His works of art from mid 1920s to 1930s not only started shifting in more realistic way, but also showed he entirely waken his political conscience or socialist theories and aesthetic principles from his previous personal history into the works. In 1909 Paris, Benton already shaped his political conscience and socialist theories by absorbing Hippolyte Taine’s philosophy of art “according to which art is determined by race, time and environment. ” Benton placed himself in which period, under what environment or place and with which racial groups of people, so that he could look further to any discernible cultural or society. He returned to New York by 1916, he was impressed by the Marxism idea from Russian Revolution, as his life given a decent …show more content…
This reminded Benton his grown distant relationship with his father after he chose not to follow family’s political path, ‘“I got a renewed sense of the variety and picture squese of his life and of the life of the people of my home country which the infatuated artistic vanities of the city had brought me to regard as stale and stuffy ”’ He felt closely to his father again by bonding with his “people’s history” art and the political role his father has been desire on him to reveal the social problem in his hometown. Since then, he has travelled to most the backward regions in the South and Midwest and experienced the poor labor radicals in the Midwest, the bribery and fraud in Republican governor of Missouri and inequality between labor and farmers class . After participating more political debates in New York, he realized this mess in Missouri was guided by the loosely harnessed capitalist system. He more confirms his duty was to communicate the western class issues of turmoil to the public through expressing his political thoughts in the paintings. Subscribed to Marxism, he claimed to be revealed a deeply ingrained populism, which he was pro-labor, anti-big capitalist and radicalism on the political issues
Grant Wood was a Regionalist artist who continually endeavored to capture the idyllic beauty of America’s farmlands. In 1930 he had been roaming through his hometown in Iowa searching for inspiration when he stumbled upon a house that left him spellbound. From this encounter came America’s iconic American Gothic. Not long after Wood’s masterpiece was complete the once ideal countryside and the people who tended to it were overcome by despair and suffering as the Great Depression came to be. It was a time of economic distress that affected nearly every nation. America’s stock market crashed in 1929 and by 1933 millions of Americans were found without work and consequently without adequate food, shelter, and other necessities. In 1935, things took a turn for the worst as severe winds and dust storms destroyed the southern Great Plains in the event that became known as the Dust Bowl. Farmers, who had been able to fall back on their crops during past depressions, were hit especially hard. With no work or way or other source of income, many farms were foreclosed, leaving countless families hungry and homeless. Ben Shahn, a Lithuanian-born man who had a deep passion for social injustice, captures the well-known hopelessness of the Great Depression through his photograph Rural Rehabilitation Client. Shahn and Wood use their art to depict the desperation of everyday farmers in America due to the terrors and adverse repercussions that the Great Depression incited.
... and movements, pertaining to the rise of the working class, led to an excessive analysis of the evidence within the pages of Chants Democratic. At times Wilentz’s scrutiny of the trade unions and many other pretentious accounts of the Jacksonian era led the author’s prose to become silted to the reader. In lieu to the disarray of evidence, provided by Wilentz to give application to his arguments on the rise of the labor class; the primary thesis became lost. This leads Chants Democratic to be a great hindrance for the basic student, yet is an excellent source for someone engaged in researching the rise of a working class in American history.
The 18th century is well known for its complex artistic movements such as Romantism and Neo-classical. The leading style Rococo thrived from 1700-1775 and was originated from the French words rocaille and coquille which meant “rock” and “shell”; used to decorate the Baroque gardens1. Identified as the age of “Enlightenment”, philosophers would ignite their ideas into political movements1. Associated with this movement is England’s John Locke who advanced the concept of “empiricism”. This denotes that accepting knowledge of matters of fact descends from experience and personal involvement1. Locke’s concept assisted the improvements of microscopes and telescopes allowing art students in the French academy to observe real life1. Science and experience influenced painting more so in Neo-Classicalism. Locke fought for people’s rights and the power or “contract” between the ruler and the ruled. Reasoning that “the Light in Enlightenment referred to the primacy of reason and intellect…and a belief in progress and in the human ability to control nature”1. Hence, the commence of experimental paintings such as Joseph Wright’s (1734-1797) oil on canvas painting: Fig.1 An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump. This image was developed through science by placing a bird in glass container and pumping air to see the effects it would have on the bird (White cockatoo)1. Throughout the late 18th and early 19th century in Western Europe, Neo-Classical art became the “true Style” and was accepted by the French Revolution under Louis XIV. Neo-Classical art was a reaction to Rococo’s light hearted, humour and emotion filled pieces.
