Late Nineteenth Century France

The popularisation of photography at the end of the nineteenth century

Photography has roots in remote antiquity with the discovery of the principle of the camera obscura and the observation that some substances are visibly altered by exposure to light. As far as is known, nobody thought of bringing these two phenomena together to capture camera images in permanent form until around 1800, when Thomas Wedgwood made the first reliably documented although unsuccessful attempt. In the mid-1820s, Joseph Nicéphore Niépce succeeded, but several days of exposure in the camera were required and the earliest results were very crude. Niépce's associate Louis Daguerre went on to develop the daguerreotype process, the first publicly announced photographic process, which required only minutes of exposure in the camera and produced clear, finely detailed results. It was commercially introduced in 1839, a date generally accepted as the birth year of practical photography.
The metal-based daguerreotype process soon had some competition from the paper-based calotype negative and salt print processes invented by Henry Fox Talbot. Subsequent innovations reduced the required camera exposure time from minutes to seconds and eventually to a small fraction of a second; introduced new photographic media which were more economical, sensitive or convenient, including roll films for casual use by amateurs; and made it possible to take pictures in natural color as well as in black-and-white.
The introduction of computer-based electronic digital cameras in the late 20th century soon revolutionized photography. During the first decade of the 21st century, traditional film-based photochemical methods were increasingly marginalized as the practical advantages of the new technology became widely appreciated and the image quality of moderately priced digital cameras was continually improved.

A practical means of color photography was sought from the very beginning. Results were demonstrated as early as 1848, but exposures lasting for hours or days were required and the colors were so light-sensitive they would only bear very brief inspection in dim light.
The first durable color photograph was a set of three black-and-white photographs taken through red, green and blue color filters and shown superimposed by using three projectors with similar filters. It was taken by Thomas Sutton in 1861 for use in a lecture by the Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell, who had proposed the method in 1855.^[22] The photographic emulsions then in use were insensitive to most of the spectrum, so the result was very imperfect and the demonstration was soon forgotten. Maxwell's method is now most widely known through the early 20th century work of Sergei Prokudin-Gorskii. It was made practical by Hermann Wilhelm Vogel's 1873 discovery of a way to make emulsions sensitive to the rest of the spectrum, gradually introduced into commercial use beginning in the mid-1880s.
Two French inventors, Louis Ducos du Hauron and Charles Cros, working unknown to each other during the 1860s, famously unveiled their nearly identical ideas on the same day in 1869. Included were methods for viewing a set of three color-filtered black-and-white photographs in color without having to project them, and for using them to make full-color prints on paper.
The first widely used method of color photography was the Autochrome plate, commercially introduced in 1907. It was based on one of Louis Ducos du Hauron's ideas: instead of taking three separate photographs through color filters, take one through a mosaic of tiny color filters overlaid on the emulsion and view the results through an identical mosaic. If the individual filter elements were small enough, the three primary colors would blend together in the eye and produce the same additive color synthesis as the filtered projection of three separate photographs. Autochrome plates had an integral mosaic filter layer composed of millions of dyed potato starch grains. Reversal processing was used to develop each plate into a transparent positive that could be viewed directly or projected with an ordinary projector. The mosaic filter layer absorbed about 90 percent of the light passing through, so a long exposure was required and a bright projection or viewing light was desirable. Competing screen plate products soon appeared and film-based versions were eventually made. All were expensive and until the 1930s none was "fast" enough for hand-held snapshot-taking, so they mostly served a niche market of affluent advanced amateurs.
A new era in color photography began with the introduction of Kodachrome film, available for 16 mm home movies in 1935 and 35 mm slides in 1936. It captured the red, green and blue color components in three layers of emulsion. A complex processing operation produced complementary cyan, magenta and yellow dye images in those layers, resulting in a subtractive color image. Maxwell's method of taking three separate filtered black-and-white photographs continued to serve special purposes into the 1950s and beyond, and Polachrome, an "instant" slide film that used the Autochrome's additive principle, was available until 2003, but all the color films for making prints and slides currently (2013) available use the multilayer emulsion approach pioneered by Kodachrome.

