19th Century Art History Final Exam

William Hodges, A View taken in the Bay of OtaheitePeha,1776

Hodges' paintings of the Pacific are vivid records of British exploration. He was appointed by the Admiralty to record the places discovered on Cook's second voyage, undertaken in the 'Resolution' and 'Adventure', 1772-75. This was primarily in the form of drawings, with some oil sketches, many later converted to engravings in the official voyage account. He also completed large oil paintings for exhibition in London on his return, which exercised lasting influence on European ideas of the Pacific. The National Maritime Museum holds 26 oils relating to the voyage of which 24 were either painted for or acquired by the Admiralty. Cook's main purpose on this expedition was to locate, if possible, the much talked-of but unknown Southern Continent and further expand knowledge of the central Pacific islands, in which Hodges' records of coastal profiles were in part important for navigational reasons. Hodges produced several versions of this painting, of which the traditional Admiralty title has become 'Tahiti revisited' but his original title is recorded on the back of the canvas. This is a version created for the Admiralty after the original painted for exhibition at the Royal Academy in 1776 (now at Anglesey Abbey). Hodges depicts the first anchorage at Tahiti on the voyage and reveals the beauty and peace of Vaitepiha Bay. The terrain was described as high and mountainous and covered with trees and shrubs. Jagged peaks of mountains rise up in the distance and in the middle distance a hut is visible by the bank of the river. A figure is included nearby on the promontory at the edge of the water. Since climate was regarded as the prime determinant of man's mental, moral and social life, the painting implies Tahitian life as a function of its tropical fertility. This is underscored by Hodges' inclusion of several female figures prominently in the foreground. They bathe in the river and transform and reinforce the landscape as an image of sensual paradise with erotic charms. He has added more figures than in the original. The pagan statue, or 'tii', presides prominently over the girls in the foreground to the right as they prepare to bathe. Hodges has attempted to introduce moral purpose and dignity to the landscape by presenting an image of Tahitian society untouched by European contact, since the image includes no hint of Cook's party. The inclusion of the shrouded corpse or 'tupapau' on the far right, implies that even in such a tropical idyll death is present. Such emphasis on the idyllic condition of Tahitian society prior to European contact was a political view that Hodges would have been wary of revealing, and was certainly not the view his works were expected to disseminate. Hodges used this personal interpretation of Tahiti to hint at the heady temptations of the island, which both Cook and the Admiralty would have wished to play down. These paintings attracted considerable public interest, and formed pendants to his images of boats of war.

HonoréDaumier, Rue Transnonain, 1834. Lithograph

In order to help pay his censorship fines, Philipon established L'Association mensuelle lithographie (Monthly Lithography Association), a kind of monthly print club. Subscribers to the club were entitled to a large lithographic print each month. A total of 24 prints were produced for the club, five of which were created by Daumier. This work was the last print from the series. This deeply disturbing image was made to commemorate the murder by the National Guard of innocent civilians during widespread unrest in Paris during the month of April 1834. The strife had come after the French army repressed a revolt staged by silk workers in Lyon in the South of France. According to accounts of the tragedy, gunshots had rung out from an upper floor window at 12 rue Transnonain and French troops responded by storming the building, opening fire, and wounding and killing residents of the working class abode. Daumier's mastery of lithography provides this work with its gut-wrenching impact. The raking light - so often emblematic of his cynicism, of satire - now represents a kind of unflinching and courageous honesty as the government is exposed for its murderous tyranny. Whereas typically the artist relies on exaggeration, for instance, distorting physical characteristics of a human subject to expose an underlying character trait or even flaw, here no exaggeration is needed. In fact, if anything, understatement is at play: a bloody scene depicted in stark black and white is perhaps less openly gruesome. However, this image of the haunting aftermath is made more disturbing by the elimination of color and of any extraneous details. What you see is the ghastly result of indiscriminate violence. The print was released six months after the event and was accompanied by a commentary written by Philipon: "This lithograph is horrible to behold, as horrible as the dreadful event it recounts. It shows a murdered old man, a dead woman, the corpse of a terribly wounded man lying upon the body of a poor little baby whose head is split open. It is not a satire, it is a bloody page in the history of our modern era, a page sketched by a powerful hand and inspired by a lofty imagination..." Police discovered this print displayed in the window at Galerie Vero-Dodat, a covered arcade in the center of Paris. Subsequently, officials from the government confiscated the lithographic stone and tracked down and destroyed impressions of Rue Transnonain. A year later, Louis-Philippe's censor made political caricatures illegal. Lithograph - The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City

Napoleon in the Pesthouseat Jaffa Antoine-Jean Gros 1804

The painter Antoine-Jean Gros depicts the courage of General Bonaparte visiting plague-stricken soldiers in Jaffa, Syria, in 1799. Napoleon is touching one of the plague victims, as Christ did a leper. This huge canvas, hugely acclaimed at the 1804 Salon, was the first masterpiece of Napoleonic painting. Although the heroic nudes recall the work of Gros's master David, the warm colors, chiaroscuro, and oriental decor foreshadow Romantic painting. The courage of the general-in-chief The picture depicts General Bonaparte visiting plague-stricken French troops in the courtyard of a Jaffa mosque being used as a military hospital. The scene took place in March 1799 during the Syrian campaign. Bonaparte, in a shaft of daylight - ignoring the doctor trying to dissuade him - touches a sore on one of the plague victims with his bare hand. One of the officers watching has a handkerchief over his mouth. On the left, two Arabs are handing out bread to the sick. On the right, a blind soldier is trying to approach the general-in-chief. In the foreground, in the shadows, the dying men are too weak to turn towards their leader. The painter is implying that Bonaparte's virtue and courage justify the horrors of war. Gros has given him the luminous aura and gestures of Christ healing the lepers in religious paintings. The first masterpiece of Napoleonic history painting When he commissioned Gros to paint this canvas, Bonaparte, who had become First Consul, wanted it to help clear the accusations of the British press, who had alleged that he had wanted to execute the plague-stricken during his retreat to Cairo. The painting, presented at the 1804 Salon shortly before his coronation - a particularly opportune moment for Bonaparte - is the first masterpiece of Napoleonic history painting. Bonaparte and then Napoleon the emperor drew the painters of the time away from classical subjects and had them paint contemporary battles and imperial pomp instead, with himself as the heroic center of attention. Gros subsequently portrayed Napoleon on the Battlefield of Eylau (1808, Louvre), a work very similar to this one. The painting greatly influenced the painters of the next generation, Géricault and Delacroix, notably when the latter painted The Massacre at Chios (1824, Louvre). On the threshold of Romanticism The picture is neoclassical in its subject matter - the depiction of an example of virtue - and in certain formal aspects. The scene is depicted against a stage-like backdrop of arcades reminiscent of David's The Oath of the Horatii (1784, Louvre). The painter has given great importance to the center of the painting, where he has placed Bonaparte, and has also included several heroic nudes. But aspects of Gros's treatment in this work have broken with the art of his teacher David and herald Romanticism. The painter emphasizes the suffering of the plague-stricken, instilling a feeling of horror and the sublime in the viewer. The composition is divided into contrasting areas of light and shade. The light and colors are warm and recall those of the Venetian masters and Rubens. Gros, a precursor of the Orientalists, also took pains to depict oriental facial types, dress, and architecture.

van GoghThe Night Café1888

Vincent van Gogh painted The Night Café (original French title: Le Café de nuit) in Arles in September 1888 The painting was executed on industrial primed canvas of size 30 (French standard). It depicts the interior of the cafe, with a half-curtained doorway in the center background leading, presumably, to more private quarters. Five customers sit at tables along the walls to the left and right, and a waiter in a light coat, to one side of a billiard table near the center of the room, stands facing the viewer. The five customers depicted in the scene have been described as "three drunks and derelicts in a large public room [...] huddled down in sleep or stupor."One scholar wrote, "The cafe was an all-night haunt of local down-and-outs and prostitutes, who are depicted slouched at tables and drinking together at the far end of the room." In wildly contrasting, vivid colours, the ceiling is green, the upper walls red, the glowing, gas ceiling lamps and floor largely yellow. The paint is applied thickly, with many of the lines of the room leading toward the door in the back. The perspective looks somewhat downward toward the floor. In a jocular passage of a letter Van Gogh wrote his brother, Theo, the artist said Ginoux had taken so much of his money that he'd told the cafe owner it was time to take his revenge by painting the place. In August 1888 the artist told his brother in a letter: Today I am probably going to begin on the interior of the cafe where I have a room, by gas light, in the evening. It is what they call here a cafe de nuit (they are fairly frequent here), staying open all night. Night prowlers can take refuge there when they have no money to pay for a lodging, or are too drunk to be taken in." Van Gogh's Cafe Terrace at Night, showing outdoor tables, a street scene and the night sky, was painted in Arles at about the same time. It depicts a different cafe, a larger establishment on the Place du Forum. Van Gogh wrote many letters to his brother Theo van Gogh, and often included details of his latest work. The artist wrote his brother more than once about The Night Café. In one of the letters he describes this painting: I have tried to express the terrible passions of humanity by means of red and green. The room is blood red and dark yellow with a green billiard table in the middle; there are four lemon-yellow lamps with a glow of orange and green. Everywhere there is a clash and contrast of the most alien reds and greens, in the figures of little sleeping hooligans, in the empty dreary room, in violet and blue. The blood-red and the yellow-green of the billiard table, for instance, contrast with the soft tender Louis XV green of the counter, on which there is a rose nosegay. The white clothes of the landlord, watchful in a corner of that furnace, turn lemon-yellow, or pale luminous green." The next day (September 9), he wrote Theo: I have tried to express the terrible passions of humanity by means of red and green. The room is blood red and dark yellow with a green billiard table in the middle; there are four lemon-yellow lamps with a glow of orange and green. Everywhere there is a clash and contrast of the most alien reds and greens, in the figures of little sleeping hooligans, in the empty dreary room, in violet and blue. The blood-red and the yellow-green of the billiard table, for instance, contrast with the soft tender Louis XV green of the counter, on which there is a rose nosegay. The white clothes of the landlord, watchful in a corner of that furnace, turn lemon-yellow, or pale luminous green." The violent exaggeration of the colours and the thick texture of the paint made the picture "one of the ugliest pictures I have done", Van Gogh wrote at one point. He also called it "the equivalent though different, of The Potato Eaters", which it resembles somewhat in its use of lamplight and concerns for the condition of people in need. The work has been called one of Van Gogh's masterpieces and one of his most famous. Unlike typical Impressionist works, the painter does not project a neutral stance towards the world or an attitude of enjoyment of the beauty of nature or of the moment. The painting is an instance of Van Gogh's use of what he called "suggestive colour" or, as he would soon term it, "arbitrary colour" in which the artist infused his works with his emotions, typical of what was later called Expressionism. The red and green of the walls and ceiling are an "oppressive combination", and the lamps are "sinister features" with orange-and-green halos, according to Nathaniel Harris. "The top half of the canvas creates its basic mood, as any viewer can verify by looking at it with one or the other half of the reproduction covered up; the bottom half supplies the 'facts.'" The thick paint adds a surreal touch of waviness to the table tops, billiard table and floor. The viewer is left with a feeling of seediness and despair, Harris wrote. "The scene might easily be banal and dispiriting; instead, it is dispiriting but also terrible." The red and green of the walls and ceiling are an "oppressive combination", and the lamps are "sinister features" with orange-and-green halos, according to Nathaniel Harris. "The top half of the canvas creates its basic mood, as any viewer can verify by looking at it with one or the other half of the reproduction covered up; the bottom half supplies the 'facts.'" The thick paint adds a surreal touch of waviness to the table tops, billiard table and floor. The viewer is left with a feeling of seediness and despair, Harris wrote. "The scene might easily be banal and dispiriting; instead, it is dispiriting but also terrible." The perspective of the scene is one of its most powerful effects, according to various critics. Schapiro described the painting's "absorbing perspective which draws us headlong past empty chairs and tables into hidden depths behind a distant doorway an opening like the silhouette of the standing figure." Lant described it as a "shocking perspectival rush, which draws us, by the converging diagonals of floorboards and billiard table, towards the mysterious, courtained doorway beyond." Harris wrote that the perspective "pitches the viewer forward into the room, towards the half-curtained private quarters, and also creates a sense of vertigo and distorted vision, familiar from nightmares." Schapiro also noted, "To the impulsive rush of these converging lines he opposes the broad horizontal band of red, full of scattered objects [...]"

