The Impact of Urban Industrialization on Early Twentieth-Century Art Research Paper

The Impact of Urban Industrialization on Early Twentieth-Century Art - Research Paper Example The two depictions of labourers through the work of Courbet and Manet are very different in scope and social setting. The labourers in the Courbet piece, The Stone Breakers (1848-1850) are labourers in the field, the reflection of his background as having been raised in a farming family evident in his depiction of labour. The Manet piece, Olympia (1863) shows a woman servant, her job doting on the subject of the piece and presenting a very different version of work. Where the labourers of Courbet are creating and achieving, the Manet piece reflects an indulgence and luxury. Manet’s family was financially wealthy, thus his exposure to servants may have been different than Courbet, although his family undoubtedly had them as well. Manet lived an urban life where Courbet lived a rural life during his youth. The French Revolution of 1848 was about to work and labour, thus allowing for the paintings to provide context for the political aesthetics and issues of the time period. Pari s was being built to reflect less of an indulgence and more of the socially relevant economic problems of the time, thus these paintings contribute to that discourse, even in the more indulgent nature of Manet’s work. In comparison to Caillebotte’s Floor Scapers (1875), the pieces are less activated, where Caillebotte’s view of labour was much more intensely positioned. The workers are engaged in hard labour, where the work of Courbet and Manet do not show this same activation. In discussing urban industrialization, the work of Umberto Boccioni and Ernst Ludwig Kirschner provides context for the changes that were being experienced at the turn of the 20th century.