Age of the Enlightenment

It was a noticeable transition from the baroque period to the age of enlightenment as this period was highly concerned about social order. Basically, during this period everyone was expected to submit to the social order. Also it is crucial to point out that reason was extremely important and advocated throughout this period in western history. Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s ‘Confessions’ was an interesting reading for me from this era as he documents his childhood experiences in this masterpiece. As an autobiography, it captured my attention because his work focused on himself and his personal feelings about various experiences he went through in his life. It was interesting to me to comprehend the author’s personal feelings put in his own words. As for the art work, I felt that the portrait of King Louis by Hyacinthe Rigaud to be extremely captivating because his posture was just really unusual. Also, his body was a little distorted to look at in the portrait. For the last discipline, I enjoyed listening to Beethoven’s ‘Symphony No.9’ and it stood out to me because it was the first symphony to use voices in it. The period trait that was expressed in the work of ‘Confessions’ was Directness /Accessibility and the theme in the literature was the concept of ‘self’. Because the author focuses on himself, his ideals, his philosophies and personal feelings about the things in the world. He doesn’t take anyone’s inputs but his own and explains his ideology to his readers through that. The period trait expressed in the portrait of King Louis was Critique of reason and the theme that spoke to it was the concept of ‘self’. He cared about himself as a ruler and did not give in to the opinions of his fellowmen. As for the music piece, the period trait that was expressed was rational humanism and the theme that spoke to the piece was the nature of reason as Beethoven was one of the prominent composers in his era to advocate reason into his profession. (336)