Discovering the humanities 3rd by henry m sayre 2016 chapter 11

Explain the relationship of the French philosophes to both the Enlightenment and the Rococo... Absolutism versus Liberalism: Thomas Hobbes and John Locke• English intellectuals began to

Discovering the Humanities

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Enlightenment and the Rococo: The

Claims of Reason and the Excess of

Privilege

11

Learning Objectives

1 Discuss the role of rationalist thinking

in the rise of the English

Enlightenment and the literary forms

to which the Enlightenment gave rise

2 Explain the relationship of the French

philosophes to both the Enlightenment and the Rococo

Learning Objectives

3 Describe the results of cross-cultural

contact between Europeans and

peoples of the South Pacific and China

Canaletto London: The Thames and the City of London from Richmond House (detail)

1747.

Oil on canvas 44-7/8" × 39-3/8".

Trustees of the Goodwood Collection, West Sussex, UK [Fig 11.1]

The English Enlightenment

• Although Christopher Wren's plans to

redesign the entire London city center after the Great Fire proved impractical, requirements mandating the use of

brick and stone over wood were made

• For poet John Dryden, the Great Fire

was not so much a disaster as it was an opportunity to commemorate the city in his "Annus Mirabilis."

Christopher Wren Saint Paul's Cathedral, London, western façade 1675–1710.

© Angelo Hornak Photo Library [Fig 11.2]

The New Rationalism and the

Scientific Revolution

• The new London was, in part, the result

of the rational empirical thinking that dominated the Western imagination in the late seventeenth century

• According to these new ways of

reasoning, Scientia, the Latin word for

"knowledge," was to be found in the

world, not in religious belief

Francis Bacon and the Empirical

Method

• Developments in philosophy and

science challenged the authority of

both the Catholic and Protestant

churches

• In England, Francis Bacon (1561–1626)

developed the empirical method, a

process of inductive reasoning based

on direct and careful observation of

natural phenomena

Francis Bacon and the Empirical

Method

• Bacon's writings circulated widely in

Holland, where they were received with enthusiasm

René Descartes and the Deductive

Method

• The French-born René Descartes (1596–

1650) lived in Holland from 1628 to

1649

• Descartes developed a separate brand

of philosophy based on deductive

reasoning.

René Descartes and the Deductive

Method

• Deductive reasoning begins with clearly

established general principles and

moves from those to the establishment

of particular truths

• Descartes' method has become known

as Cartesian dualism.

René Descartes and the Deductive

Method

• His line of thinking has established

Descartes as one of the most important

founders of deism (from the Latin

deus, "god").

• Deism is the brand of faith that argues

that the basis of belief in God is reason

and logic rather than revelation or

tradition

Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei,

and the Telescope

• The German mathematician Johannes

Kepler (1571–1630) collected detailed

records of the movements of the

planets that confirmed Copernicus'

heliocentric theory.

• Kepler's Italian friend Galileo Galilei

(1564–1642) substantiated the theory

with the help of an improved telescope

Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei,

and the Telescope

• Kepler's and Galileo's work did not meet

with universal approval

• The Catholic Church still officially

believed that the earth was the center

of the universe and that the sun

revolved around the earth

(geocentric).

Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei,

and the Telescope

• The Protestant churches were equally

skeptical, since the new theories

contradicted certain biblical passages

• It seemed to many that the new

theories relegated humankind to a

marginal space in God's plan

Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, Robert

Hooke, and the Microscope

• In Holland, the microscope had been

developed

• Antoni van Leeuwenhoek (1632–1723)

was able to grind a lens that magnified

over 200 times

Robert Hooke Illustration from Micrographia: A flea 1665.

London Courtesy the University of Virginia Library © Photo Scala Florence/Heritage

Images [Fig 11.3a]

Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, Robert

Hooke, and the Microscope

• Soon van Leeuwenhoek began to

describe, for the first time, "little

animals" —bacteria and protozoa—

sperm cells, blood cells, and many

other organisms

Robert Hooke Illustration from Micrographia: A slice of cork 1665.

London Courtesy the University of Virginia Library © Photo Scala Florence/Heritage

Images [Fig 11.3b]

Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, Robert

Hooke, and the Microscope

• He regularly informed the Royal Society

of London—established by Francis

Bacon—about his observations

• In 1680, van Leeuwenhoek was elected

full member of the Society

Isaac Newton: The Laws of Physics

• The English astronomer and

mathematician Isaac Newton (1642–

1727) demonstrated to the satisfaction

of almost everyone that the universe

was an intelligible system, well ordered

in its operations and guiding principles

Isaac Newton: The Laws of Physics

• Newton's conception of the universe as

an orderly system remained

unchallenged until the late nineteenth

and early twentieth centuries, when the new physics of Albert Einstein and

others once again transformed our

understanding

Joseph Wright An Experiment on a Bird in the Air-Pump 1768.