The 1930s USA

The Great Depression

The great depression an immense tragedy that placed millions of Americans out of work was the beginning of government involvement in the economy and in society as a whole. After nearly a decade of optimism and prosperity, the United States was thrown into despair on Black Tuesday, October 29, 1929, the day the stock market crashed and the official beginning of the Great Depression. As stock prices plummeted with no hope of recovery, panic struck. Masses and masses of people tried to sell their stock, but no one was buying. The stock market, which had appeared to be the surest way to become rich, quickly became the path to bankruptcy.
And yet, the Stock Market Crash was just the beginning. Since many banks had also invested large portions of their clients' savings in the stock market, these banks were forced to close when the stock market crashed. Seeing a few banks close caused another panic across the country. Afraid they would lose their own savings, people rushed to banks that were still open to withdraw their money. This massive withdrawal of cash caused additional banks to close. Since there was no way for a bank's clients to recover any of their savings once the bank had closed, those who didn't reach the bank in time also became bankrupt.
Businesses and industry were also affected. Having lost much of their own capital in either the Stock Market Crash or the bank closures, many businesses started cutting back their workers' hours or wages. In turn, consumers began to curb their spending, refraining from purchasing such things as luxury goods. This lack of consumer spending caused additional businesses to cut back wages or, more drastically, to lay off some of their workers. Some businesses couldn't stay open even with these cuts and soon closed their doors, leaving all their workers unemployed. In previous depressions, farmers were usually safe from the severe effects of a depression because they could at least feed themselves. Unfortunately, during the Great Depression, the Great Plains were hit hard with both a drought and horrendous dust storms, creating what became known as the Dust Bowl.
Years and years of overgrazing combined with the effects of a drought caused the grass to disappear. With just topsoil exposed, high winds picked up the loose dirt and whirled it for miles. The dust storms destroyed everything in their paths, leaving farmers without their crops.
Small farmers were hit especially hard. Even before the dust storms hit, the invention of the tractor drastically cut the need for manpower on farms. These small farmers were usually already in debt, borrowing money for seed and paying it back when their crops came in. When the dust storms damaged the crops, not only could the small farmer not feed himself and his family, he could not pay back his debt. Banks would then foreclose on the small farms and the farmer's family would be both homeless and unemployed. During the Great Depression, millions of people were out of work across the United States. Unable to find another job locally, many unemployed people hit the road, traveling from place to place, hoping to find some work. A few of these people had cars, but most hitchhiked or "rode the rails."
A large portion of the people who rode the rails were teenagers, but there were also older men, women, and entire families who traveled in this manner. They would board freight trains and crisscross the country, hoping to find a job in one of the towns along the way.
When there was a job opening, there were often literally a thousand people applying for the same job. Those who weren't lucky enough to get the job would perhaps stay in a shantytown (known as "Hoovervilles") outside of town. Housing in the shantytown was built out of any material that could be found freely, like driftwood, cardboard, or even newspapers.
The farmers who had lost their homes and land usually headed west to California, where they heard rumors of agricultural jobs. Unfortunately, although there was some seasonal work, the conditions for these families were transient and hostile. Since many of these farmers came from Oklahoma and Arkansas, they were called the derogatory names of "Okies" and "Arkies." (The stories of these migrants to California were immortalized in the fictional book, The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck.) The U.S. economy broke down and entered the Great Depression during the presidency of Herbert Hoover. Although President Hoover repeatedly spoke of optimism, the people blamed him for the Great Depression. Just as the shantytowns were named Hoovervilles after him, newspapers became known as "Hoover blankets," pockets of pants turned inside out (to show they were empty) were called "Hoover flags," and broken-down cars pulled by horses were known as "Hoover wagons."
During the 1932 presidential election, Hoover did not stand a chance at reelection and Franklin D. Roosevelt won in a landslide. People of the United States had high hopes that President Roosevelt would be able to solve all their woes. As soon as Roosevelt took office, he closed all the banks and only let them reopen once they were stabilized. Next, Roosevelt began to establish programs that became known as the New Deal.
These New Deal programs were most commonly known by their initials, which reminded some people of alphabet soup. Some of these programs were aimed at helping farmers, like the AAA (Agricultural Adjustment Administration). While other programs, such as the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) and the WPA (Works Progress Administration), attempted to help curb unemployment by hiring people for various projects. To many at the time, President Roosevelt was a hero. They believed that he cared deeply for the common man and that he was doing his best to end the Great Depression. Looking back, however, it is uncertain as to how much Roosevelt's New Deal programs helped to end the Great Depression. By all accounts, the New Deal programs eased the hardships of the Great Depression; however, the U.S. economy was still extremely bad by the end of the 1930s.
The major turn-around for the U.S. economy occurred after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the entrance of the United States into World War II. Once the U.S. was involved in the war, both people and industry became essential to the war effort. Weapons, artillery, ships, and airplanes were needed quickly. Men were trained to become soldiers and the women were kept on the homefront to keep the factories going. Food needed to be grown for both the homefront and to send overseas.
It was ultimately the entrance of the U.S. into World War II that ended the Great Depression in the United States.

The Renaissance in Europe Part 1-Painting

Leonardo Da Vinci, Michaelangelo

Da Vinci was one of the great creative minds of the Italian Renaissance hugely influential as an artist and sculptor but also immensely talented as an engineer scientist and inventor. Leonardo da Vinci was born on 15 April 1452 near the Tuscan town of Vinci the illegitimate son of a local lawyer. He was apprenticed to the sculptor and painter Andrea del Verrocchio in Florence and in 1478 became an independent master. In about 1483 he moved to Milan to work for the ruling Sforza family as an engineer sculptor painter and architect. From 1495 to 1497he produced a mural of The Last Supper in the refectory of the Monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie Milan. Da Vinci was in Milan until the city was invaded by the French in1499 and the Sforza family forced to flee. He may have visited Venice before returning to Florence. During his time in Florence he painted several portraits but the only one that survives is the famous Mona Lisa (1503-1506. In 1506 Da Vinci returned to Milan remaining there until 1513. This was followed by three years based in Rome. In 1517 at the invitation of the French king Francis I Leonardo moved to the Chateau of Cloux near Amboise in France where he died on 2 May 1519. The fame of Da Vinci’s surviving paintings has meant that he has been regarded primarily as an artist but the thousands of surviving pages of his notebooks reveal the most eclectic and brilliant of minds. He wrote and drew on subjects including geology anatomy (which he studied in order to paint the human form more accurately) flight gravity and optics often flitting from subject to subject on a single page and writing in left-handed mirror script. He invented the bicycle airplane helicopter and parachute some 500 years ahead of their time. His painting was scientific based on a deep understanding of the working of the human body and the physics of light and shade. His science was expressed through art and his drawings and diagrams show what he meant and how he understood the world to work.

