"Objective Qualities Inherent In The Object As Beautiful" And "Animation Of The Inorganic"

The nineteenth and twentieth centuries are the major period for the rise and development of western modern art. However, the French art and German art, embody different pursuit of modern art, represent different directions of development of modern culture in the western world and constitute the most important part of modern art. It is of significant academic value for people to understand different pursuit of art of the two peoples from the perspective of national spirit and analyze the stylistic characteristics of European modern paintings. This paper argues that France is influenced by Greek and Roman cultures and Italian art in Renaissance period, and their arts were marked with the very classics and embodied the pursuit of nature, beauty and poetry. However, the German culture was far behind that of Italy and France. The German national sense began to awake since Protestant revolution; however, its modern art was always behind that of Europe because of the long period of secession and turbulence. The German modern art started as late as the end of nineteenth century. Strongly inspired by the French modern art, the German school of expressionism came into being and thus Germany possessed its own modern art with its own national characteristics. With art, the German artists longed to demonstrate their national history and internal misery. So their art was totally different form Latin art in the pursuit of beauty. From the perspectives of the cultural tradition and national spirit, this paper tries to probe the different stylistic sources and meanings of modern art between the two countries. In this way, people can know more objectively the necessity and historical meaning of the start and development of western modernistic art.