art history

Rococo: 1700-1750 Neoclassicism: 1750-1815 Period of European conquest Armies became too expensive European settlers built Baroque and Rococo inspired homes and imported Rococo fashions and garments in the new world Death of Louis XIV in France: less power in the hands of the king and more in the nobility  Rococo departs from the Baroque interest in royalty; aristocratic; Paris became the "hub" instead of Versailles  Industrial Revolution brought machinery work and inhumane working conditions; mass production and technological innovation  Population boomed  The Enlightenment; ideas based on logic rather than spirituality  Transformational movements in European politics  Rome became a location of inspiration and tradition, but not of progress Historical paintings and portraits were most important  Rococo: Shift of power to the aristocrats paralleled in Baroque and Rococo. French Royal Academy set the taste for art in Paris Strong...

The Tête à Tête , from Marriage à la Mode . William Hogarth. c. 1743 C.E. Oil on canvas. BEST KNOWN FOR PRINTS, NOT PAINTINGS; MADE PAINTING TO SHOWCASE HIS PRINTS; BEGINNINGS OF INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION IN ENGLAND AND FRANCE; PART OF SET OF SIX PAINTINGS WIDENING MIDDLE CLASS FOCUSED ON ART; ART BECAME A COMMODITY; MERCHANT CLASS BECOMING POWERFUL; ART PREVIOUSLY SERVED THE ARISTOCRACY, PRINCES, MONARCHS, THE CHURCH; APPEALS TO MIDDLE CLASS, MAKES FUN OF ARISTOCRACY 18TH CENTURY MARRIAGES WERE OFTEN ARRANGED FOR ECONOMICAL/SOCIAL BENEFIT RATHER THAN LOVE; EXCHANGE OF TITLE AND WEALTH; TELL STORY OF ARISTOCRATIC FAMILY HUSBAND HAS COME FROM A NIGHT OF PARTYING, DRINKING, WOMANIZING; WOMAN’S BONNET IN HIS POCKET; WIFE HAS HAD FUN OF HER WHILE HE WAS GONE; HER BODICE IS UNDONE, LOVER HAS JUST LEFT  LOVEMAKING HAS TAKEN PLACE, CHAIR FALLEN OVER; MUSIC WAS A TRADITIONAL SYMBOL OF PLEASURE PAINTINGS OF SAINTS AND ANGELS; HOGARTH JUDGES HER; MAN CAN’T CONVINCE THEM TO TAKE ...

Enlightenment and revolution and Modern and contemporary art From the mid-1700s to 1980 C.E., Europe and the Americas experienced rapid change and innovation. Art existed in the context of dramatic events such as industrialization, urbanization, economic upheaval, migrations, and wars. Countries and governments were re-formed; women’s and civil rights’ movements catalyzed social change. Artists assumed new roles in society. Styles of art proliferated and often gave rise to artistic movements. Art and architecture exhibited a diversity of styles, forming an array of “isms.” Works of art took on new roles and functions in society and were experienced by audiences in new ways. Art of this era often proved challenging for audiences and patrons to immediately understand.

Palace of Westminster (Houses of Parliament) . London, England. Charles Barry and Augustus W.N. Pugin (architects). 1840–1870 C.E. Limestone masonry and glass. Early Victorian Era, across the River Thames.  Great fire burned down previous palace; competition was held for design of new building Gothic or Elizabethan; Gothic style, won by Charles Berry. Industrialization: modern world unsettled people, not beautiful.  Building uses modern innovation; concerned with ventilation.  Loved to compare Medieval world of faith with the new one revolving around money and fortune.  Regularity, rhythm and balance; symmetrical as opposed to the previous Gothic style.  Example of interest in historical architectural style. 1,1000 rooms, 100 staircases Modern office building inside, Medieval outside

Slave Ship (Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying, Typhoon Coming On) . Joseph Mallord William Turner. 1840 C.E. Oil on canvas. Museum of Fine Arts Boston. Oranges, Reds; Sunsets characteristic of the artist.  Thick sensuality of the paint. Foot, leg; shackles and chains; horror.  Carnage; no longer about a sunset/seascape; Ship carrying slaves.  Typhoon; Captain decided to throw the slaves overboard.  Swirl of waves and colors; mixture of beauty/power of nature; the punishment wreaked by nature is justified on that ship American slavery ends in Civil War; Whites, blues, purples, greys; based upon a poem. Emotional use of color; rapid brushstrokes; bloody sunset; dramatic impact

Still Life in Studio. Louis‐Jacques‐Mandé Daguerre. 1837 C.E. Photograph. However, it was not until the invention of a light sensitive surface by Frenchman Joseph Nicéphore Niépce that the basic principle of photography was born.  Louis Daguerre invented a new process he dubbed a daguerreotype in 1839, which significantly reduced exposure time.  Variety of textures: fabric, plaster, metal, wood  Shiny surface, great detail 

The Oxbow (View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm). Thomas Cole. 1836 C.E. Oil on canvas. Metropolitan Museum of Art. Hudson River School Painting. Founder of American Landscape painting; landscape ranked very low by the academies in Europe.  Painting not respected in American society; didn’t aim for anything extravagant, no grand, mythological scenes; Americans wanted portraits, or landscapes, or views.  Five or six feet wide: point Cole wanted to make. Landscape painting was considered lowly; made it in a campus comparable to highly renowned paintings.  He tries to use landscapes to say something big, convey a greater meaning; this is seen in his other works. Ambitious; Represents transformation, metamorphosis. It’s about America and what it’ll become. On the right, we see a storm-ravaged landscape; broken trees, rain the background, lightning bolts; birds are frantic.  Lush landscapes represents Eden: America as...

