Friday 3 June 2016

What major influence did the Industrial Revolution have on art?

Let me make a more subtle bigger picture argument.

A number things the Industrial Revolution made possible:

Rapid Transport, people could travel vast distances quickly, this enabled arts to experience different cultures, and bring new art to regions.
One of the impacts is rapid movement, which gave artists a new mode of experiencing vast distances, with more motion and vaster spaces.  Rapid train travel changed our experience of space.

Gauguin was able to take a steam powered trip Tahiti where he transformed art.  Many impressionist arts travelled widely, enabled by steam power.

Mass Publication of work: Allowed vast printing of arts around the world, which meant artists could see the work of other artists, and art from around the world.

Van Gogh was able to afford prints from Japan, shipped to Europe, which greatly influenced his work.

Paint in Tubes: Artists are free of the studio, able to go out in nature and paint first hand.

Look what happens when you paint from the outside world, rather than a studio.  Rather than typical landscapes artists began to explore the experience  of being in a palce.

Open a New Public, a new middle class began to buy art, with a new set of aesthetics. 
Suddenly buyers were not just nobility or priests, but a growing middle class which wanted images of themselves of art.

Create new Inequality and Suffering that some Art revolted against. ]

Value Change, the mass changes of science and communications lead to a change in values, suddenly with new commodities being created a cult of change took place, new in human history, and artist began to be able to experiment more and more for an audience which came to value change and breaks with tradition.

No comments:

Post a Comment