Michelangelo was a painter, sculptor, architect and poet and one of the great artists of the Italian Renaissance. Michelangelo Buonarroti was born on 6 March 1475 in Caprese near Florence (Italy) where his father was the local magistrate. A few weeks after his birth, the family moved to Florence. In 1488, Michelangelo was apprenticed to the painter Domenico Ghirlandaio. He then lived in the household of Lorenzo de' Medici, the leading patron of the arts in Florence. After the Medici were expelled from Florence, Michelangelo travelled to Bologna and then, in 1496, to Rome. His primary works were sculpture in these early years. His 'Pietà' (1497) made his name and he returned to Florence a famous sculptor. Here he produced his 'David' (1501-1504).
In 1505, Pope Julius II summoned Michelangelo back to Rome and commissioned him to design Julius' own tomb. Due to quarrels between Julius and Michelangelo, and the many other demands on the artist's time, the project was never completed, although Michelangelo did produce a sculpture of Moses for the tomb.
Michelangelo's next major commission was the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican (1508-1512). It was recognised at once as a great work of art and from then on Michelangelo was regarded as Italy's greatest living artist.
The new pope, Leo X, then commissioned Michelangelo to rebuild the façade of the church of San Lorenzo in Florence. The scheme was eventually abandoned, but it marks the beginning of Michelangelo's activity as an architect. Michelangelo also designed monuments to Giuliano and Lorenzo de' Medici in the Medici Chapel in San Lorenzo.
In 1534, Michelangelo returned to Rome where he was commissioned to paint 'The Last Judgement' on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel (1537-1541). From 1546 he was increasingly active as an architect, in particular on the great church of St Peter's. He died in Rome on 18 February 1564

The Ancient World

The Roman Empire spiritual or religious beliefs

Roman Paganism
The religion of Rome

If anything, the Romans had a practical attitude to religion, as to most things, which perhaps explains why they themselves had difficulty in taking to the idea of a single, all-seeing, all-powerful god.
In so far as the Romans had a religion of their own, it was not based on any central belief, but on a mixture of fragmented rituals, taboos, superstitions, and traditions which they collected over the years from a number of sources.
To the Romans, religion was less a spiritual experience than a contractual relationship between mankind and the forces which were believed to control people's existence and well-being.
The result of such religious attitudes were two things: a state cult, the significant influence on political and military events of which outlasted the republic, and a private concern, in which the head of the family oversaw the domestic rituals and prayers in the same way as the representatives of the people performed the public ceremonials.
However, as circumstances and people's view of the world changed, individuals whose personal religious needs remained unsatisfied turned increasingly during the first century AD to the mysteries, which were of Greek origin, and to the cults of the east.

 The origins of Roman Religion

Most of the Roman gods and goddesses were a blend of several religious influences. Many were introduced via the Greek colonies of southern Italy. Many also had their roots in old religions of the Etruscans or Latin tribes.
Often the the old Etruscan or Latin name survived but the deity over time became to be seen as the Greek god of equivalent or similar nature. And so it is that the Greek and Roman pantheon look very similar, but for different names.
An example of such mixed origins is the goddess Diana to whom the Roman king Servius Tullius built the temple on the Aventine Hill. Essentially she was an old Latin goddess from the earliest of times.
Before Servius Tullius moved the center of her worship to Rome, it was based at Aricia.
There in Aricia it was always a runaway slave who would act as her priest. He would win the right to hold office by killing his predecessor. To challenge him to a fight he would though first have to manage to break off a branch of a particular sacred tree; a tree on which the current priest naturally would keep a close eye. From such obscure beginnings Diana was moved to Rome, where she then gradually became identified with the Greek goddess Artemis.
It could even occur that a deity was worshipped, for reasons no-one really could remember. An example for such a deity is Furrina. A festival was held every year in her honour on 25 July. But by the middle of the first century BC there was no-one left who actually remember what she was actually goddess of.

Prayer and Sacrifice

Most form of religious activity required some kind of sacrifice. And prayer could be a confusing matter due to some gods having multiple names or their sex even being unknown. The practice of Roman religion was a confusing thing.

Omens and Superstitions

The Roman was by nature a very superstitious person. Emperors would tremble and even legions refuse to march if the omens were bad ones.

Religion in the Home

If the Roman state entertained temples and rituals for the benefit of the greater gods, then the Romans in the privacy of their own homes also worshipped their domestic deities.

The Religion of the State

The Roman state religion was in a way much the same in essence as that of the individual home, only on a much larger and more magnificent scale.
State religion looked after the home of the Roman people, as compared to the home of an individual household. Just as the wife was supposed to guard the hearth at home, then Rome had the Vestal Virgins guard the holy flame of Rome. And if a family worshipped its lares, then, after the fall of the republic, the Roman state had its deified past Caesars which it paid tribute to.
And if the worship of a private household took place under guidance of the father, then the religion of state was in control of the pontifex maximus.

