Art 219/History of Art
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Week 11: 19th Century Art
Neoclassicism, Romanticism, and
Realism Featuring!-- Black Romancitism!
Reading Assignments:
19th-century Art: Neoclassicism, Romanticism, and Realism (Text 17)
Websites:
Artlex for all art styles and art movements on the final exam
Hyperhistory.com for history, timelines, maps, biographies, etc.
Nineteenth Century Art (text 17)
The 19th Century was an age of REVOLUTION--in politics, ideas, technology, art ("40 Yrs of Revolution," p.
460)
Eugene Delacroix, Liberty Leading the People, 1830 [a French national treasure--Les Miz!]
Liberals and the lower bourgeoisie (middle class) now a new power in France--peasants can vote by 1850
The style of the Delacroix's painting is Baroque (or rubeniste) from the style of Titian and Rubens
Test your knowledge of technology and history:
Technology: What year was photography invented? Movies?
What year was the automobile invented? The first subway? Street lights? The first sewer system?
The first iron bridge? The elevator? The machine gun? The tank?
Telegraph? Telephone? Fax? Radio? Television? Radar?
Birth control: when was the condom invented? See WebMD
Science: The first vaccination? Penicillin? First effective treatment for syphilis? Tooth Brushes?
Geology? Biology and Evolution? Theory of Relativity? The nuclear bomb?
Art: The first "artificial" or chemical colors?
The invention of photography
May have had a profound influence on the way artists thought about the purpose of painting.
Why compete with a machine to imitate nature exactly?
If you were never going to see your parents again, would you want a painting of them, or a photograph?
(The "Irish Wake")
History and Culture:
Joseph Wright of Darby, An Experiment on a Bird in an Air-Pump, 1768
An example of Enlightenment desire to popularize science; note the symbolic lighting
The Industrial revolution, mechanization, factories, cause cities to increase population:
Workers stream into cities, work and live in horrible conditions, causes several revolutions, 1830, 1848, 1870, etc.
Expanding lower and middle classes; democracy
Communications, travel, world culture, railroads, photography and the popular press, literacy
Napoleon and the charismatic leader
Russian Revolution, Nationalism
Decline in power of Church (after the French Revolution of 1798)
Intellectual and scientific revolution: Geology, Biology, Darwin, Marx
On the origins of Geology and Genesis contradicted, see this article
On Bishop Ussher's calculation, the exact date of "creation," and problems with the calendar, see this great
article
Drugs: Two popular drugs may account for some cultural and political changes around 1800. Guess what they
are.
Hint: People got together in "cafes" to discuss new ideas, and they got very excited.
MUSIC! The 19th Century is the great age of music. "The artist as hero."
Compare "Baroque" Bach and "Classical" Mozart to "Romantics" Beethoven, Berlioz, Mussorgsky,
Chopin (Liszt), and Wagner, Tchaikovsky. (Have another cuppa coffee!)
On the music of Richard Wagner: a wonderful sight at Texas with mp3's
The Salon--annual public exhibition (like our Oscars)
Honore Daumier, This Year, Venuses Again. . .Always Venuses, 1864
The "Linear" and "Painterly" styles: "outline" vs. "color" (text, p. 409)
J. D. Ingres [pronounced "anger"], Large Odalisque, 1814
Francisco Goya, The Family of King Charles V of Spain, 1800 (They look like the local butcher and his
family.)
The Art World:
France was the center of European culture
The development of "Historicism" or "consciousness of history" affected the subjects of 19th century Art,
which varied widely-Traditional history painting included religious themes, genre, working classes, vulgar subjects
Both style and subjects became a choice artists could make. "Should I be a Classicist or a Romantic?" "What
should I wear today?"
Exhibitions: galleries, the Salon, and the Salon des Refusees
A growing gulf between conservative and revolutionary artists
Photography
Popular prints: a vehicle for social protest; Daumier
The Art Academies continued: Johann Zoffany, Academicians of the Royal Academy, 1771
The 18th and 19th century was an age of art critics: Joshua Reynolds, Winckelmann, Zola
The ideas of "good taste" and The "Grand Manner" (Gran Gout) were under attack by 1850
The artist had a new sense of individuality and personal freedom
The emergence of the modern conception of the artist as a political and social liberal with bonds to lower
classes.
New "vulgar" subjects.
A new social and economic position of artist: the change from "manual laborer" to "genius" or "hero."
A sequence of movements or styles (a series of statements and reactions--why do styles change?)
Neoclassicism, balance, order: "edele einfalt und stille grose"
Romanticism, stressed strong feelings and distrust of reason
Historical revivals: Greek, Roman, and Gothic
Academic art: still going strong
Realism
Impressionism
Post-Impressionism
Expressionism
The Styles of 19th Century Art:
The Continuation of Neoclassicism (c. 1750 to 1930) (especially for public buildings)
Napoleon favored this style for its aura of stability, tradition, and heroism
Jacque Louis David, The Oath of the Horatii, 1784
(video--David/Marat in "Art of the West" 18th Century)
Jacque Louis David, Napoleon Crossing the Alps, 1800 (Neoclassicism or Romanticism?)
Antonio Canova, Cupid and Psyche, marble, 1790
Lord Burlington, Chiswick House, England, 1724
Robert Adam, Syon House, England, 1760
Johann Zofany, The Royal Academy, England, 1771 [where are the women members?]
