LECTURE: THE ENLIGHTENMENT AND THE ROMANTIC ERA
http://www.stockton.edu/~fergusoc/romantic/romantic.htm
How did the Enlightenment develop, and what were its common tenets?
Empiricism and a rationalistic doctrine of natural rights formed the core of the Enlightenment. An empiricist believes to
derived their ideas from experience. But they also held a rationalist fashion that man had natural rights determined by
examination of the human conscience.
With a few exceptions, the philosophers believed that all people were essentially equal, in that they all possessed reason.
As a creature of reason and equal to every other person by nature, every individual had the right to life, liberty, and a
chance at happiness. Associated with these natural rights were others like the right to freedom of speech and to religious
liberty.
Philosophers during this time viewed the Church as a source of superstition, ignorance, and subservience. They held
tolerance for the Protestants but little respect for Christian doctrines. They called their own form of religion deism,
influenced by Descartes, they held that God had created the world and set it running on its own as a watchmaker makes a
watch. Heaven and hell were not to be found in the hereafter but on this earth.
Although their ideas were to influence revolution, the majority of the philosophers politically were proponents of
despotism, or rule by one enlightened person, a harking back to Plato's notion of the philosopher-king.
Examples: Diderot (1713-1784) and Voltaire (1694-1778)
Both felt that progress was made through education. If human beings are to be enlightened, to be able to use their reason
to unmask lies and superstitions, then they must know. Creators of the Encyclopedia. Both believed that society could and
should be changed.
Montesquieu (1689-1755) Charles-Louis de Secondat, the baron de Montesquieu.
Had a tremendous impact on American government, while little impact on France. Montesquieu developed a theory of
separation of powers among legislative, judicial, and executive agencies; he insisted that the individual could be free only
where the power of one of these branches of government was checked by the other two. Tremendous impact on the
conception of the United States Constitution.
In The Spirit of the Laws, he dealt with the issue of slavery which did not take effect in America until much later.
Seventeenth c. absolutists and capitalists had accepted slavery in the course of their trade; Montesquieu and other
philosophers scrutinized the institution under the light of reason, found it unnatural and evil. It is clear that slavery would
be abhorrent to those who believed in the natural rights of human beings.
ENLIGHTENMENT FEMINISM
Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797)
The eighteenth c. witnessed several challenges to the inferior status of women. The rhetoric of the French Revolution
supplied fuel for the feminist fire.
Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, published in 1792, in many way prefigures some of the feminist
ideas that have become common currency in our own time. A middle-class woman who shared the Enlightenment
thinkers' disdain for the decadent aristocracy, Wollstonecraft worked as a governess and a teacher, attempted to found a
school. She eventually married her old friend, the English social thinker William Godwin, and had with him a daughter,
Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin. She died at the age of thirty-eight of "childbed fever". Her daughter went on the marry the
poet Shelly, becoming Mary Shelly, the author of Frankenstein.
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION IN THE AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT
FRENCH REVOLUTION
The philosopher's demands for a more just and equal society were to culminate in an upheaval that would change the face
of Europe forever: the French Revolution.
The American Revolution, far less bloody, had in a sense served as a prelude to the French one. the American experiment
demonstrated to Europeans that Enlightenment ideas could be realized in practice.
France was the most populous and most prosperous in Europe. It was a troubled society in the last half of the eighteenth
century. Louis the XV (1710-1774) was not concerned with government, but rather women and eating. Louis the XVI was
weak and dominated by his wife, Marie Antoinette. of the 24million people, only 2% belonged to the nobility and clergy.
The third estate - the artisans, peasants, and bourgeois (middle class) made up the other 98%. Bankers, merchants and
other members of the middle class accumulated great wealth but were banned from the nobility, and footed most of the tax
burden.
Financial crisis was the most immediate cause of the revolution. Because some of the wealthiest elements in the country
were exempt from taxation, the state could not balance is budget.
On July 14, 1789, the common people stormed and captured the Bastille (the king's prison in the city). and the revolution
was on. The king was not officially deposed until August 1792, when France was declared a republic. The king and queen
were executed in 1793 by the guillotine.
Emphasis was on the freedom and equality of every man.
By 1796, one of the revolutionary generals, Napoleon Bonaparte abolished the whole government and declared himself
the First Consul of France.
