ARTH 4450 Exam 1 Darius Spieth

John Martin, The Bard, oil/c., 1817

... to the Ossian saga, allegedly revealing the mystical origins of Great Britain Works such as these are the quintessence of the sublime: mortal humans are dwarfed and awed by the overpowering greatness of nature, where God directly manifests his presence

Anne-Louis Girodet, The Revolt of Cairo, 1810, oil o/canvas

A different set of "noble savages," this time of Arabic descent Revolt of Cairo in 1798: uprising of the native population in the city against the French occupation force, orchestrated by Islamic fundamentalists organized in the central mosque of Cairo (Al-Azhar) French managed to control the revolt quickly, but left behind scores of dead insurgents Girodet took many liberties with the subject: a single French soldier (left) holds an avalanche of native Mameluke warriors at bay With its infatuation for exotic subject matter, grandiose emotions mixed with references to classical nudity and heroism, the painting is at the crossroads of Neoclassicism and Romanticism

Francisco Goya, The Witches' Sabbath, oil/c., 1797-98

A similar indictment of the Spanish "ancien régime" provided the background for the Witches's Sabbath, painted as part of a series of six pictures on witchcraft for the Duquesa de Osuna in 1797/98 Macabre reunion of old and young witches assembled around a he-goat, crowned with wine leaves, alluding to Roman Saturnalias The he-goat receives offerings in the form of life children from the witches on the right, and dead children from the witches on the left The entire scene is recorded as a moon-lit nocturne The painting combines the ironical look at superstition still rampant in Spain at the time with an enjoyment of popular culture and its emblematic figures Sexual licentiousness provides a subtext for this iconographic choice, since witchcraft was associated with female sexual freedom and the he-goat with unlimited (if demonic) male virility The painting illustrates how pueblo humor and popular culture were widely appreciated and enjoyed by Spanish Enlightenment circles

Jacques-Louis David, Leonides at Thermophylae, oil/c., 1814

A work much closer to David's heart, completed at about Napoleon's fall from power Greek theme from classical history: Leonidas was the military leader of that Greek warrior tribe that gave us the adjective "Spartan" for their self-sufficiency: the Spartans The scene depicts the Spartans collecting their forces and getting ready for battle (the Persians have not quite arrived yet)

Henry Fuseli, The Nightmare, oil/c., 1781

After his return from Rome, he starts working on The Nightmare Supine, sleeping female figure, haunted by gnomes in her dreams Choice of subject matter coincides with the beginnings of the scientific investigation into the psychophysiology of human sleep (Freud will come more than 100 years later) Some interpretations suggested reading the work as an occult rape fantasy In any event, the subject engages the idea of the sublime > the enjoyment of terror for sensual gratification

Pierre-Narcisse Guérin, Henri de Rochejaquelin, oil/c., 1817

After the Restoration Guérin saw a market for paintings of contemporary events, celebrating the royalist reaction His portrait of Henri de Rochejaquelin, celebrates the prowess of an aristocratic leader of the pro-Catholic and ultra-royalist resistance in the Vendée region in western France De Rochejaquelin died in 1794, allegedly murdered by treacherous Republicans whom he had offered his clemency Backdrop: Flag with the motto "Vive le roi!"; blouse embroidered with the Sacred Heart, the symbol of the Bourbons Painting shows how easily pro-Revolutionary iconography could be adapted to the royalist cause

Jacques-Louis David, The Death of Lepelletier de Saint-Fargeau, pencil on paper, 1793

After the execution of Louis XVI and the coming of Robespierre's Terror, we find David engaged in a different kind of subject matter: He put his art in the service of the apotheosis of so-called "Revolutionary martyrs": First of these martyrs was a certain Pelletier de Saint-Fargeau, a nobleman who supported the Revolution and who had voted, like David himself, for the death of the king (approved by a narrow margin of 361 to 360 votes in favor of the death sentence) Saint-Fargeau was assassinated in the Palais Royal the day before the execution of Louis XVI by a former royal bodyguard named Pâris

Francisco Goya, The Uprising of the Second of May, 1808, oil/c., 1814

After the restoration of the Spanish Bourbon royalty, Goya tried to regain his foothold with those in power Next, the government commissioned him two canvases, dealing with the subject of the second and the third of May 1808 The works commemorated a popular uprising against the French that exacted high losses among the common people, the pueblo The painting of the second of May shows the uprising in the streets of Paris itself; it's a rather conventional battle painting with perhaps Orientalist overtones > less original (and famous) than the third of May composition

Romanticism

Color Sensibility Contemporary and exotic subjects Death, injury, and physical decay Rapid, cost efficient execution, broader strokes Simplified iconography