J. D. Ingres, Odalisque, 1814 [what is an "odalisque"?]
Jean Francois-Therese Chalgrin and Others, Arc de Triomphe, Paris, 1806-36
Antonio Canova, Napoleon, 1806, marble, Wellington Museum,
Jean-Auguste Ingres, Jupiter and Thetis, 1811; sources: classicism, Raphael, Poussin, David
Portraits have high neck lines this year: Napoleon's wife was pregnant ("confinement")
Horatio Greenough, George Washington, 1832-41 (Ugh!)
Many new Women Artists:
Angelica Kauffmann, Cornelia and her Children, 1785
Elizabeth Vigee-Lebrun, Marie-Antoinette with Her Children, 1787
Adelaide Labille-Guiard, Self-portrait with pupils, 1785
Angelica Kauffmann, Self-portrait, 1794
A Moralizing alternative to the hedonistic Rococo:
William Hogarth (English Middle Class), The Marriage Contract, from Marriage a la Mode, scene II, 1743
Joseph Wright of Darby, An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump, 1768
Portraiture:
John Singleton Copley, Samuel Adams, 1770, (The first American artist in our textbook! But not for long.)
Thomas Gainsborough, Mrs. Richard Brinsley Sheridan, 1785
Neoclassical Architecture:
Richard Boyle and Lord Burlington, Chiswick House, England, 1724-Thomas Jefferson, Monticello, Virginia, 1768-82; 1796-1809
Compare to Palladio's Villa Rotonda (chapter 12)
Guess who owned the only copy of Palladio in America?
The University of Virginia, 1817
The State Capitol, Richmond, VA, 1785
The idea of the "Picturesque" (See Artlex)
Henry Filtcroft et al (and others), The Park at Stourhead, 1743
Romanticism: Sex and Violence
Definitions and websites:
Romanticism hit like a storm about 1800.
Goethe's definition: "Classicism is health; Romanticism is disease." [!]
Wackenroder's book: Outpourings from the Heart of an Art-Loving Monk, 1796
Neoclassicism and Romanticism compared (Neoclassicism and Classicism defined; Romanticism defined)
See this excellent essay on Romanticism and its sources also: The Enlightenment
Moonlight in Romanticism at the Met
The Gothic and Black Romanticism
Origins of Gothic Horror in Literature
Origins of Gothic Horror in Cinema
The Top 20 Gothic Horror Films
Francisco GOYA (1746-1828)
The 3rd of May, 1808, (painted 1814) (video in Art of the West/18th century)
The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters, from a series Los Capricios, etchings, 1796
The Family of Charles IV of Spain, 1800 (compare to Velasquez's royal portraits)
The Disasters of War Series, etchings, 1810-15 (little known until the 1840's)
The Black Paintings: Insane asylum, Saturn Devouring His Children (see above on this page)
More Romanticism:
Theodore Gericault, The Raft of the Medusa, 1818-19 (video in Art of the West/18th Century)
(to see the size of these huge works, go to the Louvre, and click on virtual tour/paintings/first
floor/"Mollien"room)
Henri Fuseli, The Nightmare, 1781
Fuseli was called "painter to the Devil": See "Black Romanticism"
The violinist Paganini: the first "rock star," who allegedly sold his soul to the devil. (Charlie Daniels?)
Eugene Delacroix (1800-1863), Women of Algiers, 1834
Liberty Leading the People, 1830. Sources are Titian, Rubens ("rubenistes vs poussinistes")
Self-portrait (the "lion")
Portrait of Chopin (Romantic composer)
Death of Sardanopolis (sex and violence)
Francois Rude, the Volunteers of 1792 (known as "La Marseillaise"), 1833-36--"Les Miserables"
Romantic Landscape Painting (landscape was very popular in 19th century--still is)
John Constable (English), The White Horse, 1821
Salisbury Cathedral and Wivenhoe Park (the English are very keen on pastoral art)
Caspar D. Friedrich (German), Abbey in an Oak Forrest, 1809
Moonlight in Romanticism at the Met (Beethoven's "Moonlight" Sonata)
Wreck of the Hope, 1823 (Man vs. Nature)
Monk by the Seashore, 1803 ("Sehnsucht" or "longing" [quoted in movie Wall Street])
J. M. W. Turner, The Fighting Temeraire towed to its Last Berth, 1838
The Slave Ship, 1840
In the USA
Thomas Cole, The Oxbow, 1836 (Note the two sides and moods in the picture.)
George Calbe Bingham, Fur Traders Descending the Missouri, c. 1845
John James Audubon, Common Grackle, from Birds of America, 1826-39
Audubon is the perfect American artists--totally self taught
(What is "American" about American art?)
Japanese Prints
Hokusai, The Great Wave, c. 1823
Hiroshige, Cotton Goods Lane, Edo, 1858
The Political Print (lithography):
Honore Daumier, Rue Trasmonian, April 15, 1834, 1834, lithograph (dates as titles)
Honore Daumier, This Year, Venuses Again. . .Always Venuses, 1864
Honore Daumier, The Third Class Carriage, 1850's (make up a story)
James Watts, The Famine of 1848 (How many of us Americans are Irish? Why?)
Naturalism and French Realism in Europe
(Realism with a Capital "R" --realism with a small "r" is a generic term that means, roughly, "naturalistic.")
Theodore Rousseau, The Valley of Tiffauges, 1837 ("naturalistic" landscape)
Gustave Courbet, A Burial at Ornans, 1849
The Stone Breakers, 1849, destroyed 1945. (compare Millet, The Gleaners, 1859 )
Courbet's "Realist Manifesto": "Show me an angel and I'll paint one"
Rosa Bonheur, Plowing in the Nivernais: The Dressing of the Vines, 1849
Ilya Repin, Bargehaulters on the Volga, 1870