Art As It Applies To History

Art as it Applies to History

Dating back to the periods of the Neanderthals, 200,000 to 28,000 years ago, art has been an expression of society as well as personal emotion. It is true that art is valued differently from one audience to the next. However, for archaeologist and historians, art offers an alternative explanation; creating or destroying myths of the past. Though written work offers more personal and concrete evidence of the past. To fully understand a country, one must examine art such as photography, artifacts, music and paintings. Art is crucial to the foundation of a culture. By observing British Art, its culture is exploited to convey that all art is a reaction to the sociology of that time. Sociology according to the American Heritage Dictionary is the "[a]nalysis of a social institution or societal segment as a self-contained entity or in relation to society as a whole."

Prior to the enlightenments, the Scottish created art that represented their hope for the return of Bonnie Prince Charlie also known as Charles II. Charles II, exiled in France, had hopes of capturing all of England in 1745 as retribution for his father's execution by Orwell Cromwell's supporters. Vases, glass, and mysterious murals were created to express support for the distant king who would save them from oppression. Amongst the murals is a tray created with arbitrary blurs of color, but when a glass is placed before the mural a lavish portrait of Bonnie Prince Charlie. With the ever growing aggression from Cromwell's supporters, believers

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in Charles II had to hide their faith in the prince for fear of unfair treatment. In the times of the English and Scottish Enlightenments, the byproduct of art were lavish paintings that captured moments, much like photographs do today. Both enlightenments provoked a thirst for knowledge. Many of the paintings presented a picture of science and its ability to captivate the human mind. Great thinkers such as Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin rose to open a different rationale thinking. In Joseph Wright of Derby's painting, The Orrey, a group of spectators gather around a circular globe that modeled the movement of the planets in the solar system (Plumb). Upon observing the portrait, it can be concluded that there are three groups in the audience: the eager, the observer, and the disbeliever. The children look with earnest eyes and are mesmerized by the powers of these great giants. It can even be said that they dream of the possibilities for science and its promises to the world; in fact science was now essential to society. Secondly, there were the observers that not only looked on with amusement, but wanted to learn and to obtain a deeper understanding. Observers were other scientists, such as Thomas Mathus, that would develop their own ideas from their fellow man. Mathus was inspired by Darwin's theories and later stated that food supply grew arithmetically and that population grew exponentially; therefore, saying that starvation would be the great undoing of the human race. Mathus was correct, hunger is a leading cause of death in many third world countries today. Lastly, the one elderly man in disbelief looks into the distance to show his disapproval of science's attempts to change the old ways. Like the many of the narrow minded people in Britain, science was revered merely as entertainment. The working class was too concerned with their living conditions to show true compassion for the possibilities of science. However, they did take time to fill their lives with knowledge from books as well as science demonstrations. Paintings from the

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enlightenments expresses a growth in the overall growth of intellect in Britain.

Entertainment is an important aspect of a society, it helps to explain the values as well as the development of social interaction. During King George II's reign, artists such as William Hogarth captured scenes of everyday enjoyments. In Hogarth's 1747 The Idle Ð''Prentince Executed at Tyburn, a full picture captures the distortion of the then Ð''modern society' (E. Hammonds). The poor gathered at hangings as though they found joy in seeing others suffer. Maybe people of that time were morbid, but it is assume that there were no forms of entertainment. At these public executions, many celebrated by drinking, getting into fights, and praying for the salvation of mankind. Spectators sought to find a form of relief in their grim lives. Later on during the English Enlightenment, people believed that happiness was found in materials as well as other forms of leisure. Though King George III and his corpulent son, King George IV were in reign, England developed many forms of entertainment. One was fox hunting, which is depicted in Full Cry by James Barenger. Full Cry portrays a man on horseback and hound dogs in search of the fox; a form of animal cruelty, but it was and remains to be a great pastime. Other forms of open ranged entertainment were golf, tennis, gardening and cricket. Because there was a need for leisure entertainments, resorts were created to entertain the gentry and aristocracy. However, for the working class, pleasure had to be found in cheap thrills such as prostitutes, coffee, music, and gambling. This does not, however, exclude the rich from enjoying these sinful pleasures as well. Within the course of a century the forms of leisure altered dramatically and are expressed through art.

Though paintings and portraits offer much evidence of the past, the invention of photography is a better reference for historians. At the turn of the 20th Century, photos expressed

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