The evolution of society that was studied spanned from the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment, we can trace society through a state of primal to rebirth to illuminated. In the Middle Ages people were poor, uneducated, dominated by the church. The church is what the majority of the society relied on for the promise of a heaven, because there present lives were not very good or worth living. The Middle Ages or the Dark Ages had a society that was also filled with death due to the Black Plague that ravaged all of Europe. The consumption of death can be seen in the painting "Death of the Miser", where there are the dark colors present, the ever present death, church objects like the crucifix, a munk, and an angel. After the Dark aged comes the Renaissance which is described as a rebirth or revival.The Renaissance was known as the revival because it was when Greek and Roman philosophy, art, history, and gods, were reintroduced into society. An example of this is the "Birth of Venus" it shows to new style of painting that is more three dimensional and shows the depiction of the Roman goddess Venus. Also the philosophy of Humanism arose and became popular because it focuses on the human and the individual and human values. Slowly the shift of focus moves from the people to the individual and the present life not an afterlife.Finally after the Renaissance cames the Enlightenment where society was illuminated with all the new philosophies, arts, and music. This age started when philosophies came about on how to improve society and the government and that humans were naturally good. The novel Candide is an example of the philosophies circling around at the time, one of them was that this world was the best of all worlds. This shows how the society went from focusing on the after to life because the life was hard to thinking that this is the best of all worlds.
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