Reason, Revolution and
Romanticism: The Eighteenth
and Nineteenth Centuries
The European Enlightenment
Prerevolutionary Movement
Scientific Revolution taught reliance
on individual experience, or reason
over tradition and authority
Changes would affect Europe
permanently
France begins the period with Louis
XIV and ends with Napoleon
Philosophes and Salons
Philosophes: French thinkers who led
the Enlightenment movement
Wanted to bring “light” to the world
and improve the human race
Middle class, skilled writers used
print to reach the public
Could reach the literate public, but
not the poor
Changes in Culture
Philosophes cared about the poor, but
in an abstract way.
Paris replaced Versailles as the
center of French culture.
Architects designed smaller and more
intimate rooms where small
gatherings met to discuss politics,
social causes, literature, and art
A Brief Chance for Equality
Women ran the salons, these small
gathering places, and the sexes could
exchange ideas on an equal basis.
People wanted to become
“enlightened” even monarchs wanted
to be seen as “enlightened monarchs,”
ones who used reason to govern their
people.
John Locke
Empiricists: derived knowledge from
experience, believed in basic natural
rights for all people
Rationalists: used their belief in natural
rights as criteria for judging both
society and government
Confusion between these two viewpoints
can be blamed on Locke, a late
seventeenth century English philosopher
and writer.
Essay on Human Understanding
This was his major essay on people and how
individuals learn.
Believed that people are born with minds
like a blank slate, tabula rasa, and what
they know is based on experiences in their
life.
Saw inductive reasoning, reasoning that
takes specific examples and attempts to
draw general conclusions, as a way to
establish laws for human behavior.
Essay Concerning the True Extent
and End of Civil Government
In this essay, Locke states that all
individuals are born equal and entitled
to some basic rights.
The government is designed to
protect people’s rights.
When it ceases to do this, the people
should revolt and form a new
government.
Future Influences
These ideas influenced many people,
including the founders of our country.
His ideas can be found in the
Declaration of Independence and the
Constitution.
Philosophes and Religion
Believed that all men were equal and
possessed reason.
Saw the Catholic Church as
superstitious and ignorant, more
oppressive than enlightening.
Practiced deism, the idea that God
created the world with a heaven and
hell upon it, and then left it alone.
Reform
Eventually these ideas would cause
revolution.
They wanted to create more equality
among classes by changing, or
strengthening the central
government.
Saw the state as being the primary
means for reforming society.
Diderot
Believed in progress through education.
Began to compile knowledge in his
encyclopedia: Dictionaire des Sciences, des
Arts et des Metiers
Was imprisoned twice for his writings on a
vast array of topics.
He was one of the amateur scientists
popular during this period.
Voltaire
Wrote funny, satiric works that
criticized the society of the period.
Worked with Frederick of Prussia—an
“enlightened despot”
Was imprisoned in the Bastille, later was
exiled from France.
Most famous work was Candide, that
criticized the idea that “everything is
for the best.”
Montesquieu
Saw man as a product of his history,
and their constitutions needed to
meet the conditions and traditions of
society to be effective.
Developed a theory of the separation
of powers among legislative, judicial,
and executive agencies—system of
checks and balances
Future Influences
Theories were ignored in France, but
influential on the future United
States.
Critical of slavery as an unnatural and
evil institution, which had no place in
an enlightened society.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Paradoxical figure that links the
Enlightenment and the Romantic Age.
Born in Geneva, Switzerland, came to
Paris at 30 years old.
Wrote essays on society, felt that
society was corrupt.
Thought that by nature men are loving,
kind, and sympathetic, but society
removes men from their true state.
Contradictions
Rousseau idealized the lower classes,
depicting the beauty of a pastoral life.
Rousseau saw people as being a bundle of
feelings and instincts.
Then, in his work Social Contract, he states
that by nature man is brutish,
contradicting his earlier work that man is
basically good.
The Social Contract
He sees the importance of government as a
way for individuals to protect themselves.
His ideal state is a democracy, where
people can exchange their freedom for the
benefits of social life.
His statement that sometimes the will of
the majority does not reflect the will of
the people, opened the door for a despot
to seize power.
Women During the Enlightenment
Educated women were still the
exception, not the rule.
Women in France and England did
participate actively in revolutionary
groups.