Sir Edwin Landseer, Windsor Castle in Modern Times; Queen Victoria, Prince Albert and Victoria, Princess Royal, 1840-43

When one thinks of Sir Edwin Henry Landseer, RA, many accomplishments come to mind. An English animal painter of mainly horses, dogs, stags and lions, Landseer's works became commonplace in the homes of Victorian audiences, and his Lion sculptures sit proudly in Trafalgar Square to this very day. However, perhaps the most relatable Landseer artworks to our modern eye are those which depict the enduring relationship between the royal family and their dogs, a love affair which many modern pet owners can relate to. Windsor Castle in Modern Times presents such a scene and, as such, acts as a window into which we can explore both our love of Landseer and of dogs. A Conversation Piece Windsor Castle in Modern Times was modelled off a type of painting known as a 'Conversation piece'—in which a group of people (normally family) would be positioned in an informal setting engaged in conversation, or a similar activity—and this painting by Landseer was certainly a discussion point among its royal patrons. Begun in 1840 and not finished until 1845, multiple sittings and bouts of time when Landseer appeared not to work on the painting at all meant that Queen Victoria was far from amused. Despite this, when the painting was finally hung up in her sitting room in Windsor Castle, Queen Victoria determined with no hesitancy that the painting was a "very beautiful picture, & altogether very cheerful & pleasing." And, when looking at the painting, it's not hard to see why the final result was received so positively. Regal but relatable The painting depicts an encounter between Victoria and Albert, in a drawing room at Windsor Castle (a medieval castle at Windsor that Queen Victoria used as the principle royal residence), just after Albert has come back from a day out hunting. Triumphant in his endeavours, as can be seen from the game that is sprawled out across the room, Victoria greets Albert with the presentation of a small bouquet of flowers (known as a nosegay), whist their eldest child, Victoria, can be seen playing with a dead kingfisher. The scene is, of course, entirely manufactured for the conversation piece—game would not be spread out with such compositional intent in the drawing room, or spread out in the drawing room at all for that matter!—but this is a large part of the painting's charm and success. Prince Albert and Queen Victoria (detail), Sir Edwin Landseer, Windsor Castle in Modern Times; Queen Victoria, Prince Albert and Victoria, Princess Royal, 1840-43, oil on canvas, 113.3 x 144.5 cm (The Royal Collection) Prince Albert and Queen Victoria (detail), Sir Edwin Landseer, Windsor Castle in Modern Times; Queen Victoria, Prince Albert and Victoria, Princess Royal, 1840-43, oil on canvas, 113.3 x 144.5 cm (The Royal Collection) Prince Albert and Queen Victoria (detail), Sir Edwin Landseer, Windsor Castle in Modern Times; Queen Victoria, Prince Albert and Victoria, Princess Royal, 1840-43, oil on canvas, 113.3 x 144.5 cm (The Royal Collection) Shown in the traditional role of royal huntsman, Prince Albert appears as an appropriately masculine figure in the home, at the same time as also representing the virtues that came with embracing a countryside life in Industrial Britain. Meanwhile Queen Victoria is depicted as a loving and caring wife and the epitome of feminine virtue—greeting her husband when he comes home in the most delicate of manner; with a bouquet of flowers—but, her position, standing in front of Albert, also makes it clear that she is the ruling monarch. All of these elements demonstrate the effectiveness of Landseer's artwork—making the royal family look both regal, but also relatable in the eyes of the aspiring middle-class, who found themselves eager to emulate royal examples in this era. Completing the painting (and no doubt, a prevalent reason as to why Landseer was chosen to produce the work) is the inclusion of four dogs in the painting. Beloved family pets, each with their own story, the dogs in this painting add an additional level to Windsor Castle in Modern Times and, at the same time, also work to showcase Landseer's reputation as the leading animal painter of the period. Canine Conversations It was no secret that Queen Victoria was a lover of animals, and dogs in particular. When Landseer was given his first royal commission it was to paint Victoria's beloved spaniel, Dash, when she was a Princess, for her Birthday. Windsor Castle in Modern Times follows Landseer's transition into royal pet painter, and the animals in the painting are afforded as much detail as the royal family themselves. Princess Royal with Cairnach and Islay (detail) Sir Edwin Landseer, Windsor Castle in Modern Times; Queen Victoria, Prince Albert and Victoria, Princess Royal, 1840-43, oil on canvas, 113.3 x 144.5 cm (The Royal Collection) Princess Royal with Cairnach and Islay (detail) Sir Edwin Landseer, Windsor Castle in Modern Times; Queen Victoria, Prince Albert and Victoria, Princess Royal, 1840-43, oil on canvas, 113.3 x 144.5 cm (The Royal Collection) Princess Royal with Cairnach and Islay (detail) Sir Edwin Landseer, Windsor Castle in Modern Times; Queen Victoria, Prince Albert and Victoria, Princess Royal, 1840-43, oil on canvas, 113.3 x 144.5 cm (The Royal Collection) The dog at the far bottom left of the painting, nearest to the young Victoria, was a Skye terrier (a breed the Queen favoured) called Cairnach—who would also go on to be painted by Landseer in 1842 as a Christmas present from Albert to Victoria. If he wasn't well known when Windsor Castle in Modern Times was finished then he would become so over time, as Albert's Christmas present to Victoria was reproduced and made available to the public as an engraving. To the right of Cairnach, begging eagerly as he looks up to Albert, Islay can been seen; another Skye terrier and one of the Queen's favourite dogs. He was, in fact, popular enough that he had been painted in a previous pet portrait by Landseer, titled Islay and Tico with a Red Macaw and two Love Birds (1839), in the exact same begging pose no less! Meanwhile the ironically named Skye terrier, Dandy Dinmont, can be seen in the painting at Albert's side, licking his hand in a faithful greeting. Dandy's faithful depiction in this painting would not be the last either, as, in 1843, he would be painted by Landseer at the side of the new born Princess Alice, in a painting by the same name, as her faithful guardian. The most well-known dog in this painting, however, would certainly be Eos, the Greyhound being stroked by Prince Albert. Eos was Albert's favourite dog and belonged exclusively to him, rather than being a family dog. Sir Edwin Landseer, Eos, A Favorite Greyhound, the property of H.R.H. Prince Albert, 1841, oil on canvas, 111.8 x 142.9 cm cm (The Royal Collection) This notable companion is best known for being the subject matter of the often reproduced Eos, A Favourite Greyhound, the property of H.R.H. Prince Albert (1841) by Landseer—an artwork which popularised the format of pet portraiture which followed (in pose, composition and the items included). In the same year Landseer also painted Eos with the young Princess Victoria (titled Victoria, Princess Royal, with Eos), as a birthday present to Albert. Lying faithfully with the Princess, Eos is seen here as the loyal and endearing pet that she was received as by her master. By the time this painting was finished, in 1845, both Eos and Islay had passed away, making their presence in this painting not just a dedication to man's best friend, but also a tribute to two beloved family pets. What does this tell us? Victorian Britain saw a notable boom in both dog ownership and dog portraiture, as dogs shifted from working and sporting animals to family pet, and this boom was certainly influenced by the royal family's love of dogs. With both more time and money at their disposal, the newly developing middle-class found a hobby in both the owning and showing of dogs, with the Queen's love of the animal enabling a feeling of distinction in the act, which (on the other side of the coin) also served to make the royal family seem more relatable. As such we can see how Windsor Castle in Modern Times was truly a tribute to home, hearth and hounds—effectively presenting the royal family to those who wished to follow in their example, both in moral values and in animal preferences, but also giving Queen Victoria a memorable image of her family as she wished to see it; dogs and all.

SeuratA Sunday on La Grande Jatte1884-86

"Bedlam," "scandal," and "hilarity" were among the epithets used to describe what is now considered Georges Seurat's greatest work, and one of the most remarkable paintings of the nineteenth century, when it was first exhibited in Paris. Seurat labored extensively over A Sunday on La Grande Jatte—1884, reworking the original as well as completing numerous preliminary drawings and oil sketches (the Art Institute has one such sketch and two drawings). With what resembles scientific precision, the artist tackled the issues of color, light, and form. Inspired by research in optical and color theory, he juxtaposed tiny dabs of colors that, through optical blending, form a single and, he believed, more brilliantly luminous hue. To make the experience of the painting even more intense, he surrounded the canvas with a frame of painted dashes and dots, which he, in turn, enclosed with a pure white wood frame, similar to the one with which the painting is exhibited today. The very immobility of the figures and the shadows they cast makes them forever silent and enigmatic. Like all great master-pieces, La Grande Jatte continues to fascinate and elude.

Manet Olympia 1863

-Manet Impressionism -caused a lot of controversy: controversial gaze, prostitution -stages a set of power relationships between viewer and viewed that becomes a part of modernism

Renoir, The Bathers, 1887

Although this painting depicts a fleeting moment when one bather playfully threatens to splash a companion, it has a timeless, monumental quality. The sculptural rendering of the figures against a shimmering landscape and the careful application of dry paint reflect the tradition of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century French painting. Renoir--in an attempt to reconcile this tradition with modern painting--labored over this work for three years, making numerous preparatory drawings for individual figures and at least two full-scale, multifigure drawings. Faced with criticism of his new style after completing The Large Bathers, an exhausted Renoir never again devoted such painstaking effort to a single work.

William Henry Fox Talbot, The Open Door, from The Pencil of Nature, 1844.

Among the most widely admired of Talbot's compositions, The Open Door is a conscious attempt to create a photographic image in accord with the renewed British taste for Dutch genre painting of the seventeenth century. In his commentary in The Pencil of Nature, where this image appeared as plate 6, Talbot wrote, "We have sufficient authority in the Dutch school of art, for taking as subjects of representation scenes of daily and familiar occurrence. A painter's eye will often be arrested where ordinary people see nothing remarkable." With this concept in mind, Talbot turned away from the historic buildings of Lacock Abbey and focused instead on the old stone doorframe and simple wooden door of the stable and on the humble broom, harness, and lantern as vehicles for an essay on light and shadow, interior and exterior, form and texture. Not on view

Louis-Jacques Daguerre, Boulevard du Temple, ca. 1839, daguerreotype.

