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NEOCLASSICISM (SUMMARY) : 18th century Age of Enlightenment who wanted their artwork and architecture to mirror, and carry the same set of standards, as the idealized works of the Greeks and Romans. Greco-Roman ideals. A return to the study of science, history, mathematics, and anatomical correctness. ART should express the ideal virtues in life and could improve the viewer by imparting a moralizing message. It had the power to civilize, reform, and transform society, as society itself was being transformed by new approaches to government and the rising forces of the Industrial Revolution, driven by scientific discovery and invention. (Nicolas Poussin and Claude Lorrain)
Neoclassicism: chapter 17 (britain) (la era de la razón) 1700 -1750, overlaps with romanticism. Saw man as an imperfect being inherently sinful, whose potential was limited. Society was being shaped with moral, pragmatic, and structured views. Art was taken to civilize with a moralizing message, that is to say proportion, simplicity and symmetry.
The age of reason: down to earth thoughts, thinkers that shaped society like , locke, Hobbes. The ideas of humans rights , the abolishing of slavery, archeology appeared , the idea of individualism and that led to industrial revolution.
Town life: (1700) england was still a land of small village with no representation in the parliament. All the towns smelled bad, streets were muddy and narrow. Towns were centres of disease. As a result only one child in four in london lived to become an adult. It was the poor who died youngest. (1760) many towns asked parliament to allowed them to tax their citizens in order to provide social services, such as street cleaning and lighting. 4 classes of people: wealthy merchants, ordinary merchants and traders, skilled craftsmen ,number of workers. Catholic and Jews were not allowed in the Parliament.
The rich: The social conditions were probably better than in any other country in europe. British aristocrats had less power over the poor than european aristocrats had. English law seemed an example of perfect justice. Most classes mixed freely together.
18th improvements: rebuilding many great houses in the classical style ( view of nature). Some of the gentry (upper class) became interested in collecting trees or plants from abroad. Men did not trust on women for serious matters. These towns became fashionable places belonged to high society,
The countryside: (Scotland, Scottish highland) Money could be made from sheep for the wool trade. By the time the law forbidding the kilt and tartan was abolished in 1782. The landless and the aristocracy wanted to invest o the land and built fine country houses. The seed-drill was invented. Richer farmer wanted to change the system of forming and the system of land holding, new methods will produce more food. The problem of the landless class were: rapid increase in population and increase in wheat prices.
The local businessman wanted cheap workers with children as adults to work long hour. People left their village and went to towns to find work and they made possible a revolution (ind. Revolution 1760/1840).
Family life: 18th: families began to express affection more openly than before. For the first time children were not thought as small adults but a distinct group of people with special needs.
Girls: continued to be victim of the parent’s desire and a popular idea of feminine beauty of slim bodies and this improve the chances of a good marriage. Idea of frail feminine health. Cruelty either to humans or animals was wrong and every human was an individual. Desire for privacy.
Families: sent their sons to school at a young age. Education increased individualism. A poor woman expecting a baby was often sent out of the parish and some babies were killed or left to die by desperate mothers.
The use of child: children of the poor had always worked as soon as they could walk or by the age of 6 or 7 ( easy to discipline and cheaper). Child labour began to be seen as shameful. Horrified by the suffering of children forced to sweep chimneys, the Parliament to pass a Regulating Act in 1788 to reduce cruelty involved.
(poema)CHIMNEY SWEEPER: W, blake lived in London, epicenter of Ind.Rev. He was deeply upset by the poverty he was seeing every day. He thought that it was a horrific and dangerous work for children. He was influenced by Rousseau who believed that babys born free. “Sweep / weep” it is related because little children could not pronounce the job that they were working and it is a related to the sadness that they lived.