Jean-Baptiste Regnault, Liberty or Death, oil/c., 1795

Although Regnault did not actively shape the events of the Revolution and its imagery the way David did, he knew to adapt to the changing times: By 1795 - the radical period of the Revolution had run its course - he would no longer paint religious subject matter, but allegories of Revolutionary virtues (Christianity was persecuted by the Revolution and during the Terror it was replaced by the substitute "Cult of the Supreme Being," abolition of Christian calendar, etc.) Liberty or Death was conceived at the height of the Terror, but completed only thereafter Title refers to the original motto of the Revolution "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death" (death was subsequently dropped) In the center of the composition is the Genius of France in the guise of an ephebic youth, offering a choice between Liberty (left) and Death (right); the group hovers above a contour-map of Europe below Liberty displays a Masonic square and a

Benjamin West, Cleombrotus Ordered into Banishment by Leonides II, King of Sparta, oil/c., ca. 1768

Although West never attained David's polish, he painted neoclassical subjects that were roughly Davidian in taste and came almost 15 years before David arrived on the Parisian scene Cleombrotus typical for the British history paintings that West produced Painting shares with the Davidian compositions the classical setting, garb, dramatic lighting, the division of space between male and female realms, the tragic element of ostracized heroes

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Louis- François Bertin, oil/c., 1832

Among the many portraits Ingres painted, Bertin's stands out: Founder and director of a newspaper called Journal des débats As a figure type, he is like an emblem of the triumphant moneyed bourgeoisie during the July Monarchy Self-assured gesture of clamping hands, imposing physical presence, all indicates the type of successful businessman who came to define the era

Benjamin West, Self-Portrait, oil/c., 1790

An American artist came to be Britain's most respected history painter in the 18th century West was born in Springfield, Pennsylvania, in 1738 to a Quaker family A precocious child, he started painting with seven years and did his first oil portrait of a lawyer with 14 His Quaker family had concerns over his artistic ambition and consulted their religious community, which gave West permission to pursue his career Later, he claimed to have received his first painting lesson from wandering Indians, who showed him how to make colors used for painting their faces West moved to Philadelphia, then to New York, where he found sponsors to finance a study trip to Italy, from which he would never return to America In Rome, he met the German neoclassical painter Raphael Mengs, who encouraged him in his pursuit of a career as an artist He traveled to Florence, Venice, Parma, and Paris before settling permanently in London in 1763

John Martin, Balshazzar's Feast, oil/c., 1820

Another composition on the theme of divine vengeance Subjects like this would have been read and understood by contemporary observers as allegories for the anxieties riddling contemporary British society with the onset of industrialization: overpopulation, disease control, hysteria, and an ominous feeling that the end is neigh Martin's brother Jonathan would later rework this composition into a print, showing the conflagration of London as an eschatological vision

Henry Fuseli, Thor Battering the Midguard Serpent, oil/c., 1790

Another example of a "sublime" picture Scene depicts an episode from the Niebelungenlied, a Germanic epic saga from the early Middle Ages Thor figures in the Niebelungen (as well as in Viking and Norse mythology) as the god of thunder ("Thursday" also alludes to Thor) > he has power over the elements and the cultivation of land Thor is depicted as a superhuman hero, who is slaying the serpent, while the boatman in the back shrinks at such a display or energy and force Fuseli's comment: "the forms of virtue are erect; the forms of pleasure undulate"

John Constable, Old Sarum, watercolor, 1832

Another historically significant monument of Britain: Old Sarum Remnants of a vanished city, of which only the mount remained Constable believed that Old Sarum was the site where parliamentary order and feudal civil law originated From the point of view of Constable's conservative political and social outlook, it was a very important site Constable conceived this watercolor as an allegory for the present-day political ruin of England, as he perceived it for instance in the Reform Bill, which pushed for a modest attempt at democratization Constable intended Old Sarum as a prophecy and a warning that another downfall could be at hand The President of the Royal Academy, Thomas Lawrence, even suggested that Constable dedicated the printed reproduction of the watercolor to the House of Commons (the borough of Old Sarum was at this time notorious for corruption)

Pierre-Narcisse Guérin, The Return of Marcus Sextus, oil/c., 1799

Another history painting that makes a plea for reconciliation in society after the end of the Terror Guérin was Regnault's (David's only major competitor) most important student Gérard's Belisarius had been such a great success that students from studios outside David's developed similar subject matter of older, unjustly ostracized men caught in the tragic entanglement of history This time the artist presents a completely contrived classical hero: Marcus Sextus was allegedly exiled under the Roman dictator Sulla, during the civil wars in the last phase of the Roman Republic

Joseph Mallard Turner, Keelmen Heaving in Coals by Moonlight, oil/c., 1835

Another one of Turner's nocturnes Harbor scene illuminated by moonlight and various man-made fires Keelman are loading ships with coal on the Tyne river; greatest level of activity at night Artificial sources of illumination (fires) add to eerie character of the scene Atmospheric effects, both natural and man-made, drench the scene in chiaroscuro effects Nature and industrialization seem to co-exist in a state of conflict Although here industrialization seems to win out, the nature setting is wide and violent, repudiating the sublime

