Example Of The Relation Between Art And History Essay

Essay

Art is a figurative interpretation of reality; process or result of internal or external expression (relative to the creator) of the world in an artistic image; creativity, directed in such a way that it reflects the interests not only of the author, but other people. In the whole of society, art is a special way of cognition and reflection of reality, a form of artistic activity and social consciousness of the spiritual culture of both people and all mankind, diverse results of creative activity of all generations. The fact of the impact of historical events on the art is over time irrefutable. New styles in art arose because of changes in man's relation to the world, resulting from continuous running of time; significant historical events were fixed in the works of art and culture, as if illustrating the era. In addition, each person of art belongs to a specific time and at least indirectly reflects in his work the actual historical situation. Art thus becomes a kind of chronicle of changing eras, recording all changes of time.
In the primitive society, primitive visual creativity is born with a view of Homo sapiens as a way of human activity to solve practical problems. Originating in the Middle Paleolithic era, primitive art flourished in the Upper Paleolithic about 40 thousand years ago, and could be a social product of society embodying a new level of understanding of reality. Ancient works of art, such as a necklace of shells found in South Africa, date back to 75 millennium BC and more. In the Stone Age art was represented by primitive rites, music, dancing, all sorts of body jewelry, the geoglyphs - the images on the ground, dendrografy - images on the bark of trees, the images on the skins of animals, cave paintings, rock paintings, petroglyphs and sculptures. The emergence of art is associated with the games, rituals and ceremonies, including those caused by mythological and magical views. Primitive art was syncretic. According to some authors, it originates in the pre-speech skills and techniques of transmission, perception and memory storage of linguistic information. Communicative utility of primitive art, along with the development of the aesthetic aspect, is clearly observed in the period prior to poligraphic folklore cultures of all peoples.
Basics of art in the modern understanding of this word were laid by ancient civilizations: Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Persian, Indian, Chinese, Greek, Roman and Arabian (ancient Yemen and Oman) and others. Each of these centers of early civilization has created its own unique style of art that survived the centuries and provided its influence on the later cultures. They left the first descriptions of the works of artists. For example, the ancient Greek masters largely surpassed others in the image of the human body and were able to show muscles, posture, correct proportions and the beauty of nature. Art of Ancient Egypt is a monumental art, which mainly serves the purposes of religious worship. Its feature is that most of the works were created for the dead. The ancient Egyptian masters could be treated well with stone, metal, wood and glass.
The next period falls on V-XVII centuries, although in some countries it begins earlier (in the III century - India and China), and in others (European) ends earlier in the XIV-XV centuries. It makes the culture of the Middle Ages, the culture of the monotheistic religions - Christianity, Islam and Buddhism. Religion in this period has a spiritual and intellectual domination. However, being in the framework of religion and the Church, philosophy and science continue to evolve, and at end of period a scientific and rational principle is beginning to take precedence over religious. The Art of the Middle Ages is called the age statehood. At this time, arise national schools of Italy, Holland, France. Two styles - Baroque and Classicism - characterize the art of this time. Baroque style in architecture expelled straight lines and sharp angles. The main genres of painting are plafonds, altar paintings, ceremonial portrait. France became the birthplace of classicism. Classicism professed reasonable fury, theme of victory of public over the personal, heroism, valor. Ancient Art was regarded as a perfect model. Relative to the end of the Middle Ages the historians have different opinions. It was suggested to consider such period: the fall of Constantinople (1453), the discovery of America (1492), the beginning of the Reformation (1517) or the beginning of the English Revolution (1640). However, any periodization of the Middle Ages has conditional character.
The first independent, specifically European art style of medieval Europe was the Romanesque. The church was not only the dominant political institution, but also had a dominant influence directly on the consciousness of the population. In severe conditions and meager life, against the background of very low reliability and limited knowledge about the world, the church offers people a coherent system of knowledge about the world, its structure, and its operating forces. This picture of the world is entirely determined by the mentality of the faithful villagers and townspeople, and was based on the images and interpretations of the Bible. The cultural life of the European society of this period was largely determined by Christianity. Church influenced the development of the most massive, religious types of fine art, such as icons and fresco painting.
In the east in Islamic countries, it was widely believed that the image of a man borders with prohibited the creation of idols, so that art is largely confined to architecture, ornament, sculpture, calligraphy, jewelry making and other types of decorative and applied art. In India and Tibet the art was focused on the religious dance and sculpture that imitated by painting, gravitated to bright contrasting colors and clear contours. In China has flourished in the highest degree diverse forms of art: stone carving, bronze sculpture, ceramics (including the famous terracotta army of Emperor Qin), poetry, calligraphy, music, painting, drama, fiction, and others. The style of Chinese art varied from age to era and is traditionally named after the ruling dynasty. For example, Tang Dynasty paintings, refined and monochrome, depict an idealized landscape, and in the Ming Dynasty era were in fashion thick rich colors and genre scenes. Japanese styles of art are also referred to local dynasties and in their painting and calligraphy there is a significant relationship and interaction. From the XVII century here is also spread a woodcut.