The High Offices of State Religion

If the pontifex maximus was the head of Roman state religion, then much of its organization rested with four religious colleges, whose members were appointed for life and , with a few exceptions, were selected among distinguished politicians.
The highest of these bodies was the Pontifical College, which consisted of the rex sacrorum, pontifices, flamines and the vestal virgins.
Rex sacrorum, the king of rites, was an office created under the early republic as a substitute for royal authority over religious matters. Later he might still have been the highest dignitary at any ritual, even higher than the pontifex maximus, but it became a purely honorary post.
Sixteen pontifices (priests) oversaw the organization of religious events. They kept records of proper religious procedures and the dates of festivals and days of special religious significance.
The flamines acted as priests to individual gods: three for the major gods Jupiter, Mars and Quirinus, and twelve for the lesser ones. These individual experts specialized in the knowledge of prayers and rituals specific to their particular deity.
The flamen dialis, the priest of Jupiter, was the most senior of the flamines. On certain occasions his status was equal to those of the pontifex maximus and the rex sacrorum.
Though the life of the flamen dialis was regulated by a whole host of strange rules.

The Vestal Virgins

There were six vestal virgins. All were traditionally chosen from old patrician families at a young age. They would serve ten years as novices, then ten performing the actual duties, followed by a final ten years of teaching the novices. They lived in a palatial building next to the small temple of Vesta at the Roman forum. Their foremost duty was to guard the sacred fire in the temple. Other duties included performing rituals and baking the sacred salt cake to be used at numerous ceremonies in the year.
Punishment for vestal virgins was enormously harsh. If they let the flame go out, they would be whipped. And as they had to remain virgins, their punishment for breaking their vow of chastity was to be walled up alive underground.
But the honour and privilege surrounding the vestal virgins was enormous. In fact any criminal who was condemned to death and saw a vestal virgin was automatically pardoned.
A situation which illustrates high sought after the post of vestal virgin was, is that of emperor Tiberius having to decide between two very evenly matched candidates in AD 19. He chose the daughter of one Domitius Pollio, instead of the daughter of a certain Fonteius Agrippa, explaining that he had decided so, as the latter father was divorced. However he assured the other girl of a dowry of no less than a million sesterces to console her.
Initially there was three members to the college of epulones (banqueting managers), though later their number was enlarged to seven. Their college was by far the newest, being founded only in 196 BC. The necessity for such a college obviously arose as the increasingly elaborate festivals required experts to oversee their organization.

The Foreign Cults

The survival of a religious faith depends on a continual renewal and affirmation of its beliefs, and sometimes on adapting its rituals to changes in social conditions and attitudes. To the Romans, the observance of religious rites was a public duty rather than a private impulse. their beliefs were founded on a variety of unconnected and often inconsistent mythological traditions, many of them derived from the Greek rather than Italian models.
Since Roman religion was not founded on some core belief which ruled out other religions, foreign religions found it relatively easy to establish themselves in the imperial capital itself. The first such foreign cult to make its way to Rome was the goddess Cybele around 204 BC.
From Egypt the worship of Isis and Osiris came to Rome at the beginning of the first century BC Cults such as those of Cybele or Isis and Bacchus were known as the 'mysteries', having secret rituals which were only known to those initiated into the faith.
During the reign of Julius Caesar Jews were granted freedom of worship in the city of Rome, in recognition of the Jewish forces which had helped him at Alexandria.
Also very well known is the cult of the Persian sun god Mythras which reached Rome during the first century AD and found great following among the army.
Traditional Roman religion was further undermined by the growing influence of Greek philosophy, particularly Stoicism, which suggested the idea of there being a single god.

The Beginnings of Christianity

The beginnings of Christianity are very blurry, as far as historical fact is concerned.
The birth date of Jesus himself is uncertain. (The idea of Jesus birth being the year AD 1, is due rather to a judgement made some 500 years after the even took place.)
Many point to the year 4 BC as the most likely date for Christ's birth, and yet that remains very uncertain. The year of his death is also not clearly established. It is assumed it took place between AD 26 and AD 36 (most likely though between AD 30 and AD 36), during the reign of Pontius Pilate as prefect of Judaea.
Historically speaking, Jesus of Nazareth was a charismatic Jewish leader, exorcist and religious teacher.To the Christians however he is the Messiah, the human personification of God.
Evidence of Jesus' life and effect in Palestine is very patchy. He was clearly not one of the militant Jewish zealots, and yet eventually the Roman rulers did perceive him as a security risk.
Roman power appointed the priests who were in charge of the religious sites of Palestine. And Jesus openly denounced these priests, so much is known. This indirect threat to Roman power, together with the Roman perception that Jesus was claiming to be the 'King of the Jews', was the reason for his condemnation. The Roman apparatus saw itself merely dealing with a minor problem which otherwise might have grown into a greater threat to their authority. So in essence, the reason for Jesus' crucifixion was politically motivated. However, his death was hardly noticed by Roman historians.
Jesus' death should have dealt a fatal blow to the memory of his teachings, were it not have been for the determination of his followers.
The most effective of these followers in spreading the new religious teachings was Paul of Tarsus, generally known as Saint Paul.
St Paul, who held Roman citizenship, is famed for his missionary voyages which took him from Palestine into the empire (Syria, Turkey, Greece and Italy) to spread his new religion to the non-Jews (for until then Christianity was generally understood to be a Jewish sect).
Though the actual definite outlines of the new religion of that day is largely unknown. Naturally, the general Christian ideals will have been preached, but few scriptures can possibly have been available.