Eugène Delacroix, Liberty Leading the People, 1830, oil o/canvas

Another revolution on the streets of Paris in 1830 Corrupt, ultra-conservative Bourbon king Charles X swept away, replaced by more moderate Louis-Philipe from the competing Orléans family July 1830 and 1848: known as the July Monarchy Change of government was mainly the consequence of pressure from the street; fights on the barricades commemorated in allegorical terms Center: female personification of France > working-class attire Left: bourgeois (=middle- class, intelligenzia) man with riffle; Right: gun-toting boy from the working classes Message: the July Revolution united French society across class barriers to attain a common goal Social triumph of the bourgeoisie (middle class) in France after 1830

Thomas Girtin, Kirkstall Abbey, watercolor, ca. 1801

Another watercolor landscape with ruin Medieval Cathedral functions as a reminder of God's presence; it is he who created the landscape The ruin also serves to establish the great past of the British people; expression of national pride Napoleonic wars gave rise to nationalism across Europe, expressed through a renewed interest in the mystical and medieval past going back to the origins of Europe's nations Kirkstall Abbey is very large for a watercolor: 12 x 20" A panorama view of which nineteenth-century audiences were particularly fond (displays of panoramas for entertainment purposes)

Francisco Goya, Charles IV and His Family, oil/c., 1801

As a court painter, Goya was of course expected to paint portraits of the king and the royal family The portrait he delivered in 1801 still has observers divided to this day: Was Goya sincere in his rendering of a swaggering and stupid-looking monarch and a sheepishly grinning queen? Or did he intend to paint an indictment of royal incompetence, viciousness and corruption? At the time Goya painted the group portrait, the royal family was embroiled in scandal: In 1792, the king had appointed a new Secretary of State named Emmanuel Godoy Godoy was not only an Enlightenment reformer, but also the lover of the queen; the affair discredited both Charles IV and the monarchy in general > scandals such as this precipitated the French occupation and rule over Spain between 1808 and 1814

Joseph Mallard Turner, Dido Building Carthage, oil/c., 1815

As an oil painter, he started out with scenes from classical antiquity; not from Greece and Rome, but from Carthage Subject matter for Dido Building Carthage derives from Virgil's Aeneid Carthage (modern-day Tunisia/North Africa) was in early Roman history Rome's great competitor and rival from across the Mediterranean According to Virgil, Aeneas, on his wanderings from Troyes, stopped by at Dido's city of Carthage, which she had allegedly founded Dido falls in love with Aeneas, but he has a higher calling and must go to Rome, whereupon Dido commits suicide In Turner's version, the legendary founding of Carthage takes place in a harbor, surrounded by classical ruins and lush vegetation (real Carthage nothing like it) Compositional structure of the work is copied from the 17th-century French painter Claude Lorrain, famous for his melancholic harbor scenes rendered in golden light However, Turner's and Lorrain's light is very different in feeling

François Gérard, Jean-Baptiste Isabey and His Daughter, oil/c., 1796

As opposed to Girodet, Gérard knew how to adapt to changing political and institutional circumstance after Thermidor Here, he depicted a friend and painter colleague, Jean-Baptiste Isabey and his four-year-old daughter, as they are about to descend the Henri IV staircase in the Louvre Netherlandish influence is strongly sensible and is especially evident in the inclusion of the dog on the right Portrait underlined the prestigious social status of a fashionable society painter, to which Gérard himself obviously aspired himself The work was another great success for Gérard in the 1796 Salon A clear lesson could be learned from the picture: to be a successful artist in the future, one needed to make a splash with fashionable society, not with politics Art will become more of a private and domesticated matter

Francisco Goya, Clothed Maja, oil/c., 1798-1805

As they stand, the two portraits of a reclining female are the quintessence of "Majism": ambiguous sexuality (voluptuous smile, undefined identity - is she a courtesan?) merges with stylishness and fashion (again, she is wearing a "mantilla" in the "dressed" version) The anonymity of the sitter underlines the modern, urbane identity of both the model and the painter Psychological introspection takes precedence over display of social status

James Barry

Barry seems like a curious hybrid between West's Neoclassicism and Blake's Romanticism Born in Ireland, in Cork, in 1741, he began his career as an artist with illustrations of Old Testament scenes and the St. Patrick's legend A British patron, the conservative statesman and critic Edmund Burke, invited him to London and had him meet Reynolds, who arranged for him to go on the "Grand Tour" to see Italy He returns as a convert to classicism, receives a professorship at the Royal Academy, but his fondness for quarrels led to his expulsion in 1799

