The Gilded Age takes its name from a Mark Twain novel published in 1873 called The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today. A "golden age" is, typically, an era in which great advancements are made, and mankind's best qualities, including morals, are at their peak. Gilding, the practice of covering inferior material with a thin layer of gold leaf, implies a false, deceptive facade. Twain recognized the failures of the Reconstruction period when the...
The Gilded Age takes its name from a Mark Twain novel published in 1873 called The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today. A "golden age" is, typically, an era in which great advancements are made, and mankind's best qualities, including morals, are at their peak. Gilding, the practice of covering inferior material with a thin layer of gold leaf, implies a false, deceptive facade. Twain recognized the failures of the Reconstruction period when the divide between the wealthy and poor grew substantially. He saw that despite the outward appearance of affluence, the country was in trouble and that relatively few were prospering while others suffered.
The "Ashcan School" takes its name from a 1915 George Bellows drawing entitled "Disappointments of the Ash Can" and encompasses a small group of American realist artists who focused on the details of urban life in New York City. Their nominal leader was Robert Henri, and he and artists William Glackens, George Luks, Everett Shinn, John Sloan, and Bellows, some of whom had been newspaper illustrators, sought to unsentimentally record urban lives, including those of the lower classes. Their movement was, in part, opposition to the popular Impressionistic style and subject matter of the time.
What the two periods have in common in American cultural history is a shared commitment to realism.
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