Rome's Relationship with the early Christians

The Roman authorities hesitated for a long time over how to deal with this new cult. They largely appreciated this new religion as subversive and potentially dangerous.
For Christianity, with its insistence on only one god, seemed to threaten the principle of religious toleration which had guaranteed (religious) peace for so long among the people of the empire.
Most of all Christianity clashed with the official state religion of the empire, for Christians refused to perform Caesar worship. This, in the Roman mindset, demonstrated their disloyalty to their rulers.
Persecution of the Christians began with Nero's bloody repression of AD 64. This was only a rash an sporadic repression though it is perhaps the one which remains the most infamous of them all.
The first real recognition Christianity other than Nero's slaughter, was an inquiry by emperor Domitian who supposedly, upon hearing that the Christians refused to perform Caesar worship, sent investigators to Galilee to inquire on his family, about fifty years after the crucifixion.
They found some poor smallholders, including the great-nephew of Jesus, interrogated them and then released them without charge.
The fact however that the Roman emperor should take interest in this sect proves that by this time the Christians no longer merely represented an obscure little sect.
Towards the end of the first century the Christians appeared to sever all their ties with the Judaism and established itself independently.
Though with this separation form Judaism, Christianity emerged as a largely unknown religion to the Roman authorities. And Roman ignorance of this new cult bred suspicion. Rumours were abound about secretive Christian rituals; rumours of child sacrifice, incest and cannibalism.
Major revolts of the Jews in Judaea in the early second century led to great resentment of the Jews and of the Christians, who were still largely understood by the Romans to be a Jewish sect. The repressions which followed for both Christians and Jews were severe.
During the second century AD Christians were persecuted for their beliefs largely because these did not allow them to give the statutory reverence to the images of the gods and of the emperor. Also their act of worship transgressed the edict of Trajan, forbidding meetings of secret societies. To the government, it was civil disobedience. The Christians themselves meanwhile thought such edicts suppressed their freedom of worship. However, despite such differences, with emperor Trajan a period of toleration appeared to set in.
Pliny the Younger, as governor of Nithynia in AD 111, was so exercised by the troubles with the Christians that he wrote to Trajan asking for guidance on how to deal with them. Trajan, displaying considerable wisdom, replied:
' The actions you have taken, my dear Pliny, in investigating the cases of those brought before you as Christians, are correct. It is impossible to lay down a general rule which can apply to particular cases. Do not go looking for Christians. If they are brought before you and the charge is proven, they must be punished, provided that if someone denies they are Christian and gives proof of it, by offering reverence to our gods, they shall be acquitted on the grounds of repentance even if they have previously incurred suspicion. Anonymous written accusations shall be disregarded as evidence. They set a bad example which is contrary to the spirit of our times.' Christians were not actively sought out by a network of spies. Under his successor Hadrian which policy seemed to continue.
Also the fact hat Hadrian actively persecuted the Jews, but not the Christians shows that by that time the Romans were drawing a clear distinction between the two religions.
The great persecutions of AD 165-180 under Marcus Aurelius included the terrible acts committed upon the Christians of Lyons in AD 177. This period, far more than Nero's earlier rage, was which defined the Christian understanding of martyrdom.
Christianity is often portrayed as the religion of the poor and the slaves. This is not necessarily a true picture. From the beginning there appeared to have been wealthy and influential figures who at least sympathised with the Christians, even members of court.
And it appeared that Christianity maintained its appeal to such highly connected persons. Marcia, the concubine of the emperor Commodus, for example used her influence to achieve the release of Christian prisoners from the mines.

The Great Persecution - AD 303

Had Christianity generally grown and established some roots across the empire in the years following the persecution by Marcus Aurelius, then it had especially prospered from about AD 260 onwards enjoying widespread toleration by the Roman authorities.
But with the reign of Diocletian things would change. Towards the end of his long reign, Diocletian became ever more concerned about the high positions held by many Christians in Roman society and, particularly, the army.
On a visit to the Oracle of Apollo at Didyma near Miletus, he was advised by the pagan oracle to halt the rise of the Christians.
And so on 23 February AD 303, on the Roman day of the gods of boundaries, the terminalia, Diocletian enacted what was to become perhaps the greatest persecution of Christians under Roman rule.
Diocletian and, perhaps all the more viciously, his Caesar Galerius launched a serious purge against the sect which they saw as becoming far too powerful and hence, too dangerous.
In Rome, Syria, Egypt and Asia Minor (Turkey) the Christians suffered most. However, in the west, beyond the immediate grasp of the two persecutors things were far less ferocious.