Henry Fuseli

Besides Barry, Britain saw another foreign painter who rose to prominence during the late 18th/early 19th century, the Swiss artist Henry Fuseli (born Henri Füssli) Fuseli came from Zürich and his father, a landscape painter, wanted him to join the Catholic church This provided him with the opportunity to learn Greek and Latin, and to study classical literature He befriended the Swiss scientist and founder of physiognomic sciences, J. C. Lavater, learned English and German Because he produced satires of the communal Zürich government, he was forced to leave his native canton; settled in Berlin, where he met the British ambassador, who put him in touch with Reynolds, the director of the Royal Academy in London In 1763 he settles in London and makes a living with Winckelmann and Shakespeare translations and publications Reynolds recommends that he become a painter and for the next 8 years he goes to Rome

John Constable

Besides William Turner, John Constable was the most famous of Britain's landscape painters of the early 19th century Son of a landowner and miller (i.e. the one who owned the mills) in a rural area of Britain called East Bergholt, located in Suffolk Constable was supposed to take over the family business, especially the mill, but turned instead to art ("Landscape is my mistress") Nevertheless, he remained profoundly attached to the land where he grew up and the canals, fields, mills, cottages and locks provided him with the subject matter for his art In 1795, he went to London for a while to study at the Royal Academy, but soon returned to his father's property to live in "self-imposed exile" from a country going through the first wave of industrialization; late in his life, he was elected even a member of the Royal Academy, which did not change his bitterness towards that institution He underscored the self-sufficient claim of his art in statements such as this: "Still, I should paint my own places best; painting is but another word for feeling, and I associate my 'careless boyhood' with all that lies on the bank of the Stour; those scenes made me a painter. ... I am fond of being an egotist in whatever relates to painting." Despite their roots in local culture, Constable's landscapes were profoundly influenced by Dutch 17th-century art, especially Jacob van Ruisdael, whose work Constable admired and one of whose paintings he had acquired in 1799

Benjamin West, Destruction of the Old Beast and False Prophet, oil/panel, 1804

Biblical theme from the Book of Revelations, originally commissioned for the Royal Chapel at Windsor Castle Painting was ill received by West's patron George III, due to the artist's recent trips to Paris, but was a great success with exhibition audiences in London and Paris Subject matter and style are reminiscent of "Ossianic" themes, the passion for which gripped artists across Europe at the time; announces the coming of Romanticism in art and literature

William Blake, Albion Rose, color-printed line engraving finished with pen and watercolors, ca. 1794-95

Blake believed in "history painting" and its iconography as an agent for change in society He was certainly familiar with the writings of the German scholar Johann Winckelmann and the works of his compatriot John Flaxman, evident in particular when he chose classical nudity as a way to represent everything that is good about England A more immediate source of inspiration for the central figure may have been a diagram in Vincenzo Scamozzi's treatise Idea dell'Architettura Universale (Venice, 1615) or a Roman bronze of a dancing faun newly excavated at Herculaneum (southern Italy) and illustrated in the book De' Bronzi Ercolano (1767-1771); see also Leonardo's Virtuvian Man Blake inscribed the second state of the print with the following stanzas: "Albion rose from where he labored at the Mill with Slaves/Giving himself for the Nations, he danced the dance of Eternal Death" It has been suggested that the hidden meaning of the poem refers to Blake's finishing of his apprenticeship, celebrated by means of an allegorical self-portrait Alternative reading: allegory of sacrifice: Eternal Death=Self-Sacrifice, i.e. Britain sacrificing herself for all nations Like most of Blake's work, Albion Rose is imbued with overtones of Christian mysticism:

William Blake, Frontispiece to 'Vision of the Daughters of Albion,' relief etching and watercolor, 1793

Blake lived and worked during the era of the Napoleonic wars England was constantly threatened by a Continental invasion from France > growing sense of nationalism Determination to express this nationalism through public monuments, art Blake, too, is caught up in this wave of nationalism > starts to work on illustrations on the them of Albion, the poetical personification of GB Name "Albion" derives from Albinus (Lat.), a Roman family name meaning "white" > the Romans called England Albion because of the white caps of the sea they needed to cross to get to England The Albion iconography surfaced in Blake's oeuvre for the first time in 1793 with a self-published, illustrated poem by the artist entitled Vision of the Daughters of Albion > frontispiece shown here Subject matter typical for Blake's pessimistic outlook on humanity Scene is an allegory of mental and physical bondage Protagonist of the poem is Othoon, a representative of the daughters of Albion, i.e. the women of England Her sexual desires are "expressive of the energy which will destroy the Old Order of England" Othoon is trapped in a terrible union: she loves Theotermon, but is raped by Bromion, and is rejected therefore by Theotermon because of her adultery

William Blake, Tyger, Tyger Burning Bright in the Forest of the Night, relief etching, 1790s

Choice of subject matter for these books emphasized the strange, hermetic, and the supernatural: Doors of Paradise (16 colored plates), Urizen (24 plates), Nights by Young, Jerusalem (100+ plates), The Tomb by Blair (engraved by Schiavonetti), Pilgrimage to Canterbury after Chaucer (16 drawings), The Book of Job (21 plates), The Prophets (35 plates); he also started illustrations for Dante's Inferno The appeal of these books rests on Blake's ability to combine text and image into an artistic whole

Pierre-Paul Prud'hon, Crime Pursued by Vengeance and Justice, 1808, oil/c.

