Introduction
Week 7 to Art
Rococo
Academicism
Neo-Classicism
The 19th Century
Romanticism
Iris Tuan
April 12th, 2010
Rococo
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A highly ornate, decorative style of art in
France during the reign of Louis XV
Rococo art favoured the complex, swirling
forms of Baroque art but was airier and
more graceful, preferring pleasurable,
oftne voyeuristic, subject matter
Rococo
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Associated with Louis XV’s mistress
Madame de Pompadour
Synonymous with feminized, corrupt,
incompetent government and facile, erotic
titillation
Allowed art to abandon high seriousness
in favor of eroticism, decoration and
pleasure
The pilgrimage to Cythera
Watteau’s scene evokes a world of pleasure and beauty
Bathers, Jean-Honore Fragonard
Fragonard’s bathers is typical of Rococo’s light-heartedness.
The Death of Hyacinth
Artist: Giovanni Battista Tiepolo
Date of Completion: 1752
Description: Hyacinth is a divine
hero from Greek mythology. In the
literary myth, Hyacinth was a
beautiful young man admired by
the god Apollo. Apollo and Hyacinth
took turns throwing the dicus.
Hyacinth ran to catch it to impress
Apollo, was struck by the discus
and died.
The Happy Accidents of the Swing
Artist: Jean Honore Fragonard
Date of Completion: 1768
Description: The painting depicts
a young man hidden in the bushes,
watching a woman on a swing,
being pushed by a bishop. As the
lady goes high on the swing, she
lets him take a furtive peep under
her dress. As a symbol of the loss
of virginity, the lady has let one of
her shoes fly into the air.
Rococo Architecture
Artist: Jean Honore Fragonard
Location: Bavarian Allgau,
Germany
Description: The Rococo Basilica
at Ottobeuren: architectural spaces
flow together and swarm with life.
Rococo Architecture
Artist: Manuel Caetano de
Sousa
Location: Bavarian Allgau,
Germany
Description: The Rococo
library at the Mafra National
Palace, Portugal. The library
situated at the back of the
second floor is the highlight
of the palace. The wooden
bookshelves in Rococo style
are situated on the sidewalls
in two rows, separated by a
balcony with a wooden
railing.
Diane Sortant du Bain
Artist: Francois Boucher
Date: 1742
La Raie
Artist: Jean Simeon Chardin
Date: 1725
Marie Madeleine Guimard
Artist: Jean Honore Fragonard
Date: 1769
Description:
Marie-Madeleine Guimard (27
December 1743, Paris — 4 May
1816) was a French ballerina who
dominated the Parisian stage during
the reign of Louis XVI. For twentyfive years she was the star of the
Paris Opera. She made herself
even more famous by her love
affairs, especially by her long liaison
with the prince de Soubise.
According to Edmond de Goncourt,
when d'Alembert was asked why
dancers like La Guimard made such
prodigious fortunes, when singers
did not, he responded, "It is a
necessary consequence of the laws
of motion"
Source: http://wikipedia.org
Hercule et Omphale
Description:
In Greek mythology, Omphale (Ancient Greek:
Ὀμφάλη) was a daughter of Iardanus, either a
king of Lydia, or a river-god. Omphale was
queen of the kingdom of Lydia in Asia Minor;
according to Bibliotheke she was the wife of
Tmolus, the oak-clad mountain king of Lydia;
after he was gored to death by a bull, she
continued to reign on her own. Diodorus
Siculus provides the first appearance of the
Omphale theme in literature, though Aeschylus
was aware of the episode. The Greeks did not
recognize her as a goddess: the undisputed
etymological connection with omphalos, the
world-navel, has never been made clear
Artist: Francois Lemoyne
Date: 1724
Source: http://wikipedia.org
Caron Passant Les Ombres
Artist: Pierre Subleyras
Date: 1735
Academicism
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The codification of art into rules which can
be taught in Academies
Poussin was the artist whose work and
theories played the greatest role in first
shaping Academicism
He emphasized subject, concept, structure
and style
Academicism
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Carefully arranged for coherence and
fluidity
The eye travels through the painting in a
way which is appropriate to its subject and
concept
Romanticism challenged the dominant
Academic precept that art can be taught
systematically
Whistlejacket, 1762 GEORGE STUBBS
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AN EXAMPLE OF THE
METICULOUS
ATTENTION TO THE
FIGURE WHICH
CHARACTERISES
Academic painting
Have a sound
knowledge of
anatomy
Colonel Tarleton, 1782, JOSHUA
REYNOLDS
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Reynolds was one of
the advocates of the
‘grand manner’ in
painting
The portrait displays
Colonel Tarleton’s
military virtues and
his personal triumph
over everything base
in human nature
Rape of Sabine Women
Artist: Nicolas Poussin
Description:
The Rape of the Sabine
Women is an episode in
the legendary history of
Rome in which the first
generation of Roman
men acquired wives for
themselves from the
neighboring Sabine
families
The Birth of Venus
Description
It depicts the
goddess Venus,
having emerged
from the sea as a
full grown woman,
arriving at the seashore (which is
related to the Venus
Anadyomenemotif).