Napoleon had been deeply influenced by the Enlightenment. He said that he was the revolution. He reformed laws to
enable more equality. There were no tax exemptions. it is fair to say that Napoleon realized in his government most of the
goals of the Enlightenment. Napoleon almost succeeded in conquering all of continental Europe. He penetrated Russia as
far as Moscow in 1812, but lost 500,000 men, and surrendered.
The effects of the revolution left a lasting mark on Europe. The law codes destroying legal privilege, were permanent, the
old legal class structure abolished.
The figure of napoleon became a symbol of the creative, mysterious, and at times demonic personality that fascinated the
first generation of the nineteenth c.
PAINTING IN THE ENLIGHTENMENT
An interest in society and science are found in the
arts as well as philosophy.
WATTEAU, PILGRIMAGE TO
CYTHERA,1717
These couples move through the forest of the
enchanted island of Venus are not arriving, but
leaving, to return to the real world. Watteau has
given a sense of melancholy to the beautiful but
shallow world of entertainments and parties that
seemed more and more to occupy the life of the
nobility.
ARCHITECTURE IN THE ENLIGHTENMENT
We have reached the really modern times which dawned when the French Revolution of 1789 put an end to so many
assumptions made about art.
Artists viewed the "style" differently. In former times, the style of the period was simply the way in which things were
done. Now artists were more self-conscious about style, and became more ecclectic particularly with architecture.
WALPOLE, STRAWBERRY
HILL,TWICKENHAM, LONDON, c. 1750-75.
Horace Walpole, son of the first Prime Minister of
England, decided that it was boring to have his
countury house on Strawberry hill built just like any
other "correct" Palladian villa.
1. he had a taste for the quaint and romantic
2. he was notorious for his whimsicality
3. he decided to have Strawberry Hill built like a Gothic Castle from the romantic past
NEOCLASSICISM
Later in the 18th a new movement called Neo-Classicism replaced the frivolity and melancholy of a lost era, with the rise
of revolution, a stronger, bolder art took foothold. With the discovery of Herculaneum and Pompeii and new interest in
classicism arose. Also, the ideals of the Roman Republic - freedom, opposition to tyranny, valor, all held special appeal
for the 18th c. revolutionary, becoming the characteristic art of the French Revolutionary and America.
1. Artist began to look for new types of subject-matter. The majority of older pictures represent religious subjects,
some mythologies, allegorical subjects, etc.
2. Suddenly in the eigtheenth century artists felt free to choose their own subject, anything that appealed to the
imagination and aroused interest. This disregard for the traditional subject-matter of art is one of the few things
that the lonely rebels (artists) had in common.
3. Artist became interested in history, particularly in France, as
the revolution was brewing.
DAVID, "THE DEATH OF MARAT," 1793
DAVID (1748-1825) WAS THE LEADING ARTIST OF THE
NEOCLASSICAL STYLE
(sometimes considered the "official" artist of the french revolution)
Marat was a leader of the French Revolution. He was killed in his
bath by a young woman named Charlotte Corday of the opposition.
David painted him as a martyr who had died for his cause
Marat had a skin disease (one that is not shown here) and he
habitually worked in his bath. The scene does not lend itself to
heroics, yet David manages to create just that. It seems heroic.
David also kept to the actual details of the police report, you could
solve the murder by viewing the painting.
David used classical modeling of the figure to create a figure of noble beauty. He leaves out all details which are not
essential. The aim is simplicity, grandeur.
DAVID, THE OATH OF THE HORATII (1784-85)
The painting coveys revolutionary sentiments. Based
on a story from Livy, The Oath places loyalty to the
state above all other concerns, even those of the
family. The painting shows heroic male figures in a
stark architectural setting. The figures are somewhat
idealized but retain a degree of intense realism through
an almost photographic rendering of flesh and muscle.
The composition unfolds parallel to the picture plane,
and the foreground figures are solid and as immobile
as statues. They are determined to fight for their cause.
They are heroic. This is opposed to the female figures,
who are also classically rendered, but are crumbled
from worry. These figures represent the less idealized
values such as love, family.
The lighting is sharp, casting precise shadows.
The Enlightenment in America
French philosophers were ardent supporters of the American Revolution. Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin were
considered "enlightened" individuals and lived for long periods in France.