Commissioned in 1804 for the "Palais de Justice" (French equivalent of Supreme Court) in Paris by the prefect of the Seine, Frochot Composition depicts an assassin about to flee the crime scene, modeled after a sculpture by the neoclassical Italian artist Antonio Canova, very much in fashion with Napoleon's coterie > features of the assassin in particular were modeled after Canova's sculpture of Roman emperor Caracalla The assassin leaves behind the lifeless body of a beautiful adolescent, whom Prud'hon seems to have copied from Girodet's Endymion The assassin is pursued by Vengeance (with the torch) and Justice, hovering above the scene

Jacques-Louis David, Oath of the Horatii, oil/c., 1785

Completed for the Salon of 1785, and quickly recognized as David's break-through work, which established him as the European leader in history painting Painted while David was in Rome (1784) David accompanied his favorite pupil Jean Germain Drouais to Italy, after the latter had won the "Prix de Rome" Drouais also painted the drapery of the women's dress; and painted the early version of the mourning female to the far right

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Napoleon on the Imperial Throne, 1806, oil o/canvas

Completed just before leaving for Rome Unnatural pose, stiff body, flat composition Face wax-like and curiously out of proportions with the velvet- and ermine-clad body Ingres was harshly criticized, including by representatives of the Academy Work was perceived as "Gothic," understood as being antithetical to "classical" Those critical of Ingres understood the term to mean a pre-occupation with detail and the exaggerated depiction of cloth, which reminded them of Flemish "primitive" painters, like Van Eyck Completed just before leaving for Rome Unnatural pose, stiff body, flat composition Face wax-like and curiously out of proportions with the velvet- and ermine-clad body Ingres saw himself in a different tradition: For him, Raphael remained his role model for the rest of his life, followed perhaps by other Italian Renaissance artists, like Filippo Lippi or Pisanello

Joseph Mallard Turner, Rain, Steam, and Speed -The Great Western Railway, oil/c., 1844

Composition expresses the essence of Turner's mix of fascination and horror from industrialization He deliberately depicted the most advanced locomotive of the time, which belonged to the so-called "Firefly Class" Here, the train is about to cross the bridge at Maidenhead, widely regarded as a masterwork of engineering, built by the greatest builder in Britain, Isambard Kingdom Brunel Because Turner traveled a lot as an artist, he welcomed progress in mass transportation The Great Western Railroad has just opened the Bristol-Exeter extension when Rain, Steam, and Speed was painted During one of his trips on the newly opened extension Turner mentally recorded the scene of a train passing the Maidenhead bridge during a rainstorm (he was leaning out of the coach window and saw another train approaching from the opposite direction; the other track was omitted in this picture) Subsequently, he worked up the subject (and took a lot of liberties with it) in his studio He broke up the black body of the locomotive's boiler with headlights The puffs of steam of the locomotive melt with the atmospheric effects of the landscape Forward thrust of steam locomotive emphasized; daemonic aspect of the machine in mother nature's garden Foreground: hare dashing across the rails, barely escaping the approaching machine Rain, Steam, and Speed is a masterwork of art documenting the industrial revolution and its difficult symbiosis with nature Open ended questions that Turner raises: Does the machine constitute a part of nature or does it stand apart? Are we supposed to be afraid of it or are we supposed to celebrate its arrival?

Joseph Mallard Turner, Dudley, Worcestershire, watercolor, ca. 1831-32

Conflicts inherent in the emerging industrial revolution provides the context for many of Turner's works Dudley, Worcestershire is one of Turner's many nocturnes or night scenes Harbor scene in one of Britain's newly industrialized districts at night Incessant commercial activity turns the landscape into a premonition of hell Active fires and the cool moisture of the air at night create the misty sensation of which Turner was so fond Landscpe is punctuated by kilns, boilers, and smokestacks Nevertheless, there is an archaic feeling to this landscape: primordial energy of doomsday Turner associated industrialization not only with progress, but also with the prospect of annihilation

John Constable, Dedham Vale with Ploughman, oil/c., ca. 1814

Constable added a couplet from The Farmer's Boy by the so-called peasant poet Robert Bloomfield to the title of the painting: "But unassisted through each toilsome day/With smiling brow the ploughman cleaves his way" What do these lines (especially the "smiling brow") mean? Scene pictured from too far a distance to be able to tell, but what seems to be meant is that the laborers and rural poor submit cheerfully to the work imposed on them or at least they are expected to do so Ploughman seems rather small compared to the overpowering presence of nature; yet, his existence is revelatory of the social dimensions at work in Constable's art

John Constable, Cloud Study with Birds, oil/paper, 1821

Constable planned his compositions very carefully He paid close attention to atmospheric and meteorological effects and the rendering of the sky

Francisco Goya, Linda Maestra! (Pretty Teacher!), from Los Caprichos, Pl. 68, 1799, etching and aquatint

Countering superstitious beliefs in witches and their cannibalism (witch hunt and trials also a specialty of the Inquisition) Old witch initiates young witch into the art of flying on a broom Allegory of an old prostitute showing a younger one the ropes

Francisco Goya, As far Back as His Grandfather, from Los Caprichos, Pl. 39, 1799, etching and aquatint

Criticism of the false pretensions of the aristocracy Ass shows his ancestral tree He is the proud descendant of a long line of asses Allegory for Manuel Godoy (lover of queen, secretary of state)?

