Humanitas 

Frantisek Kupka made this drawing called "Humanitas" using ink and pencil sometime in the late 19th or early 20th century. The allegory is clear enough: a figure of enlightenment, wearing a classical helmet and bearing a shield decorated with a monstrous face, gestures toward a temple of Humanitas. But we might ask, what exactly is Kupka trying to say about enlightenment and social progress? Consider the time in which he was working. Kupka, born in Bohemia, was living in Paris during the Belle Epoque, a period of optimism about the future. Here, though, progress is depicted as a struggle against dark forces. The leaders of society are weighed down by the burden of a demonic image, which seems to reflect the artist’s ambivalence about the notion of social progress. Art historians consult primary source materials from the time, such as political pamphlets, newspapers, and scientific journals, to more fully understand the context in which art like this was produced.