As a prenatal period of modernism the nineteenth century lasts until today, with its heritage strongly influencing modern art that cannot do without it. It also lasts until today since it was the age when mysticisms were born and gave a root for the modern New Age, defining the further generations of  the “enslaved minds”
In the further part of this web page the history of the nineteenth century art will be divided into two parts separated by the appearance of Courbet’s realism and the European revolutions in 1848, known also as the Spring of Nations. Although separated, the history will form one coherent thought based mainly on the arising “new spirit”.
Since the main phenomena of the 19th  century will be discussed, also the stages of the “new spirit” development are worth further and detailed examination, since, which is rarely mentioned, it’s not about the art. It’s about the ”new man”.

THE MYSTICISMS OF THE 19TH CENTURY

The deadly slaughter of the French revolution was an unimaginable shock for the successors of the enlightenment’ legacy, even greater if it is treated (although groundless) as a result of a complex process consisting also of the U.S. declaration of independence (1776) and the French Constitution (1791) . However, it was a shock only for the folk of France and those who stayed under its influence, since France was the most retarded of the main political figures of the 18th century Europe, which was mentioned by Colbert – one of Louis’ ministers –   already in the 17th century. Colbert as the cause of France’s retardation pointed out the religiously overzealous anachronistic absolutism, a parody of the Enlightenment associated with anti-governmental and anti-Church radicalism. Due to the 1848 revolution the whole Age of Reason is often described just by the example of the history of the French Enlightenment, yet it is not the only, nor the most important one. The form of the Enlightenment differed in other countries, giving different leading figures: German Enlightenment with Kant’s idealism,  English Enlightenment with David Hume’s and John Locke’s empiricism, and, above all, the Scotch enlightenment with its modern conservatism (Edmund Burke, Joseph de Maistre) and Adam Smith’s economicalliberalism . Actually, already entering the industrial age, England was the country most advanced on the way to the modern capitalism and also best prepared for the upncoming social changes. It was in 1680, at the time when Louis XIV was still building the Palace of Versailles., when John Lock wrote two treaties about the government, forming the main rules of republican political system, which is a base of modern democracy. It is also worth mentioning, that the famous Diderot Encyclopedia was invented in France, but in England, as Cyclopedia in 1728. Basically, in 1745, the French publisher, André Le Breton intended just to translate it, but after a failure, he delegated it to Diderot in 1747.
There is no doubt that the enlightenment was a historical breakthrough, but it differed in distinctive features in the particular countries:  in Germany - philosophical idealism, in England – the social and economical thought, and in France – the strictly antireligious character, which radically devaluated any moral or spiritual development of the country. It was the great fiasco of the French revolution that the concept of a man as a rational being was misunderstood as a concept of a senseless one and it became more popular to form a concept a man who is rational but motivated by his passions and feelings, causing conflict with religion, asking a new question: what should be “the new spirit” like?
That question arose long before the French revolution, as a result of inconsistency  between scientific knowledge and religious dogma, established by the church, that was historically involved into politics.
Some found the answer  in the works of a very talented Swedish scholar Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772) who wrote in Latin, and, after a religious revelation, claimed that the nearest contact with God gave him the highest knowledge. He devoted himself to theological and psychological and teological studies and created a fundamental doctrine for the New Jerusalem Church.
Swedenborgianism and the following trends, though varied, had much in common:  1)  they were establishing a truce between the religion and science, trying to eliminate the contradiction between them 2) They were replacing the spiritual emptiness that appeared after the removal of institutionalized rteligion, 3) were offering a system of a Christian morality without punishment for sins. To Sum up they were offering “for free” all the benefits that the religion gave to a man jet without the grim vision of the Final Judgment Day.
The further historical stages of the “new spirit” included spiritualism (1848 – Fox Sisters), esoterism (1855)- Elphas Levi Zahed), Spiritism (1857- Allan Kardec), theosophy (1857- Helena Bławatski), anthroposophy (1913- Rudolf Steiner), perennial philosophy (1945 – Aldous Huxley), and nowadays – the New Age (1968 – New left, Marcuse). All the movements mentioned above, were usually based on some theoretical assumptions, sometimes very complicated, and the simplified versions of the new spirituality stayed until nowadays as various techniques of meditation that are according to Buddhism, zen or yoga and are offering diverse forms of nirvana that are often connected with drugs usage.

NATURALISM, MEDIEVALISM, ROMANTICISM

The whole history of the 19th century art. May be presented as a series of struggles between opposite values: between a single individual and the society, between the soul and body, and between the surrounding material world  and the inner psychological one. Any of the particular movements may described as a set of the principal “priorities”, which were established as a result of individual and historical experiences, different for every nation.

to be continued...