Art History Concepts and Paintings

Industrialization

• Massive growth of factories, railways, and mechanized labor, changing both landscapes and daily life

• Agrarian to manufacturing-based societies

→ John Constable, Golding Constable's Kitchen Garden (1815), oil on canvas, 30 × 50 cm / small

Urbanization

• Increasing concentration of civilian population within urban areas

• As industrialization transformed cities into centers economic activity, it influenced people to migrate in from rural areas, seeking better living conditions and job opportunities

• Rise of bourgeois leisure.

→ Claude Monet, Boulevard Des Capucines (1873), oil on canvas, 80 × 60 cm / small

Class Inequality

• Systemic disparities in wealth, opportunities, and status between social classes

• Uneven distribution of resources and privileges inspired artists to focus on the working class experience,

• Artists highlight the stark reality of labor through honest depictions of peasants and workers

→ Gustave Courbet, Stonebreakers (1849), oil on canvas, 150 × 260 cm / large

Individualism

• Social and political philosophy that emphasizes expression of the individual

• Subjects such as the self, solitary, or flaneur embody this concept of free will and independent thought

• Ex. Romanticism's shift towards personal and emotional evocation rather than collective rational reasoning.

→ Caspar David Friedrich, Monk by the Sea (1809-1810), oil on canvas, 110 × 170 cm / medium

Gender Roles

• Mannerisms or behaviors considered to be appropriate or expected for a particular gender

• Ideas are defined by societal and cultural norms

• Represent a radical shift in the perception of women, from patriarchal reinforcement of gender inequality to progressive expansion of women's rights

→ Gustave Caillebotte, Woman at the Window (1880), oil on canvas, 120 × 90 cm / medium

Spectatorship and the Gaze

• Describes who sees and who is being seen

• Typically involves the active role of the viewer in creating meaning from an artwork, as well as the gaze of the artwork's subject themself

• Considers whether the subject address the spectator or not

→ Edouard Manet, Olympia (1863), oil on canvas, 130 × 190 cm / medium

Commodification and Mass Culture

• Transformation of arts and culture into sellable products, a process which strips objects of their original meaning

• Mass and cheap production of commodities diminishes creative, authentic expression

• Explores impact of goods, entertainment, and cafe culture on modern life, often capturing bourgeois leisure

→ Georges Seurat, A Sunday on La Grande Jatte (1884), oil on canvas, 210 × 310 cm / large

Anxiety and Alienation

• Growing sentiments of disconnection, estrangement, or isolation among individuals who feel uneasy about modern life

• Convey emotional and psychological loneliness in a chaotic, rapidly evolving, industrialized society

→ Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Street, Dresden (1908), oil on canvas, 150 × 200 cm / medium

Technological Change and Speed

• Acceleration of technological advancements such as trains, telegraphs, photography, and other machine products

• Associated with Futurism movement

→ Umberto Boccioni, The City Rises (1910-1911), oil on canvas, 200 × 300 cm / large

Primitivism

• Borrowing from African, Oceanic, or folk art, modern artists used this to challenge European norms while reflecting colonial power dynamics

• Seeking raw, authentic expressions of the environment to rebel against industrialization

• Inspired by non-western people and their perceived "tribal” nature

→ Paul Gauguin, La Orana Maria (1891), oil on canvas, 115 × 90 cm / medium

Abstraction

• Shift away from recognizable objects toward shape, color, and surface

• Challenges traditional illusionism to create a new visual language focused on experience rather than objective imitation

→ Malevich, The Black Square (1915), oil on linen, 80 × 80 cm / small

Propaganda and Totalitarian Aesthetics

• Visual imagery weaponized to promote a one-sided message or ideology to a mass audience

• Seeking to sway public favor and serve a specific political agenda

→ Paul Mathias Padua, The Fuhrer Speaks (1939), oil on wood, 210 × 180 cm / large

John Constable, Golding Constable's Kitchen Garden (1815), oil on canvas, 30 × 50, small

1. Responds to Industrialization → criticizes wartime resource exploitation

2. Laborer in corner

3. Vast landscape shows off agriculture, no machinery

4. Spatial composition focuses on overwhelming beauty of nature → houses and humans look small and insignificant in comparison

Claude Monet, Boulevard Des Capucines (1873), oil on canvas, 80 × 60 cm / small

1. Busy bourgeois crowd

2. Characterization of middle class (fashionable coats, horse-drawn carriage travel)

3. Spatial composition of massive, uniformly structured buildings, straight paved streets → reflects order and stability of urban architecture and post-commune recovery

