Eurothon: Europe's decent into craziness through cultural movements.

Alright, I'm no art historian. But this should be able to provide a broad overview of the major cultural movements which got us to where we are today. Along with in-depth looks at the movements I find amusing (Like Dada).

200 CE - 1430 CE Medieval and Christian art
This time was mostly defined by the flat, religious imagery of the medieval period. Lots of stuff to do with the plague, since it was killing so many people during this time. Other pieces of art were mostly of biblical scenes and figures. Fairly unrealistic, majestic, and God-oriented in terms of style to distract the peasants from their fairly crappy lives.
This style eventually led to the Gothic style, famous for it's architecture that involved pointed arches and flying buttresses. Pieces of art like The Danse Macabre are iconic of Gothic art.

1300 CE - 1600 CE Renaissance
The Renaissance is sort of a massive movement, so I'll do my best to sum up the important stuff here. Most people agree that it started in Florence, mostly as a result of the Medici family and others who took up the practice of becoming patrons of the arts (making the Medici family a group of patrons, Mrs. Brown. I totally won that question). The movement came out of humanist ideas and the study of antiquity, such as the philosophers Aristotle, Plato, and other old dead white guys, as well as the new ways of viewing life and death. Artists like Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and other teenage mutant ninja turtles came to embod the spirit of the renaissance by engaging in a variety of different art styles and writing. New art techniques focused on a realistic portrayal of the human form as well as things like shading.

While many of the art in this period was religious in nature, there was a much greater occurrence of secular art during this time than during the earlier art periods. The Italian renaissance especially showed this trend, with artists like da Vinci making art purely to celebrate the human form with works like the Vitruvian Man.


The Northern renaissance which took place in the majority of the rest of Europe was still very much entrenched in religious imagery, however, and was slightly less dramatic than the Italian renaissance.

A refresher on humanism: Humanism is a learning style that branches off from the scholastic learning style of the medieval period. It focuses on the ancients and their writings and scientific ideas, analyzing them with a combination of discussion, philosophy, and empirical data to produce such gems of scientific achievement as bleeding people to balance the humors and such like things. Ok, it wasn't a perfect system. But it did lead to a greater focus on human perfection and having a good life as well as an afterlife, which lead to some good things.

1520 CE - 1600 Mannerism
Mostly a continuation on the trends of the Renaissance, mannerism was a highly intellectual art style which focused on artificial rather than natural themes and stylized poses. Perspective was messed with, and the shading was more dramatic than the previous eras. Tintorreto's Last Supper was an example of this style.

1600 CE - 1780 CE Baroque to Rococo
Both the Baroque and Rococo periods were focused on being as pompous, large, and rich looking as possible. It was pushed by the Catholic church as part of the Counter-Reformation, since it went against the more austere protestants. While the pompous Baroque style achieved large-scale popularity with the aristocracy of Europe, the brighter and apparently "more French" Rococo was mostly shunned in England.

1750 CE - 1830 CE Neoclassicism

Basically a bunch of nostalgia which wanted people to get involved with the more "pure" and "noble" art forms of antiquity. Sort of similar to renaissance art in style and running counter to the Baroque and Rococo movements which it thought of as silly.

1790 CE - 1880 CE Romanticism 

More along the lines of Rococo art, Romantic art was sort of an escapist movement that went against the increasingly scientific thought of the 19th century. It celebrated the stylized and aesthetic pieces rather than the   more empirical realist movement which sought to accurately portray human experiences and form. 

1863 CE -1890 CE Impressionism

Like Romanticism, it didn't seek to create an entirely realistic representation of people and nature. It focused mainly on lighting and the movement of things. The main difference with impressionists was that they painted outside rather than in a studio in order to capture the lighting of a moment. There was no single event that really inspired the impressionist movement, but it did provide a counter to photography since it was far more stylized and pretty looking.

1890 CE - 1910 CE-ish Lots of stuff

The pre-war time period was filled with a huge number of different art movements as the Belle Epoch came to a close. Cubism, futurism, and Art Nouveau were fairly large movements that defined the culture of pre-war Europe, showing a trend towards the "batshit crazy" art that was well on its way. Changes in society during this time had been mildly dramatic, involving demographic shifts and new ideas as a result of the industrial revolution. The reconciliation with the many ideas in the so called "market place of ideas" was what mostly drove these changes, involving everything from Marx to Spencer who attempted to make complete systems for explaining the world.

Post WWI

This is pretty much the last period we covered in terms of art, so I'm going to assume we don't need to look at much else past this. Also, I'm really done with looking at all these different wikipedia and note pages.

THE MOMENT YOU HAVE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR!

Dadaism is, of course, the idea that if you take a small badger and combine it with a three-quarter limeade beverage, you achieve what is known as the "Urnial cake singularity", which is as dangerous as it sounds. Contrary to popular belief, pulling this badger does not result in an unpleasant oder, but rather an extravagant tortoise. 

