As the Industrial Revolution drastically changed the way man manipulated his environment, the resultant changes forced man to alter the way he perceived the world. The steam engine had the most profound effect upon man's awareness, for his concept of space and distance was changed forever. Large geographical distances were no longer a barrier for man. The locomotive provided transport for everybody, even to the most remote of locations. Commuters on the locomotive would have a new perspective of their environment, one that challenged the static view of the landscape. Traversing the countryside, one would only be allowed a mere impression of a landscape as it whirred by. 1. Before man had this reality it was difficult for him to digest the fleeting, atmospheric effects produced by the Impressionists. The academic art society and indeed the public were not ready for the innovative and pioneering work of these artists. Changes upon changes of the Industrial age sent man's reality into a spin.
Anonymous. Wassily Kandinsky. c 1913. From Wassily...
Wassily Kandinsky, "On White II", 1923
Composition X (1939)Every Page 3 aspect of life had to evolve with these changes, including that of the artist. It was inevitable that once the Industrial Revolution had pervaded the collective conscience of the contemporary art world, the arts would evolve with man's technological advances.
Claude Monet is one artist whose career became enhanced by the Industrial Revolution once it had opened the minds of public, press and art academia alike to new perspectives. When the Impressionists first exhibited in 1874, the general reaction was one of ridicule and mockery. 2. It took time for the arts to loosen its embrace of classical ideals and appreciate the innate beauty of objective reality, the subject as it presented its self, unmodified to social ideals.
It was not until after the fifth Impressionist exhibition when Monet had his first one-man exhibition in...