ART188 Exam 2
Mary Cassatt: In the Loge 1878
Impressionism The American Impressionist painter Mary Cassatt (1844-1926), who had a very successful career in Paris, painted women in this space, paying particular attention to ways in which women are as much subject to the male gaze as are partakers in the visual pleasures of entertainment inside spaces like the opera house. Sandwhiched between the male gaze in the back and our gaze Opera was the one place that was really acceptable for Cassatt to paint Fleeting moment capture
Francisco de Goya: The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters, from Los Caprichos 1799
Romanticism- Spain, printmaking Communicates his attitude towards events going on, constant state of tension/chaos with the Revolutionary times in Europe Allegory for his personal mental statement, reason has taken a backseat
James Abbott McNeil Whistler: Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket c.1872-77
Aestheticism John Ruskin claimed the artist basically threw paint into the public's face, causing Whistler to sue prompting one of the art world's most notorious legal cases. Art critic John Ruskin dismissed Whistler's effort as "flinging a pot of paint in the public's face," as in his opinion it contained no social value. In response, Whistler - cheeky man that he was - sued Ruskin for libel, and though he won the case in court, he was awarded only a farthing in damages. was inspired by a specific event (a fireworks display over London's Cremorne Gardens) the intangibility, both in appearance and theme, of the oil on panel was deliberate. Avant-garde
Joseph Wright of Derby: An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump 1768
Enlightenment Neoclassical chiaroscuro and tenebrism This is the largest, most ambitious and dramatic of the series of 'candlelight' pictures Wright painted during the 1760s. It captures the drama of a staged scientific experiment but it also functions as a vanitas - a painting concerning the passing of time, the limits of human knowledge and the frailty of life itself.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir: Le Moulin de la Gallette 1876
Impressionism Socializing, dancing, a fleeting moment Working class people, very few top hats. Little vignettes of stories and interactions, our eyes go everywhere which is radical. The official salon usually had painting with composition to draw eyes Looseness of brushwork and seeing the paint violated the usual ideas of art, asymmetry, empty space, many colors, the third impressionist exhibition had this painting. Fleeting acts of life, filtered sunlight through the trees. This painting was painted en plein air
Germain Boffrand: Salon de la Princesse 1732
Rococo A French Salon hows silver/white/gold Carved wood pastel colors, flowing lines, salon General Significance: French style at this time, emphasis on luxury and excess Trying to bring royal to upper class townhouses Delicacy, lightness, arabesques, sculpted stucco, intricate polished surfaces
Jacques-Louis David: Death of Marat 1793
-Neoclassicism Painted during french revolution, and it's portraying a contemporary event. Shift from christian martyr to political. People participate in government now. Charlotte royalist went to see Marat and murdered him in his bathtub, the letter she used to gain entrance, she came in and murdered an innocent man, in a similar position to dead jesus. Rational thinking. This painting is all about observations, "to marat" written, soft and feathery feel. Spareness, so different than rococo. Nothing elaborate, he lived according to republican ideals. He eventually became a painter for Napoleon, emperor. A bit hypocritical of him.
Jean-Antoine Houdon: George Washington 1785-88
After the Revolutionary War. Virginia General Assembly desired a statue of George Washington for display in a public space. Jefferson was a francophile and preferred that a French artist make the sculpture. He wanted to be shown in contemporary attire. Cerrara marble Became one of the most copied/recognized images of the first president. "Nothing in bronze or stone could be a more perfect image than this statue of the living Washington" He wears not a toga or other classically inspired garment, but his military uniform. His stance mimics that of the contrapposto seen in Polykleitos's classical sculpture of Doryphoros.His left arm—bent at the elbow—rests atop a fasces: a bundle of thirteen rods that symbolize not only the power of a ruler but also the strength found through unity. This visually represents the concept of E Pluribus Unum—"Out of Many, One"
John Everett Millais: Ophelia 1851-51
British Radicals: The Crystal Palace, Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, and Aestheticism classic Victorian and pre-raphaelite painting letting herself drown and goes mad after Hamlet murders her father. Botanical detail taken very seriously. Nature itself has a spiritual power, idealize nature in painting. Millais is trying to be true as possible and he painted outside. Millais wrote that he was very frustrated with painting outside. Praised for its accuracy to nature. Identifiable flowers and have symbolic purpose, like faithfulness violets around her neck. Links back to shakespeare who mentions specific flowers. Intensity of colors is shocking, painted on wet white ground. allowed Millais to show off both his technical skill and artistic vision The execution of Ophelia shows the Pre-Raphaelite style at its best. Each reed swaying in the water, every leaf and flower are the product of direct and exacting observation of nature. As we watch the drowning woman slowly sink into the murky water, we experience the tinge of melancholy so common in Victorian art. It is in his ability to combine the ideals of the Pre-Raphaelites with Victorian sensibilities that Millais excels.
