The age of enlightenment started in Western Europe in the 18th century. It was an intellectual movement focused on reason and science in philosophy and the study of human culture and the natural world. People at this time believed that knowledge leads to fulfillment and happiness and that religion was only superstition. Science requires proof therefore it can be believed unlike superstitious religion.
An Experiment on a Bird in an Air Pump by Joseph Wright of Derby, 1768
Not everyone agreed with the age of enlightenment (or also known as the age of reason). Reason was about law, order and hierarchy. Philosophers Vico and Herder could see the problems, the rationalists needed the irrational to survive. After all you can’t have rational without irrational and so Gothic was born.
Gothic loved rebelling established authority, it was the opposite to the age of reason. Gothic focused on subjects such as power, decay, dread, anti God’s law, schlock, melodrama, mistrust and sado-masochism.
Decay
In architecture a fascination for old ruins and new ruins made to look old. Then moral decay, bodily ruin and emotional ruin. Ethical decay, today we have graffiti, terrorist bombings and ruins of shops and businesses failing.
Saturn Devouring His Son – Francisco de Goya y Lucientes 1821
Dread
Dread was believed to encourage fear and therefore respect. The Gothic embraced autocracy. It thrived on monsters, vampires and the evil within. The opposite to what the age of reason wanted.
The Nightmare – Henry Fuseli – 1781
Anti God’s Law and Sado-masochism
Fetishist decoration and mutilation of the natural order. Domination and submission, master and slave, superiority and inferiority.
We are Making a new World- Paul Nash 1918
Juliette a novel written by the Marquis de Sade. Published 1797
Schlock
The gothic style perused schlock for its own distinct atmosphere, vocabulary and furniture.
Melodrama & Mistrust
Dramatic, theatrical, fantastical and staged. Gothic yet again is everything that the Enlightenment age was trying to avoid. Everything is false, nothing is real or what it seems to be.
Sleeping Venus – Paul Delvaux 1944
Sardine Cans & Camembert 