Renaissance art emerged based on humanism, which originated in the XIV century in Italy, and then during the second half of the XV and XVI centuries spread to other European countries. Humanism proclaimed the supreme value a man and his blessing. The followers of this movement believed that every person has the right to develop as a person, realizing his abilities. Ideas of humanism most fully and vividly embodied in the art, the main theme of which was a beautiful, harmonious development of man, who has unlimited spiritual and creative possibilities. Humanists were inspired by antiquity which served as a source of knowledge and a model of artistic creativity. The great past of Italy, which constantly reminds of itself, was perceived as the highest perfection, while the art of the Middle Ages has been seemed clumsy and barbaric. The art of renaissance is characterized by the appearance of trends to the sensual, visual reflection of reality, secularism, the emergence of interest in the ancient heritage. Social prerequisites in the 1200s were the development of crafts and trade, economic reforms in the free Italian cities. The appearance of signs of renaissance some researchers see in the architecture of 11-13 centuries of Tuscany, where have been used polychrome marble cladding in combination with thin walls divisions and the ancient architectural details that allowed to facilitate the heaviness of architecture peculiar to Romanesque style.
Early Renaissance - in the XV century the art of Italy took a dominant position in the artistic life of Europe. Fundamentals of humanistic secular culture were laid in Florence, pushing into the background Siena and Pisa. Florence at that time was called the "flower of Italy, rival of the glorious city Rome, from which it occurred and the greatness of which imitates." Political power belonged here to merchants and craftsmen, the strongest influence on urban affairs was provided by a few wealthy families, constantly competing with each other. This struggle ended at the end of the XIV century by victory of the banking house of the Medici. Its head, Cosimo de 'Medici, became the unofficial ruler of Florence. To the court of Cosimo de 'Medici have flocked writers, poets, scientists, architects and artists. In the architecture of that time there was a genuine revolution - in Florence occurred a widespread construction, which significantly changed the face of the city.
High Renaissance, which gave to humanity the great masters such as Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo, Giorgione, Titian, Bramante, covers a relatively short period of time - the end of the XV and the first third of XVI centuries. Only in Venice the flowering of art lasted until middle of the century. Fundamental changes associated with the decisive events of world history, the success of advanced scientific thought, infinitely expanded people's perceptions of the world - not only about the earth but also about space. Perception of the world and of the human personality as if enlarged; in art it reflected not only in the grand scale of architectural structures, monuments, solemn fresco cycles and paintings, but also in their content, expressiveness of images. Figurative language, which in the early Renaissance, by observation of some researchers, could seem too "chatty", became generalized and restrained. High Renaissance art represents a living and complex artistic process with a dazzling bright ups and subsequent crisis. At a time when Italy entered the highest stage of flowering begins Northern Renaissance.
In Northern Renaissance art is more medieval philosophy, religious feelings, symbols, it is more conventionally in the form, more archaic, less familiar with antiquity. The philosophical basis of the Northern Renaissance was pantheism, which dissolved God in the nature and endowed it with the divine attributes. Pantheists believed that every piece of nature is worthy of the image as it has a particle of God. This has led to the emergence of landscape as an independent genre. At the same time there is a genre of portraiture. If in the Italian Renaissance came to the forefront the aesthetic side, in the north – ethical side. German artists believed that spiritual beauty is more important than physical.
Late Renaissance - The second half of the XVI century in Italy was the growing decline of economy and trade, Catholicism joined to the fight against humanistic culture, the art experienced a deep crisis. It strengthened the anti-Renaissance and anti - classical tendencies embodied in mannerism. However mannerism has not touched Venice, which in the second half of the XVI century has become a major focus of late renaissance art. Although commercial and political significance of the Venetian Republic fell steadily as its power, Lagun City was still free from the power of the Pope and from foreign domination, and its accumulated wealth was enormous. During this period, the way of life of Venice and the nature of its culture differed in such a large scale and magnificence, that it seemed there were no signs of weakening of Venetian state. In the context of high humanistic Renaissance tradition in the new historical conditions in Venice developed enriched by new forms creativity of the great masters of the late Renaissance - Palladio, Veronese, and Tintoretto. In Painting enriched linear and aerial perspective and anatomy of the proportions of the human body. In architecture the temples and palaces were built. Palazzo is a rectangular Palace, having many rooms with inner courtyard. A characteristic feature of Renaissance culture is a close connection between science and art. Artists seeking more fully reflect all natural forms, refer to scientific knowledge. There is produced the new system of artistic vision of the world. Renaissance artists develop the principles of linear perspective. This discovery has helped to expand the range of depicted events, including a pictorial space landscape, architecture, turning picture into a kind of window to the world.
