Toward the Modern Era: 1870 - 1914

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Toward the Modern Era 1870 - 1914
Frederic Bartholdi, "Liberty Enlightening the
World", Liberty Island, New York, New York
1876-1886
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Outline Chapter 18
Chapter 18 Toward the Modern Era
1870-1914 OUTLINE The Growing Unrest New
Movements in the Visual Arts Impressionism
Postimpressionism Fauvism and Expressionism
New Styles in Music Orchestral Music at the
Turn of the Century Impressionism in Music The
Search for a New Musical Language New Subjects
for Literature Psychological Insights in the
Novel Responses to a Changing Society The Role
of Women
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Timeline Chapter 18
Timeline Chapter 18 Toward the Modern Era 1870
1914 1863 Manet, Dèjeuner sur l'Herbe /
Luncheon on the Grass 1866 Dostoevsky, Crime
and Punishment 1872 Monet, Impression Sunrise
1876 Renoir, Le Moulin de la Galette 1879
Ibsen, A Doll's House 1886 Rodin, The Kiss
1889 Van Gogh , Starry Night 1889 Cassatt,
Mother and Child 1891 Gauguin, Ia Orana Maria
1893 Munch, The Scream 1900 Freud,
Interpretation of Dreams 1902-1906 Cèzanne,
Mont Sainte-Victoire 1905 First Fauve
exhibition in Paris Matisse, The Joy of Life
1907-1914 Picasso and Braque develop Cubism in
Paris
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The last years of the nineteenth century
The last years of the nineteenth century saw the
threat of war gathering with increasing speed
over Europe. The gap between the prosperous and
the poor, the growth of the forces of big
business, overcrowding and food shortages in the
cities all tended to create a climate of unease
that the rivalries of the major European powers
exacerbated. Many emigrated to America in search
of a new start. For the philosopher Friedrich
Nietzsche only drastic remedies could prevent the
collapse of Western civilization.
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Impressionist Painting
In each of the arts the years leading up to World
War I were marked by far-reaching changes. In the
case of painting, the impressionist school
developed in Paris. Foreshadowed in the work of
Šdouard Manet, impressionist art represented a
new way of looking at the world. Painters like
Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir, and Berthe Morisot
reproduced what they saw rather than visually
interpret their subjects. The depiction of light
and atmosphere became increasingly important. The
figure studies of Edgar Degas and Mary Cassatt
avoided the careful poses of earlier times in
favor of natural, intimate scenes.
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Käthe Kollwitz
Käthe Kollwitz, artistGerman, 1867 - 1945Ende
(End), sixth plate in the series Ein
Weberaufstand (Weavers' Revolt), 1897Etching,
aquatint, and sandpaper24.6 x 30.6 cm (image)
Käthe Kollwitz, artistGerman, 1867 - 1945Sturm
(Storm), fifth plate in the series Ein
Weberaufstand (Revolt of the Weavers),
1897etching and sandpaper23.7 x 29.4 cm (image)
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Manet, Edouard, Luncheon on the Grass
Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe, ("Luncheon on the
Grass"), 1863
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Manet, Edouard, A Bar at the Folies-Bergère
A Bar at the Folies-Bergère, 1863
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Claude Monet, Impression, Sunrise
Impression, soleil levant (Impression, Sunrise)
1873 (210 Kb) Oil on canvas, 48 x 63 cm (19 x
24 3/8") Musee Marmottan, Paris
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Claude Monet, haystacks
Meule, Effet de Neige, le Matin (Morning Snow
Effect)
Meule, Soleil Couchant 1891
Meule, Degel, Soleil Couchant
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Renoir, Pierre-Auguste
Gabrielle with a Rose 1911
Seated Bather c. 1883-1884 (140 Kb) Oil on
canvas
Dance at Bougival 1883
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Degas, Edgar
Woman combing her hair c.1887-90
Miss Lala at the Cirque Fernando 1879
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Cassatt, Mary
At the Theater 1879
Little Girl in a Blue Armchair 1878
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Rodin, Auguste
The Burghers of Calais 1884-86 (30 Kb) Bronze
The Kiss 1886 (100 Kb) Bronze
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Seurat, Georges Sunday Afternoon on the Island
of La Grande Jatte
Seurat, Georges 1884-86 "Sunday Afternoon on
the Island of La Grande Jatte" Oil on canvas,
81 x 120 in
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Seurat, GeorgesThe Circus
The Circus 1891 Oil on canvas, 73 x 59 1/8 in
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The Postimpressionists
The various schools that developed out of
impressionism are collectively known as
postimpressionist although they have little in
common with one another. Among the leading
artists were Paul Gauguin, with his love of
exotic subjects, and Vincent van Gogh, whose
deeply moving images have made him perhaps the
best known of all nineteenth-century painters.
