The Development of Art and Music - Assignment Example

The Development of Art and Music Art and music appear to have been important aspects of human development since time began. In fact some of the earliest evidence that exists in relation to human activity consists of cave paintings and decorated artefacts which appear to have significance beyond the purely material world. Study of indigenous peoples in remote parts of the world today also confirms that musical and artistic creation has an important social and often also spiritual function. Art and Music historians are fond of inventing period and movement definitions, which makes a review of them complicated, but it is generally agreed that there are some major eras, namely Antiquity, Medieval, Baroque, Classic, and Romantic, which take us to the end of the nineteenth century and then a modern and perhaps post modern period which covers the beginning of the of the twentieth century to the present day. The term “classical” in Western culture refers to the two cultures of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome which dominated Europe and large parts of Asia from their Eastern Mediterranean base. The art of this period is preserved in magnificent marble statues, mosaics such as those at Pompeii and some paintings. Human figures were favourite subjects and there is a cleanness of line and a celebration of physicality in the art of this time. Mythology was often depicted, but also ordinary citizens and famous people of the age. Not very much is known about music, except that it was a part of most dramatic performances, from plays in the theatres to spectacles with gladiators in the Coliseum. This period ends with the fall of Rome in the fifth century and then everything is rather quiet through the period known as the “Dark Ages”. The earliest evidence we have of dark ages and medieval music shows a close connection with religious activities, which is not surprising since the Church was the place where most intellectual activities and almost all reading and writing activities took place. Illustrated books show psalms and hymns, sometimes with basic musical notation, and a key innovator in this field was Pope Gregory the Great (540-604), who promoted the use of plainchant, monotone single voice or choir delivery of short uplifting texts across the increasing territories of Christianity. One of the most notable composers was Hildegard of Bingen ( 1098-1179) who wrote chants and “sequences” which were used in worship, again using voice as the main carrier of the melody but some more daring intervals than those common in the Gregorian chants. In art religious subjects dominated and the pictures of saints or Bible figures were designed to convey a narrative, for example by depicting objects which had symbolic significance, or which reminded the viewers, most of whom could not read, what the key elements of the story were. The arrival of the plague in around 1350 heralded a new era which we now call “The Renaissance” and this lasted until about 1600. Art was very much changed in this period, with the discovery in Italy of techniques to deal with perspective, and new scientific methods like anatomy. Leading artists like Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) and Michelangelo (1475-1564) were inspired more by the classical art around them than by medieval works. In music there was more polyphony, new forms such as madrigals were popular in both religious and secular contexts. The most famous composer of this period was Giovanni Perluigi da Palestrina (1525-1594) who produced huge numbers of religious compositions using counterpoint. The period between 1600 and 1700 is known as the Baroque. In art there was once again a focus on religious topics, but this time caused by the Reformation which divided Christian Europe on doctrinal grounds. Caravaggio (1571-1610) painted lavish Biblical subjects with much emotion and warmth. Further north artists such as the protestant Rembrandt (1606-1699) and the Roman Catholic Rubens (1577-1640) mastered techniques to paint light and shade and there was an increase in portrait painting, commissioned by wealthy traders and aristocrats. In music there were two important developments : “the evolution of dramatic vocal music” including opera, and “the emancipation of instrumental music from its nearly exclusive use of vocal forms”. (Wold et al., 1995, 194). The musical works of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), George Frideric Handel (1685-1759), and Vivaldi (1678-1741) exemplify this period’s love of orderly forms, livened up by drama, and a great deal of elaborate ornamentation round a clear theme. The Classic period runs from 1750 until 1800 and its artists, as a reaction to the over-elaboration of the Baroque period, return to the ancient Greek and Roman ideals for inspiration. Jean Honoré Fragonard (1732-1806) and Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825) brought France to prominence in the arts, overtaking Italy which had until then been seen as the leader of innovation. The French revolution in 1789 galvanized French society and inspired patriotic paintings, often with a military theme. Franz Josef Haydn (1732-1809) and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) made sure, however, that Germany provided the major inspiration of the Classic period in music. Wold et al. single out Mozart as “perhaps the most nearly perfect musical creator in the history of Western music” (p. 233). His work is perfectly balanced, distant and yet lyrical, and his versatility enables him to meet the requirements of orchestra and of opera equally well. The Romantic period (1800-1900) in turn reacts against the coolness of the Classic period with Eugene Delacroix (1798-1863) in France and the two great English painters J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851) and John Constable (1776-18370 who all revel in stunning pictures of the natural world, often with small human figures or vehicles dominated by skies