Rousseau remained conventional on
this issue, stating that women
should be subservient to men.
Women Writers
Began to demand equal rights: Mary
Wollstonecraft—A Vindication of
the Rights of Women.
In early 1800s, there were many
women novelists: Bronte sisters,
George Eliot, Emily Dickinson,
Margaret Fuller, Germaine Necker,
George Sand.
Painting during the Enlightenment
Tendencies of the philosophes
represented in painting: movement
from the nobility to the bourgeoisie,
from grand to petite, from tragedy to
satire, and an interest in science and
in society
Uses verisimilitude—painter is as
observant as a scientist
Painters for the Philosophes
Painters then show this decline in interest
for art for the court.
More intimate and sensual art will replace
the neoclassicists, Watteau’s Pilgrimage to
Cythera shows Ruben’s influence and
influenced future landscape painters like
Constable.
Also popular were genre paintings—scenes
from everyday life: Chardin and Greuze.
The Embarkation for Cythera (1717) • Jean
Antoine Watteau • Musee du Louvre, Paris
William Hogarth
(1697-1764)
The Painter and His Pug (1745) • Tate Gallery, London
The Shrimp Girl
Marriage A La Mode: The
Marriage Contract
Marriage A La Mode: Early In
The Morning
Marriage A La Mode: The
Inspection
Marriage A La Mode: The
Toilette
Marriage A La Mode: The Death
of the Earl
Marriage A La Mode: The Death
of the Countess
Chardin The Soap Bubble
Classical Style in Music and
the Development of Opera
Changes in Music
Second half of the eighteenth century
saw a simplifying balance in music, this
has been labeled classical music.
New instruments developed, old
instruments changed—the piano and the
violin are the two major new
instruments.
Growing interest among bourgeoisie
wanted louder music: the symphony
orchestra was born.
The Emergence of Opera
Opera combined drama with music to
create a new form of entertainment.
Has its roots in Greek drama, and the
music of the church.
From 1600s on a rapid growth occurs in
the technical parts of opera: libretto,
scenery, costume, dance and music.
Quickly spread throughout Europe.
Contributors: Lully, Henry Purcell,
Scarlatti, Handel
What is Opera?
Opera—work in music, can be defined
as drama, either tragic or comic, sung
throughout and presented on stage
with scenery and action.
Emphasis is on the solo voice, uses
arias and recitatives.
Expensive and difficult to produce, so
always connected with the wealthy.
Mozart and Opera
Genius composer, child prodigy who
composed his first opera at 12
At 13, he was the Kapellmeister for
the count of Schrattenbach
His operas include: Don Giovanni, The
Marriage of Figaro, and The Magic
Flute.
Don Giovanni
Based on the character Don Juan,
created by Molina, and redone by
Moliere.
Refined and sophisticated, seduced
women and cared for nothing but his
own pleasure.
Librettist, Lorenzo da Ponte, combined
the original story, with the play of
Moliere to create a comic and tragic
work.
How does this reflect the period?
Mozart has the music change mood and
character to reflect the changes in the
characters.
He combines the orchestra with the
singing to make the story come to life.
Created toward the end of the
Enlightenment, it reflects the reliance
on reason and experience, rather than
authority and tradition, but also warns
against extreme individualism.
Romanticism: Revolution,
Individualism, Nature, and
Love
Revolution and Romanticism
American Revolution demonstrated that
the ideals of the Enlightenment could be
realized.
Declaration of Independence and
Constitution used theories that had
previously only been for the nobility.
Real policies now, not just philosophical
discussions.
Illustrated that freedom and equality were
attainable goals.
French Revolution
American example taken seriously by
the French.
France is most populous country in
Europe, and also the wealthiest.
Outmoded social structure dominated
French society because it was legal.
All Frenchmen divided into 3 classes:
nobility, clergy, 3rd estate.
Social Inequalities
The 3rd estate was the largest social group:
Peasants, artisans, and bourgeois
98% of the population from this group
Only owned 60% of the land.
This group will bring about revolution.
Third estate especially angry about taxes.
Nobility and clergy pay almost no taxes.
Seeds of Discontent
Nobility makes up the highest offices
in the government.
Nobility also comprises the officer
corps of the army.
Clergy can levy taxes on agricultural
goods produced by the third estate.