In historical terms, the most important figure
was probably Paul CÈzanne his works are the
first since the dawn of the Renaissance to
eliminate perspective and impose order on nature
rather than try to reproduce it.
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Cézanne, Paul
Maison et arbres 1890-94 House and Trees
Bend in Road 1900-06
Le Mont Sainte-Victoire c. 1897-98
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Vincent van Gogh
Self-Portrait 1889
The vase with 12 sunflowers
Wheat Field Under Threatening Skies 1890 (260
Kb) Oil on canvas, 50.5 x 100.5 cm
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Expressionism and the Fauves
In the early years of the twentieth century two
movements began to emerge fauvism and
expressionism, the former in France and the
latter in Germany and Scandinavia. Both
emphasized bright colors and violent emotions,
and the works of Edvard Munch and other
expressionists are generally tormented in
spirit. Henri Matisse, the leading fauve artist,
however, produced works that are joyous and
optimistic he was to become a major force in
twentieth-century painting.
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Matisse, Henri
Notre-Dame, A Glimpse of Notre Dame in the
Late Afternoon1902
The Joy of Life 1905-06
La Musique 1939
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Edvard Munch
The Dead Mother 1899-1900
The Scream (or The Cry) 1893
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Orchestral Music at the Turn of the Century
Composers of orchestral music in the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries turned
increasingly to the rich language of
post-Wagnerian harmony and instrumentation to
express either extramusical "programs" or to
compose "autobiographical" works. The leading
figures of the period included Richard Strauss
and Gustav Mahler. Many of Strauss' operas have
held the stage since their first performances,
while his tone poems use a vast orchestra either
to tell a story (as in Don Juan) or to describe
his own life (Domestic Symphony). Mahler's
symphonies, neglected in the composer's
lifetime, have come to represent some of the
highest achievements of the symphonic tradition.
Openly autobiographical, they reflect at the
same time the universal human problems of loss
and anxiety In France the music of Claude
Debussy, and to a lesser extent Maurice Ravel,
set out to achieve the musical equivalent of
impressionism. In works like La Mer Debussy used
new harmonic combinations to render the
atmosphere of a seascape
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New Approaches to Music Schoenberg and Stravinsky
The experiments of composers like Mahler and
Debussy at least retained many of the
traditional musical forms and modes of
expression, although they vastly extended them.
In the early years of the twentieth century
Arnold Schoenberg and Igor Stravinsky wrote works
that represented a significant break with the
past. Schoenberg's atonal and, later, serial
music sought to replace the traditional harmonic
structure of Western musical style with a new
freedom, albeit one limited by the serial
system. In The Rite of Spring and other works
Stravinsky revealed a new approach to rhythm.
Both composers profoundly influenced the
development of twentieth-century music.
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Literature and the Subconscious
Like the other arts, literature also underwent
revolutionary change in the last decades of the
nineteenth century. In the hands of Fyodor
Dostoyevsky and Marcel Proust, the novel became a
vehicle to reveal the effects of the
subconscious on human behavior. In Dostoyevsky's
books self-knowledge and psychological truth are
combined to explore the nature of human
suffering. Proust's massive exploration of the
past not only seeks to uncover his own memories
it deals with the very nature of time itself.
Both writers, along with many of their
contemporaries, joined painters and musicians in
pushing their art to its limits in order to
extend its range of expression.
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Writers and the Changing Role of Women
A more traditional aim of literature was to
effect social change. At a time when society was
becoming aware of the changing role of women in
the modern world, writers aimed to explore the
implications for marriage and the family of the
gradual emancipation of women and the increasing
availability of divorce. The plays of Henrik
Ibsen not only described the issues of his day,
including feminist ones, they were also intended
to open up discussion of topics-venereal disease,
incest-that his middle-class audience would have
preferred to ignore.
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The Impact of World War I
With the outbreak of war in 1914, the arts were
wrenched from their traditional lines of
development to express the anxieties of the age.
Nothing-in art, culture, politics, or
society-was ever to return to its former state.