An early example of a "daguerreotype." Paris Boulevard is a significant step in the development of photography. Taken in 1839 by Louis-Jacques Mande Daguerre, the photograph depicts a seemingly empty street in Paris. The elevated viewpoint emphasizes the wide avenues, tree-lined sidewalks, and charming buildings of the French capital. However, the obvious day light of the photograph begs the question - where are all the people in this normally busy city? Enhanced version of Joseph Nicephore Niépce, View from the Window at Gras, 1826 or 1827, oil-treated bitumen, 20 x 25 cm The answer to this question lies in the daguerreotype technique. The first photographs, such as Joseph Nicephore Niépce's famous View from the Window at Gras, took about 8 hours to expose, creating indistinct, grainy images. Daguerre was intrigued by these experiments and formed a partnership with Niépce from 1828 until the latter's death in 1833. Daguerre continued to refine the photographic method until he developed his new process. Chemistry His technique consisted of exposing a copper plate coated in silver and sensitized with iodine to light in a camera, and then developed it in darkness by holding it over a pan of heated vaporizing mercury. He also developed a method of creating a permanent image by using a solution of ordinary table salt. Daguerre's technique significantly reduced exposure time and created a lasting result that would not dim with further exposure to light, but only produced a single image. It would be up to others to produce the negatives that allowed for the production of multiple copies of an image. A Shoe Shine Louis Daguerre, detail Paris Boulevard, 1839, Daguerreotype Daguerre's Paris Boulevard shows the advantages of the new technique. There is far more detail than in earlier photographs. We can clearly see the panes in the windows and the sharp corners of the building in the front of the image. The objects are no longer blurry masses of light and dark, but defined and separate structures. In fact, the only thing missing are the people, except for the small figure of a man having his shoes shined at a sidewalk stand. The remaining problem of the daguerreotype, at least by modern standards, was the long exposure time, between 10 and 15 minutes. This meant that the people hurrying along those spacious sidewalks did not register on the photograph. The man having his shoes shined, possibly the first photographic image of a person, obviously stayed still long enough to register on the image. The haunting empty, yet evocative, image of Paris Boulevard shows both how far photography had come in a short time and how much farther the technology still had to advance.

Portrait of Citizen Jean-Baptiste Belley, Ex-Representative of the ColoniesAnne-Louis Girodet1797

Anne-Louis Girodet Trioson's Portrait of C. [itizen] Jean-Baptiste Belley, ex- representative of the Colonies, is evidence of the changing ideological situation during the French Revolution. Girodet was one of the most learned and accomplished students of Jacques-Louis David who strove to surpass his teacher in two ways: 1) by painting David's Neoclassical style so well that his handling surpasses that of his master, and 2) by choosing subject matter never before explored by David. Girodet accomplishes both within this work. The Neoclassical handling of the image has been achieved with amazing clarity, and the central figure of an identified black man had never been displayed in the Salon previously. The work was without precedent and without progeny. It successfully transcends the boundaries of portraiture into the highest tier of the Academic hierarchy: History Painting. Lacking in the existing scholarship of this portrait as history painting is that the work is successful in fulfilling a didactic and moralizing function, bearing significance to the general public. Scholars have hitherto ignored the striking visual similarities between this and Grand Tour portraits of Englishmen earlier in the century. This portrait of Belley calls into question accepted post-colonial readings by not adhering to a strict Orientalist interpretation. His hybrid nature nullifies readings that he is merely a black man posed as a French one. Belley cannot be seen as simply African, nor Haitian, nor French, nor military man, nor politician; each of these aspects of his being add up to his individual identity. It was because of Belley's race that he was chosen for this portrait; his complex nature creates a dramatic painting relevant to varied members of the general public, his status as a black man allows for a politically relevant subject worthy of history painting, and the choice of Girodet's model of Grand Tour portraiture with its connotations of education, travel and social status—when applied to a black man—make this a revolutionary painting unparalleled in history.

Honoré Daumier, Gargantua,1831, lithograph

Artwork description & Analysis: In this controversial lithograph, which was to be published in Charles Philipon's newspaper La Caricature on December 16, 1831, Daumier depicted the corpulent monarch Louis-Philippe seated on a throne, gobbling bags of coins being hauled up a ramp by tiny laborers, the coins having been wrung from the poor of France by his ministers. On the lower right, a crowd of his poverty-stricken subjects stand waiting miserably to turn over what little money they have. Milling around the throne are Louis-Philippe's favorites, also extravagantly fat; they are collecting commissions, decorations, and so forth that are the result of the compulsory offerings of the poor. The title, Gargantua, explains Brandeis University, "was actually referring to the incredible amounts of money the French government spent on itself. Louis-Philippe allowed himself a 'salary' of more than 18 million francs, which was 37 times more than Napoleon Bonaparte or almost 150 times the amount the American President received." Further, that outrageous salary was paid him on top of the regular income he was given to maintain the castles he owned. All the while, the majority of the population was living in dire poverty. While the scathing image was meant to run in the December 16, 1831 publication of La Caricature, the police along with government's censor halted the printing. An article appeared instead, criticizing the Court's decision to censor the cartoon. The publisher and artist were both tried in Court in February 1832; each man fined 500 francs plus legal fees and pleaded guilty. All three were sentenced to six months in Sainte-Pélagie prison. Shortly afterwards, La Caricature newspaper ceased to exist but Maison Aubert began publishing the equally controversial satirical newspaper, Le Charivari.

Edgar Degas, Ballet Rehearsal, 1874

Ballet Rehearsal on Stage, painted in 1874, was not a typical impressionist painting. The painting is an oil on canvas. The lack of color is evidence of the painting's anit-impressionism. The most obvious difference between this painting of ballet and another impressionist's ballet scene is that the dancers are rehearsing. Keith Roberts said, "It retains little quiet charm, like most ballet scenes did". Most ballet scenes show dancers performing for an audience, but Degas shows the dancers in a different way. The dancers are not only dancing but they are stretching and yawning. Though all of the dancers shown are dressed uniformly, their faces are not uniform. Every dancer has a different facial expression, but all of the expressions read as one mood: fatigue. One dancer obviously yawning, with both hands stretched back behind head, head raised, and mouth wide open. The dancers do not show the beauty seen on the stage. Author, Francesco Salvi, has his own view of Degas' depiction: "In The Rehearsal on Stage he captures the repetitious nature of a job like any other: the ballerinas' movements, rehearsed and re-rehearsed, an old teacher, two bored onlookers". In the bottom right corner of the painting, the first empty row of the theater is shown, once again reiterating that it is a rehearsal shown. The colors are dull, reinforcing the mood. Ballet Rehearsal on Stage is a prime example of Degas' work. This painting clearly shows the Parisian culture because ballet was a major aspect at that time.

BertheMorisot, The Wet Nurse and Julie, 1880

Berthe Morisot's Wet Nurse and Julie [ 1 Iof 1879 is an extraordinary painting.z Even in the context of an oeuvre in which formal daring is relatively unexceptional, this work is outstanding. "All that is solid melts into air"-Karl Marx's memorable phrase, made under rather different circum- stances, could have been designed for the purpose of encapsulating Morisot's painting in a nutshell. 3 Nothing is left of the conventions of pictorial con- struction: figure versus background, solid form versus atmosphere, detailed description versus sketchy suggestion, the usual complexities of com- position or narration. All are abandoned for a com- position almost disconcerting in its three-part sim- plicity; a facture so open, so dazzlingly unfettered as to constitute a challenge to readability; and a colorism so daring, so synoptic in its rejection of traditional strategies of modeling as to be almost Fauve before the fact.4 Morisot's Wet Nurse is equally innovative in its subject matter. For this is not the old motif of the Madonna and Child, updated and secularized, as FromLindaNochlin, Women, Art, and Power and Other Essays (New York Harper & Row, Publishers, 1988), pp. 37-56. Copyright © 1988 by Linda Nochlin, Reprinted by permission of the author and flarperCollins. -Sttplunc Mallanncl it is in a work like Renoir's Aline Nursing or in many of the mother-and-child paintings by the other prominent woman tiietnber of the Impres- sionist group, Mary Cassatt. It is, surprisingly enough, a work scene. The "mother" in the scene is not a real mother but a so-called seeonde mere, or wet nurse, and she is feeding the child not out of "natural" nurturing instinct but for wages, as a member of a flourishing industry.5 And the artist painting her, whose gaze defines her, whose active brush articulates her form, is not, as is usually the case, a man, but a woman, the woman whose child is being nursed. Certainly, this painting embodies one of the most unusual circumstances in the his- toryof art-perhaps a unique one: a woman paint- ing another woman nursing her baby. Or, to put it another way, introducing what is not seen but what is known into what is visible, two working women confront each other here, across the body of "their" child and the boundaries of class, both with claims to motherhood and mothering, both, one assumes, engaged in pleasurable activity which, at the same time, may be considered pro- duction in the literal sense of the word. What might be considered a mere use value if the paint- ing was produced by a inerc amateur, the milk produced for the nourishment of one's own child, MORISOT'S U'I:7 \UAS/i that the female rural laborer was absent from French painting of the second half of the nine- teenth century. Millet often represented peasant women at work at domestic tasks like spinning or churning, and Jules Breton specialized in scenes of idealized peasant women working in the fields. But it is nevertheless significant that in the quin- tessential representation of the labor of the female peasant, Millet's Cleaners, women arc repre- sented engaged not in productive labor-that is, working for profit, for the market-but rather for sheer personal survival-that is, for the nurtur- ancc of themselves and their children, picking up what is left over after the productive labor of the harvest is finished.? The glaneuses are thus assimi- lated to the realm of the natural-rather like ani- mals that forage to feed themselves and their young-rattler than to that of the social, to the realm of productive labor. This assimilation of the peasant woman to the position of the natural and the nurturant is made startlingly clear in a paint- ing like Giovanni Scgantini's Two Mothers [21, which makes a visual analogy between cow and woman as instinctive nurturers of their young. Work occupies an ambiguous position in the representational systems of Impressionism, the movement to which Morisot was irrevocably con- nected; Or one might say that acknowledgment of the presence of work themes in Impressionism has until recently been repressed in favor of discourses stressing the movement's "engagement with themes of urban leisure."" Meyer Schapiro, above all, in two important articles of the 1930s, laid down the basic notion of impressionism as a repre- sentation of middle-class leisure, sociability, and recreation depicted from the viewpoint of the en- lightened, sensually alert middle-class consumer.`' One could contravene this contention by pointing to a body of Impressionist works that do, in fact, continue the tradition of representing rural labor initialed in the previous generation by Courbet and \1111ct and popularized III more sentimental form b%- Breton and Bast icn-Lepage Pissarro, par- ticularly, continued to develop the motif of the peasant, particularly the laboring or resting peas- ant woman, and that of the market woman in both Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist vocabularies, 233 right down through the 1880s. Berthe Morisot herself turned to the theme of rural labor several times: once in The Haymaker, a beautiful prepara- tory drawing for a larger decorative composition; again, in a little painting, In the Wheat Field, of 1875; and still another time (more ambiguously, because the rural "workers" in question, far from being peasants, are her daughter, Julie, and her niece Jeanne picking cherries) in The Cherry Tree of 1891-92. 10 Certainly, one could point to a sig- nificant body of Impressionist work representing urban or suburban labor. Degas did a whole series of ironers;rr Caillehotte depicted floor scrapers and house painters; and Morisot herself turned at least twice to the theme of the laundress: once in Laundresses Hanging Out the Wash [3] of 1875, a lyrical canvas of commercial laundresses plying their trade in the environs of the city, painted with a synoptic lightness that seems to belie the laboriousness of the theme; and another time in Woman Hanging the Washing (41, of 1881, a close-up view where the rectangularity of the lin- ens seems wittily to reiterate the shape and texture of the canvas, the laundress to suggest the work of the woman artist herself. Clearly, then, the Im- pressionists by no means totally avoided the repre- sentation of work.

