The subject of this course is an exploration of the ideas and values from the Scientific Revolution to the Second World War, examining the various revolutions in the world (scientific, political, economic, social, spiritual and artistic) and their impact on philosophy, theology, literature and the arts. This course so far has allowed me to see the influence of the Western thinking, forms of thinking and ideas on non-Western cultures and vice versa. As an accomplishment of this assignment I want to review and contrast five artists of the early 20th Century who were influenced by the changing world and their lasting impact on the arts, even to this day.
In our reading Georges Méliès was one of the most important pioneers of early cinema. I was interested in learning more about him and did some research. A successful magician and owner of the Theater Robert-Houdin in Paris, Méliès attended the first screening of the Lumiere Cinematographe on December 28, 1895 (Larson, 2006). In February of the following year, Méliès purchased a motion picture camera, and he began making his own films three months later.
Cinema technology was just being developed, and Méliès studied the various new mechanisms, and then projectors, printers, and processing equipment custom-made, based on other the inventions of other people or on improvements of his own design.
Méliès' first films were straightforward cityscapes and event films, patterned after the short films of the Lumieres, but soon he was using the camera to document magic acts and gags from the stage of the Theater Robert-Houdin. By late 1896, Méliès was incorporating his knowledge of the mechanisms of motion pictures with the format of the stage magic skit, producing his first "trick" films (Larson). These short films relied on multiple exposures to create the illusion of people and objects appearing and disappearing at will or changing from one form to another.
Over the next few years,
References: Essential of Music, Sony 2001. Retrieved March 9, 2008 from http://www.essentialsofmusic.com/ Artelino-Art Auctions, 2008. Retrieved March 9, 2008 from http://www.artelino.com/articles/henri_matisse.asp Shelley Esaak, 2008. Retrieved March 9, 2008 from http://arthistory.about.com/cs/namespp/a/picasso.htm Pegasos, 2008. Retrieved March 8, 2008 from http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/rfrost.htm Fiero, Gloria K. (2006). Modernism, Globalism, and the Information Age. New York, NY: McGraw Hill.