Constantine the Great - Christianization of the Empire

The key moment in the establishment if Christianity as the predominant religion of the Roman empire, happened in AD 312 when emperor Constantine on the eve before battle against the rival emperor Maxentius had a vision of the sign of Christ (the so called chi-rho symbol) in a dream.
And Constantine was to have the symbol inscribed on his helmet and ordered all his soldiers (or at least those of his bodyguard) to point it on their shields.
It was after the crushing victory he inflicted on his opponent against overwhelming odds that Constantine declared he owed his victory to the god of the Christians.
However, Constantine's claim to conversion is not without controversy. There are many who see in his conversion rather the political realization of the potential power of Christianity instead of any celestial vision.
Constantine had inherited a very tolerant attitude towards Christians from his father, but for the years of his rule previous to that fateful night in AD 312 there was no definite indication of any gradual conversion towards the Christian faith. Although he did already have Christian bishops in his royal entourage before AD 312.
But however truthful his conversion might have been, it should change the fate of Christianity for good. In meetings with his rival emperor Licinius, Constantine secured religious tolerance towards Christians all over the empire.
Until AD 324 Constantine appeared to on purposely blur the distinction of which god it was he followed, the Christian god or pagan sun god Sol. Perhaps at this time he truly hadn't made up his mind yet.
Perhaps it was just that he felt his power was not yet established enough to confront the pagan majority of the empire with a Christian ruler.
However, substantial gestures were made toward the Christians very soon after the fateful Battle of the Milvian Bridge in AD 312. Already in AD 313 tax exemptions were granted to Christian clergy and money was granted to rebuild the major churches in Rome.
Also in AD 314 Constantine already engaged in a major meeting of bishops at Milan to deal with problems befalling the church in the 'Donatist schism'.
But once Constantine had defeated his last rival emperor Licinius in AD 324, the last of Constantine's restraint disappeared and a Christian emperor (or at least one who championed the Christian cause) ruled over the entire empire.
He built a vast new basilica church on the Vatican hill, where reputedly St Peter had been martyred. Other great churches were built by Constantine, such as the great St John Lateran in Rome or the reconstruction of the great church of Nicomedia which had been destroyed by Diocletian.
Apart from building great monuments to Christianity, Constantine now also became openly hostile toward the pagans. Even pagan sacrifice itself was forbidden. Pagan temples (except those of the previous official Roman state cult) had their treasures confiscated. These treasures were largely given to the Christian churches instead.
Some cults which were deemed sexually immoral by Christian standards were forbidden and their temples were razed.
Gruesomely brutal laws were introduced to enforce Christian sexual morality. Constantine was evidently not an emperor who had decided to gradually educate the people of his empire to this new religion.
Far more the empire was shocked into a new religious order.
But in the same year as Constantine achieved supremacy over the empire (and effectively over the Christian church) the Christian faith itself suffered a grave crisis. Arianism, a heresy which challenged the church's view of God (the father) and Jesus (the son), was creating a serious divide in the church.Constantine called the famous Council of Nicaea which decided the definition of the Christian deity as the Holy Trinity, God the father, God the son and God the Holy Spirit.
Had Christianity previously been unclear about its message then the Council of Nicaea (together with a later council at Constantinople in 381 AD) created a clearly defined core belief. However, the nature of its creation - a council - and the diplomatically sensitive way in defining the formula, to many suggests the creed of the Holy Trinity to be rather a political construct between theologians and politicians rather than anything achieved by divine inspiration.
It is hence often sought that the Council of Nicaea represents the Christian church becoming a more wordly institution, moving away from its innocent beginnings in its ascent to power.
The Christian church continued to grow and rise in importance under Constantine. Within his reign the cost of the church already became larger than the cost of the entire imperial civil service.
As for emperor Constantine; he bowed out in the same fashion in which he had lived, leaving it still unclear to historians today, if he truly had completely converted to Christianity, or not.
He was baptized on his deathbed. It was not an unusual practice for Christians of the day to leave their baptism for such a time. However, it still fails to answer completely to what point this was due to conviction and not for political purposes, considering the succession of his sons.

The Industrial Revolution and Empire

The reaction of ‘Romanticism’ visual artists to the industrial revolution in the 19th. Century

