Movements

The Gilded Age embodied the eclectic and pluralistic efforts of a nation searching for order and identity during a time of great change in industrialism and social class, and found it in an appropriated array of Old World and neoclassical styles that reinforced ideals of American cultural progress. Within the highlights of this section, one will find the Avant-Garde and the Society of Independent Artists, emphasizing artistic diversity, personal experience, experimentation, and the unity of high and low culture; The Etching Revival: Whistler, Pennell, and Keppel; and The Eight, a movement created by a group of artists to portray the daily realities of urban life and poverty in American society during an era represented by opulence and high classical art.