Poverty and Other Social Concerns behind the Art Work:
“The Burden (The Laundress)” Honore Daumier (1850-1853)
During the revolutionary era, literature and arts played a significant role in how the society changed. A piece of artwork not only functioned as a media of self expression by the artists, much more as a media to speak to the people or the government, depicted the societal condition at a specific period of time. In the second half of 19th century, there were radical changes in the society, and thus variety of movements and art styles appeared. Among several categories of movement, probably the most important one is impressionism, the biggest influence of the development of modern art. Impressionism puts more emphasis on portraying landscapes, seas, flowers, gardens, and any other object that make such meaningful ‘impressions’ to the viewer.
Another important sub-category of movement is the realism. In deeper observation, realism illustrates the condition of general society by the life of people in everyday life, without any particular interpretation. The movement which began in France in 1850s derived from the idea of objective reality and “truth and accuracy became the goals of many Realists[1].” Because of the straight forward messages that can easily translated form Realists’ images, the paintings and other visual arts became an effective tool to communicate many of subject areas.
One of the most dominant issues that occurred during the 19th century period was poverty, and it was “regarded as the natural condition of the laboring poor (Pennington, 3).” Countless of French population experienced living unfortunate. The situation created many cyclical problems in the society, and change how the society worked. Low class people were often associated with sinful, prostitution, and dirty profession. Although it might be the reality, they were forced to do that in...