The Enlightenment and Its Legacy:
Neoclassicism and Romanticism
Gardner’s Art History on the Internet
Voltaire: Champion of
Enlightenment Thought
Houdon's marble bust shows Voltaire,
whose writings and critical activism
contributed to the conviction that
fundamental changes were necessary
in government in order for
humankind to progress.
Jean Antoine Houdon, Voltaire,
1781. Marble, life size. Victoria
and Albert Museum, London.
A Compendium
of Knowledge:
The comprehensive
compilation of articles and
illustrations in the
Encyclopédie provided access
to all available knowledge.
The Comte de Buffon's
Natural History provided a
kind of encyclopedia of the
natural sciences.
The Wonders of the Universe: An Experiment on a Bird in the Air
Pump 1768 WRIGHT of Derby, Joseph 1734 - 1797
Bridging the Ages with Iron: Abraham Darby III and Thomas F. Pritchard
designed and built the first cast-iron bridge. The bridge's exposed cast-iron
structure prefigures the skeletal use of iron and steel in the nineteenth century.
Coalbrookdale, England 1776–1779. 100' span.
VOLTAIRE VERSUS ROUSSEAU: SCIENCE
VERSUS THE TASTE FOR THE "NATURAL"
While Voltaire thought the salvation of humanity was
in science's advancement and in society's rational
improvement, Jean-Jacques Rousseau believed that the
arts, sciences, society, and civilization in general had
corrupted "natural man" and that humanity's only
salvation was to return to its original condition.
The Sentimentality of Rural Romance: The expression of sentiment is apparent in
Jean-Baptiste Greuze's much-admired painting of The Village Bride, which shows a
peasant family in a rustic interior. 1761. Oil on canvas, 3' x 3' 101/2". Louvre, Paris.
The Charm of the
Commonplace:
Jean-Baptiste-Siméon
Chardin's Grace at Table,
which shows an unpretentious
urban, middle-class mother
and two daughters at table
giving thanks to God before a
meal, satisfied a taste for
paintings that taught moral
lessons and upheld middleclass values.
Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin,
Grace at Table, 1740. Oil on
canvas, 1' 7" x 1' 3". Louvre,
Paris.
Portrait of a Woman
Artist:
Élisabeth Louise Vigée-Lebrun's
naturalistic Self-Portrait shows
the self-confident artist in a
light-hearted mood.
Élisabeth Louise Vigée-Lebrun,
Self-Portrait, 1790. Oil on canvas,
8' 4" x 6' 9". Galleria degli Uffizi,
Florence.
William Hogarth Breakfast Scene, from Marriage à la Mode, ca. 1745. Oil on canvas,
approx. 2' 4" x 3'. National Gallery, London.
Grand Manner
Portraiture:
Thomas Gainsborough's
portrait, painted in a softhued light and with
feathery brushwork,
shows Mrs. Richard
Brinsley Sheridan
dressed informally and
seated in a rustic natural
landscape of unspoiled
beauty.
Thomas Gainsborough, Mrs. Richard
Brinsley Sheridan, ca. 1785. Oil on
canvas, approx. 7' 2" x 5'. National
Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
The Virtues of Honor
and Valor:
Honor, valor, courage,
resolution, self-sacrifice,
and patriotism were
included among the
"natural" virtues that
produced great people and
great deeds.
Defending the Rock of
Gibraltar:
Sir Joshua Reynolds's
painting shows an honest
English officer who was
honored for his heroic
defense of Gibraltar with the
title Baron Heathfield of
Gibraltar.
Sir Joshua Reynolds, Lord Heathfield,
1787. Oil on canvas, approx. 4' 8" x 3' 9".
National Gallery, London.
The Taste for the "Natural" in the United States
Benjamin West, The Death of General Wolfe, 1771. Oil on canvas, approx. 5' x 7'.
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (gift of the Duke of Westminster, 1918).
Paul Revere, Silversmith:
A sense of directness and
faithfulness to visual fact is
conveyed in John
Singleton Copley's
Portrait of Paul Revere,
which shows the figure
informally posed in a plain
setting with clear lighting.
John Singleton Copley, Portrait
of Paul Revere, ca. 1768-1770.
Oil on canvas, 2' 11" x 2' 41/2".
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Setting the Stage for
Neoclassicism in Art
A Roman Example of Virtue:
Angelica Kauffmann contributed to the
replacement of "natural" pictures with
simple figure types, homely situations,
and contemporary settings with subject
matter of an exemplary nature drawn
from Greek and Roman history and
literature.