The Industrial Revolution

• A group of prominent manufacturers,

inventors, and naturalists formed the

Lunar Society

• The Society's members met in and

around Birmingham each month on the night of the full moon—providing both light to travel home by and the name of the society

The Industrial Revolution

• The Lunar Society's members

inaugurated what we think of today as

the Industrial Revolution.

• The term was invented in the

nineteenth century to describe the

radical changes in production and

consumption that had transformed the world

Thomas Farnolls Pritchard Iron Bridge, Coalbrookdale,

England 1779.

Cast iron

© Graham Jordan/Adams Picture Library/Alamy [Fig 11.5]

Architectural Simulation: Ca st-Iron Construction

Absolutism versus Liberalism: Thomas Hobbes and John Locke

• English intellectuals began to advocate

rational thinking as the means to

achieve a comprehensive system of

ethics, aesthetics, and knowledge

• Political strife inevitably raised the

question of who should govern and how

Absolutism versus Liberalism: Thomas Hobbes and John Locke

• In Leviathan, the absolutist Thomas

Hobbes (1588–1679) argued that

ordinary people were incapable of

governing themselves and should

willingly submit to the sovereignty of a

supreme ruler (social contract).

Absolutism versus Liberalism: Thomas Hobbes and John Locke

• The liberal John Locke (1632–1704)

argued in opposition that humans are

"by nature free, equal, and

independent."

Absolutism versus Liberalism: Thomas Hobbes and John Locke

• Locke's form of liberalism—literally,

from the Latin, liberare, "to free"—sets

the stage for the political revolutions

that will dominate the Western world in the eighteenth and nineteenth

centuries

John Milton's Paradise Lost

• The debate between absolutism and

liberalism also informs what is arguably the greatest poem of the English

seventeenth century, Paradise Lost by

John Milton (1608–1674)

• Milton composed a densely plotted

poem with complex character

development, and rich theological

reasoning

John Milton's Paradise Lost

• The subject of the epic is the

Judeo-Christian story of the loss of Paradise by Adam and Eve and their descendants

• While occasionally virulently

anti-Catholic, the poem is a fair-minded

essay on the possibilities of liberty and justice

Satire: Enlightenment Wit

• Deeply conscious of the fact that

English society fell far short of its

ideals, many artists and writers turned

to satire

Satire: Enlightenment Wit

• These artists and writers believed that

by exposing the moral bankruptcy in

society they could return England to its proper path

• They used irony and their satires are

marked by deadpan humor

William Hogarth Gin Lane 1751.

Engraving and etching, third state 14" × 11-7/8".

Private collection [Fig 11.6]

Document:

A Modest Proposal

by Jonathan Swift

The Satires of Jonathan Swift

• Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) was

possibly the most biting satirist of the English Enlightenment

• He aimed his wit at the aristocracy and

at English political leaders for their

policies toward Ireland in his Modest

Proposal

The Satires of Jonathan Swift

• Swift believed England was consuming

the Irish young, if not literally then

figuratively, sucking the lifeblood out of them by means of its oppressive

economic policies

Hogarth and the Popular Print

• In Gin Lane, Hogarth turned his

attention not to the promise of the

English Enlightenment, but to the

reality of London at its worst

The Classical Wit of Alexander

Pope

• Pope spent 12 years translating

Homer's Iliad and Odyssey as well as a

six-volume edition of Shakespeare

• He dedicated his mock epic Dunciad to

Jonathan Swift

• Published between 1732 and 1734, An

Essay on Man was a poem intended to

be a cornerstone on a system of ethics, but was never expanded

The English Garden

• Instead of the straight, geometrical

layout of the French garden, the

walkways of the English garden are,

in the words of one garden writer of the day, "serpentine meanders … with

many twinings and windings."

Perhaps after Samuel Scott, Pope's Villa, Twickenham 1750–60 Graphite, pen and black ink, and watercolor, 13-1/4" × 20-1/2".

© The Trustees of the British Museum [Fig 11.7]

The English Garden

• The ideal estate was to be "thrown

open" in its entirety to become a vast garden, its woods, gardens, lakes, and marshes all partaking of a carefully

controlled "artificial rudeness" (in the sense of raw, primitive, and

undeveloped)

Henry Flitcroft and Henry Hoare The park at Stourhead, Wiltshire, England 1744–65.

© Krzysztof Melech/Alamy [Fig 11.8]

Literacy and the New Print Culture

• Since the seventeenth century, literacy

had sharply risen in England

• By 1750, 60 percent of adult men and

between 40 and 50 percent of adult

women could read

• While publishing had increased as well, the literate poor were often priced out

of the literary market

Literacy and the New Print Culture

• Provided they could pay the annual

subscription fee, the literate poor were

able to use the circulating libraries

• If priced out of the libraries as well, the

literate poor in England depended on

an informal network of trading books

and newspapers

Claude Lorrain The Rest on the Flight into Egypt (Noon) 1661.

