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Renaissance art mirrored society at the time and its humanism with its focus on the human form. It also paralleled scientific discoveries at the time with its incorporation of geometry into paintings and architecture. It also had a focus on classical antiquity, as the Renaissance time period was based on the rediscovery of ancient Greek and Latin culture.
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Painted ceiling by Michelangelo
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Book by Niccolò Machiavelli
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Baroque art was grandiose and extravagant. It mirrored society in that the Catholic Church supported its magnificence to counteract the minimalist of the protestants. Its artists used such grandeur and color in order to set themselves apart from Renaissance and Mannerist artists.
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Miguel de Servantes' Baroque book Don Quixote
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Baroque painting by Rembrandt
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Rococo painting by Antoine Watteau
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Rococo art featured theatrical scenes with light colors, asymmetry, and many curves. It was a reaction to the more formal style of Louis XIV.
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Johann Sebastian Bach wrote several musical compositions throughout his life, including organ music, harpsichord music, and church music.
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Neoclassical art was very simplistic and symmetric. It reacted directly against Rococo's ornamental and asymmetric style. It mirrored society as European youths went on Grand Tours around Europe and found Neoclassical ideas as a result.
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Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Romantic novel
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Romanticism featured emotion, the individual, and the unique. It mirrored society in that it was a reaction to the Industrial Revolution and the spread of reason to every aspect of society.
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Jacques-Louis David's Neoclassicist painting
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Musical Symphony by Ludwig van Beethoven
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Caspar David Friedrich's Romantic painting
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Impressionist art used small, noticeable brushstrokes, features ordinary things, and focused on light. This mirrored society as it grew due to the actions of French Emperor Napoleon III.
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Impressionist painting by Claude Monet
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Impressionist composition by Clause Debussy
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Edvard Munch's Expressionist painting
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Expressionist art was supposed to show the artists' emotions rather than depict reality. It was subjective and featured emotion. It mirrored German society because it was a time period of high emotion due to economic and social troubles.
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Cubist painting by Pablo Picasso
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Eugene O'Neill's expressionist play
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Surreal art showed the illogical; it showed nonsensical forms that seemed realistic. It was an expression of the unconscious. It mirrored the nihilist movement that occurred in European society as a result of the death and destruction caused by World War II.
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Salvador Dali's surreal painting
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Abstract Expressionism highlighted the spontaneous and the unconscious in its shapes. It was a post-World War II movement because it was a combination of surrealism and expressionism.
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Jackson Pollock's Abstract Impressionist painting