William Hogarth: Marriage a-la-mode: The Tete-a-Tete 1743
Enlightenment and rococo This is the first in Hogarth's series of six paintings titled Marriage A-la-Mode. They were painted to be engraved and then sold after the engravings were finished. The Earl of Squander is negotiating the marriage of his son to the daughter of a rich Alderman of the City of London. The Alderman's family will acquire an aristocratic title through the marriage; the Earl will get his hands on ready cash, which has already been emptied out from the money bags onto the table. The Earl's son and Alderman's daughter have no interest in each other or the marriage. A foxhound and bitch, chained together round the neck, anticipate the bonds of matrimony that will soon tie them together. The large black spot on the groom's neck and his fashionable French dress suggest he has picked up syphilis, known as the French disease, on his travels.
Edgar Degas: The Rehearsal on Stage 1874
Impressionism There are three similar versions of this scene, and their precise relationship has bedeviled scholars for decades. The largest, painted in grisaille (Musée d'Orsay, Paris), appeared in the first Impressionist exhibition in 1874. The two others, tentatively dated the same year, are in the Metropolitan's collection. This painting probably preceded the version in pastel (29.100.39), which is more freely handled. The importance that Degas attached to the composition is evident in the preparatory drawings that he made for almost every figure, from the dancer scratching her back in the foreground to the woman yawning next to the stage flat.
Claude Monet: Gare St-Lazare 1877
Impressionism depicts one of the passenger platforms of the Gare Saint-Lazare, one of Paris's largest and busiest train terminals. The painting is not so much a single view of a train platform, it is rather a component in larger project of a dozen canvases which attempts to portray all facets of the Gare Saint-Lazare. The paintings all have similar themes—including the play of light filtered through the smoke of the train shed, the billowing clouds of steam, and the locomotives that dominate the site. Of these twelve linked paintings, Monet exhibited between six and eight of them at the third Impressionist exhibition of 1877, where they were among the most discussed paintings exhibited by any of the artists. Monet shows his keen interest in light, color, and paint handling, yet The Gare Saint-Lazare, the Auteuil Line cannot be divorced from its subject—the locomotives, the steam, and the yard of the Gare Saint-Lazare. In this bright scene Monet gives us a new vision of modern life that does not shy away from its industrial side.
Claude Monet: Impression: Sunrise 1872
Impressionism -Sketch-like quality -Lack of finish en plein air: painting done outdoors. They became known as impressionists because of the negative review (impression: sunrise) who used it to describe the whole group. You need portable oil paints (making it is laborious) to paint outdoors like Monet wanted to do. In the second half of the 19th century tube oil paints became available. Plein air painting is also made possible by the railroad, so they can dash off to the suburbs or rural areas and make their painting, and then come back to the city to sell it. These two things made this style of art possible, and also the desire to capture this moment, like photography except photography couldn't do it in color. The impressionists weren't interested in exact replicas of the world, they wanted to capture the effects of life with rich and deep color palettes and possibly no use of black.
Charles Garnier: Paris Opera 1860-1875
Modern One significant structure completed during this redesign was the opera house, a building designed for the new-found leisure time of the bourgeoisie, creating an environment of sight-lines for seeing and being seen. Napoleon III reconstruction of Paris, to create a great city. Haussmann was trying to modernize paris with sewers and lights, like Paris now. This is second empire style at its height, raised area in back is for pulleys. dome to retract chandalier. curvelinear staircase in second empire style, shows how radical Degas was by showing the back. Degas painted the front part and stage on occasion though. The unusual view. Garnier has provided focus on the individual, with individual doors for each box.