Eugène Delacroix, Liberty Leading the People , oil on canvas, September - December, 1830. Musee du Louvre, Paris, France. Romanticism; large canvases usually reserved for history painting, according to the rules of the Academy.  Contemporary; Parisians experienced this. Revolution against King Charles X and installed Louis Philippe.  Fighting on the streets of Paris, towers of Notre Dame; symbol of the monarchy.  Tricolor is the flag of the revolutionaries.  Liberty is an allegorical figure; symbolic. Personification of an idea.  Breasts resemble those of Greek/Roman sculptures; the birth of democracy.  Paris was a medieval city with narrow, winding streets; Liberty calls to move across the barrier, to move forward, move aggressively.  Liberty turns around to call the rebels; perfect classical profile reflects Greek and Roman sculpture.  People of all classes coming together; people in worn, ugly clothing; others in more form...

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, La Grande Odalisque , 1814, Oil on canvas, Musee de Louvre, Paris, France Commissioned by sister of Napoleon; by the time it was complete, they were gone as a result of the revolution.  Caused a scandal; female nude, not Venus or Eve.  Odalisque is a woman in a harem. Muslim.  Western ideal of what a harem would be was completely inaccurate.  19th century French construction of what they imagined that experience to be. France was colonising this part of the world.  Voluptuous and sensuous expression of the human body.  Ingres was a student of David; he came out of Neoclassicism and became a bridge to Romanticism.  Ignored rules of anatomy for sensuality: longer back, impossible leg positions.  Icy, aloof and distant look: not inviting. Distance and conflict.   Ingres actually returned to Neoclassicism after having first rejected the lessons of his teacher David.  He could even be said to ...

Yo no hai remedio (And There’s Nothing to Be Done) , from Los Desastres de la Guerra. Francisco de Goya. 1810-1823 C.E. Etching. A man, blind-folded, head downcast, stands bound to a wooden pole. Although the man’s off-kilter posture signifies defeat, he is yet heroic, an Alter Christus —another Christ. On the ground in front of him is a corpse, contorted, the spine twisted, arms and legs sprawled in opposite directions. His grotesque face looks out at us through obscured eyes as blood and brain matter ooze out of his skull and pool around his head. Other men, doubled-over and on their knees, are similarly secured to wooden stakes. To his right we see the cause of the carnage: a neat line of soldiers aim rifles at the men. The barrel of three rifles appear from the right edge of the picture, aimed at our messianic hero. Not only is he about to die, but his executioners are everywhere. There is nothing to be done.  Francisco Goya created the aquatint series The Disasters ...

Élisabeth Louise Vigée-LeBrun, Self-Portrait , 1790, oil on canvas, 100 x 81 cm (Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence) Élisabeth Louise Vigée-LeBrun was a celebrated French artist known especially for her lavish portraits of Marie-Antoinette and other European monarchs and nobles as well as for her many self-portraits. The artist who created this opulent showpiece became famous and wealthy as Queen Marie-Antoinette’s official court painter.  It is a late example of the Rococo style. Rococo epitomized a fashionable ideal, characterized by sexual gratification and freedom; she was more conservative.  This particular self-portrait was painted in Rome. The artist sits in a relaxed pose at her easel and is positioned slightly off center.  Her belt is a wide red ribbon.  Vigée-LeBrun holds a brush to a partially finished work.  The subject is probably Marie-Antoinette—perhaps intended as a tribute to her favorite sitter. Slightly used brushes are at the...

GEORGE WASHINGTON, JEAN ANTOINE HOUDON; 1788-1792 C.E. MARBLE After the successful conclusion of the American Revolutionary War, many state governments turned to public art to commemorate this momentous occasion.  Little talent in America. Artist trained at the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture and winner of the prestigious Prix de Rome in 1761 when only twenty years of age.  Houdon was, by the middle of the 1780s, the most famous and accomplished neoclassical sculptor at work in France. Given Houdon’s skill and ambition, the sculptor likely hoped to cast a larger than life-sized bronze statue of General Washington on horseback, a format appropriate for a victorious field commander.  In time, however, Houdon would be disappointed if his aspiration was to forge an equestrian bronze, the final product, delivered more than a decade later, was comparatively simple standing marble. They took detailed measurements of Washington’s body and sculpted a...