In 1776, the New World declared themselves politically independent. In 1787, the Constitution was written to create a
union between the 13 colonies.
The political leaders thought themselves as the heirs to the republican tradition of ancient Rome. Americans often signed
their letters of protest against English tyranny with Roman names. We drew on Latin phrases like president and senate,
and the Great Seal of the new nation and its coinage were marked with Latin phrases and classical emblems.
JEFFERSON, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA, 1817-26
Classicism was born. Jefferson borrowed from Greek and Roman architecture to create his buildings. This "Greek revival"
was quickly adopted for other public buildings in America.
Jefferson believed that art and architecture reinforce and perpetuate strong, appropriate images for ideals, when building
the University of Virginia.
The heart of the university is a rectangular quadrangle bounded on each of its long sides by a one-story covered colonnade
broken at intervals by the two-story houses of the professors. Students lived in rooms off the colonnades; professors held
classes downstairs in their living quarters. The east end of the quad is closed by the library, a domed porticoed rotunda.
Very similar to the Roman Pantheon.
This university was a monument to free thought.
Jefferson believed that if you educate the individual, oppression leaves the mind and body.
THE ROMANTIC MOVEMENT
Romanticism is usually understood as a separate entity of Neo-classicism, sometimes coexisting. Generally, the Romantic
period begins with the turn of the century, c. 1800. The Romantics did inherit the high seriousness of Neo-classicism and
its revulsion against frivolous or merely decorative art (i.e. Rococo).
The main difference between Romanticism and Neo-classicism is that the Romantic artist placed more emphasis on the
individual soul, and went beyond the boundaries of logical discourse. The Romantics “led inward.”
For the romantics, the rules of art had to be put to the test. Caspar David Friedrich declared the artist’s only law to be his
feelings.
An American painter, Washington Allston wrote “Trust your own genius, listen to the voice within you, and sooner or
later she will make herself understood not only to you, but she will enable you to translate her language to the world, and
this it is which forms the only real merit of any work of art.”
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The word “academic” began to be too stiff, too burdensome for the Romantic artist
The artist’s feelings became equated with spontaneous directness, brush strokes became quick, works avoided an
impersonal feelings or qualities
It was during this period that works of art were first seen and displayed in museums as expressions of historical
styles on a par (or equal) with one another, rather than as deviations from a single norm, THE ONE TRUE
STYLE. The deviations such as medieval art became acceptable and appreciated for its own historical
significance.
It seems natural that during this period, the autobiography became a popular means of expression.
THERE IS NO LINEAR PROGRESSION IN ROMANTICISM. ROMANTIC STYLES IN THE VISUAL ARTS
DISSEMINATE OUTWARDS IN MANY DIFFERENT DIRECTIONS FROM THE NUCLEUS THAT IS NEOCLASSICISM.
The Romantic period of art was a response to the impact of the age of Enlightenment and the Revolutions. Orthodoxies
were gone, old certainties were undermined, philosophy questioned the logical order of the universe; new doubts were
raised and left unsolved. By the close of the eighteenth century, it gradually took its toll on the artists and society in
general.
The logic, ordered, rational was gradually replaced with the magnitude of the imagination, the possibilities of intuition,
the importance of the emotions, and the uniqueness of the individual.
Summary - The artistic movement that we call Romantics was divergent and yet shared some common characteristics:
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expression of personal feelings rather than search from some kind of abstract “truth”.
attraction to the fantastic, exotic, worlds remote in time (Middle Ages, Orient).
special regard for nature with the understanding that humans had very little to do with it
champions of the fight for freedom
emphasis on emotion rather than the intellect, creating subjective works of art, rather than objective.
WORKS OF ART THAT EXEMPLIFY THESE CONCEPTS
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Francisco Goya, The Third of May, 1808, 1814, (oil on canvas)
Théodore Géricault, Raft of the Medusa, 1818 (oil on canvas)
Delacroix, The Death of Sardanapalus, 1826 (oil on canvas)
Delacroix, Liberty Leading the People, 1830 (oil on canvas)
FRANCISCO GOYA (1746-1828)
Francisco Goya was a Spanish painter influenced by Velasquez and Rembrandt but not at all by antiquity or the
Renaissance.
He is unique even among a time of remarkable individualistic artists.
