ROMANTICISM TO REALISM

PLEASE REMEMBER That “notes” are not word for word.

Use your “txt spk”

This presentation is short and will help your understanding…. Take notes, you’ll need this information.

I will place a red bullet point next to what should be written down.

THE RULES Chatting among yourselves signals to me

that it is time to move to the next slide I will not go back if you missed information For the sake of your classmates, FOCUS. It is

a short presentation. You will have time in class to discuss your

observations and opinions

At the end of this presentation we will finish Act 1. Then you will work in small groups of your choice.

THE STOCK ROMANTIC PAINTING

THE RISE OF THE MIDDLE CLASSES

With industrialization, trading and manufacturing joined agriculture as major sources of wealth.

Urban areas were booming, increase in wealth and population

More leisure time for the new numbers of middle classes

The super rich and aristocratic went to ballets and operas, the middle classes now went to the theater

Romanticism was the dominating aesthetic by the end of 18th-mid 19th century

A REMINDER….Industrialization is the process that moves a

society from an Agrarian one to an Industrial one.

Basically: rural -> urban farming -> factories human hands -> machines

Its exact start is debated, but basically by the 1830s Western Europe was feeling its effects.

ROMANTICISM 1750-1800, “Romanticism” rises in opposition to

Enlightenment Rationalism. Dominating aesthetic 1789-1843

No clear definition, but generally it was: Nature is supreme Emotions and instinct, rather than reason Idealism and hope in the nature of man Ideas of the “Noble Savage” (education and reason were

both corruptible), “savages” worthy to observe Equality of social classes (in theory… middle classes still

asserted themselves over lower classes). Meritocracy vs. Aristocracy

Artists as misunderstood geniuses, blessed and cursed by their art, commoners couldn’t understand. It led to a melancholy in the art

There was no objective set of external criteria for achieving art or critiquing art.

Interest in the old and classic (closer to Primitivism): folktales, epics, ancient civilizations, Egypt, and mythology

FINDING MEANING IN ART? The focus was not so much on the art,

but on the artist or the perceiver of the art.

This subjectivity is used again now, the reader/viewer brings meaning to art!Just like your IB training.

IN VISUAL ARTS….

GoyaDelacroix

IN MUSICOpinions Vary (esp. across historical texts) but: Beethoven Franz Schubert Hector Berlioz Frédéric Chopin Giuseppi Verdi (Aida by the way is playing at the

Seattle Opera this year) Franz Liszt Joahnnes Brahms Pytor Tchaikovsky George Bizet (Carmen is playing Seattle now) Richard Wagner (remember Brunnhilde?) Edvard Grieg (Norwegian, composed for Ibsen)

IN PROSE

Edgar Allan Poe Nathaniel Hawthorn Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Erasmo Victor Hugo Washington Irving Herman Melville

Victor Hugo, for example, was so into “the old”, in this case lofty and ridiculous gothic architecture, that he wrote The Hunchback of Notre-Dame to save the cathedral from demolition.

THANKS HUGO!

IN POETRYPoetry: Alexander Pushkin José de Espronceda William Wordsworth Samuel Taylor Coleridge

(“Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner”)

Lord Byron Percy Bysshe Shelley

IN THE THEATERRomantic Plays Appealed to emotions rather than intellect Visual over aural Special effects focused on supernatural Retained the elevated language and noble characters of

Neoclassicism* Audience sizes increased Closer seats (as opposed to balcony) became valuable Audience participated Natural settings Gas lighting Many Special Effects: Flying, trap doors, water pump

systems, moving panoramas (illusions of traveling), treadmills (horse races on stage!), volcanic eruptions, etc.

Moving Panorama

SIGNIFICANCE While Romanticism was not at all

realistic in its acting, drama, or direction, in set, costume, and lighting, it attempted to be as realistic as possible.

Romanticism inadvertently paved the way for easier acceptance of Realism.

The theater became popular and accepted by common man

REALISM An experiment, make theater useful to society New thinking in the world:

Scientific ObservationTruth verified through scienceHuman problems should be solved through science

THREE HUGE INFLUENCES ON EUROPE AND AMERICA

THREE INFLUENCES ON EUROPE AND AMERICA Charles Darwin

“survival of the fittest” People were controlled by heredity and environment Behaviors beyond our control Humans are natural, not above all else

Karl Marx Equality of the classes, equal distribution of wealth

August Comte - Ordem e Progresso  (Order and Progress) Positivism “Father of Sociology” Social Sciences (Ibn Khaldun

1332 AD Egypt, Chanakya 370 BC, India) Science and observation can be applied to society

VISUAL ARTS

Konstantin KorovinJean-Baptiste Chardin

REALISM IN THEATER Theater reaches numbers of people

Art as medium for change! Drama was to reflect the human

condition Drama must use contemporary

settings and time periods, deal with everyday life and problems as subjects

Characters are ordinary, powerless and without answers to their human conditions

REALISM IN LITERATURE Still around today Historically

George Eliot Stephen Crane Balzac Dostoyevsky Tolstoy Flaubert Turgenev Guy de Maupassant Chekhov Zola

HENRIK IBSEN Considered the father of modern

realistic drama Attack societies values and dealt with

unconventional subjects Psychological motivation emphasized

HIS FORM OF REALISM Did away with many traditional theater

techniques, soliloquies, asides, etc. Natural Dialogue, no lofty style of delivery

He uses everyday language and modes of speaking, including sentence fragments and exclamations, that often shocked his audiences

Serious matters hide behind the banalities of everday life

Created a new acting style, emotion through small gestures, pauses, and shifts in action

Drama as social commentary and not just entertainment

Anticipated Modernism: individual alienation

WORKS CITED Political Science Quarterly, 

Vol. 44, No. 2, Jun., 1929      

http://www.muslimphilosophy.com/ik/klf.htm

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/03/arts/design/03antiques.html

http://public.wsu.edu/~brians/hum_303/romantic.html

http://novaonline.nvcc.edu/eli/spd130et/realism.htm