Bourgeois wealthy, but prevented
from social mobility.
Anger Builds
Ability to buy into the nobility is stopped
by aristocrats who want to strengthen
their position.
Economic prosperity brought rising prices.
Nobility and clergy are barred by law from
commercial enterprise, depend upon 3rd
estate for money.
Bourgeois and upper peasants make money,
but lower classes’ wages rise slower than
the cost of living
Immediate Causes of the Revolution
Financial crisis—state cannot balance its
budget.
Wealthiest people were exempt from
taxes.
Aid to the US left France in bad economic
state.
King wants to tax the nobility and clergy,
but laws won’t be enforced by the courts
where the nobility reign.
1788 King abolishes the court system and
creates a new one.
Aristocratic Revolt
Army officers and the King’s officials
refuse to serve.
Nation brought to a halt.
Louis XVI calls a National Assembly to
settle problems.
National Assembly favors the nobility and
clergy because they receive 2 votes for
every 1 vote of the 3rd estate.
National Assembly of May 1789
Met at Versailles, 3rd estate wants to use
to abolish legal classes.
Third Estate delegates call themselves the
Assembly of the Nation.
July 14, 1789 common people of Paris storm
and capture the Bastille, the king’s prison,
thus begins the French Revolution.
King orders the nobility and clergy to join
with the 3rd estate, any who hadn’t already
done so did.
New National Assembly
Only one-house
Publicizes the Declaration of the Rights of
Man and the Citizen on August 1789.
Provisions emphasized freedom and
equality for all men.
All privilege abolished, church’s property
confiscated—clergy receives a salary from
the state.
Changes in Power
Assembly leaders want to make France a
constitutional monarchy like England.
Louis XVI flees in July 1791 before the
new constitution can be ratified.
Despite his capture, leadership is
weakened and Jacobins, or republicans,
seize control of the National Assembly in
September 1791.
Jacobins
Jacobins wanted liberty and equality for
France, and for the rest of Europe.
This pushes France into war from the
spring of 1792 on.
War began badly, politicians blame traitors.
May 1793, moderate leaders replaced by
more radical Jacobins.
Robespierre
Moderate Jacobins wanted a republic
governed by an electorate with some
property requirements.
Radical Jacobins want a democratic
republic.
Robespierre, leader of the radical group,
believed needed a dictatorship first to
destroy enemies of the state.
His dictatorship took the form of an
executive committee of 12 called the
Committee of Public Safety.
Reign of Terror
Introduced by Robespierre, lasted for over
a year
Guillotine introduced—more humane and
quicker way to kill traitors to the
revolution.
Many political enemies killed.
Nobles—women, children, elderly—all killed
to get revenge for past injustices.
King and Queen killed by the guillotine in
1793.
End of the Reign of Terror
July 1794, France is tired of the blood.
National Assembly, now called the National
Convention, has Robespierre arrested and
guillotined.
New government dominated by property
owners.
Fragile, radicals on the left, conservatives
on the right, but balanced by victories in
battle.
French Success
By mid-1794 France is having one victory
after another.
Occupied current Belgium, the
Netherlands, Germany to the Rhine, also
parts of northern Italy.
Volunteer armies were enormous, while
professional armies of opponents small.
Officers held their position due to merit,
not family position.
Welcomed, French conquest meant no more
legal class system, new law codes more fair.
Napoleon Bonaparte
Born in 1769 of minor Corsican nobility.
Brilliant military leader, general by the age
of 25.
Also a brilliant politician, in 1797 he
removed the conservatives who had taken
power after the Reign of Terror.
1799, invaded Egypt, abolished the
government and called himself the First
Consul of France.
Enlightened Despot
Deeply influenced by the Enlightenment.
Napoleon believed French really concerned
with social equality over political liberty.
He established practice of meritocracy in
the bureaucracy and the army.
Reformed laws to give greater equality.
Fiscal system run by professionals, no one
exempt.
Tide is Turning
1799-1814, Napoleon, now emperor since
1802, almost succeeds in conquering all of
Europe.
His Russian Campaign would cost him
dearly.
In 1812 reaches Moscow, but 500,000
soldiers lost, never recovers from this.
Heavy loss in troops results in less popular
support.