Edouard Manet: Luncheon on the Grass 1862-63
Modern Exhibited at the salon for rejected artwork, still had a ton of controversy. Modern parisian figures, and the issue is that they aren't historical nude. She isn't veiled or distance by mythology, and there is a degree of discomfort for the viewer. Nobody seems to be interacting, and she directly looks at the audience without a coy look. Spacial problems that are on purpose, and they don't have that natural outdoor lighting but that flat sudio lighting. She looks like a cutout. Even the landscape is loosely brush and unfinished looking. Her discarded clothing is discarded in the back, she took her dress off and wasn't like venus (born naked or whatever) Inspired by Titian's Pastoral Concert and The Judgement of Paris by Raphael We can understand the reaction of the public, as he refused to give a narrative. The act of creating the work of art is a challenge to the idea of art in France. Huge impact on modernism
Edouard Manet: A Bar at the Folies-Bergere 1882
Modern impressionism Demonstrate how Manet was an impressionist and capturing fleeting moments. The folies bergere is a nightclub basically. The central figure looks directly at us (a theme for manet) Bass ale logo on right (still the same). She looks like a bar tender (behind bar) and the use of the mirror suggests there's another figure but the reflection doesn't make sense. We're looking straight at her but she looks like she's looking at the man. But she isn't so are we meant to be the man ? She looks sad, empty, neutral, tired. disconnected. This is a contrast with the frilly and colorful bouquet she wears on her clothes. She has sensory delights all around her and she herself becomes on display. The bar was known for sights, so the woman is already in a circus position as a bar tended makes her feel like she's on display. It is deeply troubling if we assume she is on "sale" like everything around her is. Makes people a bit uncomfortable and points to social relations in a way many artists didn't dare to do. The preparatory sketch shows that Manet thought about the reflection a lot, and played with the gaze a lot. Women as the object of the gaze especially in large spaces of leisure. Impressionists wanted to circumvent the salon / challenge the salon. But they had dialogue they wanted to display. At this exhibition of the anonymous society of painters sculptors, and printmakers was a self selected group of artists and had a private exhibition. this changed exhibition practices and shift to private gallery. the importance of the salon dwindles by the end of the 19th century.
Jacques-Louis David: The Oath of the Horatii 1784
Neoclassicism Rococo was big in france so this was super new. It was made for the king, established neoclassicism. Depicts virtuous behavior, and the enlightenment. Rational > spiritual. Ancient roman army against Alba, Things get complicated bc of intermarriage, both sides lose no matter what. Horatii's dad holding swords. Families will be torn apart, the women are curvilinear and women could only think about "personal/familial". Men are angular and sense of purpose absent from the women. Men have strength and brotherhood, looks back to greece and rome with muscles and stances, the lighting is like a relief carting. Vanishing point at the father's swords. Opposite of rococo, virtue over indulgence. The brothers and willingness to die for the country resonated with revolutionaries. It was painted before but informed by the same philosophical values, and the artist was a revolutionary and went to the beheading of the king. Rise up against abuses of the monarchy, imagining a republic of france.
Josiah Wedgwood, Vase: The Apotheosis of Homer, Relief plaque by John Flaxman 1778
Neoclassicism The bas relief, originally modelled in 1778 by John Flaxman Jr, is sometimes referred to as The Crowning of a Citharist. Flaxman re-interpreted a red figure design which appeared as a decoration on a calyx krater vase, purchased by the British Museum in London from Sir William Hamilton. This original vase was one of the ancient so-called Etruscan vases amassed by Sir William Hamilton when he was resident in Italy.
Georges Seurat: Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte 1886
Post impressionism Responding to Impressionism: Structure and Form Science of color and composition. Optical mixture (pointillism) to put colors together yourself. New impressionism, it has the leisure of impressionist paintings. but the structure of sculptures. Illusion of space. Has a sense of line and model which is unlike impressionism Ambiguity of class, confounding expectations of a narrative, models aren't interacting.
