Eras in Art, Essay Example

Through the whole course of history in the world it became possible to understand that art has never existed in an isolated way and has always been connected with the major political, social and economic changes that tool place on the local and global scale. It is particularly due to this peculiarity that the humanity managed to preserve their historical and cultural heritage in the works of art that nowadays tell fascinating stories about the past times and help modern people understand what happened and occupied people’s minds many centuries ago.

This point ma be clearly illustrated on an example of any artistic trend that has ever existed – none of them has managed to avoid the influence of the current historical background and reveals the major trends that were observed within it. Thus, one can illustrate the point with the case of Baroque: as Hauser (1999) states, “baroque turned into the direction of science” (p. 25). He explains that the case with baroque was clearly a case artistic mix with science, with many artists acquiring a practical, scientific approach to art and scientists adopting an artistic approach to their scientific research. This change was majorly explained by the growing industrialization and striving towards empirical application of art – “works of painting and sculpture had acquired an industrial character” (Hauser, 1999, p. xxiii). Hauser also notes that such approach to art even caused over-production because of the increasing number of artists that was not worthwhile and did not raise the overall quality of art.

Another example that can be considered in this respect is the case with Romanticism. Surely everyone knows the famous works of Daniel Defoe titled Robinson Crusoe and Complete English Tradesman where the middle class was worshipped and moved to the fore as the dominant political, social and cultural force (Murray, 2004). The main reason for such trends was seen in the intensifying industrialization process. For this reason middle class was the center of artistic work both “as a concept and as a group” (Murray, 2004, p. 744).

References

Hauser, A. (1999). The Social History of Art: Renaissance, mannerism, baroque (3^rd ed.). Vol. 2, Routledge.

Murray, C.J. (2004). Encyclopedia of the romantic era, 1760-1850. Vol.2,  Routledge.