1.Discuss the impact of the Scientific Revolution on European art a...

1.Discuss the impact of the Scientific Revolution on European art and music.The new science engendered a spirit of objective inquiry in philosophy, andinspired new directions in the visual and musical arts.Like the scientist’s quest for objectivity, artists (especially the Dutch masters) practiced the “art of describing.” Art took on an almost photographic quality, showing a passion for detail and realistic representation. Works of natural landscapes also became popular, showing a close attention to detail and a sensitivity to atmosphere that brought to life a sense of place and the vastness of nature itself. As artists’ quest for detail became more involved, the world of science actually provided a way for painters to analyze a scene and recreate all the minutiae. Scholars argue that Vermeer, the exemplar in an age of observation, executed his paintings with the aid of a camera obscura, an apparatus that anticipated the modern pinhole camera.

In music, the empirical method provided a way for instrument makers to experiment and refine their creations. Tuning methods, also, evolved from the mathematical studies of acoustical properties. By the early eighteenth century, musicians were adopting the system of tuning known as equal temperament, whereby the octave was divided into twelve half-steps of equal size. The new attention to improving instruments and systematizing keys mirrored the efforts of scientists and philosophers to bring precision and uniformity to the tools and methods of scientific inquiry. Construction of compositions, too, took on a scientific approach, as composers used rigorous processes to investigate all possible permutations of an idea or theme. Further, the idea of music as an aesthetic exercise, with no religious connotations, was a notable feature of seventeenth-century European culture.

2.Explain the development of genre realism and Neoclassicism as stylistic alternatives to the Rococo.The Rococo style, in its elegance and luxuriousness, did not appeal to everyone. Diderot, for example, denounced Rococo boudoir imagery and demanded an art that made “virtue attractive and vice odious.” Both genre painting and Neoclassical works provided an alternative stylistic framework for artists.Genre artists focused instead on scenes of everyday life and behavior among the middle and lower classes. Genre painting reflected the growing interest in middle-class tastes and values, as well as the popular fascination with the “modern moral subjects” that dominated the contemporary novel, the journal, and the theater. Painters, such as Jean-Baptiste Greuze, exalted the natural virtues of ordinary people and brought to life moralizing subjects.Neoclassicism looked to the ancient Greco-Roman world for inspiration. In those ancient principles of symmetry, balance, and restraint, artists found a way to manifest the Enlightenment ideals of reason, clarity, and order. Neoclassicism equated beauty with goodness, virtue, and truth. In painting, sculpture, and music, artists embraced this style as a reaction to the illusionistic theatricality of the Baroque style and the fantasy of the Rococo style.

3.Write a brief essay on the extraordinary career of Napoleon and his influence on the art world of his day.After the French Revolution, much chaos ensued as various factions tried to control the civil unrest that followed. Out of this chaos rose Napoleon Bonaparte, an army general with grand plans to unify Europe under his control. As he conquered nation after nation, he brought the revolutionary ideals of liberty, fraternity, and equality to his new empire. He abolished serfdom, expropriated Church possessions, curtailed feudal privileges,and introduced French laws, institutions, and influence. Napoleon’s ambitious idealism lifted him as the nineteenth century’s first Romantic hero, glorified in numerous European poems and paintings, and especially in the majestic portraits of Jacques-Louis David, his favorite artist. Napoleon had many qualities that typify the Romantic personality: self-conscious individualism, a sense of personal power, unbridled egotism, and a high regard for the life of the imagination. His embodiment of the Romantic hero inspired countless paintings, sculptures, and even musical compositions, created in his name.

4.Explain the role and influence of nationalism on nineteenth-century culture.
Nationalism—the exaltation of the sovereign state—was one of the shaping forces of nineteenth-century culture. While the beginnings of the modern nation-state go back at least to the fourteenth century, nationalism, an ideology (or belief system) grounded in a people’s sense of cultural and political unity, did not gain widespread acceptance until roughly 1815. The spread of nationalistic ideals was infectious, and one after another, European states, as well as some in Africa and in Latin America, rose up against foreign rulers. Love of nation and love of liberty became synonymous with the ideals of self-determination and political freedom. In its positive aspects, nationalism cultivated the revival and celebration of a common language, common customs, and a shared history, as expressed in poetry, music, and art. In its darker side, nationalism and patriotic chauvinism motivated policies of imperialism and ignited warfare, not only between nations, but also among the ethnic populations of various regions.