Paul Cezanne: The Basket of Apples c.1893
Post impressionist There had been one significant historical exception. In the 17th century in Northern Europe and particularly in the Netherlands, still life blossomed. But this period was brief and had little impact in France other than in the work of Chardin. So why would Cézanne turn so often to this discredited subject? It was the very fact that still life was so neglected that seems to have attracted Cézanne to it. So outmoded was the iconography (symbolic forms and references) in still life that this rather hopeless subject was freed of virtually all convention. Here was a subject that offered extraordinary freedom, a blank slate that gave Cézanne the opportunity to invent meaning unfettered by tradition. And Cézanne would almost single-handedly revive the subject of still life making it an important subject for Picasso, Matisse, and others in the 20th century. The table seems to be too steeply tipped at the left, so much so that the fruit is in danger of rolling off it. The bottle looks tipsy and the cookies are very odd indeed. The cookies stacked below the top layer seem as if they are viewed from the side, but at the same moment, the two on top seem to pop upward as if we were looking down at them. This is an important key to understanding the questions that we've raised about Cézanne's pictures so far Like Edouard Manet, from whom he borrowed so much, Cézanne was prompted to rethink the value of the various illusionistic techniques that he had inherited from the masters of the Renaissance and Baroque eras. This was due in part to the growing impact of photography and its transformation of modern representation.
Vincent Van Gogh: The Night Cafe 1888
Post-Impressionism In a letter to his brother written from Arles in the south of France, van Gogh described the Café de l'Alcazar, where he took his meals, as "blood red and dull yellow with a green billiard table in the center, four lemon yellow lamps with an orange and green glow. Everywhere there is a clash and contrast of the most disparate reds and greens." The clashing colors were also meant to express the "terrible passions of humanity" found in this all-night haunt, populated by vagrants and prostitutes. Van Gogh also felt that colors took on an intriguing quality at night, especially by gaslight: in this painting, he wanted to show how "the white clothing of the café owner, keeping watch in a corner of this furnace, becomes lemon yellow, pale and luminous green. The psychological complexity of his paintings is conveyed not only through their intense color and thick impasto, but also through some primary sources.
Vincent Van Gogh: Starry Night 1889
Post-Impressionism 1880s-1914 The curving, swirling lines of hills, mountains, and sky, the brilliantly contrasting blues and yellows, the large, flame-like cypress trees, and the thickly layered brushstrokes of Vincent van Gogh's The Starry Night are ingrained in the minds of many as an expression of the artist's turbulent state-of-mind. Van Gogh's canvas is indeed an exceptional work of art, not only in terms of its quality but also within the artist's oeuvre, since in comparison to favored subjects like irises, sunflowers, or wheat fields, night landscapes are rare. Nevertheless, it is surprising that The Starry Night has become so well known. Van Gogh mentioned it briefly in his letters as a simple "study of night" or "night effect." His brother Theo, manager of a Parisian art gallery and a gifted connoisseur of contemporary art, was unimpressed, telling Vincent, "I clearly sense what preoccupies you in the new canvases like the village in the moonlight... but I feel that the search for style takes away the real sentiment of things". Although Theo van Gogh felt that the painting ultimately pushed style too far at the expense of true emotive substance, the work has become iconic of individualized expression in modern landscape painting.