Claude MonetBoulevard des Capucines1873

Boulevard des Capucines presented a genuine glimpse of Parisian life on a winter day, and the critic Ernest Chesneau claimed that Monet captured the elusive quality of movement with unprecedented skill. The painting captures a scene of the hustle and bustle of Parisian life from the studio of Monet's friend, the photographer Felix Nadar. Applying very little detail, Monet uses short, quick brushstrokes to create the "impression" of people in the city alive with movement. Critic Leroy was not pleased with these abstracted crowds, describing them as "black tongue-lickings." In Boulevard des Capucines, Monet used the Japanese mobile viewpoint to embody the fragmentary, yet dynamic modern experiences of space as the eye plunges into the deep channel of the crowded street, and seeks to disentangle the clues to the complex visual experiences given by a myriad detached brushstrokes. Fragmentation is also created by the double perspective thrust formed by the apartment blocks on the left and by the line of wintry trees and snow-topped cabs in the middle of the composition. Monet has also isolated his figures on the snow-covered pavements, but his brushstrokes fuse them into groups, just as a crowd melds the movements of many individuals.

Pissarro, Picking Apples at Eragny, 1888

Camille Pissarro believed fervently in the benefits of manual labor and communal living and represented laboring peasants throughout his life. In spite of this traditional subject, he was one of the more daring members of the Impressionist group. He was constantly experimenting with cutting-edge techniques and scientific theories to record his observations of nature while imbuing his work with compositional stability and meaning. Pissarro was among the first to adopt Georges Seurat's groundbreaking pointillist method, in which tiny dots of pure color were placed side by side in order to re-create the dazzling effect of reflected light. Here, dots of red, blue, green, pink, lavender, orange, and yellow create a stylized and carefully balanced scene of apple picking in the French countryside in the bright afternoon sun.

Ford Madox Brown, Work, 1852-1863• In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread (Genesis 3:19)• Neither did we eat any man's bread for naught but wrought with labourand travail night and day (2 Thessalonians 3:8)• I must work while it is day for night cometh, when no man can work (John 9:4)• Seestthou a man diligent in his business? He shall stand before Kings (Proverbs 22:29)

Construction projects have always been a part of city life, and Victorian London was no exception. Ford Madox Brown's painting Work is a fascinating glimpse of just this. Our eye is immediately drawn to the young man in a striped hat effortlessly lifting a shovel high in the air, and the well-muscled forearms of the other workers. Our eye then moves through the large canvas to the other figures, some more finely dressed and obviously of a different social class than the workers. But it is clear that Work is about more than just men digging. While the painting might appear to be a random view of a street, it is a carefully composed snapshot of the new way that different classes and professions encountered one another on the streets of Victorian London Brown and the Pre-Raphaelites Ford Madox Brown is associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, a group of British artists noted for their attention to detail, vibrant colors, and interest in scenes from literature. Although Brown himself was never an official member of the PRB, he was friendly with Dante Gabriel Rossetti and others in the group. The two got to know each other when Rossetti appeared on Brown's doorstep in 1848 asking for art lessons. Although the lessons were short-lived, the two developed a lasting friendship. Through his association with the PRB, Brown adopted many of their stylistic tendencies, particularly the use of bright colors and attention to detail. Modern Life However, Brown's paintings show a much greater interest in subjects of modern life than many of the other artists associated with the PRB. Brown recalled that he got the idea for Work from seeing navvies, or construction workers, excavating sewers in Hampstead, North London. The painting was begun in the summer of 1852. Brown traveled to the same spot in Hampstead every day, transporting his canvas back and forth by means of a special cart. The background landscape of the painting was completed right on the street in Hampstead so that Brown could capture the precise details of light, color and form. This interest in direct observation and specificity were hallmarks of the Pre-Raphaelite style. VIctorian ideas of class The painting centers on a group of working-class navvies. These figures represent the noble "working man," as they are neatly dressed and diligently going about their tasks. In contrast to the workers, there is a group of ragged children in the foreground, representing the lowest of the lower classes. In the catalogue of his 1865 one-man exhibition, Brown tells us that the children's mother is dead, and that the oldest, a girl of ten, is in charge of the rest of the children. She wears a tattered dress and is holding an infant over one shoulder. Children (detail), Ford Madox Brown, Work, 1852-65, oil on canvas, 137 x 197.3 cm (Manchester City Art Galleries) Also representative of the lowest class is the ragged and barefoot plant seller on the left side, a figure whom Brown described as a "ragged wretch who has never been taught to work." This hunched figure represents a stark contrast to the industrious and athletic navvies. shoveling away. Both the workers and the ragged children form another contrast, this time to the upper class figures depicted in the painting. On the left hand side, two ladies skirt the edge of the picture. The first, lady carrying a parasol, is a portrait of the artist's Brown's wife Emma. Following along behind is another well-dressed woman who offers a religious tract to one of the navvies. Seeing to the religious education of the lower classes was a type of "work" engaged in by many evangelical middle-class women. Plant seller (foreground), followed by two women, one, the artists wife, the other, distributing religions tracts (detail), Ford Madox Brown, Work, 1852-65, oil on canvas, 137 x 197.3 cm (Manchester City Art Galleries) Ford Madox Brown, detail Work, 1852-65, oil on canvas, 137 x 197.3 cm (Manchester City Art Galleries) In the background we see two riders on horseback, illustrating the landed upper classes, who by virtue of their wealth and place in society, have no need to work. These class distinctions are even carried over into the pets in the foreground of the painting. The mongrel dog with a frayed rope collar stands with the group of children and stares at his more pampered counterpart, a small dog with a red coat. Maurice and Carlyle Caryle and Maurice (detail) Ford Madox Brown, Work, 1852-65, oil on canvas, 137 x 197.3 cm (Manchester City Art Galleries) On the right side of the painting, two well-dressed men watch the navvies work. These figures are portraits of two prominent men of the day, Frederick Denison Maurice and Thomas Carlyle, whom Brown dubbed "brainworkers." Carlyle, the figure with the hat and stick, was the author of Past and Present, a book advocating social reform that Brown had read with interest. Maurice was a leading Christian Socialist and founder of the Working Men's College, where Brown was recruited as an instructor along with Rossetti and the art critic John Ruskin. One of the posters visible on the far left side on the canvas is an advertisement for the Working Men's College. At first glance Brown's painting Work may appear to be an illustration of the stratification of social class in Victorian England. However, a deeper look reveals both a stunning example of the colorful and detailed Pre-Raphaelite style of painting as well as a commentary on the role of "work," and its relationship to Victorian class structure. Work is at once a vivid reminder of both the class-consciousness of the Victorian age and the reforming spirit of that time which ultimately led to reforms like the ten-hour work day, and regulations restricting child labor.

CézanneA Modern Olympiac. 1874(shown at the 1st Impressionist exhibition)

Cézanne's early works, executed in dark colours, were largely inspired by the old masters and by the paintings of Delacroix, Daumier and Gustave Courbet. A painting from 1870 already featured A Modern Olympia (private collection) in response to the great painting Olympia of Édouard Manet that had caused such a scandal at the 1865 Salon. A few years later, Cézanne tackled this theme once again, but this second version was very different, with its luminous, dazzling colours and its brilliant execution reminiscent of Fragonard's paintings. At that time Cézanne's style was moving towards Impressionism. It was during his stay with Doctor Gachet at Auvers-sur-Oise that, in the heat of a discussion, Cézanne picked up his paintbrush and produced this coloured sketch, thus creating a much more daring interpretation of Manet's subject. The contrast of the nudity of the woman, uncovered by her black servant, with the elegant attire of the man in black, who looks strangely like Cézanne, and who watches her like a spectator, all contribute to the erotic and theatrical character of the scene. This effect is further accentuated by the presence of a curtain hanging on the left of the picture. During the first Impressionist exhibition in 1874, this somewhat incredible evocation was scorned by both public and critics. In the review L'artiste on 1 May 1874, Marc de Montifaud wrote: "like a voluptuous vision, this artificial corner of paradise has left even the most courageous gasping for breath.... and Mr Cézanne merely gives the impression of being a sort of madman, painting in a state of delirium tremens "

Degas, Women on a Café Terrace, Evening, 1877

DEGAS LOVED THE EVENING HOUR in Montmartre. As strong sunlight hurt his eyes he enjoyed wandering round Paris at night, picking up impressions, fixing indelibly on the plate of his memory certain scenes which he later developed with remarkable distinction in his studio. His method here was to start with the indications of the main forms of his picture painted on a metal plate. From this he took an impression on paper, building up the color and sense of detail in strokes of pastel. This daring and angular composition with the pillars of the cafe sharplv cutting the scene suggests the Impressionist search for sudden, fresh views of daily life. No one before Degas would have interrupted a figure with a vertical pillar stretching the entire height of the picture. No one else would have played so subtle a rhythm of curves, in the chairs, in the costumes, against these severe forms, or have studied the light of the interior as contrasted to the blurred, streaked night scene behind. As usual the poses and gestures are caught with a sharp eye; observe the woman with her fingernail held against her teeth in the center and the woman at the right leaning back and out of the frame. The color, with its muted harmonies and sudden sharp touches, helps to convey the evening mood. In addition Degas stressed the character of the moment; seldom sympathetic, except in portraits of his own class, he portrayed these women of the demi-monde as somewhat ridiculous in their finery, managing to suggest a faintly sinister quality about the entire scene.

RenoirLe Moulin de la Galette, 1876

Dance at le Moulin de la Galette is also known as Bal du moulin de la Galette and it is hailed as one of Renoir's most important works of the mid 1870s. The Moulin de la Galette was an open-air dancehall and café that was frequented by many artists living in Paris. Renoir attended Sunday afternoon dances and enjoyed watching the happy couples. For him, it provided the perfect setting for a painting. Most of the figures featured in Dance at le Moulin de la Galette were Renoir's friends, but he also used a few professional models. Thus, it can be said that the scene he depicts is not a realistic representation of the Moulin's clientele, but rather an organized set of portraits. This painting was first shown at the Impressionist exhibition of 1877 and demonstrated the original technique developed by Renoir. This canvas shows Renoir's friends, Frank Lamy, Norbert Goeneutte, and Georges Rivière gathered around the central table. Rivière, a writer who knew Renoir well at this time, wrote a review of Dance at le Moulin de la Galette in the journal L'Iimpressionniste which accompanied its exhibition. The writer referred to Dance at le Moulin de la Galette as a "page of history, a precious and strictly accurate portrayal of Parisian life. " Yet, others were not so kind. Many contemporary critics regarded this canvas as merely a blurred impression of the scene. Known for his pleasant paintings, Dance at le Moulin de la Galette is regarded as one of the happiest compositions in Renoir's oeuvre. Today, it is on display at the Musee d'Orsay in Paris and is one the most celebrated works in the history of Impressionism.

Paul Cézanne, Turn in the Road, c. 1881

During the 1870s, Cézanne admired and worked closely with Camille Pissarro, one of the most innovative Impressionist landscape painters. In comparison to Pissarro's more straightforward views of the countryside, this bold landscape shows Cézanne's interest in complex arrangements of shapes and spaces that challenge the viewer's perceptions. In this painting, for example, the curving roadway draws us into deep space and at the same time forms a flattened shape on the surface of the painting.

Manet, Absinthe drinker,1859

Edouard Manet's Absinthe Drinker (left), the first painting he submitted to the Paris Salon, is a heroic-sized canvas of an alcoholic and has almost always been described literally, as a scene of modern Paris. Low-life had never been depicted on such a large scale before so the jury for the Paris Salon promptly rejected it. There was, however, one important vote in its favor, rarely mentioned, from the elderly Delacroix. It was the only vote in its favor. Delacroix, as a great master himself, knew that the absinthe drinker in front of him, rather too elegant for real low-life, was not what he seemed. Manet's street bum was dressed as Raphael...and as Delacroix too.

