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The Enlightenment period made a huge impact not only in American culture but worldwide, the Enlightenment period was between the 1700 and 1800’s. During the Enlightenment period many new things were created such as laws, art work, and the way music was formed. There were also many people who made a huge impact during the Enlightenment period some of them include; Thomas Paine, Mary Wollstonecraft, Isaac Newton, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. There are many wonderful paintings that were around during the Enlightenment Era. One of the paintings that I really enjoyed was “The Lady of Shallot” you can view this painting at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lady_of_Shalott_(painting). This painting stood out to me because I believe it is different from many of the other paintings that were painted during the Enlightenment Era. I think many of the paintings that were around during the Enlightenment were very busy and often had many people in one painting, but this painting stood out because it is very calm and only has The Lady of Shallot in the painting and nobody else. This painting is an oil-on-canvas painting that was painted by John William Waterhouse in 1888. The painting measures at 200 centimeters by 153 centimeters which converted to inches is 60.2 inches by 78.7 inches. The painting is one of Waterhouse’s best known oil paintings. This painting is said to be a representation from a scene from Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s 1833 poem titled “The Lady of Shallot”. The poem “The Lady of Shallot” was built upon the Arthurian legend of Elaine of Astolat, which she was mentioned in the Italian novella titled Donna di Scalotta. Tennyson’s work was popular with many Pre-Raphaelite poets and painters. Some of the artists that illustrated pain... ... middle of paper ... ... Tennyson wrote about in his poem. I also liked the fact that Waterhouse did not only paint one painting from Tennyson’s poem but he painting three separate pieces. I enjoyed the first painting the best because you could really grasp what part of the poem Waterhouse was painting about. I also believe the first painting had a lot of emotion showed in the Lady of Shallot’s face and you could almost feel the pain and confusion she was going through at the time. Another thing that I found interesting while researching this painting was not only did Waterhouse paint three paintings titled the Lady of Shallot, there were many other artists that titled their painting The Lady of Shallot, one example would be William Holman Hunt painting that was finished in 1905. I found it amazing that one story can make such an impact in the art world during the Enlightenment period.

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