The painting is held
in the Uffizi
Gallery in Florence
Artist: Alexandre Cabanel
Date of Completion:1863
About Author: Cabanel was a French painter and
entered the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris at age of 17.
A successful academic painter, his painting “Birth of
Venus” is one of the best known example in 19th
century Academic Paininting.
Life Class at the Royal Danish Academy
Description:
This painting is an
illustration depicting the
contemporary Royal
Danish Academy.
Artist: William Bendz
Description: Life class at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in 1826
Cleopatra Testing Poisons on
Condemned Prisoners
Artist: Alexandre Cabanel
Date of Completion: 1887
Young Woman Reading by a Window
Artist: Delphine Enjolras
Description: Delphine
Enjolras was a French
academic painter. Enjolras
painted portraits, nudes,
interiors. He is best known
for his intimate portraits of
young women performing
mundane activities such as
reading or sewing, often
illuminated by lamplight.
The Artist with his Wife and Daughter
Artist: Thomas Gainsborough
Date: 1748
The Morning Walk
Description: The Morning Walk' by Thomas Gainsborough
shows an elegant young couple strolling through a woodland
landscape, an attentive dog at the lady's heel. William Hallett
and Elizabeth Stephen were both aged 21 and due to be
married in the summer of 1785, shortly after the painting was
completed.
Portraits of wealthy sitters posed in a natural setting and
dressed in their finest (but not necessarily most practical)
clothes were a popular status symbol.
William is in a black, silk velvet frock-suit. His apparent
carelessness is actually a studied pose. The undone jacket and
with one hand tucked into it is a stance seen in many
fashionable 18th-centry informal portraits (known as
conversation pieces). 'John Plampin', also by Gainsborough
does the same.
Elizabeth is in a dress of ivory silk - perhaps her wedding dress
- caught at the waist with a black silk band. A frilled muslin
kerchief covers her breast, with a knot of grape-green ribbon
under it.
Artist: Thomas Gainsborough
Date: 1785
The light, feathery brushstrokes used to describe the landscape
are typical of Gainsborough's late style. William's hair and
Elizabeth's gauzy shawl almost blend into the landscape they
Source: http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/
walk through.
Lord Heathfield of Gibraltar
Description: In 1775 George Augustus Eliott, Lord
Heathfield (1717 - 1790), was appointed Governor of Gibraltar.
During the siege of 1779-83 he held the British fortress against
Spanish attack, and was made Baron Heathfield in 1787. He is
shown at Gibraltar during the siege, symbolically holding the
key to the fortress, with a view to the peninsula in the
background; a cannon points steeply down towards the sea and
the sky is darkened by smoke. He is wearing what is
presumably the ribbon and star of the Order of the Bath.
Lord Heathfield sat for this painting in August and September
1787. The portrait was commissioned by the print publisher
John Boydell who paid for it in October of that year.
Artist: Joshua Reynolds
Date: 1787
Source: http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/
Madam De Pompadour
Description: JeanneAntoinette Poisson,
Marquise de Pompadour,
also known as Madame de
Pompadour (29 December
1721 – 15 April 1764), was
a member of the French
court, and was the official
maîtresse-en-titre of Louis
XV from 1745 to 1750.
