Napoléon and the Birth of Modern France Napoléonic Art The small island of Corsica lies just below the Mediterranean coast of France but it was long under the sway of the Italian region. After the war with Genoa, the Treaty of Versailles of 1768 ceded the island of...
AESTHETICS AND TRE RISE OF ROMANTICISM Emerging in the mid-eighteenth century, Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy which seeks to define “art.” The formulation of aesthetics as a separate aspect of Enlightenment thinking was a project of British and...
ART AND THE ENLIGHTENMENT Rococo and Revolution From the early eighteenth century on, the visual arts, from painting to interior décor, were markers of class and harbingers of the Revolution to come. A late expression of the pompous and grandiose Baroque, the soft...
THE AESTHETICS OF ROMANTICISM Part One With the decline of religious commissions and with the end of aristocratic patronage, the modern artist was left dependent upon the State and the new art public. In the past, it had been sufficient to define “art” as...
UNREASON AND ENLIGHTENMENT The Revolution and Terror in France When the American Revolutionary War was waged, the conflict was unpopular both in England and America. Only one third of the colonists supported and participated in the War. And yet the Revolution was...
AMERICAN REVOLUTION as ENLIGHTENMENT Social and Political Change Supported by the revolution in industrialized production, which enriched a new class of entrepreneurs, several important political revolutions cemented the middle class into power. Made by “new men,”...