Gustave Courbet, Stonebreakers (1849), oil on canvas, 150 × 260 cm / large

1. Harsh lower class conditions

2. Exhausting, physically demanding cycle of poverty

3. Realism techniques—naturalistic colors and 3-dimensional lighting—to expose unfiltered struggles of laborers

4. Facial anonymity symbolizes the universal experience of class inequality, how it isn't limited to these specific individuals

Caspar David Friedrich, Monk by the Sea (1809-1810), oil on canvas, 110 × 170 cm / medium

1. Spatial composition highlights overwhelming power, "sublime” presence of nature

2. Human loneliness embodied by lone individual, his smallness emphasized by the broad, simplified brushstrokes that form the ocean and sky

3. Explores subjective experience and deep inner feeling rather than using objects to create narrative or connection with viewer

Gustave Caillebotte, Woman at the Window (1880), oil on canvas, 120 × 90 cm / medium

1. Window as a symbol of freedom, its openness signaling who has access to it

2. Positioning of woman's arms and legs symbolize the female ideal of restraint and modesty, not allowed to be assertive or make her presence known

3. Even as the subject of the piece, she is still accompanied by a man and cannot exist independently

4. Man sits comfortably in a chair, indicating his ownership and authority over the house

5. Expresses culturally limited female autonomy

6. Anonymity of her hidden face shows this is not the life of a specific individual, but a universally shared experience

Edouard Manet, Olympia (1863), oil on canvas, 130 × 190 cm / medium

1. Her gaze empowers her—its not inviting or submissive, its direct and dominating

2. She is in control of the situation, challenging the uneven power dynamic between authoritative elites and employed female prostitutes

3. Flattened forms and natural treatment of the nude body rejects idealization of female vulnerability

4. No longer caters to male gaze

5. Establish confrontational tone with the viewer, reconsidering who is judging and who is judged

6. Calls out spectator's participation in affirming gender conventions

Georges Seurat, A Sunday on La Grande Jatte (1884), oil on canvas, 210 × 310 cm / large

1. Clothing covers distinction of class

2. Rigid poses → stiffness, order, conformity

3. Reveals dehumanizing nature of commodification and mass culture

Kirchner, Street, Dresden (1908), oil on canvas, 150 × 200 cm / medium

1. Jarring, unnatural colors are elements of emotional storytelling rather than observational accuracy

2. Vague, simplified human forms, unblended blocks of color and thick, loose brushstrokes depict anxieties and chaotic nature of modern world

3. Crowd of people shows physical togetherness but no emotional connectedness within the community, lacking meaningful interaction with one another

4. Bodies are structured lifelessly with a robotic stiffness

5. Illustrate unease of modern world and its erasure of self expression and community

Umberto Boccioni, The City Rises (1910-1911), oil on canvas, 200 × 300 cm / large

1. Painting technique, divisionism, employs directional brushstrokes to imitate movement and motion

2. Vibrant colors overlap and collide rather than blending into one another to highlight dynamism

3. Unnatural hues compose light and energy rather than realism

4. Rather than celebrating the modern city, it praises the interaction between working men and horses

5. None of the figures are static, they are all depicted in action with expressive, loose forms

6. Background structures construct development of machinery and expanding industries,

Malevich, The Black Square (1915), oil on linen, 80 × 80 cm / small

1. Favors conceptual interpretation over concrete detail

2. Stripped of color, texture, contour, and movement, challenges techniques that shape art as a medium of storytelling, using only form, space, and contrast of light and dark

3. Values subjective meaning rather than objective truth

4. Shaped by rawness—pure and personal instinct

Paul Mathias Padua, The Fuhrer Speaks (1939), oil on wood, 210 × 180 cm / large

1. Calm, secure atmosphere signified by relaxed body language and facial expression of the family

2. Spatially arranged in a manner that centralizes Hitler, as all individuals directionally face the centerline, where Hitler's presence is visually immortalized in portraiture

3. Hierarchy of Hitler's high hung portrait versus the position of family below him signifies his authority and power over the German society

4. Naturalistic treatment of bodies makes the painting feel realer and more relatable for ordinary viewers to feel understood and recognized

5. Sense of trust, safety, and community serves the purpose of swaying public favor towards authoritarian rule