Art at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries in the context of recurring epochs: New sensitivity in the artistic sphere as a challenge. Part 1

The article represents the first part of a research project that attempts to record, within history, the rises and falls in the emotional life of society, particularly in its collective forms. Therefore, the author primarily provides examples from the spectacular forms of artistic life, specifically theater. Up until a certain time, this subject was recorded exclusively by art historians who investigated individual events within art history. Their narrow specialization, however, led to the emotional life being associated solely with universal artistic styles (Gothic, Classicism, Baroque, etc.). No other theory existed in this sense. The emergence of sciences such as anthropology and social psychology makes it possible to systematize the scattered facts collected by art historians. From approximately the 19th century onwards, with the formation of mass society, emotional life begins to manifest itself in forms whose meaning cannot be reduced to artistic styles. Moreover, the reasons for the shift in emotional life, occurring under the influence of urbanization, are no longer solely connected to artistic factors. However, these reasons begin to significantly determine the functioning of art. They lie outside of art but influence it nonetheless. Observations of art allow us to understand a certain logic in the upswings and downswings of emotional life at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. These reasons were also found in biology.