Week 4 Discussion
Question 2: Select one example of a literary work or work of visual art from the 1800s—either Romantic or Realist in style—that responds in some way to the Industrial Revolution. Identify the work and the artist or writer, and explain how it responds to the Industrial Revolution. Then describe one example of how either black slaves or white abolitionists used literature or the visual arts as a form of protest against slavery.
Art is Reacting to Industrial Revolution
Chapter 28 (pp. 920-948), art and literature in Industrial Revolution; Chapter 28 (pp. 930-936), slavery
The Museum of Fine Arts in Ghent, Belgium (MSK Gent) —Romantic and Realist Art of the 1800s at http://www.mskgent.be/en/collection/1820-romanticism-and-realism/romanticism-and-realism
New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art—French Realist Art of the 1800s at http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/rlsm/hd_rlsm.htm
Responses to Slavery
Haven's article on Goodman's scholarship on art protesting slavery before the Civil War at http://news.stanford.edu/news/2009/february18/artists-slavery-protests-021809.html
Art and Slavery article at http://www.realhistories.org.uk/articles/archive/the-art-of-slavery.html
I chose the Realist painting named “Retreat from the Storm” by Jean-François Millet 1846.
“The impending storm poses a real threat to this woman and her child, whose subsistence depends on the stray sticks of firewood they have gathered. Throughout the 1840s, the number of homeless peasants increased dramatically in France, reaching a crisis in the recession of 1847 and contributing to the fall of King Louis-Philippe in the 1848 revolution. Millet's singular image, rivalling Delacroix in its depth of emotion and Daumier in its graphic economy, probably represents Millet’s first treatment of this theme. He reworked the composition in a painting now in the Denver Art Museum.” (www.metmuseum.org)
Looking at this painting, I can see the anguish in this mother’s eyes. She is
Art is Reacting to Industrial Revolution
Chapter 28 (pp. 920-948), art and literature in Industrial Revolution; Chapter 28 (pp. 930-936), slavery
The Museum of Fine Arts in Ghent, Belgium (MSK Gent) —Romantic and Realist Art of the 1800s at http://www.mskgent.be/en/collection/1820-romanticism-and-realism/romanticism-and-realism
New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art—French Realist Art of the 1800s at http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/rlsm/hd_rlsm.htm
Responses to Slavery
Haven's article on Goodman's scholarship on art protesting slavery before the Civil War at http://news.stanford.edu/news/2009/february18/artists-slavery-protests-021809.html
Art and Slavery article at http://www.realhistories.org.uk/articles/archive/the-art-of-slavery.html
I chose the Realist painting named “Retreat from the Storm” by Jean-François Millet 1846.
“The impending storm poses a real threat to this woman and her child, whose subsistence depends on the stray sticks of firewood they have gathered. Throughout the 1840s, the number of homeless peasants increased dramatically in France, reaching a crisis in the recession of 1847 and contributing to the fall of King Louis-Philippe in the 1848 revolution. Millet's singular image, rivalling Delacroix in its depth of emotion and Daumier in its graphic economy, probably represents Millet’s first treatment of this theme. He reworked the composition in a painting now in the Denver Art Museum.” (www.metmuseum.org)
Looking at this painting, I can see the anguish in this mother’s eyes. She is