Romanticism (also the Romantic era or the Romantic period) was an artistic literary and intellectual movement that originated in Europe toward the end of the 18^th century and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate period from 1800 to 1850. Partly a reaction to the Industrial Revolution it was also a revolt against the aristocratic social and political norms of the Age of Enlightenment and a reaction against the scientific rationalization of nature it was embodied most strongly in the visual arts, music and literature but had a major impact on historiography, education and the natural sciences. Its effect on politics was considerable and complex while for much of the peak Romantic period it was associated with liberalism and radicalism its long-term effect on the growth of nationalism was probably more significant. And argued for a natural epistemology of human activities as conditioned by nature in the form of language and customary usage. Romanticism reached beyond the rational and Classicist ideal models to raise a revived medievalism and elements of art and narrative perceived to be authentically medieval in an attempt to escape the confines of population growth urban sprawl and industrialism. Romanticism embraced the exotic the unfamiliar and the distant in modes more authentic than Rococo chinoiserie harnessing the power of the imagination to envision and escape. Although the movement was rooted in the German movement which prized intuition and emotion over the rationalism of the Enlightenment the events of and ideologies that led to the French Revolution planted the seeds from which both Romanticism and the Counter-Enlightenment sprouted. The confines of the Industrial Revolution also had their influence on Romanticism which was in part an escape from modern realities. Indeed in the second half of the 19^th century Realism was offered as a Polarized opposite to Romanticism. Romanticism assigned a high value to the achievements of heroic individualists and artists whose pioneering examples it maintained would raise the quality of society. It also vouched for the individual imagination as a critical authority allowed of freedom from classical notions of form in art. There was a strong recourse to historical and natural inevitability a Zeitgeist in the representation of its ideas. Defining the nature of Romanticism may be approached from the starting point of the primary importance of the free expression of the feelings of the artist. The importance the Romantics placed on untrammeled feeling is summed up in the remark of the German painter Casper David Friedrich that the artist’s feeling is his law. To William Wordsworth poetry should be the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings. In order to truly express these feelings the content of the art must come from the imagination of the artist with as little interference as possible from artificial rules dictating what a work should consist of Coleridge was not alone in believing that there were natural laws governing these matters which the imagination at least of a good creative artist would freely and unconsciously follow through artistic inspiration if left alone to do so as well as rules the influence of models from other works would impede the creator’s own imagination so originality was absolutely essential. The concept of the genius or artist who was able to produce his own original work through this process of creation from nothingness is key to Romanticism and to be derivative was the worst sin. This idea is often called romantic originality. Not essential to Romanticism but so widespread as to be normative was a strong belief and interest in the importance of nature. However this is particularly in the effect of nature upon the artist when he is surrounded by it preferably alone. In contrast to the usually very social art of the Enlightenment Romantics were distrustful of the human world and tended to believe that a close connection with nature was mentally and morally healthy. Romantic art addressed its audiences directly and personally with what was intended to be felt as the personal voice of the artist. So in literature much of According to Isaiah Berlin Romanticism embodied a new and restless spirit seeking violently to burst through old and cramping forms a nervous preoccupation with perpetually changing inner states of conscious a longing for the unbounded and the indefinable for perpetual movement and change an effort to return to the forgotten sources of life a passionate effort at self-assertion both individual and collective a search after means of expressing an unappeasable yearning for unattainable goals. The group of words with the root Roman in the various European language such as romance and Romanesque has a complicated history but by the middle of the 18^th century romantic in English and romantique in French were both in common use as adjective of praise for natural phenomena such as views and sunsets in a sense close to modern English usage but without the implied sexual element   The application of the term to literature first became common in Germany, where the circle around the Schlegel brothers, critics August and Friedrich, began to speak of romantische Poesie ("romantic poetry") in the 1790s, contrasting it with "classic" but in terms of spirit rather than merely dating. Friedrich Schlegel wrote in his Dialogue on Poetry (1800), "I seek and find the romantic among the older moderns, in Shakespeare, in Cervantes, in Italian poetry, in that age of chivalry, love and fable, from which the phenomenon and the word itself are derived."^[17] In both French and German the closeness of the adjective to roman, meaning the fairly new literary form of the novel, had some effect on the sense of the word in those languages. The use of the word did not become general very quickly, and was probably spread more widely in France by its persistent use by Madame de Staël in her De L'Allemagne (1813), recounting her travels in Germany.^[18] In England Wordsworth wrote in a preface to his poems of 1815 of the "romantic harp" and "classic lyre",^[18] but in 1820 Byron could still write, perhaps slightly disingenuously, "I perceive that in Germany, as well as in Italy, there is a great struggle about what they call 'Classical' and 'Romantic', terms which were not subjects of classification in England, at least when I left it four or five years ago". It is only from the 1820s that Romanticism certainly knew itself by its name, and in 1824 the Académie française took the wholly ineffective step of issuing a decree condemning it in literature.
Unsurprisingly, given its rejection on principle of rules, Romanticism is not easily defined, and the period typically called Romantic varies greatly between different countries and different artistic media or areas of thought. Margaret Drabble described it in literature as taking place "roughly between 1770 and 1848",^[21] and few dates much earlier than 1770 will be found. In English literature, M. H. Abrams placed it between 1789, or 1798, this latter a very typical view, and about 1830, perhaps a little later than some other critics.^[22] In other fields and other countries the period denominated as Romantic can be considerably different; musical Romanticism, for example, is generally regarded as only having ceased as a major artistic force as late as 1910, but in an extreme extension the Four Last Songs of Richard Strauss are described stylistically as "Late Romantic" and were composed in 1946–48.^[23] However in most fields the Romantic Period is said to be over by about 1850, or earlier.
The early period of the Romantic Era was a time of war, with the French Revolution (1789–1799) followed by the Napoleonic Wars until 1815. These wars, along with the political and social turmoil that went along with them, served as the background for Romanticism.^[24] The key generation of French Romantics born between 1795–1805 had, in the words of one of their number, Alfred de Vigny, been "conceived between battles, attended school to the rolling of drums".
The more precise characterization and specific definition of Romanticism has been the subject of debate in the fields of intellectual history and literary history throughout the 20th century, without any great measure of consensus emerging. That it was part of the Counter-Enlightenment, a reaction against the Age of Enlightenment, is generally accepted. Its relationship to the French Revolution which began in 1789 in the very early stages of the period, is clearly important, but highly variable depending on geography and individual reactions. Most Romantics can be said to be broadly progressive in their views, but a considerable number always had, or developed, a wide range of conservative views,^[26] and nationalism was in many countries strongly associated with Romanticism, as discussed in detail below.
In philosophy and the history of ideas, Romanticism was seen by Isaiah Berlin as disrupting for over a century the classic Western traditions of rationality and the very idea of moral absolutes and agreed values, leading "to something like the melting away of the very notion of objective truth",and hence not only to nationalism, but also fascism and totalitarianism, with a gradual recovery coming only after the catharsis of World War II.For the Romantics, Berlin says,
in the realm of ethics, politics, aesthetics it was the authenticity and sincerity of the pursuit of inner goals that mattered; this applied equally to individuals and groups — states, nations, movements. This is most evident in the aesthetics of romanticism, where the notion of eternal models, a Platonic vision of ideal beauty, which the artist seeks to convey, however imperfectly, on canvas or in sound, is replaced by a passionate belief in spiritual freedom, individual creativity. The painter, the poet, the composer do not hold up a mirror to nature, however ideal, but invent; they do not imitate (the doctrine of mimesis), but create not merely the means but the goals that they pursue; these goals represent the self-expression of the artist's own unique, inner vision, to set aside which in response to the demands of some "external" voice — church, state, public opinion, family friends, arbiters of taste — is an act of betrayal of what alone justifies their existence for those who are in any sense creative. In northern Europe, the Early Romantic visionary optimism and belief that the world was in the process of great change and improvement had largely vanished, and some art became more conventionally political and polemical as its creators engaged polemically with the world as it was. Elsewhere, including in very different ways the United States and Russia, feelings that great change was underway or just about to come were still possible. Displays of intense emotion in art remained prominent, as did the exotic and historical settings pioneered by the Romantics, but experimentation with form and technique was generally reduced, often replaced with meticulous technique, as in the
poems of Tennyson or many paintings. If not realist, late 19th-century art was often extremely detailed, and pride was taken in adding authentic details in a way that earlier Romantics did not trouble with. Many Romantic ideas about the nature and purpose of art, above all the pre-eminent importance of originality, continued to be important for later generations, and often underlie modern views, despite opposition from theorists.
In literature, Romanticism found recurrent themes in the evocation or criticism of the past, the cult of "sensibility" with its emphasis on women and children, the heroic isolation of the artist or narrator, and respect for a new, wilder, untrammeled and "pure" nature. Furthermore, several romantic authors, such as Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne, based their writings on the supernatural/occult and human psychology. Romanticism tended to regard satire as something unworthy of serious attention, a prejudice still influential today.

