Account for the effects of expanding industrialisation on 19th century painting: How did industrialisation impact temporal experience, how was this modern ideology manifested in paint?

As rational beings we, humans, experience life through the reconciliation of dichotomies.[1] Reality has an inherent duality to it as space and time form our experiences. Space is physical, external and objective; time is metaphysical, internal and subjective. Our experience is founded on the dialogue between these polarities.[2] As subjects we find ourselves adrift in this stream of time, furiously attempting to order our consciousness; to form narratives, histories, truths.

Ideology is the normative account of what constitutes reality. For example “a dominant power may legitimise itself by promoting beliefs and ideas congenial to it; naturalising and universalising such beliefs so as to render them as self-evident and apparently inevitable… from which arises the concept of ideology as an imaginary resolution of real contradictions.”[3] Ideology is therefore the common understanding of what reconciles our inherent duality.[4]

During the 19^th century, expanding industrialisation introduced an ideological paradigm shift in what was conceived as reality. “Technology gives rise to ideology in everyday life; ideology in everyday life serves to justify or ‘legitimate’ technology. The success with which scientists and engineers control the physical world changes the quality of people’s lives and thereby alters their perception of space and time.”[5] The transition into modernity in the 19^th century was centred on a new kind of temporal experience. “Modernity is the transient, the fleeting, the contingent.”[6] How did this new kind of experience impact subjectivity in the 19^th century? How was this ideology influenced by industrialisation? And how was this ideology manifested in the most subjective of enterprises, art?[7]

Ideological changes in spatial organisation during the 19^th Century led to increased urbanisation which represents the assimilation of the individual into the collective consciousness. “The individual has become a mere cog in an enormous organisation of things and powers… in order to transform them from their subjective form into the form of a purely objective life.”[8] This objectification can be seen in the capitalist mode of production and the division of labour. The money economy represents the temporal changes[9] brought about by industrialisation which led to the objectification of man on the labour market. “Money, with all its colourlessness and indifference, becomes the common denominator of all values.”[10] Man’s time was reckoned with like a commodity which could be easily exchanged on the fast paced money economy.[11] Furthermore the scientific revolution which accompanied industrialisation was the basis for a common understanding of reality. With this, observation and proof constituted facts which were universally agreed upon. These are examples of the ways in which industrialisation transformed space, time, and understanding, from a personal experience to one which was more explicitly formed by society and culture. This can be represented in the standardisation of time[12], the move from an individual temporal experience to a general one. In short, “the development of modern culture is characterised by the preponderance of what one may call the “objective spirit” over the “subjective spirit”. [13]

Simmel refers to the further devaluation of what is subjective as the metropolitan man reacts “with his head instead of his heart.”[14] This philosophical transition, from rural to urban, steady to fleeting, individual to general, is accompanied by a blasé attitude which “results first from the rapidly changing and closely compressed and contrasting stimulations of the nerves” meaning that “an incapacity thus emerges to react to new sensations with the appropriate energy.”[15] This antipathetic perspective is a direct consequence of urbanisation and industrialisation.

To understand the relationship between this rationalisation and 19^th century painting, it is necessary to differentiate between two similar, however crucially different, reactions to modern ideology. Antipathy and indifference each involve the deconstruction of subject, however indifference follows from Kantian transcendental ontology, in which one uses reason to actively deconstruct their subjective perception so as to see what lies beyond their point of view. It is a way to move towards an objective perception of reality.

An attempt at Kantian transcendence can be observed in the discourse of the painters whom Baudelaire termed ‘Positivists’. “The Positivist says ‘I want to represent things as they are, or how they would be on the assumption I did not exist’.”[16] Brettel refers to this movement as Transparent Realism. The Transparent Realists “retained the academic techniques of defining pictorial space… but instead of using traditional imagery their subject matter came from modern life.”[17] The Positivists/Transparent Realists believed that they could see and understand reality. “It was not until the nineteenth century that contemporary ideology came to equate belief in the facts with the total content of belief itself: it is in this that the crucial difference lies between realism and its predecessors.”[18] This emphasis on what is objective is a crucial ideological standpoint of modernity, it is the basis of scientific discovery.

The ideology of Positivism is that truth lies in the external world, in space, independent of subjective experience. However the Kantian transcendental synthesis[19] means that observation of an objective reality is impossible as one can only perceive from a subjective point of view. “The term Realism merely betrays an illusion peculiar to the mid-19^th century- the illusion that it had found the key to what reality is.”[20] The Positivists believed in their ability to observe objective reality; but this reality is accessible only through subjective experience.

