Modern Era describes the chronological timeline after the Middle Ages. During this time, war and hardship were overflowing ubiquitously. With them came new philosophies and many new great thinkers became activists. Such thinkers were Friedrich Nietzsche, Jean-Paul Satre, and Albert Camus, known as the “Big Three”. Nihilism comes in various forms, but is always characterized by a contradiction of some commonly established aspect of life, whether it is morality, knowledge, or meaning. Nietzsche is well known for his association with nihilism, a philosophy that holds that life is void of some accepted facet of life, such as meaning or morality. . Nietzsche wrote about moral nihilism in particular; he criticized most of the “moral schemes” of the time period, most notably Christianity. Some writers like Albert Camus, who wrote The Stranger, a story of an existentialist. This novel had a immense illustration of the modern era world.
War and social statuses also led to the artistic movement of cubism. Rembrandt set social statement through his artistic style of emotions and expressions in his paintings. Picasso, on the other hand, depicted human tragedy through cubism. In the cubist artwork, objects are broken up, analyzed, and re-assembled, depicting the focus from a multitude of viewpoints instead of one. The darkness of humanity is found in the diverse but parallel styles of Picasso and Rembrandt.
It was an interesting choice to open with a detailed background on the Modern Era. This was useful in setting up readers for the information to come on Picasso and Rembrandt but perhaps there could have been a greater focus on the two artists, and how society influenced art and art influenced society. We thought the comment about Picasso's breaking up, analyzing, and re-assembling human emotion through cubism was very well thought-out and representative of the Modern Era as a whole, as many incisive philosophies likewise categorized, analyzed, and re-assembled ideas regarding human nature and the purpose of life. Thinkers like Satre and Camus and artists like Picasso and Rembrandt definitely contributed to the re-forming of ideas in the highly dynamic Modern Era. This synthesis was very successful in perceiving and explaining the art of the era from a fresh new perspective and helping us better understand the Modern Era as a whole.
ReplyDeleteTiffChen, MelodySue, LucyZhao