Oil on canvas 45-5/8" × 62-7/8".

Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg/Bridgeman Images Collection of Empress

Josephine, Malmaison, 1815 [Fig 11.9]

The Rise of the English Novel

• Fiction writers experimented with many

types of novel, referred to as

"histories," "adventures," "expeditions,"

"tales," or "progresses."

• They were read by people of every

social class and understood as realistic portrayals of contemporary life

The Rise of the English Novel

• They concentrated almost always on

the trials of a single individual, offering insight into the complexities of his or her personality

The Rise of the English Novel

• Examples range from Daniel Defoe's

fictive autobiographies (such as

Robinson Crusoe) to Samuel

Richardson's epistolary works,

Fielding's parodies ("comic epic-poems

in prose"), and Jane Austen's novels

extolling the virtues of good sense,

reason, and self-improvement

The Enlightenment in France

• In France, the philosophes developed

the ideals of the Enlightenment, often

in open opposition to the absolutist

French court

• While the philosophes aspired to

establish a new social order of superior moral and ethical quality, the French

courtiers favored decorative and erotic excess

Germain Boffrand Salon de la Princesse de Soubise (Salon ovale), Hôtel de Soubise,

Paris ca 1740.

33' × 26' ovoid.

Reunion des Musees Nationaux/Art Resource, New York © RMN-Grand Palais/Agence

Bulloz [Fig 11.10]

Charles-Joseph Natoire Cupid and Psyche, Salon de la Princesse de Soubise, Hôtel de

Soubise, Paris 1738.

Oil on canvas 5' 7-3/4" × 8' 6-3/8".

Peter Willi/Bridgeman Images [Fig 11.11]

The Enlightenment in France

• After the death of Louis XIV, games

played by courtiers continued in hôtels

—or Paris townhouses—of the French

nobility

• The hôtels all had a salon, a room

designed for social gatherings that

came to represent the gathering itself

gatherings in Paris

The Enlightenment in France

• Baron von Grimm frequented salons

along with other philosophes,

"philosophers," who expressed the

tenets of the French Enlightenment

The Rococo

• The Rococo is a decorative style of art

that originated in hôtels and salons in

Paris

• The Rococo style is characterized by S-

and C-curves; shell, wing, scroll, and

plant tendril forms; and cartouches

Jean-Antoine Watteau

• The French painter Jean-Antoine

Watteau (1684–1721) was best known

for his paintings of fêtes galantes—

gallant, and by extension amorous,

celebrations or parties enjoyed by an elite group in a pastoral or garden

setting

Jean-Antoine Watteau The Embarkation from Cythera ca

1718–19.

Oil on canvas 50-3/4" × 76-3/8".

Staatliche Museen, Schloss Charlottenburg, Berlin Erich

Lessing/akg-images [Fig 11.12]

Document: Jean de Julliene,

A Summary of the Life of An toine Watteau

François Boucher

• Madame de Pompadour's favorite

painter was François Boucher (1703–

1770)

• Boucher's work openly acknowledges

Madame de Pompadour's sexual role in the court—as Louis XV's mistress and the king's most trusted adviser—and

the erotic underpinnings of the Rococo

as a whole

François Boucher Madame de Pompadour 1756.

François Boucher The Toilet of Venus Signed and dated lower right: f-Boucher-1751.

1751 Oil on canvas 42-5/8" × 33-1/8".

Bequest of William K Vanderbilt, 1920 (20.155.9) Photograph © 1 The Metropolitan

Museum of Art/Art Resource/Photo Scala, Florence [Fig 11.14]

Closer Look

• In Watteau's The Signboard of Gersaint,

the artist alludes to the recently

departed Sun King by showing gallery workers putting a portrait of Louis XIV, probably painted by Hyacinthe Rigaud, into a box for storage

Jean-Antoine Watteau The Signboard of Gersaint ca 1721.

Oil on canvas 5'4" × 10'1".

Staatliche Museen, Berlin, Preussischer Kulturbesitz,

Verwaltung der Staatlichen Schlösser und Gärten

Kunstsammlungen Erich Lessing/akg-images [Fig CL-11.1]

Closer Look: Jean-Antoine Watteau,

The Signboard of Gersaint

Peter Paul Rubens The Coronation of Marie de' Medici 1622–25.

Oil on canvas 12' 11" × 23' 10".

Musée du Louvre, Paris © Photo Scala, Florence [Fig 11-CL.2]

Jean-Honoré Fragonard

• The paintings by Jean-Honoré Fragonard

(1732–1806) are charged with erotic

symbolism that would have been

commonly understood at the time

Jean-Honoré Fragonard The Swing 1767.