Molieire's 'tartuffe' And 17th Century Art And Scientific Thought
The seventeenth century brought the era of the scientific revolution, perhaps the most important change in the history of science. The philosophers started to wonder how things happened. The 'new method', a new attitude towards science, consists in investigating nature with one's own senses and detecting scientific observations and explain it using mathematical models. Experimentation and the hypothetical-deductive method started gaining popularity.
Galileo lead the changing on the traditional thinking with the invention of the telescope. After his dead, Newton, revolutionized the physics with the discovery of gravity. The evolution of Science was also supported by thoughts contributed by Descartes and Bacon. Cartesian rationalism supported the generalization of the mathematical method and the mechanistic view of the universe but did not believe in experimentation and distrusted the senses. On the other hand, Francis Bacon was an eloquent advocate of the inductive method and experimentation. Other thinkers followed the line of rationalism, from Spinoza to Locke and Leibnitz, notably promoting some areas of knowledge.
In the seventeenth century, science was centered in Italy for more than a century, but it suffered a shift towards other geographical areas motivated by sociological reasons. Germanic countries and Anglo-Saxon countries begin to make specific contributions. On the other hand, scientist societies started growing. The first society, the Secretorum Naturae Academy is founded in 1580 in Naples. Later the Accademia del Cimento (Florence 1657), the Royal Society of London (London 1662, although under the influence of the University of Oxford).
In addition, in painting, it is what is known as the Spanish Golden Age because of the high quality of the paintings, giving rise to the most important artists of all time. The main clients of the baroque painting were the court, the church and the aristocracy, an art that was also under the supervision of the Holy Inquisition, that is why is this era there was a shortage of paintings of this type of mythological genre. Some of the characteristics of this paintings were that they were mainly religious, although we will also see some portraits and some mythological themes. Spanish painters were characterized by not showing much interest in the composition except for Velázquez and Ribera. In the beginning, the artists were characterized by the tenebrism of Caravaggio.
An honorable mention of seventeenth century art, is Moliere’s Tartuffe that demonstrates in a fun and light way a very transcendental theme. It is a perfectly clear and assimilable story in his way of saying things, and also has a direct message, which is not to be manipulated by these hypocrites.
In this work Moliere produces an agile and entertaining story, where situations are very well worked, and the argument is developed effectively. The character creation work is masterful, and we realize this from the first scene, where the author portrays the characteristics and their personalities one by one. The historical context in which the work is framed, and its author is the XVII, specifically, his second half, marked by the absolute monarchy of Louis XIV, the 'sun king.' It is a time of internal political tensions that occurred in 1650 in which some nobles attempt to rebel against the king.
