Enlightenment

The Enlightenment period in history is a very significant period in time when people began to see the world as revolutionary. During the 18th century, many low to middle class citizens industrialized and used technology to gain financial and social advances throughout North America and Europe. Technology and reason began to gain popularity over monarchy.

With The Enlightenment came changes in the art world. The Rococo movement, led by Jean-Antoine Watteau and carried on famously by Francois Boucher and Jean-Honore Fragonard, portrayed much more

 frivolous, light-hearted pieces than the previously rigid Boroque movement.  Watteau's painting, Pierrot, 1717 features an awkward artist feeling isolated from the crowd around him. Boucher's painting, Toilet of Venus, 1746, shows a naked woman, under the disguise of a mythical goddess, in her restroom surrounded by her feminine possessions. Fragonard displays a couple scrupulously meeting in a garden with lustful intentions in The Meeting, 1771-73. All of these paintings are common in that they are all romantic and lack political propaganda or intent. At this time during the 18th century, artists become less confined and began using imagination to create great works of art.

It is now 2008 and the political world has evolved significantly in the United States. There is no dominant government telling people how to run their businesses and how to create art. We have developed into a nation of free thinkers. Our country educational system teaches and encourages diversity in opinion and ideas. While The Englightenment brought the beginning of many revolutions, the 21st century as I am experiencing is continuing the Enlightment. Every day new technological advances are created to improve the regular citizens' way of life. While the rich continue to get richer, not unlike pre-Enlightenment times, the poor and the middle class are mostly given free and equal opportunities for financial gain. The beginning of the Enlightenment sought to improve the lives of individuals... Allowing individuals the freedom to focus on their own virtues and reality. This freedom led to the industrial and technological ingenuity that still continues to this day.

With the advent of such devices ranging from the fax machine and wireless telephone to the GPS navigation systems and the ability to pinpoint a single individual in a sea of millions leads me to believe that our world is still existing in The Enlightenment period. I believe that these priceless technologies exist only because our country's forefathers and the great thinkers of the early eighteenth century had the knowledge and faith to lead us in the right direction of Enlightenment.