Jacques-Louis David, Marat at His Last Breath, oil/c., 1793

David did not have to wait long for another opportunity to continue his martyr portraits: this time the victim was not only a more prominent Revolutionary, but also a politically more contested one, the radical journalist and deputy Paul Marat Marat was a representative of the so-called "Mountain" (radical Jacobins) in the Convention (parliament) and leader of the sans-culottes (artisans and workers in the poorer quarters of Paris); a rabble-rouser who could command the people in the street On July 13, 1793, Marat was assassinated by a woman named Charlotte Corday, a Girondin (moderate) sympathizer from Caen (Normandy), in his bath

Jacques-Louis David, The Intervention of the Sabine Women, oil/c., 1799

David now took a political and artistic stance opposite to his previous position He advocates conciliation with the moderate political enemies of the Revolution, culminating in his support for Napoleon Bonaparte during the Empire This conversion becomes complete when he started his first major painting since his release from jail, The Intervention of the Sabine Women The painting is one monumental appeal for reconciliation and to let bygones be bygones

Jacques-Louis David, Self-Portrait, oil/c., 1794

David remained faithful to Robespierre to the very end He told the Convention that if Robespierre were forced to "drink Hemlock (poison)," he would do the same He narrowly escaped Robespierre's fate, but was sent to prison for several years (released in late 1795) Completed this self-portrait while in jail Portrait is filled with self-doubts and skepticism > David portrays himself no longer as a fashionable, self-assured society artist, but as a self-tormented genius

Jacques-Louis David, The Death of Bara, oil/c., 1793

David's cult of Revolutionary martyrs came to an end with this picture of the latest victim Joseph Bara was an otherwise non-descript thirteen-year-old boy from the provinces In December 1794 the Convention (parliament) heard a report on the progress of the campaigns against the counter-revolutionary rebels in the Vendée region (civil war in the Vendée; region not under the control of the Revolutionary government) Bara was too young to enroll regularly in the Republican army, but accompanied a military detachment, fully mounted and equipped as a hussar

Jacques-Louis David, Belisarius Begging Alms, oil/c., 1781

David's first maor neoclassical painting and major success at the Salon of 1781 Subject matter: a blind Roman general, unjustly ostracized for treason of state Story interpreted after the novel by French neoclassical writer Jean-François Marmontel, published in 1767 Belisarius served under Emperor Justinian, under whom he had made many conquests for Rome Justinian then had him blinded and dispossessed After that, he depended on the help of a youthful guide, begging for alms The painting was intended as an indictment of corruption on the highest level of public administration

Jacques-Louis David, Lictors Returning to Brutus the Bodies of His Dead Son, oil/c., 1789

David's moralizing pictorial rhetoric was something entirely new in France; previous attempts at history painting had never made such far-reaching claims as he did The full (and politically explosive) extent of David's rhetoric becomes only evident with the outbreak of the French Revolution of 1789 The Lictors were painted in this very year and present the most brutally uncompromising subject from the series yet

Eugène Delacroix, The Bark of Dante and Virgil, 1822, oil/c.

Delacroix entered the Parisian art scene by submitting his Dante and Virgil to the 1822 Salon Dark tonalities, atmospheric effects: appropriate for depicting the descent into hell as described in Dante's Divine Comedy Dante and his alter ego from classical antiquity, Virgil, are searching their way through a pile of corpses These bodies represent the damned souls; the way they are rendered reveals Géricault's influence Like in Géricault's Medusa morbidity informed the rendering of the dead: their bodies are at the mercy of the ocean (not mentioned in Dante's text), which threatens to carry them away Piling up of massive bodies on the lower ledge; pyramidal composition: all copied from Géricault'

Eugène Delacroix, Death of Sardanapalus, 1826, oil o/canvas

Delacroix painted many Orientalist paintings Theme of the Death of Sardanapalus is a literary invention by the British poet Lord Byron, much admired by Delacroix Protagonist: Assyrian king Sardanapalus, who instead of surrendering to his enemies, calls up his slaves and eunuchs to slaughter his women and horses, to destroy his treasures and to burn his palace Despot sprawls across his bed and dispassionately observes the execution of his orders before he himself commits suicide

Théodore Géricault, Derby at Epsom, 1820, oil/c.