or seas to show the power of creation. Emotion is everything in this period, and the composers such as Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827), Felix Mendelssohn (1805-1807), Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849) and many others signalled a break from rigid traditions and a desire for freedom of self expression. This led to many diverging styles from Franz Schubert’s (1797-1828) short but emotional “Lieder”, the huge scale operas of Richard Wagner (1813-1883). The industrial revolution created a larger public for music, which had previously been played mainly for wealthy or aristocratic audiences and in church, and in the second half of the century Russian composers brought their own traditional musical styles onto the world stage. Technologies for the making of musical instruments improved, and new ones such as the saxophone were invented making the orchestra much bigger, louder, and more capable of different tones than ever before. At the end of the nineteenth century a movement called “Realism” grew out of the romantic focus on the natural world and this inspired painters to look for more and better ways to paint scenes and figures in a more realistic way. The Pre-Raphaelites were popular in England, while Impressionism arose in France and was made famous by Monet, Manet, Renoir and many others. The end of the century saw the post-impressionists Paul Cezanne (1839-1906), and Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) develop the study of light and color even further. In Germany the chosen artistic style was expressionism, the domain of Egon Schiele (1890-1918) and Nolde (1867-1956). Art grew more stylized, as can be seen in the Jugendstil and Art Nouveau movements, and then increasingly more abstract, beginning with the Cubism of Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) and continuing into Surrealism. From this point onwards there is such a great diversity in art, that it is hard to see any large scale movements beyond “modernism” which signifies a break with past artistic traditions and “post-modernism” which attempts to break away from any fixed points whatsoever and questions the whole notion of artistic production. In late twentieth century culture there are contradictory forces working simultaneously such as the commercial “Pop Art” prints that began with the likes of Andy Warhol (1928-1987), the photo-realism of other American artists such as Chuck Close (b. 1940), and the distinctive primary colors of the British artist David Hockney (b. 1937). In music Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) re-wrote the rule books of composition by abandoning traditional harmony and working to a new, twelve tone system. Dissonance now became a feature, and others, like Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) followed this lead to create dramatic pieces that appear to have no basis in musical theory whatsoever. In the middle of the century new popular music forms emerged, including jazz, blues, rock, pop and latterly punk, and rap, just to name a very few. Mass media and a commercialization of both art and music mean that almost anyone can create art or music, and publish it in a variety of media on the world wide web. Attending this class has first of all opened my eyes to a great deal of factual information about historical periods, ideas and events that I had only had a dim awareness of. In particular it has shown me how ideas are never “out of the blue” but always stem from something or other that is around in the culture of the time. I found it interesting to see how there are trends which come back again and again, such as the classic trend, and how each generation adopts and then adapts these ideas with a slightly different emphasis. Like most people of my generation, I find that music is an accessible form of creativity, and I enjoy it unthinkingly as a consumer in my daily life, as well as at times considering it more technically as a composer and critic. Art is less accessible to me, but I am pleased that I have had a glimpse of how art has developed over the centuries, and I think now that I am less confused by the terminology, which always seems to overlap, and more able to sense the mood of the age from looking closely at the pictures. Before taking this class I did not think that art and music were closely related because in school these are usually separate subjects with different ways of approaching them. Learning about them together has changed that view, and now I can see new connections between art and music all the time. When I started this course I understood “aesthetics” mainly in terms of emotions – the pleasure that I feel in listening to my favourite musicians, and the comfort it brings me when I am going through difficult times. I could sense a bit of that in the paintings that we studied, but it was less apparent. I was also aware of the therapeutic effect of art and music, for example in a hospital setting, or as a means of recuperating after illness. What I have become more aware of now, is that aesthetics also has an intellectual dimension. I think this comes from a) having a lot more factual information to put the piece of art or music into its context and b) having more skill in spotting and studying the techniques that the artist or composer has employed. I have always listened closely to music, but I have not always looked closely at art. Certainly, also, I have tended to stick to what I already know I am going to like and this has been a handicap in my learning in the past. Perhaps the biggest difference I can detect in my definition of aesthetics is that you have to use both your head and your heart when you engage with art and music, and the interplay of both, like the interplay of classic and romantic movements, deepens your ability to appreciate all that is in the created piece. Wold, M., Martin, G., Miller J., and Cykler, E. (1995) Introduction to Music and Art In the Western World. 10th edition. New York: McGraw Hill. Read More