Chapter 13: The Industrial Age

Chapter 13: The Industrial Age

Materialism & Progress

• Utilitarianism– This is defined as the philosophic belief that moral

good lies in the greatest happiness for the greatest number.


• The Victorian Era– The industrial era brought the

growth of the industrial middle class in Britain.

– This led to a rise in the standard of living accompanied by technological advances.


• The Victorian Era– Joseph Paxton’s Crystal Palace


• The Victorian Era– Philosophers• Jeremy Bentham

– He is considered the founder of utilitarianism.

– He claimed that “God had nothing to do with happiness.”


• The Victorian Era– Philosophers• John Stuart Mill

– He was one of the first advocates of women’s rights as well as calling for social reform.


• The Victorian Era– Philosophers• Charles Darwin

– He published the Origin of Species which promoted the concept of natural selection.


• The Victorian Era– Philosophers• Herbert Spencer

– He coined the term “social Darwinism” which came to imply the superiority of the white races.


• The Victorian Era– Realism• This was first defined in the artwork of Gustave Courbet

when he expressed the representation of the social world without illusion or imaginative alteration.


• The Victorian Era– Realism• Manet

– The French painter was shocked Parisians with his realistic portrayal of the nude.

Femme nue se coiffant, 1879


• The Victorian Era– Realism• Rosa Bonheur

– She was regarded as the most important female painter of her day.


• The Victorian Era– Realism• The death of realism in

painting came about with the introduction of photography.• As the new medium

became more readily available, it caused a dramatic shift in the art world to impressionism.


• The Victorian Era– Realist Novel • Charles Dickens

– He was an outspoken critic of the injustices of industrialism.

– His most famous works on the topic were David Copperfield and Bleak House.


• The Victorian Era– Realist Novel • Gustave Flaubert

– His best known work was Madame Bovary, the story of a naïve provincial women overwhelmed by the sophistication of the modern world.

– The story starts with her idealized version of the world, only to be led into adultery, debt, and finally suicide.


• The Victorian Era– Modern Architecture• The change in construction was due to the combination

of iron and glass (steel would later replace iron).

An English train station.


• The Victorian Era– Modern Architecture• Henri Labrouste built the Bibliotheque Nationale

(National Library)


• The Victorian Era– Modern Architecture• Gustave Eiffel builds

the Eiffel Tower making it the largest structure in the world at 984 feet in height.


• The Victorian Era– Modern Architecture• Louis Sullivan constructs

the modern skyscraper with the Wainwright Building in St. Louis.


• The Victorian Era– Modernity & Music• Giuseppe Verdi

– He set Shakespeare to music.– He also experimented with the

“accompanied recitative,” in which the orchestra mirrored the characters mood (created the concept of the modern soundtrack).


• The Victorian Era– Modernity & Music

• Richard Wagner– He viewed opera as a synthesis

of all arts and this concept became known as Gesamtkunstwerk.

– He became a master of dramatic action, leading to the Leitmotif (leading motive).

– His prized culmination also brought the concept of nationality into music with Der Ring Des Nibelungen.


• The Victorian Era– Modernity & Music• Johannes Brahms

– He was regarded as the last great composer of “absolute” music in the tradition of Mozart and Beethoven.


• The Victorian Era– Modernity & Music• Other Musical Nationals

– Russian Peter Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture– Czech Bedrich Smetana’s The Moldau

Peter Tchaikovsky Bedrich Smetana


• The Victorian Era– Modernity & Music• Marius Petipa invented the

grand style of ballet, which is now referred to as classical ballet.

Later Romantics and Early Moderns

• Symbolism & Art Nouveau– Art Nouveau • It is defined as the use of floral motifs and stressed the

organic unity of artistic materials and form.


• Symbolism & Art Nouveau– L’art pour l’art • The term was coined by English

writer Walter Pater in 1868, which defined this change in art.• It means “art for art’s sake.”• Artist began breaking away from

the appeal of mass society and indulging their own desires.


• Symbolism & Art Nouveau– Charles Baudelaire• He wrote Les Fleurs du Mal

(The Flowers of Evil)• He delved into sexual

exploits and experimentation that closely resemble sadomasochism.


• Symbolism & Art Nouveau– Antoni Gaudi y Cornet • He created the Casa Batllo in Barcelona.


• Symbolism & Art Nouveau– Vienna Secession• This was a protest by the Austrian artist who “broke”

with official institutional art and began to pave the way for modernism.

Beethoven Frieze by Gustav Klimt


• Symbolism & Art Nouveau– Claude Debussy• He was a French composer who introduced the whole-

tone scale which is akin to impressionism in music.


• Symbolism & Art Nouveau– Auguste Rodin• He was a French sculptor who

epitomized the concept of art becoming an “increasingly subjective affair.”


• Impressionism– It is the concept of capturing the fleeting effects of

light and color with rapid, sketchy brushstrokes.

Water Lily Pond 2, by Claude Monet


• Impressionism– The Greats• Claude Monet

Rue Montorgueil, Paris, Festival


• Impressionism– The Greats• Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Landscape between Storms


• Impressionism– The Greats• Edgar Degas who also

created off-center compositions.

Two Dancers on Stage


• Post-Impressionists– These artists are noted for taking their techniques

in different directions.

Broadditch Pond, by Nigel Hirst


• Post-Impressionists– Georges Seurat• He developed pointillism in which he meticulously

created paintings with tiny dots.

Study for A Sunday on La Grande Jatte


• Post-Impressionists– Paul Cezanne• He applied the

concept of natural and permanent settings in impressionism.

Mountains in Provence


• Post-Impressionists– Paul Gauguin• His paintings devolved into a more abstract form.

Nave Nave Moe


• Post-Impressionists– Vincent van Gogh• His painting developed a

self-conscious primitivism that reflected concept of the modern city.


• Post-Impressionists– Vincent van Gogh• His most famous work is Starry Night.

The Dark Side of Progress

• Realist Writers– Anton Chekhov and Henrik Ibsen both wrote

works that reflected the idea that modernization has led to dark psychological realism.

Anton ChekhovHenrik Ibsen


• Realist Writers– Henry James and Edith Wharton both focused

more toward their character’s perceptions and feelings as opposed to external action.

Henry James Edith Wharton


• Realist Writers– Fyodor Dostoyevsky• The Russian novelist whose

works focused on how his character's moral kindness and generosity eventually turn into cruelty and murder.


• Realist Writers– Fyodor Dostoyevsky• His political work

pointed to the fact that mass society was governed by an elite who offered them material comforts and the illusion of freedom. Edgar Degas’s Rape, which was used for the

“Crime & Punishment” display for the Philadelphia Museum of Art.


• Realist Writers– Friedrich Nietzsche• The first author to delve

deep into the psychology of reality.• He concluded that

man’s impulse to love and create lie close to his concepts of hatred and destructiveness.

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Chapter 13: The Industrial Age