Summary
Moving away from escapism, the community sought Enlightenment rationality and searched for truth in various areas – from politics to economics, which led to realism. Positivism, a philosophical course that seeks an objective and empirical approach to human experience, has gained popularity.
The desire for accuracy prompted the development of photography, and in 1839 Louis-Jacques-Mande Daguerre created the Daguerreotype, a technology capable of creating a fixed tonal image.
Other photography techniques included combination prints – combining several negatives to create an image proposed by Oscar Rejlander and William Henry Fox Talbot’s calotype – exposing silver chloride to light (Arnason & Mansfield, 2013).
Anna Atkins applied cyanotype – placed objects on photosensitive paper, exposing them to light.
Julia Margaret Cameron became famous for close-ups with blur and photos related to Orientalism.
European colonialism led to the popularity of ethnography and the emergence of Orientalism – the Western representation of the Middle East visually or literary.
Display of war became an important photography direction in the 19th – Matthew Brady is the famous representative of the trend.
An Art Reborn
French artist Auguste Rodin contributed to the revival of the sculpture, combining Symbolism and Realism through the display of physical bodies while revealing thoughts and emotions. His famous works are The Age of Bronze, the Gates of Hell, and Burghers of Calais. He influenced other artists – Camille Claudel and Medardo Rosso, artists, who worked with sculpture and influenced this direction.
The Poetic Science of Color
Georges Seurat became interested in the principles of organizing colors and their influence on each other at different locations, which is reflected in his works. His unusual drawing technique was named Divisionism, Pointillism, and Neo-Impressionism. Moreover, his use of points is also comparable to mosaic.
Paul Signac continued Seurat’s tradition by paying more attention to harmony and the combination of colors. His work reflects the neo-impressionist idea that absolute creative freedom can lead to social change.
Reference
Arnason, H. H., & Mansfield, E. C. (2013). History of modern art. Pearson.