The Industrial Revolution affected artists in many different ways.

Some embraced the

opportunities offered by the new conditions and new technologies, while others rejected
them or tried to return to an earlier age of craftsmanship.
Write the following essay: 'Evaluate the impact of the Industrial Revolution on artistic
developments.' Your word count should be between 700 and 1500 words.
Consider the impact of the following in your answer:
• Changes in living and working conditions and how this affected the motives of artists
• The growth of an affluent middle class
• Technological developments
The industrial revolution had revolutionized the world. Industrialization was something that first occurred
in Britain in 1750-1850. Due to industrialization everything was made easier for the people of the
country. Machines were made and Britain had advanced a lot meaning that it advanced in every aspect of
life.
Industrialization had many positive impacts, those being that it had increased the amount of goods
produced, economy rates of many countries had flourished and it had helped eradicate poverty by
decreasing the unemployment rate.
Just like this it has many negative impacts as well. Due to industrialization child labour had become more
prominent, children couldn’t go to school, women were made to work in the mills and worked long hours,
were made to live over crowdedly and due to that diseases spread quite easily.
Direct and indirect benefits of the Industrial Revolution were enjoyed by both types of artists. Artists
became more mobile as manufactured goods like tube paint became more widely available. In the past,
painters typically painted from memory or their imagination in their studios. They had an alternative to
mixing oil-based paint from scratch thanks to new materials like foldable aluminum paint tubes.
Industrialization had affected many types of artists in many ways. It had affected the source and quality of
realistic as well as romantic artists. Both of these artists have grown in number after the industrial
revolution. Now that is because Romantic writers were now able to express more freely as they saw the
worker’s conditions and drew paintings, wrote songs and many other things which had included how their
past life had been better than what it is now and making them dream about what and how would they get
that back. As seen in poems by William Blake and Wordsworth, British Romantic poets and thinkers
opposed the Industrial Revolution on a number of fronts, criticizing against its economic destruction of
the working class people, including children and women Just like this, Realist artists grew in number as
well. They would usually make paintings about the conditions of the workers, children and women in the
mills and about how luxurious was the upper class and the housing conditions of workers. Realist artists
had changed their approach after the industrial revolution. Many realist artists such as Gustave Courbet
and Jean Francois Millet portrayed the poor by painting them and were socially conscious about them as
well. The subjects of Millet's works were greatly influenced by his modest origin. According to Millet, "I
was born a peasant and shall die as a peasant."
Fig: The Man with the hoe by Jean Francis Millet

The industrial Revolution had affected the middle class as well. This middle class without no doubt
had gained more than any other class from the increase in national incomes that came
with industrialisation.  More jobs were produced through the expansion of businesses and factories. The
middle class began working as accountants, shopkeepers, and merchants. All the new industrial
products that companies were making was affordable by bankers, merchants, entrepreneurs, and
factory owners. The middle class Realists like llya Repin were part of the Peredvizhniki or Wanderers, a
group that emerged in Russia in the 1860s. They aimed to draw attention to injustices and inequalities in
daily life through their artworks. Artists like George Bellows and Robert Henri belonged to the Ashcan
School in America, and in England, Luke Fildes and LS. Lowry were Realist painters who captured the
mediocre life of the underprivileged meaning the poor. The new wealthy middle classes, who could
afford the time and money to buy art, purchased these paintings. These individuals were more drawn to
purchasing paintings that depicted their actual activities and daily lives. Paintings became smaller as a
result of the lack of space for large canvases in their middle-class dwellings. Romantic artists which
included poets like Lord Byron, who spoke out and wrote extensively about the psychological and social
effects of the newly industrial world on the individual, and William Blake, who is best known for his
poem "The Chimney Sweeper," felt that widespread industrialization had led to the child labor which
cost children their freedom. The new industrial world was mostly perceived by English Romantic artists
as harsh and deafening to the lower and working classes These thinkers demanded a return to the
emotional and natural, as well as the pre-industrial values, both in life and in spirit, but because of the
growth of a new and wealthy middle class, the idea was rejected. That was because the middle class was
nearly on par with the elite class and had no desire to go back to the previous life again when they could
have most of the desires that they had wanted. So Romanticism didn’t really benefit from the growth of
the middle classes.

There had been many technological developments in the industrialization which had brought about
many changes into both Realism as well as Romanticism. The Romantics considered that a significant
breach had opened up between humanity and nature as a result of the development of knowledge after
the Industrial Revolution. These authors had used literary techniques to communicate their thoughts in
a way that readers could comprehend and relate to because they lacked the vocabulary and knowledge
to do so.  Romantic writers utilized metaphor to challenge science and bring society closer to the natural
world by reuniting nature and humanity within people's frames of mind.Realists were affected in the
following way; The ease with which artists could leave their studios to paint outside of them contributed
to the emergence of the Realist movement after the development of railways with which transportation
became easier. One especially notable thing was the development of metal paint tubes for storing oil
paint. The Industrial Revolution brought about technological advancements that resulted in the creation
of photography as a new art form. As a result, "Realism" gained popularity. The newly wealthy middle
class promoted photography as well; these individuals desired to be captured on camera. Even more
specifically than the Realist paintings, photography contributed to the unveiling of the working
conditions in factories. Lewis Hine, an American photographer, utilised images to document child labour
in the USA, thereby helping in the reform of child labour laws and raising awareness of the issue.
https://resources.saylor.org/wwwresources/archived/site/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/ENGL203-Subunit-
3.1.3-Industrial-Revolution-and-the-Romantic-Spirit-FINAL1.pdf
https://www.exploros.com/summary/Differences-Between-Wealthy-Middle-Class-and-Poor-in-the-
Industrial-Revolution
https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/whp-1750/xcabef9ed3fc7da7b:unit-4-labor-and-society/
xcabef9ed3fc7da7b:4-1-labor/a/class-structure-beta#:~:text=More%20than%20any%20other
%20group,goods%20that%20factories%20were%20producing.
https://green.harvard.edu/news/relationship-between-science-and-romanticism-popular-environmental-
writing