Source: http://wikipedia.org
Madam Dubarry
Description: Jeanne Bécu,
comtesse du Barry (19
August 1743 – 8 December
1793) was the last
Maîtresse-en-titre of Louis
XV of France and one of the
victims of the Reign of
Terror during the French
Revolution.
Source: http://wikipedia.org
Neo-Classicism
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The dominant artistic and intellectual
movement in European art in the 18th and
early 19th centuries
A rejection of the Rococo
Interest in the Classical past
Moral seriousness
Connections with Academicism
Neo-Classicism
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Neo-Classical art claimed an important
role for itself as a shaper of morals and
behaviour
Use art to create a society which was both
modern and virtuous
David is the most significant painter
The oath of the Horatii, 1785,
JACQUES-LOUIS DAVID
This painting is considered the manifesto of Neo-Classicism
The Love of Paris and Helen, 1789,
JACQUES-LOOUIS DAVID
Roman Ruins and sculpture
Artist: Giovanni Paolo Pannini
Date of Completion: 1758
Description: Late
Baroque Classicizing
Pannini assembles the
canon of Romain ruins
and Roman sculpture into
one vast imaginary
gallery
Contrast to Baroque and
Rococo, Neo classical
paintings are devoid of
pastel colors and
haziness instead, they
have sharp colors with
Chiaroscuro.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoclassicism
Psyche Revived by Love’s Kiss
Artist: Antonio Canova
Date of Completion: 1758
Description: There is an
anti-Rococo strain that
can be detected in some
European architecture of
the earlier 18th century,
most vividly represented
in the Palladian
architecture of Georgian
Britain and Ireland, but
also recognizable in a
classicizing vein of
architecture in Berlin. It is
a robust architecture of
self-restraint,
academically selective
now of "the best" Roman
models.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoclassicism
The Love of Paris and Helen
Description: Paris (Greek: Πάρις;
also known as Alexander or
Alexandros, c.f. Alaksandu of Wilusa),
the son of Priam, king of Troy,
appears in a number of Greek
legends. Probably the best-known
was his elopement with Helen, queen
of Sparta, this being one of the
immediate causes of the Trojan War.
Later in the war, he fatally wounds
Achilles in the heel with an arrow, as
foretold by Achilles's mother, Thetis.
Artist: Jacques Louis David
Date: 1789
Madame Recamier
Description: JeanneFrançoise Julie Adélaïde
Bernard Récamier (4
December 1777 - 11 May
1849) was a
Frenchwoman who was a
leader of the literary and
political circles of the
early 19th century.
Artist: Jacques Louis David
Date: 1800
Source: http://wikipedia.org
Cupid and Psyche
Description:The legend of Cupid and
Psyche (also known as The Tale of
Amour and Psyche and The Tale of
Eros and Psyche) first appeared as a
digressionary story told by an old
woman in Lucius Apuleius' novel, The
Golden Ass, written in the 2nd century
AD. Apuleius likely used an earlier tale
as the basis for his story, modifying it to
suit the thematic needs of his novel.
It has since been interpreted as a
Märchen, an allegory and a myth.
Considered as a fairy tale, it is either an
allegory or a myth, but the folkloric
tradition tends to blend these.
Artist: Baron Fancois Gerard
Date: 1798
Source: http://wikipedia.org
The Apotheosis of Homer
Description: The Apotheosis of
Homer is a grand 1827 painting
by Jean-Auguste-Dominique
Ingres, now exhibited at the
Louvre as INV 5417.
Artist: Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres
Date: 1827
Source: http://wikipedia.org
The 19th Century
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Rejected the authority of Art Academies
France played a central role
Opens with the dominance of NeoClassicism
Moral high seriousness & political
purposefulness
Challenged by Romanticism
The Birth of Venus
Description: It depicts the
goddess Venus, having
emerged from the sea as a
full grown woman, arriving
at the sea-shore (which is
related to the Venus
Anadyomene
Artist: William Bouguereau
Date: 1879
Source: http://wikipedia.org
Woman with Coffee Pot
Description: The vagueness of the dating
of The Woman With a Coffee Pot is typical,
since Cezanne never dated his paintings.
It as been placed, however, in his so-called
‘classical’ period, described by one of his
biographers as his “Age of Style”, which
evolved after his romantic and
Impressionist phases.