Various people from the late nineteenth century held diverse opinions on political issues of the day. The source of this diversity was often due to varying backgrounds these people experienced. Three distinct groups of people are the farming class, the political bosses, and the immigrants, who poured into the country like an unstoppable flood. These groups of people also represented the social stratification of the new society, which had just emerged from rapid industrialization. These three groups had large differences in many aspects such as power, amount of money, and influence in political events of the day. The political boss dominated local city governments and pretended to be Robin Hoods of industrial society, but in reality were just petty thieves, attempting to earn large sums of money. The men involved in agricultural work were in a precarious situation. They experienced countless forms of natural disasters that constantly beset them and made it a formidable task to grow crops in such a hostile environment. Crops sold for ridiculously low amounts of money, and subsistence was a challenge, a challenge that many failed to overcome. The immigrants faced some of the greatest obstacles out of any class at the time. They were discriminated against by the “native-born” Americans and had to face sharp ethnic prejudice. Many immigrants were unskilled laborers and nearly all lived in poverty. These three diverse groups lived very differently from each other and held diverse views on important issues of the time period. The new emerging modes of thought contributed to the rise of new political organizations, such as the People’s or Populist party.
Romance by Thomas Hart Benton is made with mediums of tempera and oil varnish glazes on gesso panel on board and is 45 1/4 inches by 33 1/4 inches. In this essay, I am going to discuss Benton’s use of composition, color, and texture to create a tranquil mood. When I first looked at this painting I pictured it taking place during the civil rights era, because of the clothing that the people in this painting are wearing. To me, this painting tells the story of a man and a woman taking a casual walk at the end of a work day. The man looks as if he just got out of work and decided to take off his shoes, roll up his sleeves and the bottom of his jeans, and unbutton the top button of his shirt and take a walk with his wife through the grass to talk
In the late 1700s the United States of America was beginning to emerge as a nation, and it was during this time that Charles Willson Peale, an American artist, was a prolific painter. Later, Thomas Cole was also a well-known Romantic artist, who painted during part of the Industrial Age in Europe and America. Since the circumstances around a person affect what they do and think, these two artists’ circumstances must be examined. First, the American Nation’s beginnings will be discussed to see how it affected Charles Willson Peale’s works, and secondly, Thomas Cole’s work will be examined in light of the Industrial Age which was occurring during his lifetime.
Winslow Homer (1836–1910) is regarded as one of American’s greatest artists in the 19th Century. Many of his works, such as “The Cotton Pickers,” “The Bright Side,” and “Prisoners from the Front,” are still very well-known and famous pieces of art. At the start of his artist career, he was a print maker and design chief for Harper’s Weekly Magazine; but during the course of the Civil War, his art took on a much deeper meaning as a result of it (“Winslow Homer and his paintings”). Homer’s works began to reflect on the effects the Civil War had on the nation, her people, and himself (Wood). “Near Andersonville” is one of Homer’s least known works (having gone unknown of until the 1960s) that had been one of his first works focusing on the African
Baptism in Kansas, painted by Regionalist John Steuart Curry, is reflective of the conditions and aspects of life in Kansas that took place in the early 1900s. Among these historical issues are the difficult conditions of life on the prairies, the recent end of the Great War, and the hardships of the Great Depression. The painting attempts to convey the brave, heroic farmers battling the dangerous and hostile conditions of life on the prairies (Price par. 1). The landscape within the painting depicts the arid, barren land that makes life in Kansas an utmost struggle during this time. For the reason that Kansas has little surface water, the invention and availability of a windmill makes the land suitable for agriculture and living (Price par.1).
Throughout the suffering, the hardship and the pain, America continued to strive for its unities, freedoms, growth and production. Much of the documentation of American histiory in this time and its diverse emotional inlook to the American individual is solely thanks to the extordinary talents and love of these modern artists. Without the visions and sacrifices of these remarkable artists, present day America may have never known, or come to appreciate the suffering that its predecessors underwent, and the growing consciousness
Thomas Hart Benton was born in the familiar, small town of Neosho, Missouri. He was named after his granduncle, the famed and prominent pre-American Civil War senator. First Thomas Hart Benton studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and then lived in beautiful Paris for three years. When he came back he moved to New York City after 1912 he turned away from his usual style, modernism, and gradually developed a rugged naturalism that affirmed traditional rural values. By the 1930’s Benton was riding a tide of popular acclaim along with his fellow regionalist Grant Wood, who was responsible for American Gothic, and John Steuart Curry, who was responsible for The Tragic Prelude. The mural, America Today (1930-1931, The Equitable Life Assurance Society of the U.S., New York City), Thomas Hart Benton’s masterpiece, presented an optimistic portrayal of a vital country filled with earthy, muscular figures.