Manet, Concert in the Tuilleries, 1862

Edouard Manet, who is considered the link between Realism and Impressionism, painted this lively outdoor scene, Music in the Tuileries Gardens, of wealthy Parisians at their leisure. Men in dark jackets and light pants with top hats and women in fancy dresses and hats attests to the social status of the group. We can almost hear the music and the conversation. Coming from an upper-class family himself, Manet would be present at such events and this was probably his own experience. Leisure time and recreational activities like listening to music on a Sunday were all parts of modernity. Manet actually painted himself into this painting in the position of the flaneur, observing the crowd from the left front c orner. Manet came from a wealthy family and he was engaged with and knew his way around society, in this respect, he fit Baudelaire's description of a flaneur perfectly. Like Courbet did in After Dinner at Ornans, he also incorporated his friends into the picture, Baudelair, Theophile Gautier and Baron Taylor as well as his brother Eugene Manet. As much as looking for new expressions of art, Manet still wanted to be traditional. He was balancing to see how much he could breakdown tradition and get away with it. He still wanted to go through traditional channels for exhibiting his work and never wanted to exhibit with the Impressionists. A lot of people think of him as the'father of modernism.' The technique he used in this painting creates a really odd flatness. He removed the in-between, transitional tones and butted one color next to the other. Especially in the umbrella in the front, he used light and dark gray side by side just with a black outline. In his own way he is borrowing from and paying homage to Gustave Courbet in this work. The collective distraction that is present in this painting is very similar to Burial at Ornans. The little girls' elaborate dresses and the way they are playing in the ground recall the altar boys' standing on the left side of the Ornans painting. In Courbet's painting there is a sea of black which is for mourning, here the context changes to become men going out on a city day. The shock of red in the Beadles costumes in the middle of Courbet's painting is played off with the yellow and blue dresses of the women in the front. In both paintings, the main elements for each event is hidden, we don't see the body of the deceased for the funeral nor see the music for listening. The dog in Courbet is replaced by an umbrella in Manet and Manet's brother is in the position of the Veteran of 1783 in Courbet. Manet's crowd is bigger than Courbet's and there is no sign of religion, it is a scene of leisure. The people are already gathered in Music at the Tuileries Gardens unlike the moment before the burial at Courbet's painting. There is also a difference in their palettes, Manet uses a light palette to suit the occasion and the sunny day is reflected in his tones of yellow, blue and white. While in A Burial at Ornans there is a huge sky up above, Music at Tuileries Gardens is packed full of trees. Manet liked to borrow from the past in his art while stylistically using modern techniques. In this painting he is acknowledging Courbet while leading the way for the young Impressionists with his sketchy brush-strokes, and light color palette. Overall, it gives us a great picture of the recreation of upper-class society in 1862 Paris.

Monet, Argenteuil Basin, 1872

From December 1871 until 1878, Monet lived in Argenteuil. He would set up his easel out in the countryside or in his garden. But above all it was the Seine and the movement of the small boats which attracted the painter's attention. In his paintings, with their light and vivid colours, Monet shows his perfect mastery of the technique of fragmenting brush strokes, producing an interplay of luminous vibration. The left of the painting is taken up by the Argenteuil promenade, punctuated by the shadows of the trees planted along it. In the background there is a road bridge with a tollbooth at each end. On the right, in the foreground, there is the jetty of a bathing pool, then a washhouse. A major part of the painting is given over to clouds moving across the blue sky. As Daniel Wildenstein pointed out, Monet took several liberties with the motif. He only painted five arches on the bridge, which in reality had seven, and he raised the height of the tollbooths. The activity in Bassin d'Argenteuil recalls the beach scenes of Saint Adresse or those of the Grenouillère baths at Bougival before 1870. But here we have a particularly accomplished work, a brilliant starting point for a fruitful series, as Impressionism reached its peak during the Argenteuil period.

Napoleon Pardoning the Rebels at CairoPierre Guérin 1808

Guérin's Napoleon Pardoning the Rebels at Cairo has a grain of truth, since Napoleon had shown clemency to the Mamluk leaders of the 1798 rising - but only after the slaughter of most of the insurgents. Guérin burnishes Napoleon's myth subtly, placing his hero to the rear and rather dwarfed by those he has pardoned, in a sort of inverted modesty. If the rebels are allowed dignity in defeat, it is to emphasize the magnanimity of the victor.

EugèneDelacroix, Mephistopheles dansles airs(Mephistopheles in the Skies), illustration to the first French translation of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust, 1828

Hailed by Wolfgang von Goethe as "surpass[ing Goethe's] own vision," these lithographic illustrations by Eugène Delacroix provide a gruesome visualization of the ominous tale of Faust, a man who sells his soul to the devil, Mephistopheles, in exchange for infinite knowledge and worldly pleasures. The story of Faust originated as a medieval German folktale. Christopher Marlowe was the first writer to bring it to the stage, in a 1604 adaptation of the story. But it is Goethe's 1808 version that is still today considered the classic. Delacroix's masterful exploitation of lithographic techniques—such as jaggedly scratching through deep blacks to create "nervous" white highlights—expressively reinforces the sinister message of the tale, as do the relentless night scenes and the angular, insect-like limbs of the characters.

BertheMorisot, The Artist's Sister at a Window, 1869

Impressionist Berthe Morisot studied with Barbizon School painter Camille Corot who taught her how to paint en plein air. Like Marie Bracquemond and Mary Cassatt, the other well-known female painters of her generation, Morisot avoided the urban street scenes and nude figures that male Impressionists depicted. Instead, she painted her daily experiences and observations, focusing on boating scenes, garden settings, domestic interiors, and portraits of family and friends that convey the comfort and intimacy of family life. She exhibited her work alongside Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Alfred Sisley, and married painter Édouard Manet's brother Eugène.

William Hodges, Tahitian War Galleys in MatavaiBay, Tahiti, 1776

In 1772 William Hodges took to sea on the HMS Resolution as official artist on Captain James Cook's second voyage to the Pacific. In August of 1773, the explorers arrived in Tahiti, where the artist encountered a spectacular natural beauty and fecundity. Hodges later used his sketches to create resplendent paintings that were instrumental in establishing the vision of Polynesia as an untainted tropical paradise in the European mind's eye. This classical depiction of Matavai Bay would seem to equate Tahiti with a mythical Arcadia. Nowhere in this picture can one glimpse a Western officer or vessel. Rather, the focus is on the physical and sensual ease of the young Tahitian men in the foreground and the three magnificent Tahitian war galleys in the middle and far distance.

The Revolt of Cairo Revolt at Cairo Anne-Louis Girodet 1810

In 1798, Napoleon led the French army into Egypt, swiftly conquering Alexandria and Cairo. However, on October of that year, an uprising by the people of Cairo surprised the French forces, while Bonaparte was in old Cairo, the city's population was spreading weapons around the streets and fortifying strongpoints, especially at the Great Mosque. The French commander, General Dupuy, was murdered, as well as Bonaparte's aide-de-camp Joseph Sulkowski. Excited by the sheikhs and imams, the Egyptians swore by the Prophet to exterminate all Frenchmen and any Frenchman they met, at home or in the streets, was mercilessly killed. Crowds rallied at the city gates to keep out Bonaparte, who was repulsed and forced to take a detour to get in via the Boulaq gate.

Charles Codier, Negro of the Sudan in Algerian Costume,1856-7

In 1847, Charles Cordier was struck by the beauty of an African model, a former slave, and made his portrait. He then decided to devote his career as a sculptor to representing the diversity of human physiognomy. He brought a large number of busts back from his trip to Algeria in 1856. This portrait was shown at the 1857 Salon as Negro from the Sudan. The Salon was an exhibition held first biennially then annually, where artists presented their latest works to the public. It was one of Cordier's first polychrome works. The face is made of bronze and the mantle and turban of onyx marble from Algeria. The onyx quarries used in ancient times had just been rediscovered. Onyx marble characteristically ranges in colour from red to white, with stripes running through the blocks of stone. Cordier used these features to render the colourful effect of oriental fabrics. He also exploited the range of colours to be obtained from bronze. The metal surface of the Negro from the Sudan was initially silvered, then oxidised, which blackened it. Such use of colour was a novelty at the time when people were accustomed, as in the main gallery of the Musée d'Orsay, to seeing white marble or bronze sculptures. Nothing is known of the model who posed for Cordier except that he played the tam-tam in the festivities of Alger's Muslim community before Ramadan. In an admiring, respectful manner, Cordier has managed to render his natural nobility, which prompted comparisons with a Roman emperor.

Claude Monet, Women in the Garden, 1866

In 1866, Claude Monet started painting a large picture in the garden of the property he was renting in the Paris suburbs. He faced a twofold challenge: firstly, working in the open-air, which meant lowering the canvas into a trench by means of a pulley so he could work on the upper part without changing his viewpoint; and secondly, working on a large format usually used for historical compositions. But his real aim was elsewhere: finding how to fit figures into a landscape and give the impression that the air and light moved around them. Monet found a solution by painting the shadows, coloured light, patches of sunshine filtering through the foliage, and pale reflections glowing in the gloom. Emile Zola wrote in his report on the Salon: "The sun fell straight on to dazzling white skirts; the warm shadow of a tree cut out a large grey piece from the paths and the sunlit dresses. The strangest effect imaginable. One needs to be singularly in love with his time to dare to do such a thing, fabrics sliced in half by the shadow and the sun". The faces are left vague and cannot be considered portraits. Camille, the artist's companion, posed for the three figures on the left. Monet has skilfully rendered the white of the dresses, anchoring them firmly in the structure of the composition - a symphony of greens and browns - provided by the central tree and the path. Finished in the studio, the painting was refused by the jury of the 1867 Salon which, apart from the lack of subject and narrative, deplored the visible brushstrokes which it regarded as a sign of carelessness and incompleteness. One of the members of the jury declared: "Too many young people think of nothing but continuing in this abominable direction. It is high time to protect them and save art!"

Manet , The Old Musician, 1862 , Modern

In a review of the 1846 Salon, poet and critic Charles Baudelaire urged artists to depict "the heroism of modern life." Manet embodied Baudelaire's ideal painter of contemporary Paris. Emperor Napoleon III ordered the renovation of Paris under the direction of Baron Haussmann, and early in the 1860s the slum where Manet located his studio was being razed to accommodate the planned broad, tree-lined boulevards that still characterize the city. In this painting, Manet represented a strolling musician flanked by a gypsy girl and infant, an acrobat, an urchin, a drunkard, and a ragpicker—individuals the artist might have observed near his studio. The seemingly casual gathering is composed of the urban poor, possibly dispossessed by Haussmann's projects. Neither anecdotal nor sentimental, Manet's portrayal carries the careful neutrality of an unbiased onlooker, and this distinctly modern ambiguity and detachment are characteristic of all Manet's work. By placing pigments side by side rather than blending tones, Manet could preserve the immediacy and directness of preliminary oil studies in his finished works. Effects produced by this technique were sharper and crisper than those obtained using academic methods. When they first encountered Manet's work early in the 1860s, Monet and Renoir admired his manner of painting and emulated it as they forged the style known as impressionism.