This synthesis was changed by industrialisation as it was the metropolitan “intensification of nervous stimulation which results from the swift and uninterrupted changes of outer and inner stimuli,” which exacted from “man as a discriminating creature a different amount of consciousness than does rural life.”[21] Furthermore, while Nochlin claims “theirs was an age without values, without a cohesive system of belief, an age which had lost the past but not yet re-erected a present or laid the foundations for the future, despite its undeniable material and technological progress,”[22] Benjamin argues that “dialectical thought is the organ of historical awakening. Every epoch not only dreams the next, but while dreaming impels it towards wakefulness.”[23] This explains the ideology of modernity as a reference to the duality of man, not only the duality between subject and object but between internal and external; between what is modern and fleeting, and what is universal and eternal.

Baudelaire claimed that “the duality of art is an inevitable consequence of the duality of man.”[24] In this sense painting refers to a synthetic a priori[25] reality which is not objective but subjective and objective simultaneously. Nochlin observes that “art digs an abyss between the appearance and illusion of this bad and perishable world, on the one hand, and the true contents of events on the other, to re-clothe these events and phenomena with a higher reality, born of the mind.”[26] Therefore art inherently reconciles what is subjective and intuitive to what is objective and conceptual. [27] The painter of modern life is “the painter of the fleeting moment and of all that suggests the eternal.”[28]

The art movement termed by Brettel as Mediated Realism explicitly acknowledges this relationship. The Mediated Realists were led by Courbet who said that “the art of painting can only consist of the representation of objects which are visible and tangible for the artist.”[29] Baudelaire referred to these artists as “the imaginative ones who say ‘I want to illuminate things with my mind and cast its reflection on other minds’.”[30] The reality referenced by Courbet and the Mediated Realists does not reference an objective world but rather a world formed by the synthesis of subject and object.

The ideological basis of Mediated Realism is that truth lies in the relationship between the subject and the external world, the synthesis of subject and object, time and space, fleeting and eternal. The new temporal structures which were brought on by industrialisation created a prism through which we can observe the duality of art. Industrialisation created a divergence between the subject, and the objective world by simultaneously increasing the pace of experience and universalising concepts.

However, in the latter half of the 19^th century another art movement developed from realism. Impressionism furthered the transition away from the belief in an ability to observe the objective world. “The essential difference between Impressionism and Realism is that Impressionism realised… the subjectivity of the act of representational transcription.”[31] This subjectivity is linked to the pace of modernity, exemplified by Degas, who painted “a concrete instant of perceived temporal fact- an isolated moment”.[32] Here the reality lies in time, it is an expression of the subjective experience represented by an impression of the objective world. “Time is seen as the arrester of significance, not the medium in which it unfolds.”[33]

The impressionist project also links to the themes of transcendence which I explored earlier. A greater importance was placed on sensory intuition “free from any conventional, accepted moral or metaphysical evaluation.”[34] Earlier in the 19^th Century, Baudelaire claimed that “genius is no more than childhood recaptured at will… with the analytical mid that enables it to bring order into the sum of experience, involuntarily amassed.”[35] This was the aim of the Impressionists, as “The eye is fetishized, rather than the reality described.”[36] Here the artist becomes a vessel through which the world is pictorially transcribed.[37] However Impressionism does not transcend the subject to observe objective reality[38], but transcends concept for the sake of intuition. The ideological basis of Impressionism is that the truth lies is subjective perception.

Further to this it was expanding industrialisation which allowed Impressionist artists to paint in the way they did. The railway system and tubed paint allowed the artist to travel and to take down their quick impressions. Moreover artists no longer needed teams of assistants to facilitate their creativity, meaning that painting could become a truer homage to individual expression. The autonomy which the impressionists experienced was also a consequence of industrialisation as “Impressionist artists were consciously independent of the state and its controls over artistic life and patronage, aligning themselves instead to private dealers and collectors.”[39] Therefore Impressionism developed from industrialisation and modernity practically, as well as ideologically.

So here we can see the common ideological themes of industrialisation and painting. Painting is a method of circulating discourse, it is a manifestation of the subjective experience. It is also a lens through which we can observe the ideologies of the past. Positivism, Realism and Impressionism represent different ideologies about our relationship with space and time, from objectivity, to synthesis, to subjectivity. Industrialisation structured these modern ideologies and also impacted the subjective experience by redefining the individual in society.  This led to ideologies of transcendence which are central to the various styles of 19^th century painting.

Therefore, during the 19^th century, philosophical, artistic, scientific, industrial, and, indeed, political[40], ideologies around duality and transcendence evolved in unison, each influencing and shaping each other along the lines of modern experience.

“In this process (modernity), the currents of life… entirely transcend the sphere for which the judge’s attitude is appropriate. Since such forces of life have grown into the roots and into the crown of the whole of the historical life in which we, in our fleeting existence, as a cell, belong only as a part, it is not our task to either accuse or pardon, but only to understand.” [41]

This quote claims, as Kant did, that we cannot make truth claims and judgments about nouminal[42] reality. It is not, therefore, the mission of the artist to judge what constitutes reality. The painter of modern life must simply have an “excessive love of visible, tangible things.”[43]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[1] This method of thought develops from Kantian metaphysics. Writing in the 18^th century, Kant’s ontology defined western critical thinking. He is often referred to as the father of modern philosophy, his ideas are therefore central to the discourse of this essay.

