Art History: Earliest Renaissance

Giotto, The Lamentation of Christ.

Scrovegni Chapel, Padua (Veneto), Italy.

Week of April 11

Hello. We are back from a successful four days at Youth Legislature.

Some things to look forward to this week:

• Review Sessions: Monday, Thursday, and Friday (we cannot do Tuesday and Wednesday because of connect group lunches)
• Imperialism notes: I will post the Power Point on a document server by Monday evening
• Quizzes: Daily quizzes will continue on Tuesday
• 19th Century Take Home Test: I will hand this out on Thursday; it will be due next Monday
• This week's curriculum: Consequences of Imperialism (short; Monday); The First World War (Monday-Wednesday); The Russian Revolution and the Soviet Union (Wednesday-Thursday); The Weimar Republic and the Interwar Period (Thursday-Friday); more details to follow
• Homework reading: Please finish questions 1-28 in the packet by fourth block today; the rest for tomorrow
• Tuesday night's homework will consist of Spielvogel continuing questions and a short, interesting reading on Lenin's journey from Switzerland to Russia

That's all for now. We have entered the twentieth century, where we will spend the remainder of our time (the next four weeks). These are exciting times!

Here is a view of what we are leaving behind (A Sunday on La Grande Jatte by Georges Seurat, 1884):

Update: Youth Leg., Day 1

Good morning. We will discuss imperialism in class today. If you are at Youth Legislature, you will need to make up these notes. I will post more information later.

If you have been wondering about the illustration details at the headers of the two recent homework handouts, they are from this 1886 map of the British Empire by the famed children's book illustrator Walter Crane. The map illustrated the concept that "The sun never sets on the British Empire." (Click on the image to enlarge).

Before the Storm: Russia

Some students (well, one or two) have been clamoring for Russian history. Well, we're almost there, and once we get there, we don't leave (almost all of the "short twentieth century"--1914-1991 is influenced by Russia in one way or another).

(Above: monument to Czar Nicholas I on St. Isaac's Square, St. Petersburg)

Before we get to the Reds, however, consider this FRQ from the 2006 exam:

In the period 1815-1900, political liberalization progressed much further in western Europe than in Russia. Analyze the social and economic reasons for this difference.

What three topics would you use in a thesis statement to answer this question? You might want to read ahead in Spielvogel, keeping in mind that we have not yet discussed Russia in the fin de siecle.

The Lion and the Unicorn

Here is great background to question #2 from tonight’s homework:

Review: Why did “1848” not happen in Britain?

• Reform Act of 1832 (Spielvogel, 604)
• Repeal of Corn Law, led by Tories/Robert Peel, 1846 (ibid., 605)

These actions ushered in the relatively stable Victorian Age (ibid., 635-636)

• Queen Victoria (r. 1837-1901): longest reign in English history
• duty and moral responsibility
• Lord Palmerston (Whig): Prime Minister, 1855-1865
• neither a conservative nor a reformer (read six paragraphs down at this link)

Disraeli and Gladstone (Read the two short sections below on Spielvogel, 636)

• Disraeli and the Reform Act of 1867
• The Liberal Policies of Gladstone

And now... read this short and fascinating account of the two men’s rivalry on BBC’s Victorians web site. (This is a great site in general- you could spend hours on it—after doing your homework).

With all this in mind, the situation described on pp. 673-674 is much more understandable.

Character Study: Otto von Bismarck

I was perusing the Sunday papers and ran across this timely (for our class) article on Otto von Bismarck (by Henry Kissinger, no less) in today's Times book review. If only there were time to read a 577-page book!

Alas, here is a masterful description of Bismarck's elusive personality from Palmer and Colton:

Bismarck was a Junker from old Brandeburg east of the Elbe. He cultivated the gruff manner of an honest country squire, though he was in fact an accomplished man of the world. Intellectually he was far superior to the rather slow-witted landlord class from which he sprang, and for which he often felt an impatient contempt. He shared in may Junker ideas. He advocated, and even felt, a kind of stout Protestant piety. Although he cared for the world’s opinion, it never deterred him in his actions; criticism and denunciation left him untouched. He was in fact obstinate. He was not a nationalist. He did not look upon all Germany as his Fatherland. He was a Prussian. His social affinities, as with the Junkers generally, lay to the East with corresponding landowning elements of the Baltic provinces and Russia. The west, including the bulk of Germany, he neither understood nor trusted; it seemed to him revolutionary, turbulent, free-thinking, materialistic. Parliamentary bodies he considered ignorant and irresponsible as organs of government. Individual liberty seemed to him disorderly selfishness. Liberalism, democracy, socialism were repugnant to him. He preferred to stress duty, service, order, and the fear of God. The idea of forming a new German union developed only gradually in his mind and then as an adjunct to the strengthening of Prussia.

Bismarck thus had his predilections, and even his principles. But no principle bound him, no ideology seemed to him an end in itself. He became the classic practitioner of Realpolitik. The time came when the Junkers thought him a traitor to his class, when even the king was afraid of him, when he outraged and then mollified the august house of Habsburg, when he made friends with liberals, democrats, and even socialists, and in turn made enemies of them. First he made wars, then he insisted on peace. Enmities and alliances were to him only matters of passing convenience. The enemy of today might be the friend of tomorrow. Far from planning out a long train of events, then following it up step by step to a grand consummation, he seems to have been practical and opportunistic, taking advantage of situations as they emerged and prepared to act in any one of several directions as events might suggest.

The next section, on Bismarck's wars, it quite amazing. Perhaps a supplementary reading handout is in order!

Art in an age of technological transformation

In case you are wondering about the image in the header above, it is a detail from Paris: A Rainy Day by Gustave Caillebotte (1877). Here it is in full (click to enlarge):

The work of Impressionist painters is especially fascinating in Paris because they were using a traditional art form in a world in which photography was being developed (more about that in class on Monday) in a city that had had its facelift courtesy of Baron Haussmann. Paris, although established during the Roman Empire as Lutetia, is the quintessential nineteenth century city, as seen in its urban planning and its engineering projects (the Eiffel Tower, completed in 1889, is the ultimate public monument to the industrial age). The links below show that, just as in the Renaissance, educated members of society (in this case, artists) saw well-roundedness as an important quality. There was not one but two Caillebottes, and, between them, these two French brothers embody the spirit of the nineteenth century.

First, a link to a recent article about an exhibition of their work.

Second, a link (in English!) to the exhibit itself. I think you will find this enjoyable, as it has some interesting bits about photography, painting, Haussmann's Paris, and a general description of the life of "universal men" a little over one hundred years ago.