How Did We Get Here?Art, Music and Literature

The Enlightenment had brought a greater emphasis on reason, order and balance. The enlightenment ideas would not only affect the way people thought about government, but lead it new developments in art, music, and literature. New technologies also developed during the Enlightenment that had a major effect on Europe.

Music changed greatly during the Enlightenment. Music became much more advanced as some of the greatest composers did their work during the Enlightenment.

Music from the 1600s and early 1700s was referred to as baroque (French for “odd”)

Baroque Music was very complex and intricate

Two of the most famous baroque composers were Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frederick Handel

Click on the picture below for a sample of Bach’s baroque style performed on an organ. (Tocata and Fugue in D minor)

• German Composer

•Did not develop new styles but rather enriched older styles of music

•Is considered to be the master of the baroque style of music

Click below for a sample of Handel’s work

Fireworks

•German Composer but lived most of his life in Great Britain

•Considered a baroque master

•His most famous works include Messiah a series of works that are based on texts from the Bible, and the Royal Fireworks

After Bach and Handel, baroque music started to fade away. By the mid 1700s new works focused more on balance and unity. The symphony and concerto became the new dominant forms of music.

Two of the most famous composers from this time are Mozart and Beethoven.

Musical prodigy from Austria, he had amazing musical talents

Composed a number of famous operas including “the Marriage of Figaro” and “The Magic Flute”

Serenade #13 Overture from Figaro

Famous German Composer who lived mainly in Vienna Austria

Started to go deaf at age 28, which led him to consider suicide

Most famous for his Symphonies and Piano Sonatas.

Piano sonata #14

During the time of the Age of Enlightenment, a new form of literature was evolving, the modern novel.

Literature during and before the middle ages had focused on idealized stories of the past and usually were very long epics.

The novel provided a shorter form that usually focused on the mentality and struggles of a central character.

Spanish writer whose work Don Quixote is considered by many to be the first modern European novel.

Don Quixote was a satire of chivalry, as it featured a main character who was dedicated to being like heroes of the past. However most of his adventures made him look like a fool.

Cervantes work would inspire a new type of literary work in Europe. Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1715) is considered to be the first English novel.

Don Quixote battles a windmill

During the enlightenment painting reflected a number of themes. Chief among them were

Classical scenes (Greek and Roman scenes) Public events Nature Portraits of living people

Jacques Louis David’s (France) “Oath of the Horatii” (left) and “The Death of Socrates” (right) depict classical scenes in enlightenment art. They show the continued respect for the works of the Greeks

and Romans.

Eugene Delacroix (France) was an artist who put the spirit of the revolutionary ideas that were circulating at the time into his work, as he captured the spirit of the French Revolution in his most famous painting “Liberty leading the People”

Francisco Goya (Spain) painted important political events that occurred during his life. His painting “The 3rd of May” depicts the horrors of war between the French and Spanish

Several new technologies developed in Europe during the enlightenment that would have an effect on the world. Trade was one area that benefited from new technologies

Better roads were developed that could withstand all forms of weather.

Better ships were also developed that could travel faster across the ocean.

Both of these innovations lowered the cost of transport

The Ships of the 1700s and 1800s were much faster than their predecessors

Engineers such as Pierre Tresaguet (France) designed roads that drained better and survived the elements. This led to an easier, faster, and cheaper travel of of goods.

In the 1700s there were a number of advancements in farming tools and techniques that increased agricultural production. The change in farming began in Britain and is sometimes referred to as the British agricultural revolution.

Jethro Tull, an English farmer developed a seed drill mechanically laid seeds at a set depth in the soil.

Better ploughs were developed A threshing machine was

developed that eased the amount of labor required for farming

Jethro Tull’s seed drill

While the advancements in agriculture increased the productivity of farms, it led to a decrease in the need for farm labor. Many of the poor were forced to leave the farms and seek work in the new developing factories in Europe’s cities. In this way the British Agricultural Revolution helped provide the foundation for the Industrial revolution of the late 1700s and 1800s.

People left the farms for the factories