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.
