American International Journal of Social Science

The Shift from Objectivity to Subjectivity: Movement, Intellect, and Art in Nineteenth-Century Realism and Twentieth-Century Modernism
Lindsey M. Jesnek

Abstract
This paper provides a brief overview of the major social, political, economic, and artistic changes that led to two significant movements in history: the shift from Romanticism to Realism and the shift from Realism to Modernism. A qualitative analysis is conducted of a thinker, an artist, and a socio-political ideology of each historical movement in order to reflect the changes that ultimately became the impetus for the establishment of a new historical period. These analyses will reveal that one of the most drastic thematic shifts between the Realism period and the Modernism period concerns cultural point of view; while Realists were intensely loyal to objectivity, Modernists began to fervently invest in the subjectivity of the individual.

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