Art and Upheaval: From Impressionism to Surrealism in Times of Political Turmoil

This presentation will review two major modern art movements, 19th c. Impressionism and 20th c. Surrealism, and place them in the context of the social and political upheavals that gave rise to them. We’ll review the bitter and brutal Siege of Paris during the Franco-Prussian War and the subsequent internecine violence of the Paris Commune to reveal the connection between a failed revolution and Impressionism in the last decades of the 19th c. We will then pivot to the advent of Surrealism as a response to the horrors of World War I. Participants will come away with a better appreciation of the tight connection between art, society, and politics.