Early 19th Century Art
Romanticism and Realism
and Neoclassicism
Romanticism
Romanticism is a complex artistic, literary, and
intellectual movement that originated in the second
half of the 18th century in Western Europe.
In part, it was a revolt against aristocratic social and
political norms of the Age of Enlightenment and a
reaction against the scientific rationalization of
nature, and was embodied most strongly in the
visual arts, music, and literature.
Stokstad notes that both Neoclasscism and
Romanticism remained vital in early 19th century
European and American art.
Romanticism
The movement validated strong emotion as an
authentic source of aesthetic experience, placing
new emphasis on such emotions as trepidation,
terror, horror and awe—especially that which is
experienced in confronting the sublimity of
untamed nature and its picturesque qualities,
both new aesthetic categories.
In European painting, led by a new generation of
the French school, the Romantic sensibility
contrasted with the Neoclassicism being taught
in the academies.
How do we read the paintings that fall
into this middle space between
Neoclassicism and Romanticism?
How should we describe them?
What characteristics can we identify?
War,
History Painting,
and Napoleon
Jacques-Louis David
Napoleon Crossing the
Saint Bernard
1800-1801
oil on canvas
• What is written on the
rocks in the lower left?
• How did Napoleon
actually cross the Alps?
• What makes this image
Neoclassical?
• What makes this image
suggestive of
Romanticism?
• How is the composition
influenced by the
Baroque?
• How is the composition
here profoundly different
from the composition of
The Oath of the Horatii
(1784)?
Jacques-Louis David
The Oath of the Horatii
1784
Napoleon Crossing the Saint Bernard 1800-1801
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres
Napoleon I on the Imperial Throne
1806
oil on canvas
Ingres’ teacher was David.
Antoine-Jean Gros
Napoleon in the Plague House at Jaffa
1804 oil on canvas
Gros’ teacher was David.
This image is very emblematic of
Romantic paintings.
Antoine-Jean Gros
The Battle of Abukir
1806
oil on canvas
Antoine-Jean Gros
Napoleon Bonaparte on the Battlefield of Eylau, 1807
1808 oil on canvas
Eugene Delacroix
Scenes from the Massacre
at Chios
1822-1824
oil on canvas
Goya
Francisco de Goya Y Lucientes
The Third of May, 1808:
The Execution of the Defenders
of Madrid
1814
oil on canvas
Jacques-Louis David
The Death of Marat
1793
oil on canvas
Goya Francisco de Goya Y Lucientes
Chained Prisoner
1806-12
indian ink wash
Goya Francisco de Goya Y Lucientes
Family of Charles IV
1800
oil on canvas
Las Meninas
or
The Family of Philip IV
Diego Velázquez
1656-1657
oil on canvas
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres
Monsieur Bertin
1832
oil on canvas
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres
Princess de Broglie
1851-53
oil on canvas
Orientalism and Ingres
Orientalism is a term used to identify works of art made by European artists
which depict Middle Eastern subjects. Orientalism is widely used in art to
refer to the works of the many Western 19th century artists, who specialized
in "Oriental" subjects, often drawing on their travels to Western Asia and/or
the Middle East.
Edward Said (Orientalism, 1978) argues that European artists tend to
essentialize their Middle Eastern subjects. To essentialize means to present
a subject or a culture as monolithic or one-dimensional. To essentialize
means to represent something in terms of what are believed to be its
“essential” elements. Usually this sort of representation reveals more about
the maker of the image than about the actual subject.
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres
Large Odalisque
1814 oil on canvas
Why could we consider this work “mannerist?”
Why is this work exemplary of the style taught by the French Academy?
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres
The Bather
1808
oil on canvas
Jean-Auguste-Dominique
Ingres
The Turkish Bath
1862
oil on canvas on
wood
Jean-Auguste-Dominique
Ingres
Large Odalisque
1814
How are these two images similar?
Jacques-Louis David
Madame Récamier
1800
Romantic and Realist Landscapes
Question: What is the artist using the landscape to accomplish? How can
the viewer tell? What visual evidence is there?
Romanticism
Usually Romantic works have dramatic and intensely emotional subject matter
but Romantic landscapes also often also meant to convey the artist’s almost
religious reverence for the landscape—which became increasingly important as
a industrial revolution intensified.
Romantic landscape painting is
dramatic
• the content emphasizes turbulent
or fantastic natural scenery
• disasters
• the sublime (something that
inspires awe)
Romantic painting is
characterized by
•
•
•
•
•
naturalistic
• the content represents tranquil
nature
• the content signals a religious
reverence toward nature
fluid, loose brushwork
strong colors
complex compositions
powerful contrasts of light
and dark
expressive poses and
gestures
Joseph Mallord William Turner
Fisherman at Sea 1796 oil on canvas
Joseph Mallord William Turner
Snow Storm: Hannibal and his Army Crossing the Alps
1812 oil on canvas
Joseph Mallord
William Turner
Peace--Burial at
Sea
1842
oil on canvas
Caspar David Friedrich Monk by the Sea
1809
oil on canvas
He felt like many Romantics that “God was manifest in the landscape and
that art was the ideal mediator between the divinity in nature and the individual” (Stokstad , 993).
Poet on a Mountaintop
Shen Zhou
Ming dynasty, c.1500
leaf from an album
Caspar David Friedrich The Abbey in the Oakwood
1810
oil on canvas
Thomas Cole
The Oxbow
1836
Oil on canvas
Thomas Cole The Oxbow
(The Connecticut River near Northampton) 1836
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot
Ville d'Avray
1867
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot
The Bridge at Mantes
1868-70
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot
Mill at Saint-Nicolas-les-Arras 1874
Types of Paintings
•religious images
•portraits
•history paintings
•still lifes
•genre* (scenes from every day life)
* Genre painting is a fairly new development at the end of
the 16th century (1580’s).
Religious Images
Goya
The Holy Family
1780
oil on canvas
Portraits
Goya
Portrait of the Duchess of Alba
1797
oil on canvas
History Paintings
Goya The Third of May, 1808: The Execution of the Defenders of Madrid
1814 oil on canvas
Still Lifes
Goya
Dead Birds
1808
oil on canvas
Genre
Goya
The Snowstorm
1786
oil on canvas