The Second World War and the 1950s

Photomontage and Anti- Nazi Propaganda

In the 1930s the Nazi’s were gaining ground in Europe. Many chose to ignore or had a laissez faire attitude to the National Socialist policy of expansionism known as Lebensraum or the threat of war what Germany now posed to the world. A German citizen born Helmut Herzfeld was one who chose to criticize the regime through art. He produced a remarkable series of photomontages (decades before Photoshop it should be noted) the audacity of which can still astonish today. Bismarck had stated that the German people would be reformed through a combination of blood and iron Hartfield’s 1939 photomontage shows exactly how this was to be interpreted in reality. Heartfield had always been a reactionary when it came to German nationalism. Born in 1891as Helmut Herzfield he saw the horrors of the First World War first hand. Although propaganda was rife and rabid on both sides he made the extraordinary move of anglicizing his name in 1916 in the middle of the war to protest against such nationalism. The real motive for Hitler’s strange hold on political power in the thirties was something that was utterly transparent to Heartfield was diametrically opposed to the extreme right wing National Socialism (Nazism) that swept Germany (although it borrowed policies from both left and right wing) It was after founding a satirical magazine Die Pleite that he met Brecht. Later he would work for the weekly AIZ (published in exile of course this sort of thing would never have been allowed inside The Fatherland) It was for AIZ that he produced most of his photomontage work. Although some of his work may seem a little primitive in our days of Photoshop the meaning of Heartfield’s 1939 work. Heartfield had to remove himself from Germany (in fact at the beginning of the Nazi Regime) as this sort of political satire would no doubt have earned him a visit in the night and a trip to a concentration camp. He left Germany in1933 the year Hitler came to power and relocated to nearby Czechoslovakia. Perhaps a little too close for comfort. After the defeat of Hitler and Nazism Heartfield returned to Germany and lived out the rest of his days in East Berlin. His life and works were commemorated on a postage stamp. During the later years he worked closely with a variety of theater directors and in 1967he visited London to prepare for a retrospective of his work. Unfortunately he died before this happened but his widow completed the work for the exhibition and it was shown at the ICA in 1969.  

1920-35 in Europe and Russia

Surrealism and Sexuality in 1920s Art, Photography

Surrealist feasted on the unconscious. They believed that Freud’s theories on dreams, ego, superego and the id opened doors to the authentic self and a truer reality the surreal. Like the Dadaists they relished the possibilities of chance and spontaneity. Their leader the Pope of Surrealism was French writer Andre Breton (1896-1966) who joined fellow writers Philippe Soupault, Louis Aragon, Paul Eluard and Robert Denos (among many others) in their appreciation of nineteenth-century bad boys Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891) and Isidore Ducasse (whose pseudonym was Comet de Lautremont 1848-1870) expresses the Surrealist spirit concisely the chance of meeting on a dissecting-table of a sewing- machine and an umbrella. For the Surrealists the idea of skill from training was understood. Their philosophy was to let go of the constraints of learned skills and tradition methods of making art. They sought out children’s art naïf art (for example Henri Rousseau) primitive art and outsider art (such as the art made by patients in mental institutions) to stoke the fires of their almost incoherent inventions