Painting, Sculpture and the Graphic Arts
Art movements of the Victorian era include Classicism, Neoclassicism, Romanticism, Impressionism, and Post-Impressionism. Classicism and Neoclassicism, were based on the artistic principles of Greek and Roman antiquity. Classicism was viewed as the opposite of Romanticism, a style popularized in the late 18th century through mid-19th century, which focused on spontaneous expression of emotion over reason. Paintings of the Romantic school often depicted dramatic events in brilliant color, as epitomized in Eugene Delacroix's renowned Liberty Leading the People. Impressionism, a school of painting that developed in the late 19th century, was characterized by transitory visual expressions that focused on the changing effects of light and color. Impressionist painters include Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Camille Pisarro. Reacting to the limitations of Impressionism, painters such as Paul Cezanne, Vincent Van Gogh, and Paul Gauguin developed a style which was later categorized as Post-Impressionism.
In the midst of these artistic movements, painters Dante Rossetti and William Holman Hunt formed the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848. The avant-garde artists banded together with the common vision of recapturing the style of painting that preceded Raphael, famed artist of the Italian Renaissance. The brotherhood rejected the conventions of industrialized England, especially the creative principles of art instruction at the Royal Academy. Rather, the artists focused on painting directly from nature, thereby producing colorful, detailed, and almost photographic representations. The painters sought to transform Realism with typological symbolism, by drawing on the poetry and literature of William Shakespeare and their own contemporaries. John William Waterhouse was among the most prominent pre-Raphaelite artists.
Literature and Poetry
The Victorian era ushered in great literary and poetic works from writers such as George Eliot, Joseph Conrad, William Butler Yeats, Emily and Charlotte Bronte, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Robert Browning, Lewis Carroll, Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, Rudyard Kipling, Christina Rossetti, Alfred Lord Tennyson and Henry James in England. At the same time, Lucy Maud Montgomery, Louisa May Alcott, and Mark Twain published their masterpieces in the Americas. Aestheticism, a movement emphasizing artistic values over social or moral themes and popularized by Oscar Wilde and Charles Baudelaire, became a notable force in literature of the time. Baudelaire's work also exemplified the Decadence Movement in France, which focused on the autonomy of art, the rejection of middle-class values, and unconventional and morbid experiences.
Music
The "music hall" in Victorian England had its origins in entertainment provided in saloons of public houses in the 1830s. These venues replaced earlier semi-rural amusements provided at traditional fairs and suburban pleasure gardens such as Vauxhall Gardens and the Cremorne Gardens. These latter became squeezed out by urban development and lost their former popularity. The saloon was a room where for an admission fee or a higher price at the bar, singing, dancing, drama or comedy was performed. By the middle years of the 19th century, the first purpose-built music halls were being built in London. The halls created a demand for new and catchy popular songs that could no longer be met from the traditional folk song repertoire. Professional songwriters were enlisted to fill the gap.
The musical forms most associated with music hall evolved from traditional folk song, becoming by the 1850s a distinct musical style. Subject matter became more contemporary and humorous, and accompaniment was provided by larger house-orchestras as increasing affluence gave the lower classes more access to commercial entertainment and to a wider range of musical instruments, including the piano. The consequent change in musical taste from traditional to more professional forms of entertainment arose in response to the rapid industrialisation and urbanisation of previously rural populations during the industrial revolution. The newly created urban communities, cut off from their cultural roots, required new and readily accessible forms of entertainment.
The emergence of a distinct music hall style can be credited to a fusion of musical influences. Music hall songs needed to gain and hold the attention of an often jaded and unruly urban audience. In America from the 1840s, Stephen Foster had reinvigorated folk song with the admixture of Negro spiritual to produce a new and vibrant form of popular song. Songs like "Golden Slippers" and "The Old Folks at Home" spread round the globe, taking with them the idiom and appurtenances of the minstrel song. Other influences on the rapidly-developing music hall idiom were Irish and European music, particularly the jig, polka, and waltz. By the 1870s the songs had cut themselves free from their folk music roots, and particular songs also started to become associated with particular singers, often with exclusive contracts with the songwriter, just as many pop songs are today.
During the 1830s, European musicians such as Henry Russel saw the United States as a market for their talents. Mary Ann Lee and Augsta Maywood were among the first American ballet dancers, making their debut together in Maid of Cashmere in 1837.
Religious music remained popular. The Negro Spiritual was a cross between west African music and the religious music the slaves learned from white masters. Although the overseers feared music might lead to insurrection, they allowed work music. Singing was the means of communication for the field slaves. The spirituals sung in the fields, therefore, included double meanings.
Lowell Mason established the first singing school for children. By 1838, he convinced the Boston school board to include vocal music in the curriculum. Music gradually spread through the country as transportation and communication improved.
Information excerpted from
http://www.erasofelegance.com/history/victorianarts.html
&
http://kclibrary.lonestar.edu/19thcentury1830.htm
Some Fun Musical Moments in Time to Take Note of
1830–1850
The Romantic period in ballet sees ballerinas making technical and artistic strides in the art form. Until this period, men dominated the stage.
1859
The French Opera House, the first great opera house in America, is built in New Orleans.
1883
The Metropolitan Opera House opens in New York with Gounod's Faust.
1902
Claude Debussy introduces impressionism in Pelléas and Mélisande at the Opéra Comique in Paris.
1904
The London Symphony Orchestra is established.
Anton Chekhov introduces modern realism at the premiere of The Cherry Orchard at the Moscow Art Theatre.
1905
Isadora Duncan establishes the first school of modern dance in Berlin.
1907
Florenz Ziegfeld introduces his Ziegfeld Follies, the legendary musical extravaganzas.
1909
Serge Diaghilev opens the Ballets Russes de Serge Diaghilev, which begins the era of modern ballet and his 20-year reign as ballet's leading figure. Moving away from full-length works characteristic of Romantic ballet, he creates new, shorter ballets. Mikhail Fokine is Diaghilev's choreographer and is considered the most influential choreographer of the 20th century.
Read more: Performing Arts Timeline | Infoplease.com http://www.infoplease.com/ipea/A0153763.html#ixzz2dzow93Tb
Fashion
1830 to 1840
· The first cross cut Gigot or leg o’mutton sleeves appeared.
· Sleeves became enormous
· Waist resumed its natural position
· Necklines became very wide
1840-1850
· Gothic era
· Drooping ringlets and dragging skirts
· Sleeves became fitted, shoulders were extended below the natural line
· Skirt hems lowered to the floor
1850-1860
· Skirts expanded to their maximum size
· Women were delighted to wear the cage
1860-1870
· Round hoop evolved into an oval hoop.
· Big, soft, high and very draped bustle skirt
· Bodice waist became slightly short
· Dropped shoulders
· Sleeves narrowed
1870-1880
· Long line cuirass bodice
· High necklines
· Fitted sleeves with pleated or ruffled cuffs at the wrist
· Small hoop was worn
· Fabrics were light in color and light in material, for example, silk
1880-1890
· Popular demand brought back the bustle in 1883, but it was now worn at a lower placement with a narrower width.
· Constructed in heavier fabrics, for instance, velvet.
· Colors were darker
· Tight and restrictive corsetry was worn under dresses
1890-1990
· Sleeves began to grow
· Skirts became flared and gored, even circular
· Necklines rose even higher
·
1990-1910
· Victorian era
· Skirts were elongated at the back to form a train.
· Sleeves were fitted from shoulder to elbow
·
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