The Long Nineteenth Century

“The decades around 1800 were marked by ceaseless disruption rooted in the Age of the Enlightenment, when long-held convictions about nature and society were questioned or overturned. The revolutions in America and France catalyzed this development in every realm of human endeavor, including art. On both sides of the Atlantic, artists and thinkers of all kinds yearned to identify the underpinnings of outward appearances and to express a direct experience of the world.”