Thomas Cole was born on February 1, 1801 in Bolton, Lancashire, England. Due to financial problems his family endured, Cole, at the ripe old age of just fourteen, had to find work to assist with the family needs. He entered the work force as a textile printer and wood engraver in Philadelphia. In 1819, Cole returned to Ohio where his parents resided. Here, a portrait painter by the name of Stein, would become Cole’s primary teaching vehicle and inspiration for his oil techniques we’ve come to be familiar with. During this time, Cole was extremely impressed by what he saw in the landscapes of the New World and how different they were from the small town of England from whence he hailed. Self taught, art came naturally to Cole.
In this essay, I shall try to examine how great a role colour played in the evolution of Impressionism. Impressionism in itself can be seen as a linkage in a long chain of procedures, which led the art to the point it is today. In order to do so, colour in Impressionism needs to be placed within an art-historical context for us to see more clearly the role it has played in the evolution of modern painting. In the late eighteenth century, for example, ancient Greek and Roman examples provided the classical sources in art. At the same time, there was a revolt against the formalism of Neo-Classicism. The accepted style was characterised by appeal to reason and intellect, with a demand for a well-disciplined order and restraint in the work. The decisive Romantic movement emphasized the individual’s right in self-expression, in which imagination and emotion were given free reign and stressed colour rather than line; colour can be seen as the expression for emotion, whereas line is the expression of rationality. Their style was painterly rather than linear; colour offered a freedom that line denied. Among the Romanticists who had a strong influence on Impressionism were Joseph Mallord William Turner and Eugéne Delacroix. In Turner’s works, colour took precedence over the realistic portrayal of form; Delacroix led the way for the Impressionists to use unmixed hues. The transition between Romanticism and Impressionism was provided by a small group of artists who lived and worked at the village of Barbizon. Their naturalistic style was based entirely on their observation and painting of nature in the open air. In their natural landscape subjects, they paid careful attention to the colourful expression of light and atmosphere. For them, colour was as important as composition, and this visual approach, with its appeal to emotion, gradually displaced the more studied and forma, with its appeal to reason.
	Norman Rockwell was one of America’s greatest illustrators of this century who made many significant contributions to the field of graphic design with his works that promoted patriotic unity, conveyed the national scene, and often time just evoked or inspired emotions in his audiences. Ironically this painter was regarded as an illustrator in the eyes of other freelance artists due to his occupational limitations, and his supervisor’s restrictions characteristic of the Saturday Evening Post where he did most of his work from 1916 to 1963. Rockwell was born on February 3, 1894 and since his childhood years had always aspired to be an artist. Instead of finishing high school Rockwell left high school to attend classes at the National Academy of Design and later on the Art Students League in New York. Here Rockwell was recognized as an above average illustrator with good potential. Rockwell then after developing his skills and contributing many illustrations to children’s magazines, managed to muster up the courage to show his work to a bigger periodical, the Saturday Evening Post. Happy with the quality of Rockwell’s work the Post gave Rockwell a job creating illustrations and cover art for its periodicals. This would be his arena, revealing his works to thousands of people, for over forty years. During this period Rockwell painted portraits of various celebrities and persona. Rockwell was a "people painter" and predominantly worked with the depiction of emotions inspired by his models. Rockwell always took particular care in picking and choosing his models as he was very pragmatic and wanted them to exhibit characteristics that met with his peculiar standards. During his time with the Post, Rockwell often made illustrations that effectively conveyed events taking place on the national scene. During different periods in American history Rockwell used his special skill in detail to capture and portray illustrations that accurately reflected the emotions felt in the hearts of Americans at the time. Rockwell made several illustrations exhibiting events like the Great Depression and World War I. In fact during the second World War Rockwell was motivated by President Roosevelt himself to create one of his greatest projects, The Four Freedoms Paintings, illustrating each of America’s fundamental freedoms and revealing the reason behind the United States’ participation in the war. This Four Freedoms Project is one that reflects Rockwell’s great generosity and kindness as a person. Rockwell agreed to
Barnett, Peter. “The French Revolution in Art”. ArtId, January 7th 2009. Web. 5th May 2013.
In the late 19th Century, Realism became popular, by challenging many of the ideals and spiritual themes of Romantic painting. The late 19th Century was also a period of intense political instability in Europe and an epoch of major economic and social development in England. The movement grew in prominence, predominantly because of its opposition to the classical model of staid hypothetical modes of representation taught in the academies (Clark 2002, 134). The ideals of Romanticism had failed to appeal to the new breed of visionaries, who wanted more than intangibles, whether in art or literature. The passion, drama and mystery, inherent in Romantic paintings also failed to continuously inspire spectators. Hence, Romantic artists were driven to seek even more distant locales for exotic content, or to spice their canvas with images of faraway peoples. The aftermath of the Revolution fostered a desire for a pragmatic evaluation of reality. Its failure and the successive oppressions of Napoleonic regimes had taken its eventual toll on the sensibilities of the French peoples (Clark 2002, 133).