End of Napoleon
Napoleon surrenders to a coalition of
England, Austria, Russia, and Prussia.
Abdicates and sent in exile to Elba
Returns in 1815, French rally, old soldiers
return.
Spring 1815, defeated at Waterloo—sent
to St. Helena, dies in exile.
Brother of Louis XVI established as king
Effects of the Revolution
Lasting mark left on western Europe.
No longer will professional armies be used,
rulers will put arms in the hands of their
subjects.
Kings could not reimpose the old legal class
structure once abolished.
French nationalism inspires other nations
to create their own states without foreign
domination.
French considered the most dangerous
people in Europe.
Art of the Revolution
Jacques-Louis David—foremost painter of
the revolutionary and Napoleonic eras.
Revolted against the sensuous paintings of
Boucher and Fragonard.
Wanted to renew art by returning to the
style of the Italian High Renaissance.
Oath of the Horatii, Death of Marat
Figures are idealized but still realistic.
Jean-Honoré Fragonard
The Bolt Musee de Louvre
David’s Technique
David uses cool colors, harsh light spot
lights form and gesture, crisp, clear
figures
Style seen as revolutionary in Paris.
Commissioned by the Committee of Public
Safety to make 3 paintings of
revolutionary heroes, only Death of Marat
was completed.
Napoleon Crossing the Alps shows a
youthful general who has become a
romantic hero
Jacques-Louis David The Death of Marat
The Consecration of the Emperor Napoleon and
the Coronation of Empress Josephine (December
2, 1804)
JacquesLouis
David
Napoleon
Crossing
the Alps
Romanticism
Lasted from 1789-1850
Cultural and literary movement, not
political.
Stress individualism, sense of
isolation, and alienation.
The term originally referred to
stories of knights and ladies.
Followed passions and imagination
rather than reason.
Rousseau
Was the first to promote reason and
nature above the institutions.
Brought the individual to a new level
of importance.
Helped lay the foundation of the
American republic.
Goethe and Schiller
German writers
Schiller believed in the rights of
humans making him a link between the
Enlightenment and Romanticism.
Schiller wrote “Ode to Joy” on the
eve of the French Revolution.
Beethoven
German composer
The form of his symphonies is
classical.
The ideas of human individuality and
the French Revolution show through,
making his symphonies also Romantic.
The Classical Symphony
1st Movement – Energetic
2nd Movement – Slow
3rd Movement – A dance form similar
to a minuet
4th Movement – Energetic
The Ninth Symphony
Beethoven’s most famous work
Over an hour long
Longer and more developed than most
other symphonies
Represents Schiller’s poem “Ode to
Joy”
Felt that what Schiller had written
was exactly what he felt in his soul.
The Romantic Hero
The romantic hero is first and
foremost an individual.
There are two main types of romantic
heroes:
The “Suffering” Hero – a lonely, unhappy
hero
The “Titanic” Hero – a rebel who tries to
take destiny into his own hands
Nature
“Nature” refers to the human nature,
or man’s natural place.
Saw civilization and society as being
corrupt, yet was still their greatest
achievement.
Starting with the 18th century a
“noble savage” period was started.
Natural people
There was a need for the unspoiled
wilderness with its mountains and
lakes.
The American Indians were seen as
superior to Europeans
The black African was seen as a
proud and noble individual
Ladies began to wear loose ‘natural’
clothing
Nature in Art
Nature showed a varying influence on
romantic paintings through its personal
influence on the painter.
Depicted nature as reflection of their
souls.
Some—consoling, picturesque, place where
can get in touch with their soul
Others—cold, indifferent, forbidding,
frightening
Return to Religion
Romantics returned to religion as a
source of inspiration.
Find God’s bounty and goodness in
nature.
Others shun religion, worship spirit
of nature itself.
Nature in Poetry
Coleridge emphasizes the mystical
elements of nature.
Keats uses images from nature to
create sensuous feelings.
Emily Dickinson used close
observations of nature to reveal it as
a soothing mother, or a bringer of
death.
Nature in Art
Landscapes become increasingly
popular.
Try to illustrate the communion
between human emotion and nature.
Painters like J. M. W. Turner,
Constable, Jean-François Millet tried
to create in paint what poets were
creating with words.
John Constable
He and Wordsworth were interested in
the humble, everyday aspects of nature,
not the mystical or sublime.
