Transcript The Enlightenment and Its Legacy: Neoclassicism and Romanticism Gardner’s Art History on the Internet.

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 edited by Denis
Diderot provided access to all
available knowledge. The Comte
de Buffon's Natural History
provided a kind of encyclopedia
of the natural sciences.
“How to Make a Cannon” from
Diderot’s Encyclopedia (1756-80)
The Wonders of the Universe: An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump
1768 WRIGHT of Derby, Joseph 1734 - 1797
Hogarth’s Satires
William Hogarth, Beer Street and Gin Lane (1751)
The First Iron Bridge: Coalbrookdale, England 1776–1779. 100' span.
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
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 middle-class
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 lighthearted mood.
Élisabeth Louise Vigée-Lebrun, SelfPortrait, 1790. Oil on canvas, 8' 4" x 6'
9". Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.
Grand Manner
Portraiture:
Thomas Gainsborough's
portrait, painted in a soft-hued
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. 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 half-naked
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.
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.
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Grande Odalisque, 1814. Oil on canvas, approx. 2' 11"
x 5' 4". Louvre, Paris.
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.
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'.
Eugène Delacroix, Liberty Leading the People, 1830. Oil on canvas, approx.
8' 6" x 10' 8". Louvre, Paris.
Friedrich, Wanderer Above
the Sea of Fog c. 1818
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).
Gericault, The Charging
Chasseur, 1812.
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.
The Allure of Morocco: Eugène Delacroix, Tiger Hunt, 1854. Oil on
canvas, approx. 2' 5" x 3'. Louvre, Paris.
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).
Turner, The Fighting Temeraire, tugged to her Last Berth to be broken up (1838)
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 (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 , New York.