Download - How to Read World History in Art [part 2]
HOW TOREAD
WORLDHISTORY
IN ART[PART 2]
1850 IndustrializationADOLPH VON MENZEL, The Foundry [1872‑75]
Following a period of increasedagricultural productivity and strongpopulation growth – which createda labour force ideal for factories –the first centres of industrializationbegan developing in about 1760
THREEINNOVATIONS
The Steam Engine
Mechanization of Textile Industry
Steel Production
England [1760]
Continental Europe [1830]
Beyond Europe [1850]
United States [1865]
Japan [1868]
As work continuesfeverishly all around,workmen in the lower
right-hand corner of thecanvas eat the lunch
that a girl has broughtthem in a basket.
The flywheel is a device forstoring rotational energy,
traditionally associated withWatt’s steam engine. Around1875, technologies from theearly Industrial Revolution
were still in widespread use,even though further
groundbreaking innovationsthat would again
revolutionize industry hadalready appeared, such asthe Bessemer method forproducing steel and the
electric motor, patented in1866.
Arduous, exhausting work. Menzel depicts the work process with greatrealism and interest. The workers push the incandescent rough iron onto
the rolling mill with pincers and poles.
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