Storified by · Sun, Oct 21 2012 20:21:48
The article states that "During the 1930s and '40s, a depression, world war, indus- trial expansion, labor unrest and familial and societal disruptions" are shown in these realist works, but realism seems to have started a long time before that. When looking at art, there is such a difference between the Classical Greek and High Renaissance art and art today, and I wonder how it could have changed so much. Now we are studying the French Revolution and it recalls things like the War againist Iraq along with Hiroshima, and Agent Orange. People in America do not understand how lucky they really are because they don't have the dreadful experiences that many people go through every day and always have done. You can see this in paintings and writting. I haven't read Charles Dickens but I've heard some about Oliver Twist and how the little boy got lost in London and a group of pick-pockets took him in and looked after him in their own peculiar way. He commented on factory life and how little children had to crawl under machines to get cloth or thread ends which resulted in them being maimed or even killed. There were no laws at the time that stopped this; the people working there didn't even want to stop the machines to get them out safely. Society tries to improve itself as time goes on and we see a gradual change which is reflected in all kinds of art, some of which I have tried to show below.
Thomas Cole was the founder of the Hudson River school of painting. He created a link between American Romanticism and American Realism. His ideas were very much influenced by Romantic writters, such as Wordsworth and Thoreau, who had the idea of a division betweeen the Sublime and the Beautiful. Edgar allen Poe was one of the writters of the Sublime, pain, fear, suffering and death. Thomas Cole took that idea and elevated it to be like the Sublime of Wordsworth in England which included all those elements but was more universal and majestic. In this picture you can see the division between the natural and destructive forces of the Sublime and the safe beautiful life of the pastoral and agricutural society of that time which was orderly but did not have the inspiration of the natural forces.
These people were based in New York and were showing realism in an urban setting which like Dickens and Edgar Allen Poe before them can get grim.
As the article says, "Realism emerged in the aftermath of the revolution of 1848." After the French revolution we can still find beauty and peace in the French Realist paintings, which is amazing. There was a strong social order in France that was smashed by the French Revolution. A new sense of Social Justice grew up that we can see in the Realist paintings by painters such a Millet and Courbet. Industrialism (Dickens) was also one of the huge forces that changed the Social order as well as major wars and Revolutions.
This is an image of Toreador Fresco from Knossos, Crete and part of the Minoan Civilization. It shows how people make all kinds of attempts to confront death, which is a natural force that nobody understands. It name is connected with modern day bull fighting in which one little man with a sword confronts an animal with horns that weights at least a ton. This reminds me of Edgan Allen Poe and the creeepy feeling he evokes and how it is connected with the idea of the Sublime. Cave painters also painted huge and dangerous animals they had to hunt but we dont know what they thought.
This Chapel is dedicated to the Virgin Mary who was the mother of Jesus who was the Savior of man kind and died a very violent death. Death is connected to the spirtual in man which helps understand and overcome the fear of death. All these works of arts seem to demostrate that there is something spritual in man despite all the violence that man himself creates.
