. There are three greatest eras in Europe. The first is the Enlightenment era before the Christian era, the second is the Renaissance after the Middle Ages, and the third is the beautiful era before the First World War. And the inter-war period after the First World War. If place names are used to represent these three eras, they should be the ancient Greece-Roman era; the Florence era and the Paris era. The film "Midnight Paris" tells the story of the Parisian era.
Woody Allen first let the protagonist travel back to the inter-war period after World War I, and met a group of people like Picasso, Hemingway, Dali, etc. After making fun of these people, he felt that he was not addicted, and let the protagonist travel back to World War I. The beauty era before. I was really excited about watching this movie.
Looking at the advancement of human history, every major artistic leap in the Western world begins with visual art, then spreads to literature, science, and finally music, without exception. For example, in the Middle Ages before the Renaissance, the theme of painting almost revolved around religion, and the images of gods and people in the paintings were clearly separable. But with the invention of perspective painting, humans and gods were brought to an equal position. At this time, human thoughts began to change, which triggered the Renaissance. The same goes for the beautiful age.
There is a word in French called "la Belle Epoque", translated into Chinese is "beautiful age". Regarding the cause of the beautiful age, it is probably due to the end of the Franco-Prussian War, Europe ushered in a rare period of peace. This is of course a very important background, but why is it Paris? Mainly because of geographical reasons, but also political reasons. France has been at the center of Europe for a long time since the Middle Ages. Although the Holy See was in Italy at the time, people who wanted to go to the Holy See basically had to go through France. Therefore, as a crossroad, the intersection of various cultures and styles here brings geometric changes. The simple style of the Netherlands, the unrestrained enthusiasm of Spain, the unrestrained look of Germany, the grace of Italy and the unruly and unruly of Britain all had an important influence on France at that time, and it also made many people settle down for at least the convenience of transportation. Paris. This brings us to the so-called "contending of a hundred schools of thought".
But to talk about the real fuse of the beautiful age, I think it is inseparable from the industrial revolution and the invention of the camera. While the industrial revolution greatly improved production efficiency, it also quickly pushed people's imagination to a higher level that could not be added. What was previously unthinkable has now become the reality in front of us, and this in itself can trigger countless artistic creations. But as mentioned in the previous article, as the head of the ever-changing visual arts, at this time there is no real opportunity to make a leap, until the invention of photographic technology. As we all know, before the camera, the main purpose of visual art was to reflect reality. From the stereotyped faces in the Middle Ages to the muscle lines in the Renaissance, in fact, from the moment when the visual art was produced (in ancient Greece and Rome), the basic inspirations for people's creation have come from what they see in reality or the description of the Bible.
But after the invention of photography, the visual artists were suddenly dumbfounded-their work was easily replaced by something the size of a box, and it was so realistic and vivid. It can be said that the invention of the camera instantly changed the main purpose of visual art. Visual art either perished or moved to a new height. Obviously, the choice of visual art has moved to a new height, and since then there have been paintings that we "cannot understand".
In this process, Toulouse-Lautrec may be an important person that cannot be ignored. He also appeared in "Midnight Paris", the little man sitting in the corner that they found after watching the Cancan at the Moulin Rouge. Lautrec is a visual artist who lived after the invention of photography. Although he received a traditional academic education, he abandoned the traditional perspective and the use of colors. The subject matter is bolder, even adding elements of mocking society. Starting from Lautrec, the painters decided to step out of the rigid academy. But this process of getting out is not easy. In this process, Impressionism played a very good guiding role. The original Impressionism can be said to be a style of painting that blends Chinese and Western styles, but it is realistic but not completely realistic. Although it has begun to be bold in the use of colors, at least the structure can make people see the "roundness" of things. As a representative of Post-Impressionism, Lautrec carried forward the colors of Impressionism, but removed the structure of Impressionism. This is why some people call "post-impressionists" "counter-impressionists". Impressionism without structure can no longer reflect objectivity. Of course, it is no longer necessary to reflect objectivity at this time. Painters began to add their own thinking, and began to use paintings to reflect what was in their minds—not what they saw with their eyes. Impressionism without its structure slowly moved in two directions: one is Fauvism and Cubism represented by Du Fei and Picasso; the other is Surrealism represented by Dali. Although these two directions only appeared in the golden age after World War I, the influence of the beautiful age cannot be ignored.
In the cultural leap, the main reason why visual art will bear the brunt is that it is too intuitive. A three-hundred-page novel can be read in two days at the earliest; only a few people can truly understand a newest technology; as for music, it is an art form that lags behind visual art for a long time. Only visual art can make people feel it immediately when they see it, experience it within five minutes, and judge it within ten minutes. Therefore, the influence of visual art on other art forms is obvious. Don't the big men who created English modernist poetry at the end of the 19th century often have the experience of looking at pictures and writing poems? Therefore, looking at the history of art in the West, it is not difficult to find that many genres of literature and visual art are similar, but literature will lag behind for a while. Not to mention the art of music. Although jazz was invented in the United States, its hometown of New Orleans is inextricably linked to France. Due to the hysteresis of music, jazz is actually a reaction of the beautiful age.
The impact of the First World War on the cultural life of Europe was profound. Artists who once sang and danced in Montmartre in Paris had to put down their glasses and face the harsh reality. If the Industrial Revolution has improved people's imagination, the First World War has cast a deep shadow on this newly improved imagination. People began to think about the meaning of life and the value of time. At the same time, war also provided artists with an inexhaustible subject matter. Compared with the Belle Epoque, the world is suddenly no longer beautiful, and the ideas of artists have also been deeply impacted. Dali began to feel that time was like cheese, and Picasso also felt that "Life" should be melancholy. This kind of thinking became even more uncontrollable under the ravages of World War II, and finally produced the modern art forms such as the concrete pillars and colorful iron plates that we see today.
It can be said that the camera and the First World War laid the tone for today's visual art, thus affecting many art forms such as literature and music. Compared with Paris of that era, today's European debt crisis makes people wonder what will happen to Europe in the future. Montmartre, which was supposed to be a temple of art, was taken by tourists, and the black buddies with their hands and cheating money and the numerous "French food" restaurants became a beautiful landscape. Only a few small private museums can slowly remind people of the beautiful era. When contemporary art has moved further and further away from people, it is hard to see which city the next era will be. Maybe the next era will never come, so buy a copy of "Toulouse-Lautrec" tomorrow.
(This article is the nonsense of a man in science and engineering who is ignorant and skillless on a whim. Any similarity is pure plagiarism)
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