Mary CassattWoman in Black at the Opera1880

In late nineteenth century Paris, everyone went to the Opera. It was the place to see and be seen. Women, knowing they were there to be looked at, would wear lots of jewelry and dresses that showed the appropriate amount of skin. Men would wear black to disappear within the loge (opera box) so they could look without being seen. The view of the stage from a loge was actually not very good because people came to look at each other and often ignored the performance completely. Because the Opera was a symbol of Modernity, it became the subject of a number of Impressionist paintings. The Opera was an important space for women artists like Mary Cassatt because they were able to gain access to this space whereas other public areas were unavailable to them. Most loge paintings offer up the woman's body as a spectacle; all dressed up to be gazed at by male eyes. Their gaze is non-confrontational, passive and serene, allowing the viewer complete access to look upon her. Cassatt's Woman in Black at the Opera is a different take on the typical representation of women in the loge. Viewed in profile, the woman looks intently and severely through opera glasses at the stage. Her body is not offered up as the viewer cannot see her form underneath her black dress and there is no skin visible. Because she is represented in profile and holds the glasses to her face, the viewer cannot get a good look at her. Instead of gracefully displaying her fan, she holds it sternly and wields it like a weapon. She is here to see the play and wants to be left alone. Behind her, men and women are using their opera glasses to gaze at one another. To poke fun at the role of the man at the opera, Cassatt has a man leaning far over the balcony, comically staring at the woman in black through his glasses.

Degas, A Carriage at the Races, 1869

In the late 1860's Degas depicted a family at the races in a scene said to have been influenced by his study of English pictures. A father looks down from the driver's seat of a coach at his wife, infant and a wet-nurse who has bared her breast to feed the child. It is an unusual scene with a focus on breasts and fertility. Scholars have cited various identities for the man without noting his resemblance to Edouard Manet. Degas had already made various sketches of Manet attending the races, one of which I have shown includes Degas' face disguised in Manet's hand.1 Note here how the whip the man holds recalls a paintbrush, its tip flecked with white paint to "color" the sky (lower left). In the most disguised of four fertility references Degas shaped Manet's jacket into a large breast with a button-nipple (diagram lower right). The man, androgynous, must therefore be an artist.2 Click next thumbnail to continue Degas, At the Races in the Countryside (1869) Oil on canvas. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Below: Detail of image and diagram Click image to enlarge. Other writers have criticized Degas for his "small errors in perspective" in placing the horses and figures in the background.10 As with Manet's Le Déjeuner sur l'Herbe (1863) and in so many other works by other artists including Courbet, Degas' figures are out-of-scale on purpose: they are his "paintings", metamorphoses of his own mind, fused with the scene and hanging on the rear "wall" of his painting. That is why his own face appears veiled, yet again, in the background but that is a story for another day.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Ecce AncillaDomini (The Annunciation), 1849-50

Inspired by the work of early Renaissance artists such as Botticelli (1445-1510) and Fra Angelico (1387-1455), Rossetti sought in this work a radical reinterpretation of the Annunciation. Traditionally the Virgin was depicted in studious contemplation, reading a missal at a prie-dieu; but here Rossetti shows her rising awkwardly from a low bed, as if disturbed from sleep, while the Angel Gabriel presents her with a white lily. Both figures are dressed in white, a symbol of the virgin's purity, and the angel's role as the messenger of god is emphasised by the small white dove hovering beside him, signifying the presence of the holy spirit. Rossetti used several sitters for his figures, including his brother, William Michael, for the Angel and his sister, Christina, for the Virgin. A companion piece showing the Virgin's death was planned, but never begun. This partly explains the tall narrow shape of the picture, which was intended as part of a diptych. Rossetti intentionally restricted his palette almost entirely to white and the three primaries. The colour blue, symbolic of heaven, is traditionally associated with the Virgin and red symbolises the blood of Christ. Rossetti even sought a red-haired model for the Virgin's head. The composition is carefully thought out: the vertical division of space, made by the blue hanging and the edge of the bed, falls almost on the Golden Section. The dove and the lily, with one bud still to break, move across this division and are the instruments of conception. Rossetti has written the date, 'March', at the bottom of the canvas, perhaps to signify the month in which the Feast of the Annunciation is held. The original frame was also inscribed with Latin mottoes, copied from a brass rubbing owned by a fellow member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, F.G. Stephens (1828-1907). The picture was exhibited at the National Institution in 1850 and heavily criticised, partly for its didacticism. The critic for the Athenaeum wrote that it was 'a work evidently thrust by the artist into the eye of the spectator more with the presumption of a teacher than in the modesty of a hopeful and true aspiration after excellence.' (20 April 1850, p.424) Rossetti vowed never to exhibit in public again, but he continued to work on his picture until 1853, when it was sold to Francis McCracken of Belfast, an early patron of the Pre-Raphaelites, for £50.

La Grande OdalisqueJean-Auguste Dominique Ingres 1814

It would be easy to characterize Ingres as a consistent defender of the Neoclassical style from his time in Jacques Louis David's studio into the middle of the 19th century. But the truth is more interesting than that. Ingres actually returned to Neoclassicism after having first rejected the lessons of his teacher David. He could even be said to have laid the foundation for the emotive expressiveness of Romanticism (the new style of Gericault and the young Delacroix that Ingres would later hold the line against). Ingres's early Romantic tendencies can be seen most famously in his painting La Grande Odalisque of 1814. Titian, Venus of Urbino, 1538, oil on canvas, 119.20 x 165.50 cm (Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence La Grande Odalisque Here a languid nude is set in a sumptuous interior. At first glance this nude seems to follow in the tradition of the Great Venetian masters, see for instance, Titian's Venus of Urbino of 1538 (left). But upon closer examination, it becomes clear that this is no classical setting. Instead, Ingres has created a cool aloof eroticism accentuated by its exotic context. The peacock fan, the turban, the enormous pearls, the hookah (a pipe for hashish or perhaps opium), and of course, the title of the painting, all refer us to the French conception of the Orient. Careful—the word "Orient" does not refer here to the Far East so much as the Near East or even North Africa. Hookah (detail), Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, La Grande Odalisque, 1814, Oil on canvas, 91 x 162 cm (Musée du Louvre, Paris) Hookah (detail), Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, La Grande Odalisque, 1814, Oil on canvas, 91 x 162 cm (Musée du Louvre, Paris) Hookah (detail), Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, La Grande Odalisque, 1814, oil on canvas, 91 x 162 cm (Musée du Louvre, Paris) In the mind of an early 19th century French male viewer, the sort of person for whom this image was made, the odalisque would have conjured up not just a harem slave—itself a misconception—but a set of fears and desires linked to the long history of aggression between Christian Europe and Islamic Asia (see the essay on Orientalism). Indeed, Ingres' porcelain sexuality is made acceptable even to an increasingly prudish French culture because of the subject's geographic distance. Where, for instance, the Renaissance painter Titian had veiled his eroticism in myth (Venus), Ingres covered his object of desire in a misty, distant exoticism. Peacock fan (detail), Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, La Grande Odalisque, 1814, oil on canvas, 91 x 162 cm (Musée du Louvre, Paris) Peacock fan (detail), Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, La Grande Odalisque, 1814, oil on canvas, 91 x 162 cm (Musée du Louvre, Paris) Peacock fan (detail), Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, La Grande Odalisque, 1814, oil on canvas, 91 x 162 cm (Musée du Louvre, Paris) Some art historians have suggested that colonial politics also played a role. France was at this time expanding its African and Near Eastern possessions, often brutally. Might the myth of the barbarian have served the French who could then claim a moral imperative? By the way, has anyone noticed anything "wrong" with the figure's anatomy?

The snake charmer Jean-Léon Gérôme 1870

Jean-Léon Gérôme's painting The Snake Charmer is a sleazy imperialist vision of "the east". In front of glittering Islamic tiles that make the painting shimmer with blue and silver, a group of men sit on the ground watching a nude snake charmer, draped with a slithering phallic python. This is one of the French paintings lent by the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts, to the Royal Academy for its exhibition From Paris: A Taste for Impressionism. Yet Gérôme is no impressionist. Painted in about 1879, this is a glitteringly cinematic slice of orientalist fantasy. Gérôme was the kind of painter the impressionists were rebelling against - a pristine purveyor of high-gloss dreams. Yet his pictures are weirdly compelling: a pupil of the historical painter Paul Delaroche, whose Execution of Lady Jane Grey hangs in London's National Gallery, he painted detailed, brilliantly lit spectacles such as gladiators fighting in the ancient Roman arena. Gérôme's Roman empire fantasies had a direct influence on early Hollywood and still echo in modern blockbusters like Gladiator. However, the painting by him I know best is The Snake Charmer, because it is on the cover of an old paperback copy of Edward Said's famous book, Orientalism, which I bought ages ago as a student and happened to be looking at the other day. The Snake Charmer is such an obviously pernicious and exploitative western fantasy of "the Orient" that it makes Said's case for him. Gérôme is, you might say, orientalism's poster boy. In this influential work, Said analyses how Middle Eastern societies were described by European "experts" in the 19th century in ways that delighted the western imagination while reducing the humanity of those whom that imagination fed on. In The Snake Charmer, voyeurism is titillated, and yet the blame for this is shifted on to the slumped audience in the painting. Meanwhile, the beautiful tiles behind them are seen as a survival of older and finer cultures which - according to Edward Said - western orientalists claimed to know and love better than the decadent locals did. French art in the 19th century is not only about impressionism: though it uses this rightly popular movement as a come-on in its title, the Royal Academy show glimpses the diverse styles that competed to define modern art in Paris in the later 1800s. French art in the 19th century is rich and strange, including not just the genius of Monet, but the fruity fascination of Gérôme.

Mary Cassatt, Little Girl in a Blue Armchair, 1878

Little Girl in a Blue Armchair stands as a testament to the newly formed relationship between Mary Cassatt and the impressionists, and to her assimilation of a freer style of painting. With a limited palette and vibrant brushstroke, she created a dynamic interplay of forms that is echoed in this captured moment between rest and play. Light enters the picture through the French doors in the background and enlivens the texture and pattern of the inanimate objects in the room. The tilted picture plane draws attention to the haphazard arrangement of the four large, blue chairs, and the brownish-gray floor in between them is painted with an energetic brushwork that gives it a life of its own. In contrast, the little girl—flopped on a chair in a moment of boredom or exhaustion—and the small dog are in a state of utter repose. Cassatt reworked the painting with the help of her friend Edgar Degas and exhibited it along with 10 other paintings in her debut exhibition with the impressionists in 1879.

Mary Cassatt, The Bath, ca. 1892

Mary Cassatt was the only American to exhibit with the original Impressionist group. Like her friend Degas, she was a highly skilled draftsman who preferred unposed, asymmetrical compositions. In The Child's Bath, the circular shapes of the figures' heads, the basin, and the pitcher as well as the striped pattern of the woman's dress animate the portrait of a woman bathing a child. Cassatt's unusual vantage point (from above) and her choice of a female subject show her interest in Japanese woodblock prints, which had become extremely popular in France at the time. The theme of women caring for children appeared frequently in Cassatt's art during and after the 1880s. In rendering this subject, the artist relied on keen observation rather than idealization, yet still portraying great intimacy. The woman's gestures—one firm hand securing the child in her lap, the other gently caressing its small foot—are both natural and emblematic, communicating her tender concern for the child's well-being. The two figures gaze in the same direction, looking together at their paired reflection in the basin of water. The many paintings, pastels, and prints in which Cassatt depicted children being bathed, dressed, read to, held, or nursed reflect the most advanced 19th-century ideas about raising children. After 1870, French scientists and physicians encouraged mothers (instead of wet-nurses and nannies) to care for their children and suggested modern approaches to health and personal hygiene, including regular bathing. In the face of several cholera epidemics in the mid-1880s, bathing was encouraged not only as a remedy for body odors but also as a preventative measure against disease.