Jacques-Louis David, Oath of the Horatii , oil on canvas, 1784 (Musée du Louvre) REAL PLACE IN THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD IN FRANCE COMPLICATED STORY OF WARFARE BETWEEN ROME AND ALBA SMALL BATTLE WOULD WIN THE WAR HORATII BROTHERS TOGETHER; OATH TO FIGHT TO THE DEATH TO PROTECT THE CITY RELATIVES MOURN COMING BATTLE ARISTOCRACY BENEFITING WHILE NATION IS BANKRUPT PAINTING MADE IN ROME, DAVID DECIDED TO LOOK BACK AT ANTIQUITY FOR INSP BIRTH OF NEOCLASSICISM FRIEZE OF FIGURES THAT LOOK LIKE THEY COME FROM A GREEK VASE, LINEAR, SIMPLE SPACE DIVIDED IN THREE BY ROMAN ARCHES OF DORIC ORDER; SHALLOW SPACE CREATED BY THE USE OF LINEAR PERSPECTIVE FIRM CONTOURS, INTEREST IN HUMAN ANATOMY DRAPERY REVEALS BODIES’ FORM LIGHT PASSES ACROSS THE SURFACE OF THE CANVAS; MAKES A TREMENDOUSLY SHARP CONTRAST GEOMETRIC AND RATIONAL SPACE VANISHING POINT WHERE HANDS AND SWORDS MEET MEN IN STIFF, ANGULAR POSITIONS; WOMEN DOMINATED BY CURVILINEAR SOFT FORMS FRAMED BY DRAPERY COMMISSION B...

Thomas Jefferson, Monticello , Charlottesville, Virginia, 1770-1806. Jefferson: Governor of Virginia, American minister to France, the first Secretary of State, the third president of the United States, and one of the most accomplished gentleman architects in American history.  One of the earliest proponents of neoclassical architecture in the United States. Jefferson believed art was a powerful tool; it could elicit social change, could inspire the public to seek education, and could bring about a general sense of enlightenment for the American public. Believed that the Wren-Baroque aesthetic common in colonial Virginia was too British for a North American audience.  Thus, when Jefferson began to design his own home, he turned not to the architecture then in vogue around the Williamsburg area, but instead to the classically inspired architecture of Antonio Palladio and James Gibbs.   Homes were usually in plantations. Jefferson decided instead to place hi...

Jean-Honoré Fragonard, The Swing , oil on canvas, 1767 HER LOVER HIDDEN IN THE BUSHES PLAYFUL, MISCHIEVOUS COMPOSITION OLDER MAN PUSHING HER IS UNAWARE OF LOVER ANGEL SCULPTURE SHUSHING, “IT’S A SECRET” BEHIND A VILLA OR PALACE; YOU CAN MAKE OUT ARCHITECTURE IN THE DISTANCE LUSH GARDEN, OVERGROWN; FERTILE; CONTRIBUTES TO SEXUAL, SENSUAL ENERGY DREAMLIKE, MISTY CUPID ANGELS ON BEEHIVE SIGNIFY THE STING OF LOVE DIVERSE TREES, SOME LEAFLESS, INDICATE PASSION DOG REPRESENTS FIDELITY, IRONIC; DOG IS ANGRY COUPLE DECADES BEFORE THE REVOLUTION INDULGENCE AND PLEASURE THAT CHARACTERISE THE ARISTOCRACY AND THE RULING CLASS OF FRANCE FIGURES ARE SMALL IN A DOMINANT GARDEN LIKE SETTING  PUFFY CLOUDS, RICH VEGETATION; ABUNDANT FLOWERS  YOUNG LADY SWINGS FLIRTATIOUSLY, BOLDLY KICKING HER SHOE AT CUPID SCULPTURE

Joseph Wright of Derby, A Philosopher Giving a Lecture at the Orrery (in which a lamp is put in place of the sun) , c. 1763-65, oil on canvas Two young boys, gazing over the edge of the contraption in playful wonder. A teenaged girl, her arms resting on the machine, in quiet contemplation. A young man shielding his eyes from the brilliance of the light emanating from the center, and a young woman staring unblinkingly. A standing man taking copious notes on the proceedings. Another man leaning back in his seat, listening intently to the gray-haired lecturer, captivating his audience like a magician. A key idea of the Age of Enlightenment—that empirical observation grounded in science and reason could best advance society—is expressed by the faces of the individuals in this piece Wright’s painting encapsulates in one moment the Enlightenment, a philosophical shift in the eighteenth century away from traditional religious models of the universe and toward an empirical, scientifi...

PORTRAIT OF SOR JUANA INES DE LA CRUZ ; MIGUEL CABRERA, C.1750 C.E. OIL ON CANVAS, LOCATED IN MEXICO Famous depiction of the esteemed Mexican nun and writer.  Considered the first feminist of the Americas.  Rather than marry, she chose to become a nun so she could pursue her intellectual interests.  She corresponded with scientists, theologians, and other literary intellectuals in Mexico and abroad.  She wrote poetry and plays that became internationally famous, and even engaged in theological debates. knowledge of physics, philosophy, theology, and mathematics. Miguel Cabrera has never actually met sor Juana; Cabrera likely modeled this painting on images of male scholars seated at their desks. He possibly found inspiration in depictions of St. Jerome, the patron saint of sor Juana’s religious order.  Images often portray St. Jerome seated at a desk within a study, surrounded by books and instruments of learning.  Cabrera’s portrai...