Arts during Industrial Revolution

     After reading about what happened to the arts during both the American and French 

Industrial Revolutions, I was struck by how many things were taking place at the same 

time. Just to name some things, the new materials of iron and steel became available for 

use, new typography styles were created as well as type size, and photography was 

invented. There are plenty other things that took place during this time, but these are just 

some of the things that really caught my attention while reading about this time. 

     Whenever something new comes out or is available for the public, people rush to it in 

order to discover new things. So since people still do this today, I’m sure that it would have 

been very exciting to discover new materials to create a piece of art with during that time, 

so the availability of iron and steel must have been a huge boost for artists. They probably 

all wanted to see what the new materials were like and play around with each one for a 

while in order to see what they could create as well as discover if they like the new 

materials overall.  

     When it come to typography and its different styles, today there are what seems to be 

an unlimited supply of them that range up and down the spectrum from good to bad. Back 

then during the Industrial Revolutions, there couldn’t have been that many because they 

were all designed by hand followed by being put into letterpress printers in order to create 

books and other items. One letter at a time with no possible short cuts sounds like a pretty 

tough task. So, after the invention of the lithographic printers, the production of new 

typefaces and size shot up in numbers. Since the lithographic printers allowed imagination 

to become printed from the process of an artists sketch becoming a rendered plate. Not 

only could it print type, but also images that artist would sketch out, making this a huge 

jump for graphic design. 

     Last, but not least, the invention of photography. The field of art that I love the most was 

invented as well as a whole new world to experience. As stated in the book, photography 

“expanded the meaning of visual documentation and pictorial information.” This tells us 

that due to this new way to capture a moment in time and keep it for as long as the printed 

version lives, a new way to create art was born. Even though it started out as a longer 

waiting process than what we are used to now, it was still a break through for the world of 

art.