Victorian Era Synthesis Question

Dadaism began in Switzerland during WWI. The act of lampooning is inherent is Dadaism as a movement. Compare and contrast the lampooning of various ideas during the Edwardian era to that of the previous era, the Victorian Period.

 

During the Victorian Era the act of lampooning was used to capture the lightness of the time period in order to distract people from World War One. Dadaism was a cultural movement in which politics were made into parodies and the ant-war expression was encouraged. The Edwardian Eras parodies were the beginning of rebelling against political correctness while the Victorian Era was that same thing but more progressed in its risqué ness. Solely comparing women’s self-expression from the two time periods, the transformation of lampoon methods is apparent. It went from plays using ridiculous behavior to make the war seem less scary to women being used as relief to men who dealt with the travesties of war and the depression that follows its ending. The Victorian Era’s way of following Dadaism was through the burlesque movement. This incorporated dancing with skimpy clothes on in order to allow women to express and make men feel loved. Both these eras developed a sense of irony about the hardships of the time and throughout the changing era the lampooning of the time developed as well.  

Enlightenment Era

Madeline Godwin

Tyler Brown

Zoe Siegel

Sean Grab

Group 1

1. Just as Greco-Roman paintings often figuratively represent the literal desire for order and unity in society, Picasso’s modern paintings represented a particular desire. Choose a painting, or any other form of art, created by a famous artist from the Enlightenment era and explain how the figurative representation of that piece of art conveys its literal meaning regarding society.

The painting is called “A Philosopher Giving A Lecture at the Orrery” (1765) and it is painted by Joseph Wright.  This painting represents two men, one pensive in thought and the other pleasantly writing. There are also two young kids staring curiously and calmly into an orbit type metal wired half ball that looks to be scientific. There are also three other men that are in the shadows that are also staring into the interesting object. This figurative representation is an excellent depiction of what was valued during the enlightenment in society. At the time discoveries were esteemed very highly and it was attractive to wonder and make theories about the universe. This picture has dim candlelight and pensive looks that represent the aura that was present while men chipped away at their new ideas. The enlightenment encouraged revolution of thought and curiosity and this painting exemplifies just that.