Birth of Christ
Wright painting
The Sublime and the Beautiful
Fall of Roman Empire
Galileo
Newton
Kant
Bacon and Descartes
Lady of Shalott
Palace of Versailles
What is Modernism in respect of the Enlightenment?
The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations/ The
Great Exhibition/ Crystal Palace Exhibition in reference to the
temporary structure in which it was held
international exhibition Hyde Park, London 1851. It was the first in a
series of World's Fair exhibitions of culture and industry that were to
become a popular 19th-century feature. The Great Exhibition was
organised by Henry Cole and Prince Albert, husband of the reigning
monarch, Queen Victoria. It was attended by numerous notable
figures of the time, including Charles Darwin, Samuel Colt, Charlotte
Brontë, Charles Dickens, Lewis Carroll, George Eliot and Alfred Lord
Tennyson.
•
Modernism or Modernity
aggressively exemplified
the themes of progress
exercised during the
Enlightenment
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The efforts to look to
reason, science and
progress bore fruit in
developments,
engineering, culture and
technology wider than
anyone had dare conceive.
AN INTRODUCTION TO MODERNISM
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1889 World Fair, Paris
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Celebrate the 100th anniversary
of Revolution
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Eiffel Tower was an emblem of
engineering and technology
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Colossal, a statement, an arrow
to the sky
eiffel tower 1900
Contextual developments
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Development of the internal
combustion engine and the
manufacture of cars and tyres
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Sound recording first laid down
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Light bulbs and electricity
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The original movie camera and
projector
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The First Transatlantic
message sent
•
First powered flight
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Theory of relativity, “E=MC2”
“The world has changed less since the time
of Jesus Christ than it has in the last thirty
years.” - Charles Peguy
TIMELINE
476
1300
1400
1620
1680
1768
1800
1900
Reign of Louis XIV
DARK AGES
RENAISSANCE
ENLIGHTENMENT
AGE OF REASON
MODERN ERA
Napoleon
Emperor of the French
reign
First Flight
Birth of Christ
Wright painting
E=MC2
The Sublime and the Beautiful
Fall of Roman Empire
Galileo
Newton
Kant
Movie Camera
Bacon and Descartes
Lady of Shalott
Light bulbs
Palace of Versailles
Sound recording
Early Modernism
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Wasn’t defined by inventions themselves but the accelerated rate of change in all areas
of experience
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A new Millennia, a new frontier!
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The plane flown over the Channel paraded through Paris and placed in a Church
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The changes in mans view of the world had altered and created a huge breeding
ground for art and design - but also problematic
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How could an artist make art that adequately describe this
immense shift of discovery?
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How can an artist illustrate the technology without being
just an illustration?
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All art had obeyed some
convention
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Perspective was
representational to denote
realistic vision
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Cubism spearheaded by
Picasso and Braque
challenged this
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Inspired by Cezanne
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A fundamental argument
in how we see
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Three dimensionality
•
a staggering and baffling
development in art and
representation
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Touchstone of Modernism
LECTURE QUESTIONS B
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Define the Enlightenment period
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What ideas became principally more important during
the Enlightenment and why?
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What does the history of the Enlightenment to
Modernism tell us about progress in culture?
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Find an example of art, an object, an advert, example
of architecture, clothing, furniture etc. from the
Enlightenment that interests you visually – discuss it in
your blog over xmas.
EXPECTATIONS FOR NEXT TIME….
• Make sure you have notes written
and lecture questions responded to
(hopefully on your RRJ)
• Part 2 of a Chronological tour
through Modernism
• Lecture questions C
• Have a great holiday!!