Scientific Revolution Dbq

Avid exploration helped to usher the study of nature to the forefront of the 18th and 19th centuries, as scientists examined diverse locations around the world as compared to what was already known. Utilizing newly learned methodology, old myths were debunked and new ideas were put in front of the public. These new contrary ideas were not only growing in the field of science, but also flowed over into the realms of religion, the arts, politics and the social ways of all citizens. The scientific movement in the 18th century was a critical part of history, as it ushered in some of the most important scientific finds built upon the discoveries of the 16th and 17th centuries, such as Bacon’s scientific method and Galileo’s astronomy research. The
For example, the desire for freedom and equality resulted from the scientific idea that knowledge leads to human achievement. This desire led to uprisings such as the American and French Revolutions. This led to the adoption of the Declaration of Independence in America, upon which “the Declaration famously asserted that the colonists had the right to establish a government to secure the “unalienable rights” of ‘Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness”” (Benton, 202). The French followed the American vision of democracy which was the sought after form of government within these two evolving countries, at the height of the Enlightenment era. Art and literature styles during the Enlightenment period were also changing from past times; with the popular ideals and ideas of the Scientific and Enlightenment periods, artists and writers pulled upon these new ways of thinking to perfect different types of art. The Rococo painting style portrayed interesting subjects on a very small scale, in a delicate manner and with lighter colors than its predecessor, the Baroque. In Watteau’s Pilgrimage to Cythera, these qualities are evident; including that there contained no heads of state or religious figures, which is consistent with the Enlightenment period. The Neoclassicism style was unlike the Rococo style, and
The political arena in this time was a boiling pot, as the Industrial Revolution was in full force. These facts led to the changes seen in the arts. Unhappy with the ways of rationality, materialism and objectivity; the Romantics saw humans as feeling first and foremost, then thinking. Romantics were more attentive to matters of the heart, beauty, love, dreams and all things different. For example, the author Johann Wolfgang von Goethe exemplifies the Romantic Movement perfectly in his novel The Sorrows of Young Werther. Benton describes the plot as: “It’s main character, Werther, is discontented with Enlightenment ideals of objectivity and rationality. He seeks, instead, the greater meaning of life. Werther does not find either happiness or satisfying love, and he commits suicide” (219). This novel tells a story of individual feeling of human beings during the Romantic era, after the Industrial Revolution and the Enlightenment, the inner-self lost to a wave of machinery, methodology and materialism. In addition, a belief in the strange for this time period would definitely include philosopher George Hagel, who believed a “synthesis” between eras would occur based on the spirit of each individual period. In other worlds, he believed that periods in time are opposites that must combine into one new era. The individualistic artists of the era, such as Emerson and Thoreau,