Joseph Paxton: Crystal Palace 1850-51
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood The hyper-industrialized Victorian world the PRB was responding to is perhaps best embodied in the Crystal Palace, a technological marvel of iron and glass that displayed the latest products and technologies in the first international exposition. This building is not only significant in architectural history, but also in the history of nineteenth century visual and consumer culture. In January 1850 a committee was formed to choose the design for a temporary exhibition building that would showcase the latest technologies and innovations from around the world: The "Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations." The structure had to be as economical as possible, and be built before the exhibition was scheduled to open on May 1st, 1851. Within 3 weeks the committee received 245 entires, all of which were rejected. It was only after this that Paxton showed his first interest in the project. Using combinations of prefabricated cast iron, laminated wood, and standard sized glass sheets, Paxton created the "ridge-and-furrow" roof design. In 1836 this system was used for the first time in the "Great Stove" - the largest glass building at the time.Impressed by the low cost proposal, the committee accepted Paxton's innovative plan, leaving only 8 months for construction, which commenced immediately in Hyde Park. 5000 workers handled more than 1000 iron columns and 84,000 square meters of glass. All parts were prefabricated and easy to erect, and every modular unit was self supporting, allowing the workers freedom in assembling the pieces. Thanks to Paxton's simple and brilliant design, over 18,000 panes of glass sheets were installed per week, and the structure was completed within 5 months. When the exhibition was closed 6 months later, the structure was disassembled and then reassembled in the south London suburb of Sydenham Hill. Tragically, the building was destroyed in a fire in 1936.
Gustave Courbet: A Burial at Ornans 1849-50
Realism Genre scenes like this were usually meant to be small, but this is large which was typically reserved for historical, allegorical, biblical, or heroic art. Ordinary funeral, ordinary figures, ordinary place. He submitted as a history painting but he wanted to paint his own day his own time. He is painting his world, members of his family. Funeral for his great uncle Statement: experience of rural life into elite paris, the grave and grave digger (gives dignity) and it is during this period of realism showing these laborers with dignity. Courbet created horizontal freeze, and only sense of divine is on the cross. Painting divided into three groups: 1. left, clergy. 2. center, town officials 3. right, women mourning treated equally (democracy in painting) hunting dog, usually in Salon dogs were only symbolic but this dog seems like it just wandered by. Emblem of authenticity. Lack of focal point, sense of normal distractions of life and the realities of life. Lack of interaction between figures, usually salon pictures have interaction.
Gustave Courbet: The Stonebreakers 1849
Realism and Reality If we look closely at Courbet's painting The Stonebreakers of 1849 (painted only one year after Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote their influential pamphlet, The Communist Manifesto) the artist's concern for the plight of the poor is evident. Here, two figures labor to break and remove stone from a road that is being built. In our age of powerful jackhammers and bulldozers, such work is reserved as punishment for chain-gangs. Courbet depicts figures who wear ripped and tattered clothing. the two stone breakers in Courbet's painting are set against a low hill of the sort common in the rural French town of Ornans, where the artist had been raised and continued to spend a much of his time. The hill reaches to the top of the canvas everywhere but the upper right corner, where a tiny patch of bright blue sky appears. The effect is to isolate these laborers, and to suggest that they are physically and economically trapped. In Millet's painting, the gleaners' rounded backs echo one another, creating a composition that feels unified, where Courbet's figures seem disjointed. Millet's painting, for all its sympathy for these poor figures, could still be read as "art" by viewers at an exhibition in Paris. Like the stones themselves, Courbet's brushwork is rough—more so than might be expected during the mid-nineteenth century. This suggests that the way the artist painted his canvas was in part a conscious rejection of the highly polished, refined Neoclassicist style that still dominated French art in 1848.
Alexander Gardner: The Home of the Rebel Sharpshooter: Battlefield at Gettysburg 1863
Realism: class consciousness Gardner documented the American Civil War (1861-1865) The image represents the tragic aftermath of the Battle of Gettysburg (which caused the largest number of casualties of the entire war) by focusing on a single dead solider lying inside what Gardner called a "sharpshooter's den." Later analysis revealed that he had staged the image to intensify its emotional effect. Though this practice was not uncommon at the time, its discovery made the photograph the subject of controversy. Gardner moved the soldier's corpse and propped up his head so that it faced the camera. He then placed his own rifle next to the body, emphasizing the soldier's horizontality and the cause of his death.
Theodore Gericault: Pity the Sorrows of a Poor Old Man 1821
Realism: class consciousness Théodore Géricault began to produce a suite of scenes of daily life, known as his English Series, in which he chose to represent not the famous sites and royal classes of London but rather its unheroic workforce and urban poor. In these two lithographs from the series, Géricault juxtaposes the employed and unemployed, the well fed and the starving, the crippled and the able-bodied. These are not sentimental observations but matter-of-fact reportages that illustrate what the artist perceived as the dilemma of urbanization. Successfully marketed to an English public, the series was subsequently copied and reissued in France, though without either of these two images of urban outcasts included.
