Science, Philosophy and the Arts in the Late 19th Century

What was science like at the turn of the 19th Century?

• late 19th century Europeans had increased exposure to science because of its "popularization" (via journals & Science Fiction)

• Europeans trusted science even if they didn't fully understand it (because of increased specialization)

• divide between science and Church

• liberalism would increase with new findings

• great number of intellectuals developments & discoveries challenged Enlightenment view of a rational world & Newtonian Universe ("machine" under "natural laws") was overthrown

Sciences & Technology: Newton

• 3 laws of motion
• calculus
• mechanistic universe
• space, time, matter, objective realities
• law of universal gravitation

Sciences & Technology: Plank

• Quantum physics
• challenged Newtonian physics

Sciences & Technology: Einstein

• Theory of Relativity (1905): time and space are subjective to person and where they are
• "Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies" (1905) contained Theory of Relativity
• 𝐸 = 𝑚𝑐²

Sciences & Technology: Marie & Pierre Curie

discovered radioactivity and radium

Sciences & Technology: Darwin

• natural selection
• Theory of Evolution

Impact of Sciences & Technology of Late 19th Century

• challenged Church ideals
• rationalized universe using reason & math instead of religious beliefs

The Evolutionary Theory (Darwin)

• "On the Origins of Species": contained the MECHANISTIC natural selection (organisms with advantages survived long enough to reproduce and pass on those beneficial traits)
• "The Descent of Man": human's moral nature, physical frame and religion developed in response to survival NOT GOD (Darwin was not trying to go against the Church with this)
• organisms evolved through natural selection

Impact of Evolutionary Theory

• Social Darwinism (Spencer): society was made up of organisms that evolved through time from struggle with the environment
• extreme nationalists argued nations were in a "struggle for existence" where only fittest survive
• Chamberlain: modern day Germans were the only pure successors of "Aryans" (portrayed as true creators of Western culture), under German leadership the Aryan race was supposed to protect Western civilization from lower races (Jews, Africans, Orientals) → Racism
• Evolution through natural selection contradicted the Bible narrative of Creation (God created everything & it stays the same over time)

Psychology and Philosophical Ideas: Nietzsche

• superhumans (the strongest) should rule society because they don't give into a slave morality
• Christianity fosters a slave morality
• no democracy, UMS, or reform
• glorified irrationality because people lost creativity when they were too rational

Psychology and Philosophical Ideas: Bergson

• reality grasped intuitively (through experience)
• accepted science as a tool, NOT as a base of reason

Psychology and Philosophical Ideas: Sorel

• revolutionary socialism: everyone should strike
• general strike
• governed by elite body (people need elites to rule)

Psychology and Philosophical Ideas: Freud

• id: basic drives
• ego: reason
• superego: morals, come from same-sex parent, curb ego & id
• human behavior is based on the unconscious & understood in dreams
• oedipus complex: a boy's desire for exclusive possession of his mother and jealousy of his father.
• electra complex: a girl's desire for exclusive possession of her father and jealousy of her mother

Impact of Psychology and Philosophical Ideas of Late 19th Century

• less of an emphasis on reason
• no norms

Visual Art: Impressionism

• focus on nature
• light on objects
• workplace aesthetic (wherever people congregated for work or leisure)
• modernism
• rejected rules & principles, wanted to paint what they observed & felt to not lose first impression!
• important artists: Pissarro, Monet, Morisot

Morisot

• female impressionist painter
• often painted women
• painted with random rough brushstrokes
• gentle colors & light pastels

Gauguin

• French painter
• painted South Island people with sympathy

Monet

• impressionist painter
• many of paintings sought to capture interplay of light, water and atmosphere

"Impressionist Sunrise"

• name was an attempt to insult Monet, the painter
• focused on a single moment
• distinguished brush strokes
• undepainting
• started off impressionism

Visual Art: Post Impressionism

• more abstract
• focus on structure & form
• kept impressionist emphasis of color & light
• feeling, subjective reality
• important artists: Van Gogh (spiritual) & Cézanne (geometric)

Van Gogh

• painted "Starry Night" in 1889 while staying in a mental institution
• believed color could act as its own language
• believed artists should paint what they feel

Cubism

• art style where subject matter is portrayed by geometric forms (like shattered glass)
• important artist: Picasso

Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

• painted by Picasso
• depicts prostitutes in a dehumanizing way
• two women have African masks on = Picasso had seen them before = imperialism
• called the first Cubism painting

Music: Debussy

• French
• impressionist composer
• his music was often inspired by visual arts, EX: 𝘗𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘶𝘥𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘈𝘧𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘯𝘰𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘧 𝘢 𝘍𝘢𝘶𝘯 inspired by poem "Afternoon of a Faun"

Music: Stravinsky

• composed pieces for ballet (based off of Russian folk tales)
• had an element of musical primitivism
• sought a new understanding of irrational forces in his music

Music: Grieg

• supporter of Norwegian nationalism
• plowed way for national music style in Norway

Literature of the Late 19th Century

• Tolstoy's 𝘞𝘢𝘳 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘗𝘦𝘢𝘤𝘦
• Emile Zola's art on alcoholism brings awareness
• Dostoevsky's texts establish that the problem with people is the loss of spirituality

Impact of the Creative Arts of the Late 19th Century

• post Realists (partially because of photography & desire to express emotion) art became more abstract & formless, challenging more artistic ideals
• painted nature, not just people!
• new emphasis on light
• folk music = nationalism & unity