- European ideas and culture expressed a tension between objectivity and scientific realism on one hand, and subjectivity and individual expression on the other.
- Romantic artists and composers broke from classical autistics forms to emphasize emotion, nature, individuality, intuition, the supernatural, and national histories in their works.
- Romantic writers expressed similar themes while responding to the Industrial Revolution and to various political revolutions.
- Following the revolutions of 1848, Europe turned toward a realist and materialist worldview.
- Positivism, or the philosophy that science alone provides knowledge, emphasized the rational and scientific analysis of nature and human affaires.
- Marx’s “scientific” socialism provided a systematic critique of capitalism and deterministic analysis of society and historical evolution.
- Charles Darwin provided a rational and material account of biological change and the development of human beings as a species, and inadvertently a justification for racialist theories known as “Social Darwinism”.
- Realist and materialist themes and attitudes influenced art and literature as painters and writers depicted the lives of ordinary people and drew attention to social problems.
- Philosophy largely moved from rational interpretations of nature and human society to an emphasis on irrationality and impulse, a view that contributed to the belief that conflict and struggle led to progress.
- Freudian psychology provided a new account of human nature that emphasized the role of the irrational and the struggle between the conscious and subconscious.
- Developments in the natural sciences such as quantum mechanics and Einstein’s theory of relativity undermined the primacy of Newtonian physics as an objective description of nature.
- Modern art, including Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, and Cubism, moved beyond the representational to the subjective, abstract, and expressive and often provoked audiences that believed that art should reflect shared and idealized values such as beauty and patriotism.
*All information is taken from AP European History Curriculum Framework
Two Audio Clips of Composers of the time:
Richard Wagner https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4i0TnNI6U-w
Frederic Chopin https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wygy721nzRc
Richard Wagner https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4i0TnNI6U-w
Frederic Chopin https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wygy721nzRc