The Industrial Age: From
Realism to Modernism
Materialism
The belief that science, technology and
industry can know all truth, solve all
problems and create human happiness
The Industrial Age: 1850-1910
Realism
Great economic boom fueled by science and
technology
Railroads: symbol of progress
French Revolution of 1848 (third)
Realism – a sober detachment and practicality;
truthful and objective representation of the social
world without embellishments
Aim of the arts to depict society as it was
Realism in Pictorial Art
Courbet: enraged Parisians with his
portrayal of provincial life
Ordinary lives and routine events
A Burial at Ornans (fig.17.21) caused a
scandal
Rosa Bonheur’s Plowing the Nivernais:
the Dressing of the Vines (fig 17.20) less
threatening and political
Photography and print-making
Honore Daumier (fig. 17.19) pictured
sufferings of poor and caricatured the
powerful
Matthew Brady in the US photographed
the cruelty of the Civil War (fig. 17.27)
Winslow Homer (fig. 17.23) and
Thomas Eakins (fig. 17.24) coupled
American practicality with realist
technique
The Realist Novel
Description of industrial society
The dominant literary form of 19th century
Dickens: protest vs. cruelty to children
(David Copperfield, Oliver Twist)
Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary tells
of a naïve woman overwhelmed by
modern world
Other works deal with illusion and
disillusionment
Hegel, Marx and Communism
Karl Marx scorned romantic illusions of
revolutionaries. Theory of economics and
socialism appear in his Communist
Manifesto
Influenced by Hegel
Predicted conflict between industrialists
and masses – materialism
Communism’s ideal – abolish private
ownership
Socialism is the road to communism
The Spirit of Progress
Material and scientific progress
Victorians were optimistic about science
but doubtful about the injustices brought
about by their imperialism
Voices of a New Age
Charles Darwin posited that nature obeyed
laws of progress, that survival resulted
from ‘natural selection’
Social Darwinism used to justify colonial
exploitation of Africa and Asia
Walt Whitman celebrated the diversity of
modern human life in Leaves of Grass
Monuments of Progress
Many architectural styles: Neoclassic,
Gothic, and Renaissance revivals
New buildings included The Crystal
Palace, of iron and glass, built for the
Great Exhibition in London, 1851 (Joseph
Paxton)
Iron used in bridges, industry
Eiffel Tower (fig. 18.8)– tallest building in
world for forty years
The Modern City
Cities built from scratch: Washington D.C,
St. Petersburg in Russia, influenced by
Versailles’ rational plan and neoclassical
style
Paris’ challenge: Haussmann was
appointed by Napoleon to convert Paris
into an imperial capital
Broad boulevards and plazas, trees,
spaciousness
Architect Louis Sullivan, after Great
Chicago Fire
Designed the modern skyscraper
Made possible by the elevator
Steel-cage frame
Floral decoration in cast iron from Art
Nouveau
Verdi’s Operas
Giuseppe Verdi was the national hero of
Italian opera
Rigoletto, Il Trovatore, La Traviata
Aida: opening of the Suez Canal
Used Shakespearean characters, intense
emotions, and comic genius. Othello,
Falstaff
Emphasized action
Wagner’s Musical Revolution
Richard Wagner – a flamboyant, arrogant
musical genius
Ludwig II: built his dream opera house in
Bayreuth
Had love affairs with wives and daughters
of patrons and colleagues
Extravagant ideas – saw opera as the
synthesis of myth, music, poetry, drama,
and painting
Used Germanic myths and legends
Innovations:
a. orchestra over singing
b. Leitmotif (distinct melody associated with
character or object) as unifying element
c. chromatic harmonies: used all twelve of the
tones in a scale; dissolved traditional tonality
and made his music emotional
The Ring of the Niebelung: four operas
(16 hours) that tell the Nordic gods’
tales
Late Romantic Music and
Dance
Brahms – a disciple of Beethoven, the last
“great” composer
Tchaikovsky wrote1812 Overture, Swan
Lake, Sleeping Beauty
Modernity
The process by which the new, up-todate, and the contemporary replace the
outmoded and traditional.
Artists turned against modernity
Baudelaire (French poet)
Dostoyevsky (Russian novelist)
The Last Romantics
Anticipated the coming artistic
techniques
Poetry and enigmatic symbolism
Visual arts incorporated plants and
designs of Art Nouveau
Music: Debussy
Sculpture: Rodin’s figures (figs. 18.15
and 18.16)
Symbolism and Art for Art’s
Sake
Baudelaire: his poetry explored
connections between sordid and sublime;
erotic
Rejected values of industrial society
L’art pour l’art art parallel to the world in a
separate universe
Art Nouveau
Style of decorative art and architecture
that used floral motifs and stressed unity
of materials and form
Tiffany’s colored glass
Antoní Gaudí: buildings, churches and
parks in Barcelona (fig. 18.20)
Debussy’s Musical Impressions
His works explored new harmonies
Evoke dream-like moods and impressions
Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun
Discarded conventional harmony
Rodin
Broke with the commemorative public
sculpture, such as Bartholdi’s Statue of
Liberty (fig. 17.13)
The Gates of Hell from Dante’s Inferno
Tortured figures
The Thinker (fig. 18.15)
Balzac was rejected
Art was private and subjective
Impressionism and Beyond
Artists wanted to paint modern life
Impressions of the moment
Defined new techniques of light, color and
visual form
The precursor – Manet’s Luncheon on the
Grass (fig. 17.22)
Violated painterly tradition
Dance at the Moulin de la Galette (fig.
18.3)
Monet and the Impressionists
Paintings rejected by official Salon
1874 had his own exhibition
Impression, Sunrise (fig. 18.1) and
Haystacks at Giverny (fig. 18.2)
Use of light, color, spontaneous technique,
detachment and innovative design
Renoir, Morisot, Degas, Pissarro, Cassatt
Morisot
Summer’s Day (fig. 18.4)
Discarded conventional subject
Light and motion
Open air
Did not mix paints before applying
them
No didactic purpose
Renoir
More poetic/emotional than Monet
Informal mood of city life
Dance at the Moulin de la Galette (fig.
18.3)
Accidental pattern of yellow straw hats
and prints of women’s dresses
Influenced by Michelangelo in his later
years
Degas/Cassatt
Arbitrary framing of his subjects
Off-center
The Dancing Class, ballet scene
Influenced by Japanese prints
Friends with the American Mary Cassatt
Flattened perspective
The Boating Party (fig. 18.6)
Post-Impressionism: Seurat
Extended impressionist techniques in
different directions
Seurat was closest to Monet’s pure
impressionism
Urban life, unmixed colors directly applied
A Sunday Afternoon on la Grande Jatte
(fig. 18.11)
Pointillism
Cézanne
Mont Saint-Victoire (fig. 18.9) in the
Mediterranean
Explored the essence of reality
Reduced objects to their basic geometric
pattern
Precursor to modern painting, abstract and
cubist art such as that by Picasso
Gauguin
Wanted to express human feeling, to enter “the
mysterious center of thought.”
Primitives of Brittany, northwest France
Sought unique and picturesque
Unnatural colors, heavy lines and flattened
shapes: precursor to surrealism, Dali
Manao Tupapau (Spirit of the Dead Watching)
(fig. 18.14)
van Gogh
Early work showed sympathy for the plight of
peasants
Influenced by Impressionists
Uses colors to convey strong emotions
Starry Night (fig. 18.13) swirling lines convey
violent energy
Vivid colors, paint applied thickly, with knife.
Influenced by Japanese art (fig. 18.12)
Precursor to abstract expressionism