History of World Art II: Day 56 - The Enlightenment & Natural Art

As the aristocratic culture so celebrated in Rococo style began to dissolve toward the end of the 18th century a new way of thinking critically about the world emerged in the Enlightenment or the Age of Enlightenment, also known as the Age of Reason. It gathered strength in advancements in math and science, specifically those of Rene Descartes (1596-1650), Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727), and Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) and found that observation and empirical knowledge instead of myth or superstition. This was a time of theories that were tested empirically and only accepted as truth if proven - and a new scientific community was born.

Ben Franklin (1706-1790) and Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) were greatly influenced by this movement as a way of logically organizing the new world's society and politics, thus the Declaration of Independence and the United States Bill of Rights were based on and motivated by the Enlightenment principles. It was less a set of ideas as it was a set of values and there were many movements the sprang of the new rationality of science and observation that were sometimes contradictory. Rationality of science along with critical questioning of traditional institutions, customs and morals were the core beliefs of this movement. Intellectual, scientific and cultural life centered upon these principles.

Natural art emerged during this time as a reflection of the empiricism of the artist as scientist; to record and document the world as it really was. Opposed to the frivolity and artificial qualities of the Rococo style, many artists were influenced by Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) who was a key figure of the French Enlightenment. He did not embrace progress, but rather felt that progress had corrupted natural man and that humanity's only salvation lay in returning to the ignorance, innocence and happiness of our original primitive condition. He exalted peasant life for its simplicity and honesty and for what he saw as an absence of tainted emotion created by the improvement of art and science. Quiet scenes praising the simple life of good and ordinary people were portrayed, since by distance as well as in spirit they were far from corrupt society. Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin (1699 –1779) and Jean-Baptiste Greuze (1725 – 1805) were both 18th-century French painters who embraced this view. Chardin is considered a master of still life and noted for his genre paintings of peasant life. Greuze was a master at creating sentimental narratives that held appealed to an audience that admired "natural" virtue.