Angelica Kauffmann
Self Portrait
1787
oil on canvas
Uffizi Gallery, Florence
Jacques-Louis David, Oath of the Horatii, 1784. Oil on
canvas, approx. 11' x 14'. Louvre, Paris.
Art in the Service of Revolution:
The Oath of the Tennis Court, 1791. Graphite, ink, sepia, heightened with white on
paper, 65 cm x 105 cm. Musée national du Château de Versailles, France.
A Martyred Revolutionary:
In a spare Neoclassical
composition, David painted
the assassinated revolutionary
Jean-Paul Marat as a tragic
martyr who died in the
service of the state.
Jacques-Louis David, The Death of
Marat, 1793. Oil on canvas, approx. 5'
3" x 4' 1". Musées Royaux des BeauxArts de Belgique, Brussels.
Roman Grandeur in
France:
Jacques-Germain
Soufflot's grand design
for the Neoclassical
portico of SainteGeneviève, now the
Panthéon, in Paris, was
inspired by the Roman
ruins at Baalbek in Syria.
Jacques-Germain Soufflot, the
Panthéon (Sainte-Geneviève),
Paris, 1755–1792.
A Napoleonic "Temple of Glory": La Madeleine was intended to serve as a "temple of
glory" for Napoleon's armies and a monument to the newly won glories of France. Pierre
Vignon, La Madeleine, Paris, 1807–1842.
The Emperor's Sister as Goddess: Napoleon's favorite sculptor, Antonio Canova, carved a
sharply detailed marble portrait of Napoleon's sister, Pauline Borghese, as Venus shown
reclining in a sensuous pose on a divan. Antonio Canova, Pauline Borghese as Venus, 1808.
Marble, life size. Galleria Borghese, Rome.
Invoking Palladio: Richard Boyle (Earl of Burlington) and William Kent, Chiswick
House, near London, begun 1725. British Crown Copyright.
A Resort Town of Palladian Splendor: John Wood the Younger's plan for
the Royal Crescent in Bath links thirty houses into rows behind a single,
continuous, majestic Palladian façade in a great semi-ellipse. The Royal
Crescent, Bath, England, 1769–1775.
Adapting Pompeian Décor: Robert Adam's delicate Pompeian design of the Etruscan Room at
Osterley Park House is symmetrical and rectilinear. Decorative motifs, such as medallions, urns, vine
scrolls, sphinxes, and tripods derived from Roman art are sparsely arranged within broad, neutral
spaces and slender margins. Osterley Park House, Middlesex, England, begun 1761.
Thomas Jefferson,
Monticello,
Charlottesville,
Virginia, 1770–1806.
Benjamin Latrobe, Model for The Capitol, 1806
George Washington
as Greek God?
Horatio Greenough's
monumental Neoclassical
statue of George
Washington shows the
first president as a halfnaked pagan god.
Horatio Greenough,
George Washington,
1832–1841. Marble,
approx. 11' 4" high.
National Museum of
American Art,
Smithsonian Institution,
Washington, D.C.
FROM NEOCLASSICISM TO ROMANTICISM
Jacques-Louis David's stature and prominence as an artist and
his commitment to classicism attracted numerous students,
including Antoine-Jean Gros, Anne-Louis Girodet-Trioson, and
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. Although they were deeply
influenced by David, these artists also moved beyond the
somewhat structured confines of Neoclassicism in their
exploration of the exotic and the erotic and in the use of fictional
narratives for the subjects of their paintings.
Antoine-Jean Gros, Napoleon at the Pesthouse at Jaffa, 1804. Oil on
canvas, approx. 17' 5" x 23' 7". Louvre, Paris.
Anne-Louis Girodet-Trioson, The Burial of Atala, 1808. Oil on canvas,
approx. 6' 11" x 8' 9". Louvre, Paris.
Combining the Ideal with the Exotic: However, Ingres also departed from
Neoclassicism. A Romantic taste for the exotic and erotic is seen in his Grande
Odalisque, which shows a languidly reclining, nude odalisque.
28-32 Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Grande Odalisque, 1814. Oil on canvas, approx.
2' 11" x 5' 4". Louvre, Paris.
Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Carceri 14, ca. 1750. Etching, second state,
approx. 1' 4" x 1' 9". Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, England.
A Nightmarish Vision
Henry Fuseli, The Nightmare, 1781. Oil on canvas, 3' 4" x 4' 2". The Detroit Institute of
the Arts (gift of Mr. and Mrs. Bert L. Smokler and Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence A.