Jean-Léon Gérôme, Slave Market, 1867

Maxime Du Camp, who had travelled extensively in the Near East, reviewed the painting from the 1867 Salon. He located the motif to Cairo's slave market and described the painting as "a scene done on the spot".[1] Du Camp wrote: It is one of these [more expensive] women, an Abyssinian, that M. Gérôme has taken as the principal figure of his composition. She is nude and being displayed by the djellab, who has the fine head of a brigand accustomed to every sort of abduction and violence; the idea of the eternal soul must not very often have tormented such a bandit. The poor girl is standing, submissive, humble, resigned, with a fatalistic passivity that the painter has very skillfully rendered.[1] In an art historical context, Harem scenes depicted domestic spaces for the women in the Muslim societies, the males were only included in barbaric and sexual relations. This painting presents an unspecific Middle Eastern or North African setting in which a man inspects the teeth of a nude, female slave. Women were depicted with a passive sexuality, while the men were depicted as violent and disrespectful towards women.[2]

Camille Pissarro, Hoarfrost, 1873

Painted near Pontoise where the painter lived from 1873 to 1882, White Frost was one of five pieces presented by Pissarro at the first exhibition of the group in 1874. The critic Louis Leroy then wrote: "What is that? -You see, white frost on deep ridges. -Ridges, that? That, frost?... But those are sheer scratches of paint uniformly put on a dirty canvas. It has neither head or tail, neither top or bottom, neither front or back." Other critics proved more understanding, including Philippe Burty: "A White Frost effect by Mr Pissarro reminds one of the best Millets". The knife work and density of the stroke produce a compact, closed landscape in which air no longer seems to circulate. This sensation is accentuated by the upward diagonals of the seams that give the composition its rhythm. The character carrying a load seems likewise overburdened by the heaviness of this winter landscape. Pissarro's technique contributes to the impression made by his subject matter. In spite of a broader stroke, despite an analysis of light that is less accurate than that made by Monet in contemporary pieces, White Frost, as it captured a particular instant in a winter day, partakes in impressionist research.

GustaveCaillebotte, Paris: A Rainy Day, 1877

Paris Street; Rainy Day is probably the best known work of French artist Gustave Caillebotte (1848-1894). We see here a number of individuals strolling across the Place de Dublin, then known as the Carrefour de Moscou, at an intersection to the east of the Gare Saint-Lazare in north Paris. All of these individuals are not interacting with each other: nobody's talking to anybody, everyone is a wandering atom, a nameless hero of the city universe. According to art historians, the light indicates that the painting is set on a wintery afternoon. We see a couple with an umbrella, they seem rich. She wears a hat, veil, diamond earring, demure brown dress, and a very fashionable fur-lined coat. He wears a moustache, topcoat, frock coat, top hat, bow tie, starched white shirt, buttoned waistcoat and an open long coat with collar turned up. In the background, we see some working class figures: a maid in a doorway, a decorator carrying a ladder, cut-off by an umbrella above him. Gustave Caillebotte Paris Street Rainy Day Gustave Caillebotte, Paris Street; Rainy Day, 1877, Art Institute of Chicago Gustave Caillebotte, Paris Street; Rainy Day, 1877, Art Institute of Chicago Caillebotte's interest in photography is evident here. He reproduces the effect of a camera lens in that the points at the center of the image seem to bulge. He also recreates the focusing effect of the camera in the way that it sharpens only certain subjects of an image. The foreground is in focus, while the background becomes more and more blurry. The painting's highly crafted surface, rigorous perspective, and grand scale differed from what Impressionists were presenting at their exhibitions - it was much more pleasing for the Parisian audiences accustomed to the academic aesthetic of the official Salon. But at the same time, the asymmetrical composition and unusually cropped forms give us the feeling of something new, more modern. For these reasons, the painting dominated the celebrated Impressionist exhibition of 1877, largely organized by the artist himself. Gustave Caillebotte Paris Street Rainy Day Gustave Caillebotte, Paris Street; Rainy Day, 1877, Art Institute of Chicago, detail. Gustave Caillebotte, Paris Street; Rainy Day, 1877, Art Institute of Chicago, detail. While creating this masterpiece, he was a 29-year-old independent wealthy artist who was also financing many of his friends' works. His father, Martial Caillebotte (1799-1874), had inherited family's military textile business. This sizable allowance, along with the inheritance Gustave received after the death of his father and his mother, allowed him to paint without the pressure to sell his work.

van Gogh, Starry Night, 1889

Post Impressionism Historical: Art that showed something about his interior life. His insanity. (Painted in asylum) - Religious iconography (Dutch Theology of Art) - didn't want to sell art, wanted to influence other artists - did his art to live simply and show his religious beliefs Stylistic: Focuses on color and choppy brushstrokes. Brings world to life with color and color in motion. Symbolism - used lots of paint, still life paintings, intense different color, rough/ blotchy brush strokes, thick paint. geometric forms, expressions, and emotions

Edgar Degas, The Tub, 1886. Pastel,

Presented at the eighth Impressionist exhibition in 1886, this pastel is one of a series of seven pictures produced by Degas in the mid 1880's on the theme of women at their ablutions, a subject already explored by the artist in a series of monotypes some ten years previously. His minute observation of their intimate, everyday gestures is a far cry from the traditional romantic scenes of ladies at their toilette. The young woman's pose, sometimes interpreted by contemporary critics as the expression of a certain animality, is derived from that of the Crouching Aphrodite of antiquity. Its still life of toilet articles, with a distorted Japanese-style perspective, and its plunging view, make this pastel one of the most audacious and accomplished of Degas' works on the modern theme of the woman in her bathtub.

Mary Cassatt, Reading 'Le Figaro', 1878

Rather than reading a women's magazine or novel, Cassatt is shown in figure 1 reading a mainstream daily newspaper "Le Figaro" often associated with the masculine. The portrait of Cassatt's mother is filled with light and a sense of buoyancy. The intimate setting allows the viewers to imagine the artist at work, thus Mary Cassatt is not only representing a moment of intellectual preoccupation of her mother, but she is also representing herself as an intellectual being.(9) This correspondence between the artist and the figure further highlights the space the figure occupies—allowing the viewers to scrutinize the painting from a women's perspective. The great expanse of white dress gives the figure a solid, even monumental aspect, which presents substance and weight that show strong and intelligent personality of the figure.(10) The mirror behind the figure serves as an element to break the flatness of the interior, yet it also further accentuates the intellectual activity the figure is engaged in.

EdouardManetLe Déjunersur lHerbe(Luncheon on the Grass)1863 (exhibited at Salon des Réfusés)

Rejected by the jury of the 1863 Salon, Manet exhibited Le déjeuner sur l'herbe under the title Le Bain at the Salon des Refusés (initiated the same year by Napoléon III) where it became the principal attraction, generating both laughter and scandal. Yet in Le déjeuner sur l'herbe, Manet was paying tribute to Europe's artistic heritage, borrowing his subject from the Concert champêtre - a painting by Titian attributed at the time to Giorgione (Louvre) - and taking his inspiration for the composition of the central group from the Marcantonio Raimondi engraving after Raphael's Judgement of Paris.But the classical references were counterbalanced by Manet's boldness. The presence of a nude woman among clothed men is justified neither by mythological nor allegorical precedents. This, and the contemporary dress, rendered the strange and almost unreal scene obscene in the eyes of the public of the day. Manet himself jokingly nicknamed his painting "la partie carrée". In those days, Manet's style and treatment were considered as shocking as the subject itself. He made no transition between the light and dark elements of the picture, abandoning the usual subtle gradations in favour of brutal contrasts, thereby drawing reproaches for his "mania for seeing in blocks". And the characters seem to fit uncomfortably in the sketchy background of woods from which Manet has deliberately excluded both depth and perspective. Le déjeuner sur l'herbe - testimony to Manet's refusal to conform to convention and his initiation of a new freedom from traditional subjects and modes of representation - can perhaps be considered as the departure point for Modern Art.

Théodore Géricault, illustration to Lord Byron's Mazeppa, 1823, published by Eugene Lami, lithograph

Romantic artists, writers, and composers were fascinated by the "Orient"—a term that during the period was used rather loosely to describe any non-Western society. Thus it is not surprising that Théodore Géricault selected four of Lord Byron's Orientalist poems as subjects for this highly theatrical lithographic suite. The theme of each centers on a conflict between Eastern and Western perceptions of love, death, and the afterlife. Each celebrates the triumph of freedom over tyranny, and the power of passion and conviction to overcome monumental obstacles. Géricault's illustrations also allude to the concurrent struggle for Greek independence from the Turks (1821-32). Byron's death in April 1824 on the battlefields at Missolonghi, while fighting for the Greek cause, marked a tragically ironic coda to the publication of these lithographs in 1823.

Cézanne, The Basket of Apples, 1895

The Basket of Apples is an oil painting produced in 1895 by French painter Paul Cezanne. This painting by Paul Cezanne was noticed widely for its disjoint perspectives. The Basket of Apples due to its unbalanced parts was regarded as a balanced composition. Many unbalanced parts include the titled bottle, cookies shortened lines, inclined basket and the right side of the painting containing the table cloth does not matches with the same plane as the left side giving a view that there are two different viewpoints. This type of painting helped to form a bridge from Cubism to impressionism. The canvas at the top shows a wine bottle, table cloth, a plate containing some cookies or rolls and a tipped up basket exposing fruits inside. Everything seems satisfactory unless someone notices the error in the drawing as showing from the lines of the table that represents close and far edges.

van GoghThe Potato Eaters1885

The Potato Eaters, completed in 1885, is considered by many to be Van Gogh's first great work of art. At the time of its creation, Van Gogh had only recently started painting and had not yet mastered the techniques that would later make him famous. This could attribute to the interesting look of the piece as well as the overall feeling produced from the painting. Van Gogh wished to create his first masterpiece that could boost his reputation as a developed artist; his goal was to paint human figures that did not appear to be awkward, but rather existing naturally. Portraying the figures in a dark room with light from an oil lamp, however, proved to be a bit too extreme for his newly acquired artistic skills. The outcome of all of these factors, in turn, made the painting more appreciated in the art community then if Van Gogh had succeeded in his original task. potato eaters The painting that was completed consisted of 5 figures sitting around a square table eating potatoes; four of them are females and one male. Although the piece is laced in darkness, the mixed emotions residing in the faces of the occupants shine out brightly. These figures are so intense that one can nearly hear the conversations being spoken around the table. Perhaps this vibrancy layered with the darkness is what draws one closer to examine the smaller details of the painting. These details include but are not limited to: Nextyou can see two sunflower paintings of the series under the same title; however, these two pieces have some minor differences. The rafter boards in the back of the piece. The soft gentle lines forming a window in the darkness. The picture frame hung on a darkened wall. The large platter of potatoes, and the boney fingers stretched out to obtain them. The woman pouring a brew similar to coffee. The large rectangular column behind the table that seems to hold the building up. The weathered edges of the table.