That was an exercise in teaching by example. Dadaism was totally crazy and based on the idea that the world as we know it is absurd. It's a movement we can all get behind, I think. Movements like Dadaism were a result of the post-war changes in society and general craziness following the first world war. It was a precursor to surrealism, which was also based off of general weirdness but was actually intended to have a meaning behind it rather than the intentionally meaningless Dada art. 

The important thing to remember about post war art was that it was based off of the strangeness of post-war Europe and the rapidly changing ideas which populated society. 

Euro Thursday: A short history of Imperialism (Part 2)

Alright, I've let the suspense of what happens to screw everything up with Europe's little imperialist scheme build for two weeks now. I think you're all ready to find out (or have taken World History, in which case you can at least pretend to be surprised and shocked by the shit that is about to hit the fan.)

When we last left our intrepid heroes, everything was pretty alright for everyone except France, who we've already noted to have a desperate need to get their shit together. All their American and Indian possessions went to England  or Spain at the conclusion of the French and Indian war, leaving them with very little to work with.

Not too long after all this, roundabouts 1775, there was a little thing called the American Revolution in which England realized it's mistake in giving their colonies nice things like limited self governance. This taught them to be much bigger douche bags to the rest of their colonies, like India. America gained it's independence against what was supposed to be the most powerful Empire in the world, giving a bunch of other people ideas.

America's ideas of freedom and liberty and whatnot was greatly appealing to the slaves of what would come to be Haiti and spread there quickly, with the small change of acknowledging blacks as full class citizens, or at least some of them. Toussaint Louverture, a man with a name I will now type as  "Touss" because like hell I'm going to remember how to spell it and I don't feel like looking up all the time, led a successful revolution in Haiti which freed it from French rule. The rebellion which Touss led made him a famous and fairly wealthy man, so he decided to buy a plantation with several slaves to work it. Because every revolution needs its fair share of irony. So France loses another colony, which had been one of it's most profitable, to a bunch of people lauded as being racially inferior. When Napoleon took control of France after all that crazy stuff over there went down, Touss made alliances with France that ended in him being carted off by Napoleon's soldiers to die in a dungeon somewhere. One of his compatriots defeated the French again, thereby finally earning Haiti the right to be as ironic as it damn well pleased.

Also around this time was the Lagutao Revolt in the Philippines, the latest in a series of revolts which had been an almost semi-annual tradition in the region for the last hundred years or so. Most likely to make Spain feel good about itself, since it hadn't done anything of major significance for a good amount of time now.

Even this, however, was not enough to keep them feeling like a real imperial power when Mexico fought a war independence and won it. Though it took a good ten years, it was still fairly embarrassing for Spain. At this point, they basically said to the rest of the world to wake them up when it was time for a violent fascist uprising.

Continuing on, Greece wins its independence from the Ottoman Empire with the help of some bored European nations, Afghanistan continues its history of making invading/occupying it really difficult, and Britain takes it out by stomping out the last bits of pretending to just be business partners with India by installing viceroys and whatnot.

And so ends the second part of this abridged history. In the third and final installment of the series, modern imperialism causes a bunch of craziness.

Blood and Irony: WWI was a bit crazy.

Sorry about the hard to read text. The upload size was much smaller than what I had expected. View full-size if you can't read it.

School? Oh yeah. That.

As I sit here reading every entertaining Cracked list I can find with my as of yet unfinished homework sitting a few feet away from me, I come to the realization that the last few weeks of this school year is going to be a battle of attrition that I may very well lose. Soon, AP tests will be over. Which will be a plus. But really, it will likely just remove the little pressure which keeps me mentally engaged. At least there will still be Euro and Lit, which I usually enjoy and can probably focus on despite the lack of tests. But everything else will probably receive very little attention. For instance, Spanish. You're a wonderful language in your own way, I suppose, but I'm really done with all the busy work. I know it's pretty much the only way schools teach languages... but that doesn't make it any less crazily irritating.

 Somehow I've actually managed to stay afloat during the last few months and really haven't seen significant grade drops. It is quite baffling to me, but I'll take it. I've kept up enough just enough to keep things going, and it's very sad. Except for Euro, because I'm actually interested in those things. But even Euro is hard to just sit down and do. It's pretty frustrating, actually. But only a little ways to go, and then I can hopefully regain all the motivation I used to have. I think I've been in high school a little too long now; it's time for a change.

In other news, prom is coming up. So that's.... exciting. I have work in the afternoon, so I may not make it to pictures. I wouldn't really care, except for other people probably want me there. Not that anyone will look at these pictures 5 years down the line and really care that I was missing. Possible, I suppose, but improbable. And plus, there will be other pictures that night that don't involve standing around for 10 minutes in every possible formation while a million parents take pictures. This is what the internet is for, people. Have one person take pictures. Everyone else can get them, I promise.

You can tell I'm not hugely excited. That's my general feeling towards a lot of things recently, that of total ambivalence. Which I guess might be considered a bad thing. But at least I'm not panicking, right?
End of rant. Euro Thursday post may or may not happen, depending on a number of factors.