Like other paintings of this period, it is
richly colored and solid; the stern-faced
woman ‘is planted like a strong tower’, as
art historian Lionello Venturi described her.
Artist: Paul Cezanne
Date: 1890-1895
Source: http://www.impressionist-art-gallery.com/
Self Portrait
Description: Vincent Willem van
Gogh (30 March 1853 – 29 July
1890) was a Dutch postImpressionist painter whose work
had a far-reaching influence on 20th
century art for its vivid colors and
emotional impact. He suffered from
anxiety and increasingly frequent
bouts of mental illness throughout
his life, and died largely unknown, at
the age of 37, from a self-inflicted
gunshot wound.
Artist: Vincent Van Gogh
Date: 1889
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/
The Angelus
Description:The Angelus
(Latin for Angel) is a Christian
devotion in memory of the
Incarnation. The name Angelus
is derived from the opening
words: Angelus Domini
nuntiavit Mariæ and is
practised by reciting as
versicle and response three
Biblical verses describing the
mystery; alternating with the
salutation "Hail Mary!" The
Angelus exemplifies a species
of prayers called the prayer of
the devotee.
Artist: Jean Francois Millet
Date: 1857
Romanticism & Realism
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Romanticism--Emphasized the emotional,
the irrational, the mystical, the intuitive and
the symbolic
Over and above the completely rational and
rule-bound
Realism—broadens the subject matter of art
to include images of everyday life
Liberty Lead the People
Description: Liberty Leading
the People (French: La Liberté
guidant le peuple) is a painting
by Eugène Delacroix
commemorating the July
Revolution of 1830, which
toppled Charles X. A woman
personifying Liberty leads the
people forward over the bodies
of the fallen, holding the
tricolore flag of the French
Revolution in one hand and
brandishing a bayonetted
musket with the other. This is
perhaps Delacroix's best-known
painting, having carved its own
niche in popular culture.
Artist: Eugene Delacroix
Date: 1830
Lady Macbeth
Description: Lady
Macbeth is a character in
Shakespeare's Macbeth
(c.1603-1607). She is the
wife to the play's antagonist,
Macbeth, a Scottish
nobleman. After goading
him into committing
regicide, she becomes
Queen of Scotland, and
later suffers pangs of guilt
for her part in the crime.
She dies off-stage in the
last act, an apparent
suicide.
Artist: Henry Fuseli
Date: 1784
Portrait of a Compulsive Gambler
Artist: Theodore Gericault
Date: 1822
The Raft of the Medusa
Description:The Raft of the Medusa
(French: Le Radeau de la Méduse) is an
oil painting of 1818–1819 by the French
Romantic painter and lithographer
Théodore Géricault (1791–1824).
Completed when the artist was just 27, the
work has become an icon of French
Romanticism. At 491 cm × 716 cm (193.3
in × 282.3 in),[1] it is an over-life-size
painting that depicts a moment from the
aftermath of the wreck of the French naval
frigate Méduse, which ran aground off the
coast of today's Mauritania on July 5, 1816.
At least 147 people were set adrift on a
hurriedly constructed raft; all but 15 died in
the 13 days before their rescue, and those
who survived endured starvation,
dehydration, cannibalism and madness.
The event became an international
scandal, in part because its cause was
widely attributed to the incompetence of
the French captain acting under the
authority of the recently restored French
monarchy.
Artist: Theodore Gericault
Date: 1819
The Fighting Temeraire tugged to her
last Berth to be broken up
Artist: J.M.W Turner
Date: 1838
Description: The Fighting
Temeraire tugged to her last
Berth to be broken up is an oil
painting executed in 1838 by the
English artist J. M. W. Turner
(c.1775–1851).
It depicts one of the last secondrate ships of the line which
played a distinguished role in
the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805,
the 98-gun ship HMS Temeraire,
being towed towards its final
berth in East London in 1838 to
be broken up for scrap.
The painting hangs in the
National Gallery, London, having
been bequeathed to the nation
by the artist in 1851.
Related Video
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Neo Classicism In Vaticano
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Rococo Faces
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3a9sO5_Ouk
Romanticism Art
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVBqTeZNdcs
Art History Genres: What is Rococo Art
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EmYpNl0FUo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWTPDnG0i20
Romanticism: Literature and Art
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkdgCSR6DYs&feature=related