Fleishman).
William Blake, Ancient of Days,
frontispiece of Europe: A Prophecy,
1794. Metal relief etching, handcolored, approx. 9 1/2" x 6 3/4".
Whitworth Art Gallery, University of
Manchester, England.
Reconsidering Reason
Francisco Goya, The Sleep of
Reason Produces Monsters,
from Los Caprichos, ca. 1798.
Etching and aquatint, 8 1/2" x
6". The Metropolitan Museum
of Art, New York (gift of M.
Knoedler & Co., 1918).
Depicting the Spanish Royal Family: Francisco Goya, The Family of Charles IV,
1800. Oil on canvas, approx. 9' 2" x 11'. Museo del Prado, Madrid
Francisco Goya, The Third of May 1808, 1814. Oil on canvas, approx. 8' 8" x 11' 3".
Museo del Prado, Madrid.
Paintings of Dark
Emotions:
One of Goya's "Black Paintings,"
which reflect his disillusionment and
pessimism later in life, shows a
terrifying and disturbing vision of
Saturn devouring one of his
children.
Francisco Goya, Saturn Devouring
His Children, 1819-1823. Detail of a
detached fresco on canvas, full size
approx. 4' 9" x 2' 8". Museo del
Prado, Madrid.
Théodore Géricault, Raft of the Medusa, 1818-1819. Oil on canvas,
approx. 16' x 23'. Louvre, Paris.
Picturing Insanity:
Géricault's portrait of an Insane
Woman (Envy) is an examination
of the influence of mental states
on the human face, which, it was
believed, accurately revealed
character. It reflects the
Romantic interest in mental
aberration and the irrational
states of the mind.
Théodore Géricault, Insane
Woman (Envy), 1822-1823. Oil
on canvas, approx. 2' 4" x 1' 9".
Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lyons.
Orgiastic Destruction and Death: Eugène Delacroix, Death of
Sardanapalus, 1826. Oil on canvas, approx. 12' 1" x 16' 3". Louvre, Paris.
Eugène Delacroix, Liberty Leading the People, 1830. Oil on canvas,
approx. 8' 6" x 10' 8". Louvre, Paris.
The Allure of Morocco: Eugène Delacroix, Tiger Hunt, 1854. Oil on
canvas, approx. 2' 5" x 3'. Louvre, Paris.
Allegorizing France's Glory:
Francois Rude's colossal, densely
packed relief sculpture of La
Marseillaise on the Arc de
Triomphe in Paris is an allegory of
the national glories of revolutionary
France. It shows the stirring
departure of the volunteers of 1792
led by Bellona, the Roman goddess
of war and personification of
Liberty.
Francois Rude, La Marseillaise,
Arc de Triomphe, Paris, 1833-1836.
Approx. 42' x 26'.
The Ferocity of Animals: Antoine-Louis Barye's bronze of a Jaguar Devouring a
Hare shows the bestial violence and brute beauty of nature.
Antoine-Louis Barye, Jaguar Devouring a Hare, 1850-1851. Bronze, approx. 1' 4" x 3'
1". Louvre, Paris.
Caspar David Friedrich, Cloister Graveyard in the Snow, 1810. Oil on canvas,
approx. 3' 11" x 5' 10" (painting destroyed during World War II).
John Constable, The Haywain, 1821. Oil on canvas, 4' 3" x 6' 2".
National Gallery, London.
The Horrors of the Slave Trade: Joseph Mallord William Turner, The Slave Ship,
1840. Oil on canvas, 2' 11 3/4" x 4' 1/4". Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Henry
Lillie Pierce Fund).
Thomas Cole, The Oxbow (Connecticut River near Northampton), 1836.
Oil on canvas, 6' 4" x 4' 31/2". The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New
York (gift of Mrs. Russell Sage, 1908).
Albert Bierstadt, Among the Sierra Nevada Mountains, California, 1868. Oil on
canvas, 5' 11" x 10'. National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution,
Washington, D.C.
Frederic Edwin Church, Twilight In the Wilderness, 1860. Oil on canvas, 101.6 cm. x
162.6 cm. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio (Mr. and Mrs. William H.
Marlatt Fund, 1965.233).
Winslow Homer, The Veteran in a New Field, 1865. Oil on canvas, 2'
1/8" x 3' 2 1/8". The Metropolitan Museum of Art (bequest of
Adelaide Milton de Groot, 1967), New York.