Although I’ve never been an “arts” person, discovering how they relate to what else is going on in society was very interesting. The movement, intensity, action, and energy of visual art in the baroque era tied directly to the themes in Renaissance when Europe is in a frenzy. It displays the move into humanism.
Each person has the right to find their own answer. People are going crazy with ideas. Ingenuity sparks creative use of their talents. Even the economy gets creative. Society makes the move into capitalism. Da Vinci is a perfect example. He was a painter, inventor, engineer, musician, botanist, geologist, and the list goes on. The epitome of a multi-tasker. And what else would follow a period of thought and creativity, but a shift in the way we view the world, which inevitably leads to rational thought and some great answers! “I have all these ideas in my head, now how I can I make it more efficient?” That’s how I see it, anyway. And so Bacon, Galileo, Newton, Locke, and others seek to “perfect” the randomness of the renaissance. The scientific method, the measurable, the separation of soul and body are the responses to the renaissance.
Once all the brave new answers have been discovered, everything changes. The real stuff is what we can experiment, which is nearly everything. I believe Romanticism to be the exhaustion of the mind. I relate it to a thing I like to call “back to the middle”. Sometimes my life gets so hectic with kids and work and school and mommy things. My brain is on fire, I don’t sleep, I lose weight because I don’t have time to eat. I have so many ideas for educating, my house is always a mess, I’m sure you get the point. But there is always a moment when I realize that I need to come back to the middle. I focus on myself, and how I can improve as a person and a mother. I take a deep breath, and I stop. When I do gain momentum again it is deliberately slow to remind myself that there is a person inside that machine. A person whose natural instinct is to love and be loved. That is what the transition to Romanticism is to me. Why do we feel the way we do? Stop and breathe, your brain needs a break.
I thought about a question raised in one of the lectures. Has the progress of the arts and science contributed more to the corruption or purification of morals? In a sense, yes, without a doubt. But as some would say about , say, chemotherapy. It’s awful, but the end result can be worth it, depending on what you value. My children love video games. I love facebook. Many people can’t go 5 minutes without texting. Technological advancements can make our lives easier, more fun, and very cool. However, I am confident in the cycle of things that eventually there will be a time of balance. A time when we all realize that moderation is the key. I can see some of it now. The time of indulgence and the rise of obesity has led to a fad of diets. Low fat this, skinny that, and break through exercise regimens. We create ratings on video games and internet parental controls. A society will eventually take steps to change the things that aren’t working. It might take a while, but eventually we’ll come back to the middle. And after that, things will get crazy again, we’ll have new problems to solve, and we’ll find new answers.
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