[2] Space is realised by moving through it in time, and time is realised by the movement through space

[3] Eagleton. T. (1991) Ideology: An Introduction. London. Verso. 6

[4] It is a common theme in modern thought that these ideologies were changed as class power was restructured. This area of thought was discussed by Marx in Das Kapital and was the basis for many of his theories of alienation.

[5] Chant, C. (1989) Science, Technology and Everyday Life, 1870-1950. Cambridge: Routledge in ass with the Open University. 30

[6] Baudelaire. C. (2010) The Painter of Modern Life. UK. Penguin Classics. 17

[7] Art is subjective as it is moves outward from the individual as expression

[8] Simmel. G. ‘The Metropolis and Mental Life’ (1903) UCP. 1971.  58

[9] Economy itself is the rationalisation, mathemetisation and measurement of space through time.

[10] Simmel. G. ‘The Metropolis and Mental Life’ (1903) UCP. 1971.   52

[11] Again, this references a Marxist analysis of Capitalism

[12] The standardisation of time was an effect of the railway system and therefore a direct consequence of industrialisation

[13] Simmel. G. ‘The Metropolis and Mental Life’ (1903) UCP. 1971.  58

[14] Simmel. G. ‘The Metropolis and Mental Life’ (1903) UCP. 1971.  48

[15] Simmel. G. ‘The Metropolis and Mental Life’ (1903) UCP. 1971.   51

[16] Baudelaire. C. (2010) The Painter of Modern Life. UK. Penguin Classics. 68

[17] Brettel, R. Modern Art 1851-1929: Capitalism and Representation. Oxford University Press, 1999.

[18] Nochlin, L. Realism. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1990. 45

[19]Kant argues that it is the transcendental synthesis of subject and object which creates the dialogical relationship between sensory perception and rational understanding and forms the basis for that experience. This duality has references to internal subjective time and external objective space; therefore the nature of this synthesis, indeed the nature of experience, was changed with industrialisation.

[20] Nochlin, L. Realism. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1990.  51

[21] Simmel. G. ‘The Metropolis and Mental Life’ (1903) UCP. 1971.   48

[22] Nochlin, L. Realism. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1990.  53

[23] Benjamin, W. ‘Paris – Capital of the 19^th Century’ in idem. The Writer of Modern Life: Essays on Charles Baudelaire, Harvard 2006. 88

[24] Baudelaire. C. (2010) The Painter of Modern Life. UK. Penguin Classics.

[25] Kant. Synthetic a priori truths refer to what is experienced by a subject (synthesis) and what is necessary and universal. Mathematics and metaphysics are examples of a priori truths.

[26] Nochlin, L. Realism. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1990.  14

[27] Here I refer to intuition and concept in the Kantian sense as referring to empiricism and rationalism respectively

[28] Baudelaire. C. (2010) The Painter of Modern Life. UK. Penguin Classics. 6

[29] Nochlin, L. Realism. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1990. 25

[30] Baudelaire. C. (2010) The Painter of Modern Life. UK. Penguin Classics. 68

[31] Brettel, R. Modern Art 1851-1929: Capitalism and Representation. Oxford University Press, 1999.

[32] Nochlin, L. Realism. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1990.  30

[33] Nochlin, L. Realism. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1990.  31

[34] Nochlin, L. Realism. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1990.  23

[35] Baudelaire. C. (2010) The Painter of Modern Life. UK. Penguin Classics. 11

[36] Brettel, R. Modern Art 1851-1929: Capitalism and Representation. Oxford University Press, 1999.

[37] This links back to the themes of transcendence which I explored earlier, thus proving Impressionism to be a product of modern ideology.

[38] As is the case with Transparent Realism

[39] Brettel, R. Modern Art 1851-1929: Capitalism and Representation. Oxford University Press, 1999.

[40]It is important to note the importance of politics to the common ideologies which ran through the modern era. Ideas about transcendence have close links to the idea of democracy. “The French realist movement… might be considered… to be an expression of the new, radical social forces unleashed by the revolution itself… Realism was ‘democracy in art’.”(Nochlin, L. Realism. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1990. 46) Similarly on a philosophical level “The more the artist pays impartial attention to detail, the greater does anarchy become… All sense of hierarchy and subordination disappears.”(Nochlin, L. Realism. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1990.  22) Hence 19^th century painting also has close ties to the political ideologies of the time, which in turn reference more general modern themes.

[41] Simmel. G. ‘The Metropolis and Mental Life’ (1903) UCP. 1971.   60

[42] Nouminal reality comes from Kantian ontology, it is that which is beyond experience where phenomena is experienced.

[43] Baudelaire. C. (2010) The Painter of Modern Life. UK. Penguin Classics. 11