Deeply attached to his native
countryside.
Studied clouds, rain, light and the
weather
Used intense color, paint dense and wet
Brush strokes create a shimmering
effect to give a sense of movement.
Constable: Landscape with a River and a Bay
in the Background
John Constable: Wivenhoe Park, Essex
John Constable: Salisbury Cathedral from the
Bishop’s Grounds
William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
His poetry parallels Constable’s painting.
Famous poem “Lines Composed a Few
Miles Above Tintern Abbey”
Gives the sense that he views the scene
now, but also in the past and in the
future.
Illustrates the interdependence
between the human life cycle and
nature.
Turner:
Tintern
Abbey
Jean-François Millet (1814-1875)
French painter who saw value in simple
people at everyday tasks.
Portrayed the French peasantry as
virtuous, humane, and enduring.
Paintings: The Sower, The Gleaners
Uses rich earthy colors, gestures simple
Peasant seen as anonymous and eternal
Emphasizes the harmony between the
worker and his environment
The Sower
The Gleaners
Art: Revolution, Individualism and Nature
Revolutionary ideals have huge effect
on visual arts and literature.
New inventions and advances also
affect art—photography; study of
light, color and perception; Japanese
and Chinese influences
All will change way people view art
Changes in Architecture
New challenges as people’s needs
increasingly change.
Demand for hospitals, housing, prisons
Manufacture of iron, then steel, glass,
and concrete provide new building
opportunities
Private individuals and governments feel
the stress of booming economies
Transportation, water, waste disposal all
pushed beyond limits—slums are a reality
Rebels in Art
Artists want a way to express
revolutionary and romantic ideals in a
different way.
These painters represent this search
for new expression:
Francisco Goya
Eugene Delacroix
J. M. W. Turner
Francisco Goya
Successful painter in the court of
Charles IV
Designed tapestries, depicted
amusements of court life, and the
horrors of war
Famous works:
The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters
The Third of May, 1808
The Third of May, 1808, at Madrid
The Sleep of
Reason Produces
Monsters
Eugene Delacroix
French romantic painter
Romanticized war by distancing it in
location
In The Massacres of Chios—shows little
immediate violence, men are noble, women
beautiful despite age
Condemned for his intensity of
presentation and the looseness of his paint
Considered a threat to the neoclassic
painters like David
Eugene Delecroix: Liberty Leading the People
The
Massacres
of Chios
J. M. W. Turner
English painter
Intense interest in light
Transformed light, air, and motion
into a fragmented and energy charged
painting: Rain, Steam, and Speed
Not accepted by the public
Took his inspiration from the natural
world
Turner Rain, Steam, Speed
Romantic Women and Love
Romantics were obsessed with exploring
the nature of women, and the nature of
love.
Women assumed a new importance, more
influential in many ways than before.
But this was contradictory with the images
of women in art created by men.
Liberated, predatory, dangerous, domestic,
subservient, mystical—all aspects of women
seen during this period
Romantic Women Writers
Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Shelley
Wrote Frankenstein
Married Percy Bysshe Shelley, poet
Daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft,
feminist author
Brontë sisters
Mary Ann Evans (George Eliot)
Aurore Dupin (Georges Sand)
Emily Dickinson
Romantic Love and Female Types
Literature and other arts still
dominated by men.
Images given women range from:
idealized, domestic, virtuous girl and
mother, to ethereal beauty, temptress
(femme fatale), she-devil.
Romantic love: an all-consuming passion
that can never be fulfilled, and often
causes the hero extreme suffering or
death
Romantic Hero
Lover of nature and poetry, but
misfit in society.
Obsessed with love, but an
unattainable love.
Pursue an ideal, impossible love
Sensitive geniuses born at the wrong
place and the wrong time.
Art and Literature
Romantic style is best expressed in
poetry.
However, the romantics believed that
music expressed love best.
Words alone are too limited.
Combined words and music into the
lied (art song).
Composers Robert Schumann and
Richard Wagner best examples
Romantic Ballet
The first female dancer known as the
prima ballerina is introduced.
She became the central figure of the
ballet, men just there to lift
ballerinas in the air.
Danced en pointe in airy tulle
costumes—tutu
Romantic ballet stresses exoticism,
fantasy, nature, and love