Further development of European painting is connected with Impressionism. This term was born by accident. The occasion was the name of the landscape of C. Monet "Impression. Sunrise ", which appeared at the Impressionist exhibition in 1874. This trend in painting was in the second half of the 19 early 20's in France. Impressionists sought to embody naturally world around us, to transmit their fleeting impressions. At the exhibition of the Anonymous Society of artists, painters, sculptors in 1874 have been exhibited paintings by Claude Monet's "Impression. Sunrise. "
The next stage in the development of French painting is associated with the work of artists who have received the name of the Post-Impressionists. All of them have passed the period of fascination with Impressionism, and later abandoned it in search of other, more expressive, simultaneously synthetic possibilities of painting. They were united by a sharp rejection of the surrounding reality. Hence is opposition to the respectable bourgeois society, escape from it to nature, to natural forms of patriarchal life. In purely picturesque terms they were united by the desire to give back to the objective world of its plastic materiality and weight lost by late Impressionists. Paul Cezanne sought to "make of impressionism something weighty," primarily interested in the transfer of the spatial structure of objects. Often he deliberately simplifies them, limiting to a simple geometric volumes by compacting form, revealing its plastic values. It achieves this by means of intensive and hard condensed modulated color without resorting to chiaroscuro.
Romanticism - (from the medieval French Romant - novel) - the direction in art, established under the general literary movement at the turn of 18-19 centuries in Germany. It became widespread throughout Europe and America. The highest peak of Romanticism occurs in the first quarter of the 19th century. The center of artistic system of romanticism is the person, and his main conflict is the individual and society. The decisive factor for the development of romanticism became the events of the French Revolution. The emergence of romanticism associated with anti enlightenment movement, the causes of which lie in disillusionment of civilization, social, industrial, political and scientific progress, the result of which were the new contrasts and contradictions, leveling and spiritual devastation of personality. At the same time, romanticism is based on ideas that challenge the "terrible world" - first of all the ideas of freedom. Disappointment of romanticism is a disappointment of reality, but the progress and civilization - the only one side of it. Fundamental changes in all areas of life gave rise to the French bourgeois revolution of 1789 and the counter-revolutionary coup 1794. Ideas of equality and freedom, protest against violence and social injustice were extremely attuned with the problems of Romanticism. It gave a powerful impetus to the development of the French romantic drama.
Romantics appealed to the different historical epochs, they were attracted by their peculiarity, exotic and mysterious countries and the circumstances always attracted them. Interest in history was one of the intransient conquests of the art system of romanticism. It expressed in the creation of the genre of the historical novel (F.Kuper, A.Vini, Victor Hugo), the founder of which is considered W. Scott, and in general the novel, which has gained a leading position in this period. The Romantics in detail and accurately reproduce the historical details, background, coloring of a particular era, but romantic characters are given outside history, they are usually above circumstances and not depend on them. At the same time, romantics perceived novel as a means of understanding the history and from the history they penetrated into the secrets of psychology, and accordingly - and modernity. Interest in history was reflected in the writings of historians of the French Romantic School (O. Terri, F. Gizo, F.O. Mene). Precisely in the era of Romanticism is the opening of Culture of the Middle Ages, and the admiration by antiquity peculiar to bygone era, also does not weaken in the late 18th - early19th centuries. The diversity of national, historical, individual characteristics had philosophical meaning: wealth of a single world consists of a set of individual traits, and study of the history of each nation separately enables us to trace not interrupting life by following one after another new generations.
Romanticism became popular in other European countries. Development of romanticism in the United States is associated with the adoption of national independence. American Romanticism is characterized by large proximity of enlightenment traditions, especially among the early Romantics (U. Irving, Cooper, U.K. Brayant) of optimistic illusions in anticipation of the future of America. Romanticism in Russia is the phenomenon largely different from the Western European, although it was unconditionally influenced by the French Revolution. Further development of this direction is primarily associated with the War of 1812 and its aftermath, with noble revolutionism.
Increasing globalization has led to interpenetration and mutual influence of cultures. Thus on the work of Matisse and Pablo Picasso had a great influence African art, and Japanese prints (appeared under the influence of the Western Renaissance) served as a source of inspiration for the Impressionists. Tremendous impact on art was also by Western idea of communism and post-modernism. Modernism and its cult of rigid norms and idealistic search for truth in the second half of the XX century paved the way for the awareness of its own unreachability. The relative value was accepted as an indisputable truth that marked the onset of a period of contemporary art and postmodern criticism, generating discussion about the end of art. World culture and history, art began to be considered as relative and transient categories to which were treated with irony, and the blurring of boundaries for regional cultures led to their comprehension as part of a global culture. Modern art becomes more ephemeral, superficial, simplistic and depleted. It is increasingly deprived of moral and religious concerns, philosophical problematical character and depth, adequate self-awareness and self-esteem, genuine spirituality. Although externally a cultural life of our time is full of loud events, internally it is impressed by a serious illness, a deep crisis of spirituality. Lack of spirituality of modern culture is becoming more threatening and causes a growing concern.

References

David Freedberg, Jan de Vries. Art in History/History in Art: Studies in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Culture. (1987).
Donna Easter. Art History: A Century of Modern Art. (1988).
Hugh Honour, John Fleming. A World History of Art. (2013).
Horst Woldemar Janson, Anthony F. Janson. History of Art: The Western Tradition. (2004).
Anthony Grafton. What was History?: The Art of History in Early Modern Europe. (2007).