Derby at Epsom (GB) is a more civilized society event, yet Géricault was attracted to the subject for the same reason: primordial, raw energy associated with horses Trip to Great Britain was occasioned by a business deal whereby Géricault would show the Raft of the Medusa for a fee to the British public

Francisco Goya, Ravages of War, from Los Desastres de la Guerra, Pl. 30, c.1810- 1814, etching

Disasters of War: Second major series of prints realized by Goya > very possibly influenced by Callot Reaction to the military occupation of Spain by France and the ensuing civil war Only published 25 years after Goya's death > most prints circulated during Goya's life time only in the circles of his initiated friends Here: jumble of people and corpses; scene from the collapse of a house in the aftermath of the French bombardment of the town of Saragossa

William Blake, The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed with the Sun, pen, and ink with watercolor and graphite, ca. 1805

During his life, Blake completed many Biblical scenes, among them a group of watercolors dealing with the Book of Revelations Here: illustration of Chapter 12, v. 1-4: "And there appeared a great wonder in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars. And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered. And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads. And his tail drew the third part of these stars of heaven, and did cast them to earth: and the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to be delivered, for to devour the child as soon as it was born."

Joseph Mallard Turner, The Burning of the Houses of Parliament, oil/c., 1835

During the first half of the 19th century, the tallies of the votes cast in the British parliament were recorded with wooden sticks When a number of these sticks were officially burned in October 1834, the fire got out of control and burned the Houses of Parliament As soon as Turner heard about the incident, he rushed to the scene to record it in numerous watercolor sketches He then returned to his studio and painted two large oil paintings of the subject Flames shoot dramatically into the sky; the whole seat of government appears like a huge inferno In the foreground, there are spectators on Westminster Bridge and in boats on the Thames, watching the spectacle unfold

Joseph Mallard Turner, Sun Rising through Vapor: Fishermen Selling and Cleaning Fish, oil/c., 1807

Early morning scene: fishermen have been out on the open sea over night and now they have returned in the early morning to clean and sell their catch on the seaboard Group of peasants to the right is reminiscent of Dutch genre or lowlife scenes Nature is portrayed in this instance not as a threat to human existence, but as providing a livelihood Typical features for Turner's landscapes: misty atmosphere, wide, open skies, sun is usually obscured or about to rise/set Landscape secondary with respect to the sky Tragic or melancholic connotations of setting; nature seems to spell impending disaster or doom, while human figures are minuscule Idea of the sublime is stressed: man is nothing compared to the overpowering force of nature, which makes God's handiwork manifest

Benjamin West, Penn's Treaty with the Indians, oil/c., 1771

Encouraged by this success, West assigned the Indians in a follow-up work an even more prominent role Penn's Treatise is an episode from West's home state, depicting how William Penn acquired the land of what would become the state of Pennsylvania through barter Painting was intended as a lesson in how conflicts of interest can be settled without bloodshed, while today, there is also a flavor of colonial exploitation inherent in the subject, because the idea of landownership was alien to native Americans Contemporaries were enthusiastic about the subjects: George III commissioned monumental religious subjects from West; finally West is elected the second president of the Royal Academy in 1792 (succeeding Reynolds) After the peace of Amiens in 1801, West went to France and was received by Napoleon, then the First Consul of France, which resulted in his suspension from the presidency of the Royal Academy

Jacques-Louis David, Napoleon at the Saint- Bernard Pass, oil/c., 1800

Equestrian portrait of Napoleon allegedly illustrating an episode from 1796, when the young general was appointed by the Directory to commander-in-chief of the French armies in Italy When Napoleon took command of the French army in Italy, it was down to its knees: lack of food, clothing (esp. shoes), morale was miserable Napoleon arrived with the simple instruction to hold the positions in Italy, but soon he turned things around for France and raced from one military victory to the next; he also sent urgently needed money back home to France The Directors were impressed, but sensed that he would pose a danger to their power; they next appointed him commander-in-chief of the army they sent to Egypt in 1798, hoping that he would block GB's sea trade with India (and perhaps that they would never see the dangerous upstart again)

Joseph Mallard Turner, The Burning of the Houses of Parliament, oil/c., 1835

Event provided Turner with a pretext to deploy his whole repertoire of atmospheric effects Billows of dark smoke rises to the skies Subject matter appealed to Turner's taste for architecture and melodramatic conflagrations Foreboding picture, meant to convey the warning that possibly doomsday may lay ahead for British democracy

John Constable, Dedham Vale, oil/c., 1828

Example from Constable's series of "six footers," so called by the artist himself to designate the large type of canvases he started painting in the 1820s Social trouble maker nestled in almost untouched nature: a vagrant mother and her child (some claim she is gypsy woman) has put up her tent in the foreground; her presence is so inconspicuous that it can be easily overlooked Background: typical elements from the repertoire of Constable's picturesque landscapes: a meandering river, mills, cottages, bridges, and a village with a church tower in the far distance Constable stressed his empathy with the rural poor on several occasions, but he mostly referred to the deserving poor, i.e. those who worked for a living