Cézanne, Mont Saint-Victoire, 1902-04

The broken vision of Cezanne is a glittering array of glimpses and hesitations and reconsiderations. The intensity of his gaze and the severity of his mind as he attempts to see and somehow grasp the essence of the mountain before him is one of the most moving and revelatory struggles in the history of art. Toward the end of his life, Cezanne's painting becomes passionately free, to the point of ecstatic release. The intensity of feeling that marked his early romantic pictures returns in a new form. It is no longer a painting of excited mental images of human violence and desire, but a stormy rhapsody in which earth, mountain, and sky are united in a common paean, an upsurge of color, of rich tones on a vast scale. It is an irrepressible lyric of fulfillment which reminds us of Beethoven's music. The dynamism of fervid emotion possesses the entire canvas. The contrasts are not simply of the stable and the unstable, as in his other works, but of different kinds of movement and intense color. The mountain rises passionately to the sky and also glides on the earth. Its surface is like a perspective network of ascending lines, converging to the peak as a goal. The sky in turn bursts into a dance of colors, an explosion of clouds of blue and green, as deep and strong as the blues and greens of the earth - tremendous volumes of sonorous color which form a tempestuous halo of pure tones around the glorious mountain and give the latter a more living, dramatic quality. The earth approaches chaos, yet is formed of clear vertical and horizontal strokes in sharp contrast to the diagonal strokes of the mountain and the many curving strokes of the sky. These reappear in the lower foreground in blues and purples and violets, a reversed echo of the distant mountain. Under all this turbulence of brushwork and color lies the grand horizontal expanse of the earth.

William Henry Fox Talbot, Botanical Specimen, 1839.Photogenic drawing (photogram)

This evanescent trace of a botanical specimen is among the earliest photographs known, dating from William Henry Fox Talbot's first period of experimentation with images produced solely by the action of light and chemistry. These earliest successful trials were cameraless images--what today we would call photograms. Here the plant itself was laid directly on top of a sheet of photosensitized paper, blocking the rays of the sun from darkening those portions it covered and thus leaving a light impression of its form. To make his photogenic drawings (as he called this invention), Talbot used carefully selected writing paper prepared with a light coating of salt and brushed with a solution of silver nitrate. The lilac tone of this sheet is characteristic of his early prints, in which common salt was used to stabilize the photographic image after exposure. Leaves, ferns, grasses, and other plants were often the subject of these early photogenic drawings, for Talbot was a serious and enthusiastic amateur botanist and he envisioned the accurate recording of such specimens to be among the important practical applications of his invention. Not on view

Claude MonetImpression: Sunrise1872 (shown at 1st Impressionist exhibition, 1874)

This famous painting, Impression, Sunrise, was created from a scene in the port of Le Havre. Monet depicts a mist, which provides a hazy background to the piece set in the French harbor. The orange and yellow hues contrast brilliantly with the dark vessels, where little, if any detail is immediately visible to the audience. It is a striking and candid work that shows the smaller boats in the foregrouna almost being propelled along by the movement of the water. This has, once again, been achieved by separate brushstrokes that also show various colors "sparkling" on the sea. From the 15th April to 15th May 1874 Monet exhibited his work together with Camille Pissarro, Alfred Sisley, Édouard Manet, Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, and some other thirty artists. They organized their exhibition on their own as they were usually rejected at the Paris Salon. Most visitors were disgusted and even outraged over such a graffiti. Monet's Impression, Sunrise enjoyed the most attention and some visitors even claimed that they were absolutely unable to recognize what was shown at all. A critic who attended the exhibition, M. Louis Leroy, wrote a now famous article in Le Charivari in which he used the term "Impressionist" based on the title of this painting. Despite the fact that Leroy had used the word derisively, the group decided to adopt it and painters such as Renoir and Degas were happy to be called Impressionists Ironically, Impression, Sunrise is not typical of Monet's work, although it does carry elements of his normal style. The horizon has disappeared and the water, sky, and reflections have all merged together. The buildings and ships in the background are only vague shapes and the red sun dominates the painting. As Monet himself commented: "It really can't pass as a view of Le Havre." His aim was not to create an accurate landscape, but to record the impressions formed while looking at that landscape.

John Everett Millais, Christ in the Carpenter's Shop, 1849-50"And one shall say unto him, What are those wounds in thine hands? Then he shall answer, Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends." -Zechariah 13:6

This is Millais's first important religious subject, showing a scene from the boyhood of Christ. When it was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1850 it was given no title, but accompanied by a biblical quotation: 'And one shall say unto him, What are those wounds in thine hands? Then he shall answer, Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends.' (Zech. 13:6) Christian symbolism figures prominently in the picture. The carpenter's triangle on the wall, above Christ's head, symbolises the Holy Trinity. The wood and nails prefigure the crucifixion, as does the blood on the young Christ's hand, which he has cut on a nail, and which drips onto his foot. The young St John is shown fetching a bowl of water with which to bathe the wound. This clearly identifies him as the Baptist, and the image is extended by the white dove perched on the ladder, symbol of the Holy Spirit, which descended from Heaven at the baptism of Christ. Following the Pre-Raphaelite credo of truth to nature, Millais painted the scene in meticulous detail and based the setting on a real carpenter's shop in Oxford Street. The sheep in the background, intended to represent the Christian flock, were drawn from two sheep's heads obtained from a local butcher. He avoided using professional models, and relied instead on friends and family. Joseph's head was a portrait of Millais's own father, but the body was based on a real carpenter, with his rough hands, sinewy arms and prominent veins. The Virgin Mary was his sister-in-law Mary Hodgkinson, who also appears in Millais's Isabella (1848-9, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool); John the Baptist was posed by a young adopted cousin, Edwin Everett; and Nöel Humphreys, the son of an artist friend, sat for the young Christ. The public reaction to the picture was one of horror and Millais was viciously attacked by the press. The Times described the painting as 'revolting' and objected to the way in which the artist had dared to depict the Holy Family as ordinary, lowly people in a humble carpenter's shop 'with no conceivable omission of misery, of dirt, of even disease, all finished with the same loathsome minuteness'. Charles Dickens was one of the most vehement critics, describing the young Christ as 'a hideous, wry-necked, blubbering, red-headed boy, in a bed gown' (Household Words, 15 June 1850).

Women of Algiers in their apartmentEugène Delacroix 1834

This monumental historical genre scene was inspired by Delacroix's conviction that a lifestyle resembling that of the ancients was on the point of disappearing—an impression that stayed with him until he died. Preferring the romanticism of travels in North Africa to the artistic tradition of a sojourn in Italy, he believed that Civilization's missing link was to be found in the Orient which, having exercised a certain appeal at the start of his career, overwhelmed him when he experienced it for himself. Here was material for "twenty generations of painters," he said. It's beautiful! As it was in Homer's time! Delacroix left France for Morocco on January 11, 1832, two years after the conquest of Algiers. He was already famous as the painter of The Barque of Dante, The Death of Sardanapalus, and Liberty Leading the People. He traveled with Charles de Mornay, leader of a diplomatic delegation from King Louis Philippe to Sultan Moulay Abderrahman, whose support for the Algerian resistance threatened the continuation of French expansion in the west. On his return journey, he spent some time in Algiers. According to Philippe Burty (who drew on the accounts of the Comte de Mornay and Charles Cournault), Delacroix was granted his wish to enter a Muslim harem with the help of port engineer Victor Poirel. The term "harem" refers to the part of the house where the women of the family lived in seclusion; to avoid the possibility of intimate relationships, men—including family members—required permission to enter. The ambiguity surrounding Delacroix's experience is maintained by the fact that he made no mention of children or of the situation and status of the harem's occupants. After lengthy consideration, he selected only two of the women he had sketched in the harem: Mouni Bensoltane, who had posed twice in different positions, was used for the voluptuous figure in the left corner, leaning on one elbow and facing the viewer; Zohra Bensoltane is the woman sitting cross-legged in the center, her face turned three quarters as she calmly converses with her companion on the right. A certain mystery shrouds these women, who may have been sisters, cousins, or wives of the same man. Were they Muslims? Their Arabic names are not sufficient proof. Their sarouel pants (not traditional garb for Jewish women) provide better proof, as does the cursive phrase "Muhammad rasul Allah," hastily inscribed on the ornately framed blue and white faience panel—though Delacroix may have added this afterwards. On the wall to the right of the mirror in Interior in Algiers (a watercolor in the Louvre), there is a vague sketch of the prophet's sandals—a popular hagiographic icon, frequent in the homes of Muslim notables... but this may also have been a later addition. The woman in the gynaeceum. That is woman as I understand her! Delacroix observed the harem women at a distance, from the patio or the gallery leading to their apartment, through the open door. They sit at the end of the room, grouped around the brazier (kanoun) and the hookah, near a curtain suggestive of moments of privacy; the high faience plinth with its stylized floral motifs suggests the depth of the room. The Venetian mirror with its rocaille frame, the Murano glassware, the crystal, copper, and pewter ware on the shelf and behind the illuminated wooden niche doors all evoke the close links between Algiers and the ports of the Levant in the 18th century. All distance is abolished in this painting, in the foreground of which the three women sit between the shadows and the light, their bare arms, legs, and feet suggesting (though not proving) that it is summer in Algiers. Even in the late June heat, however, they sit or lie on Turkish-style deep pile rugs, weaves with Berber motifs, and "Scutari" velvet cushions that were no doubt usually stored away in the early spring. In the center of the spiral composition is the brazier, whose faintly glowing embers cannot have been intended to keep the women warm. The painter added movement to the right-hand corner of his composition with a standing figure, from whom the seated women seem to expect something—perhaps the fumigations of incense that her turning movement suggests she is about to begin. Her dark skin and humble attire have been interpreted as reflecting the status of a servant—a supposition that is neither excluded nor proven. The seated women are dressed Algiers-style in fine chemises: plain white, flowered, or with contrasting matte and shiny textures. These are worn open at the front down to the knee, and hide the top of the full, mid-calf length satin and brocade sarouel pants. The woman on the left, whose belt is worn loose and away from the body, wears a "ghlila" (a waisted sleeveless jacket that flares over the hips) in garnet-colored velvet, decorated with braid and passementerie buttons, gold threads, sequins, coils of gold wire, and triangular appliqués under the breasts. The others each wear a "frimla"—a little bodice derived from the "ghlila" that covers the transparent chemise, supports the breasts, and holds the sleeves in place. Mouni also wears a more local item of female clothing in the form of the "fouta" that was worn by all married women and mothers—a long wrap skirt made of striped Tlemcen silk, tied around the hips to protect female fertility from the evil eye. The "fouta" worn by their lady's companion is more Berber in style with its bright, crude colors. The women's low necklines are embellished with trimmings; strings of pearls and gemstones adorn their necks. Their headgear is a "meherma"—a fringed, gold-threaded dark silk square of varied textures, folded into a triangle whose lower corners are crossed at the nape of the neck, then raised and knotted on the forehead. Arm bracelets and khalakheel (anklets), earrings, charm watches, rings on every finger... these jewelry items were rarely worn at the same time, except on special occasions. Signs of wealth, dignity, and elegance, they were also tokens of marital status. Attention to detail and interpretation The floor is covered in smooth tiles (instead of the original porous hexagonal floor tiles and polished cabochons). The women's "babouches" (the oriental slippers that have fuelled so many fantasies) lie on the floor, slipped off to protect the precious carpets—a detail that gives the scene all its credibility. The keen precision of the accessories, attitudes, costumes, decoration, and atmosphere—all sketched and noted during the painter's visit, and supplemented by documentary material brought back from his travels or acquired in Paris—contributes to the overall coherence of the scene. The painting's contrasting planes further distinguish the already varied forms, tones, lights, and materials; these finely-worked individual elements are unified by the spiral structure of the overall composition.

Joseph NicéphoreNiépce, View from the Window at Le Gras, 1826. Heliograph.

is the first recorded photograph, which has been faithfully reproduced on the Center's south atrium window. A French inventor named Joseph Nicéphore Niépce took this first photograph from the window of his studio in France in the early 1820s, and due to a fortunate series of events, the photograph has found itself on The University of Texas at Austin campus.