Jean-Honore Fragonard: The Swing 1766
Rococo Asked to paint this by a member of french royal court, who wanted his lover on a swing being pushed by a bishop while he looked up her dress Erotic, naughty and couldn't be displayed. Man seems overtaken with lust. Known for large scale historical paintings, this was much different. Different technique and quicker, the dress has rapid brushwork and eroticism is built in, and the sculpture has his finger up, asking to keep this a secret. Cupids with dolphin, and the young woman and her slipper in the air. Has a sense of movement and energy, and baroque used diagonal lines, as does this. We're in an aristocratic garden, red velvet swing. So different from neoclassicism and doesn't have a moral point.
Jean-Antoine Watteau: Pilgrimage to the Island of Cythera 1717
Rococo Pilgrims traveling to an island Visual Fete galante (amorous and wistful encounters create a mood but do not employ narrative in the traditional sense) General Significance: Created fete gallant The Pilgrimage of Cythera in Rococo style is a fantasy island seclusion of love setting, the birthplace of Venus Antoine Watteau: (1648-1721) was one of the first signature artists of the Rococo period. His works daringly depicted playful, theatrical, and seemingly frivolous encounters among members of the elite without any major narrative or moral on the grand scale of history painting (the most respected type of painting at the French Salon, the national exhibition venue of the arts).
Caspar David Friedrich: Wanderer above a Sea of Fog c.1818
Romanticism As the man contemplates the vastness before him, the sublimity of nature is demonstrated not in a calm, serene view, but in the sheer power of what natural forces can accomplish. The costume the figure wears was worn by students and others during Germany's Wars of Liberation; by the time of this painting, the clothing was forbidden by Germany's new ruling government. By deliberately depicting the figure in this outfit, he made a visual, albeit understated, stand against the current government.
Theodore Gericault: Raft of the Medusa 1818-19
Romanticism Drama, motion, pathos General Significance: Depicts struggle in a real life scenario Depicts an event whose human and political aspects greatly interested Géricault: the wreck of a French frigate off the coast of Senegal in 1816, with over 150 soldiers on board. The painter researched the story in detail and made numerous sketches before deciding on his definitive composition, which illustrates the hope of rescue.
Francisco de Goya: The Third of May 1808, 1814
Romanticism Less precise/photographic Emotionalism, psychological state of affairs Slaughter of the Spanish by the French Victims = innocent, main one = Christ-like Image of blind terror and desperate fear Extreme contrast between light and dark. Composition, dark on right. Figure in white is the focal point, lead down by hill. Diagonal line of gunman. Scale, small building in back. Chiaroscuro, using shadows and highlights. Foreshortening, dead figure with arms outstretched and body going back. Energy of brushwork like in the white shirt, like his shirt is still moving, simplified faces and brushwork and makes you feel like you're there. The soldiers have no faces but the ones towards us are human. The painting is about Napoleon taking over Spain, the uprising of French brutally murdering Spanish. Emotional expression and response, someone being killed for no reason. Man in white shirt is a martyr, and standing like Jesus. Speaks to why this was made, not commissioned.
John Constable: The Hay Wain 1821
Romanticism The Hay Wain does include an element of genre (the depiction of a common scene), that is the farm hand taking his horse and wagon (or wain) across the stream. But this action is minor and seems to offer the viewer the barest of pretenses for what is virtually a pure landscape. Unlike the later Impressionists, Constable's large polished canvases were painted in his studio.He did, however, sketch outside, directly before his subject. This was necessary for Constable as he sought a high degree of accuracy in many specifics. For instance, the wagon and tack (harness, etc.) are all clearly and specifically depicted, The trees are identifiable by species, and Constable was the first artist we know of who studied meteorology so that the clouds and the atmospheric conditions that he rendered were scientifically precise. Constable was clearly the product of the Age of Enlightenment and its increasing confidence in science. But Constable was also deeply influenced by the social and economic impact of the industrial revolution.
