Beauty in the Eye of the Beholder

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Beauty in the Eye of the Beholder
The Industrial Era was a time of significant change. While many argue the exact dates this Era began around 1760 and ended sometime between 1820 and 1840. This revolution began in England and soon spread to Western Europe and the United States. As Robert E. Lucas Jr., a Noble Peace Prize winner, stated: "For the first time in history, the living standards of the masses of ordinary people have begun to undergo sustained growth ... Nothing remotely like this economic behavior is mentioned by the classical economists, even as a theoretical possibility.” Not only where these changes evident in the growing of cities and factories from the previous rural living and farms; it was also apparent in the decline of hand made products versus the new machine made goods. Claude Monet also captured this change in his painting Boulevard Saint-Denis, Argenteuil in Winter 1875.
In Boulevard Saint-Denis Monet is depicting this new life that started during the Industrial Revolution. As mentioned previously the Industrial Revolution forced families away from the country side and farming, into the new growing cities and factories. Monet liked to paint close to home and this painting is no exception. Monet shows us quite a different picture than in his previous work. Sitting on a hill side looking down onto the city Monet captures the “real” landscape in Boulevard Saint-Denis. In this specific painting Monet captures the new houses, one of which is his, factories, shops, roads, and train stations that began to flood the once quiet area. Trees begin to grow on the once fertile farming ground. Fences began to be put up to separate plots of land for home builders and developers. The once quiet thin roads are now large bo...

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... re-examine all paintings I have already seen for a deeper meaning. With that re-examination I may find less beauty and more pain or other feelings as well.
Claude Monet captures what many say to be the largest change in history, in a beautiful painting that can be adored by the masses. However; further examination shows adversity and hardship as well as expansion and development, something that should not be overlooked when viewing Boulevard Saint-Denis, Argenteuil in Winter. Monet, father of the Impressionist paintings, not only experienced change in his everyday life, but took that economic change and changes in his painting style and shared it with the world as a testimony of what was and what was to come. Liked or disliked this revolution was called for by the voices of the people. Monet just witnessed it and was able to capture a remarkable rendering of it.

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