As a movement in contemporary art, postmodernism existed as a means to critique modernity. It altered discourse on public normalities and incited social and political change. In the centuries prior, art was seen as being outside the realm of political demand, existing solely as an interior for the bourgeoisie, both timeless and universal. However, with [...]
In Hard Times, Dickens is forthright in opposing the fact-based state of education and dehumanizing industrialization of city life in Victorian England. He is convinced that the societal systems he sees in place are reductive to the complexity of human emotion and thought, and uses mechanistic imagery throughout the novel to imply that the harsh [...]
Sherlock Holmes is a Victorian gentleman who is learned and observational. He is a safe fictional figure, in that he does not compromise Victorian ideals using science, industrialization, or religious belief. He also does not introduce any controversial or otherwise otherworldly aspects that might challenge societal norms. Doyle created an entertaining character that lived and [...]
H.G. Wells’ The Island of Doctor Moreau draws from common Victorian anxieties concerning the human-animal relationship, presenting macabre scenarios as a means to exorcise the fears of its contemporary readers. The concept of vivisecting animals into humans would have unearthed present day insecurities regarding the societal trend to glorify science and deify scientists, science’s threat [...]
In Chapter Thirty One of Great Expectations Pip visits his friend Wopsle in a humorously poor production of Shakespeare's Hamlet, later writing that he “miserably went to bed” upon returning home, and during his sleep dreamt of playing “Hamlet to Miss Havisham’s ghost”. Thus, here lies in this deliberate insertion of Shakespearean high drama (albeit, [...]
In At the Concert (1948), Madiha Umar creates new meaning in the art of Arabic script. With the limitation of human-based imagery in Islamic art, the use of calligraphy was widely popular among artists, who were able to imbue the script with both classical and contemporary stylings. The letters themselves allow the artist to represent [...]
In John Halifax,Gentleman, the character of John Halifax acts as a paradigm for the emerging working class; a gentleman by ideology and work ethic rather than mere blood. He is an idealic, mythological hero for the emerging class of workers who rely on factory work and mills as opposed the feudal system’s reciprocal relationship between [...]
Franz Kline's “Siegfried” feels as though it is an unclean painting; disorganized, unfocused even, though at its center a deliberate aura of chaos. There is a suffocation of color, with black brush strokes occupying most of the canvas and white just barely shining through, at times mixing with the dense black to produce a muted [...]