JMW Turner: Slave Ship (Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and the Dying, Typhoon Coming On) 1840
Romanticism The painting was based on an eighteenth-century poem that described a slave ship caught in a typhoon, and on the true story of the Zong, a British ship whose captain, in 1781, had thrown overboard sick and dying enslaved people so that he could collect insurance money only available for those "lost at sea."
Thomas Cole: The Oxbow, 1836
Romanticism • Question mark • Image of return • Turning point in human history • Line between wilderness and pastoral landscape • Rise and fall of civilization "It is the most distinctive, because in civilized Europe the primitive features of scenery have long since been destroyed or modified- the extensive forests that once overshadowed a great part of it have been felled- rugged mountains have been smoothed..." -Trying to preserve nature's beauty, Cole knows that westward expansion in America will result in destroying what are God's "undefiled works". The human life in the painting is only on the right, and the cultivation is approaching the left. "Nature has spread for us a rich and delightful banquet. Shall we turn from it?" -Wants us to appreciate the untouched landscape and it's sublime nature. The beauty of the painting's uncultivated scene is quickly passing, as he notes that "improvement" is really just destroying nature. The painting is attempting to capture both sublime and untouched nature and also the warning of attempting to "improve" nature.
Henry Fuseli: The Nightmare 1781
Romanticism, gothic horror A woman bathed in white light stretches across a bed, her arms, neck, and head hanging off the end of the mattress. An apelike figure crouches on her chest while a horse with glowing eyes and flared nostrils emerges from the shadowy background. Shocked visitors and critics, and this is an invented scene of Fuseli's imagination. It's not drawn from history, the bible, or literature. The figure on top of the woman's chest is an important or incubus, a spirit that lies on top people when they sleep or has intercourse with sleeping women. The painting is suggestive but not explicit. Uses chiaroscuro to lighten the drama. Has a single source of light like a play or opera.
Thomas Jefferson: Monticello 1769-82; 1796-1802
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) built his own home, Monticello, a case study in both the adaptions to Neoclassical architecture made in the United States and the inherent contradictions of espousing democratic ideals while participating in the dehumanizing institution of slavery.
Edouard Manet: Olympia 1863
realism Negative reviewers want to see Olympia as they expect- pure, virgin, beautiful. The negative reviewers consistently mention the coloration and that she seems straight out of the morgue, with a grotesque pale color and her flexed arm. They are confronted with someone that does not look as how they want Olympia to look. Pierrot wrote that the woman looked "blown up like a grotesque in India rubber; a sort of monkey making fun of the pose and the movement of the arm in Titian's Venus, with one hand shamelessly flexed". Like other negative reviewers, the reviewer is unhappy that there is a black woman depicted in this painting, that the coloring is flat, and the way her arm flexes. Jules Clarétie says that Manet makes a mockery of Olympia, saying "What Olympia? A courtesan no doubt. Manet cannot be accused of idealizing the foolish virgins, he who makes them vulgar virgins". Reviewers like Clarétie saw Manet's work as a mockery of tradition, as this type of painting was practically making fun of Titian's Venus of Urbino. Manet's flatness and darkness are disliked by many of the reviewers, while the positive ones actually appreciate the coloring and the intelligence of this painting.
James Abbott McNeil Whistler: Symphony in White No. 1: The White Girl 1862
submitted The White Girl to the Paris Salon in 1863, the tradition-bound jury refused to show the work. Napoleon III invited avant-garde artists who had been denied official space to show their paintings in a "Salon des Refusés," an exhibition that triggered enormous controversy. Whistler's work met with severe public derision, but a number of artists and critics praised his entry. He limited his palette, minimized tonal contrast, and sharply skewed the perspective, flattened forms and emphasized their abstract patterns. This dramatic compositional approach reflects the influence of Japanese prints, which were becoming well known in Paris as international trade increased. Was more interested in creating an abstract design than in capturing an exact likeness of the model, Joanna Hiffernan. His radical espousal of a purely aesthetic orientation and the creation of "art for art's sake" became a virtual rallying cry of modernism.