The Third of May represents a tumultuous time for Spain. In 1808,
Napoleon's army had conquered and occupied Spain. Goya, along with
the rest of Spain's citizens, tired of the corrupt monarchy, had hoped that
the Emperor would bring the liberal, badly needed reforms of the debased
Spanish courts.
However, the Spaniards were soon disappointed. The Napoleon army's
barbaric behavior caused a citizen's resistance.
The Third of May, 1808, 1814-1818
Goya concentrated on a new subject - the bestiality and utter futility of war.
The Third of May is a representation of the bitter citizen's resistance, and the tragic results which were a series of
executions of Spanish patriots.
Goya depicts the execution of a group of Madrid citizens. It was commissioned by a liberal group to show the underside
of Napoleonic conquest.
This is the first time art is used to protest against barbarian invasions and conquests. Later, social protests of art became
common.
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The firing squad is faceless, brutally shown at a close distance from the victims
The firing squad is standing in a symbolic blackness of night lit by a single lamp.
The picture, through its wild brush strokes, intense colors, dramatic lighting, and asymmetrical composition, has
the emotional of Baroque religious painting.
The next victim is emphasized by the light cast upon him, isolating him.
The victim's pose is very much like the crucified Christ on the cross.
This comparison between Christ and the victim
o heightens the intensity of the piece
o underlines the innocence of the victim
o underlines the brutality of the executioners
A shift in emphasis from victor to victim has occurred here.
These martyrs are not dying for religion but political tyranny. This image will be recast many times in our modern era.
THEODORE GERICAULT (1791-1824)
Gericault was the most talented French painter of the early Romantic movement. Like Goya, he also responded to a
social/political contemporary event.
His most ambitious painting was entitled:
The Raft of the "Medusa" 1818-1819
This painting is a response to a modern tragedy of epic
proportions that caused a national scandal.
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 The story recounts the "Medusa's" passage (a
government ship) to French West Africa in 1816.
 The ship was jammed with colonists and was
shipwrecked due to the incompetence of the ship's captain.
The captain quickly filled the ship's six lifeboats with his own officers, leaving behind 150 men and one woman
to die on a makeshift raft.
Only a few people on the raft survived after 14 days set adrift in the sea.
Gericault was attracted to the event because the ship was a government vessel, and he, like many French liberals, opposed
the monarchy that was restored after Napoleon's defeat.
Gericault researched the incident with great care, like an investigative reporter. He studied corpses in the morgue, and
even built a raft to scale in his studio. He interviewed the survivors. Thus the painting is extraordinary in its realistic detail
similar to David's "Death of Marat."
But here, for the first time, the grand style and the heroic scale were taken up for the first time to record the sufferings of
ordinary people.
The painting depicts the few remaining survivors on their makeshift raft. An exciting moment is chosen: the weak figures
struggle to alert a rescue ship on the horizon, frantically signaling for help.
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The composition is built up on a dynamic diagonal, from the prostrate bodies of the dead and dying in the
foreground to the group that supports the frantically waving man.
The forward surge of the figural composition mimics the surge of the sea, and the direction of the raft.
The dramatic use of diagonals and chiaroscuro add to the heightened intensity of the piece.
The ship in the distance was called the Argus. It did not sight the raft until the following day.
Gericault depicted a great psychological tension of false hope.
The result is a heroic depiction of man against the sea or elements. The men should have been more emaciated, sickly,
instead of the bulging muscularity that we see here. In fact, the men were not heroes at all. They survived by the crucial
animal instinct of survival - resorting to cannibalism. The artist did not want his audience to feel the immediate emotional
response to a specific event - which emaciated, pitiful figures would have induced. Instead, the artist transposes a specific
event into a universal cry against the establishment. This is how an artist can turn a catastrophe into art, transcending
time and holding universal appeal. The viewer thinks of the timeless problems of heroism, hope, despair, suffering,
and is not provided with an answer.
Gericault died in 1824 from a riding accident, and Eugene Delacroix became the leading Romantic artist. Delacroix
produced many works that are exemplary of the Romantic movement.
Romanticism gave Western art a new restless dynamism. The word "Romantic" came increasingly to be attached to what
was rejected. The Romantic revolution which began in the 1790s was like a battle which "men fight and lose". Soon the
impatient and bravado of the Romantics would be replaced by the Realist and, then, the Impressionistic movement.