John Constable, Golding Constable's Flower Garden, oil/c., 1815

Flower garden of Constable's father Superficially, a nostalgic ode to peace and harmony in the countryside In the distance we see a single figure given the unlikely task of reaping a whole field of corn all by himself Constable did not like to have too many figures in his landscape paintings and minimized their presence to mere blobs of paint Some elements do undermine the bucolic appearance: Fences, for instance, only recently emerged in the British countryside, after the so-called Enclosure Law Enclosure Law allowed landowners to claim common land (the "commons") for themselves and thus to keep off the rural poor who used to collect wood for fires or to tend their domestic animals on the "commons"; social division deepened as a consequence

Théodore Géricault, The Wounded Cuirassier, 1814, oil o/canvas

Follow-up painting to the previous one, executed two years later (Salon of 1814) Cuirasse = armored breast plate; Cuirassier = heavy cavalryman Reversal of Napoleon's military fortunes: by 1814 his army was driven back into France by Germany, Austria, Russia, Great Britain; exile to island of Elba Symbolic representation of defeat: Rider dismounted; he is no longer charging and confronting the enemy, but wounded, on the defensive > like Napoleon and Napoleonic France Feelings of regret for the Napoleonic age, Republican values, past glory implicit in the work

Henry Fuseli, Titania and Bottom, oil/c., ca. 1790

Fuseli also received a commission for Boydell's Shakepeare Gallery and was asked to paint two pictures on the theme of a A Midsummer Night's Dream with the instruction to include fairies

Thomas Gainsborough, Mr. and Mrs. Andrews, oil/c., 1750

Gainsborough, the most important 18th-century British landscape painter addressed property relationships and landownership openly in his art; this was not the case with Constable Here, Robert Andrews and his wife are the owners of the land depicted in the background Their ownership claims are made obvious through poses, clothing, and attributes, such as the hunting rifle It is clear that they themselves do not work the land; their laborers, however, have been deliberately omitted from the picture

William Gilpin, Plate from 'Three Essays,' 1792

Generic landscape devoid of picturesque interests (i.e. boring) Prototype of a picturesque landscape with bushes, trees, mountains, ruins, and two persons contemplating the scene Human presence is key to its being a picturesque scene

Antoine-Jean Gros, Napoleon in the Pesthouse of Jaffa, 1804, oil o/canvas

Gigantic size: 17 x 24 feet, Louvre Museum, Paris Another episode from Napoleon's ill-fated campaign to Syria (Palestine) launched from Egypt Strong Arab resistance to French troops, outbreak of the Bubonic plague in Napoleon's army A makeshift hospital for sick French soldiers was established in the town of Jaffa (today: Tel Aviv) during retreat Canvas commemorates a visit by Napoleon to the Plague House of Jaffa, which is historically documented Medical reason (flea bites) of plague then unknown; irrational fear was alleged as the cause for the epidemic Napoleon assumes the pose of the thaumaturgical figure in this composition: he assumes the pose and the charisma of the healing Christ, while dispelling rumors that fear from the plague helps spread the contagion

Anne-Louis Girodet, The Burial of Atala, 1808, oil on canvas

Girodet and other students of David also switched gradually to a style associated with Romanticism Atala even outdid Endymion in popularity After a novel by the neo-Catholic writer Châteaubriand: Atala (1801); Novel references French massacre of the Natchez rebel tribe in 1727 Male hero Chactas, native American prisoner of the French, liberated by Christian young woman named Atala; they fall in love Chactas converts to Christianity under guidance of père Aubry, who runs a Jesuit colony Atala had vowed to her mother to dedicate her life to religion or die before coming to America, poisons herself over the inner conflict with her love to Atala

Ann-Louis Girodet, The Sleep of Endymion, oil/c., 1791

Girodet celebrated his greatest triumph in absentia at the Salon of 1793, when his Sleep of Endymion (the required "académie" sent back to Paris) went on display However, he could not capitalize on this success, because illness and endless legal problems in the Italian principalities (where he sought refuge from his Roman persecutors) endlessly delayed his return until late in 1795 Technical problems riddled the work because he had mixed paint with olive oil; surface would not dry and he had to re-paint the composition several times Endymion was a turning point in the history of French art during the Revolution, precisely because it departs from the martial and virile stereotypes espoused by David and Drouais Protagonist of the scene is Endymion, a boy with whom the moon goddess Selene hopelessly fell in love But that is also where all similarities to Drouais end: Dying Athlete: retains control and consciousness; a tense, alert, suffering male figure Underlying this contrast are two different definitions of "maleness": Drouais > fight, hardness, unyielding severity, virility; Girodet: helplessness, softness, yielding and pliant pose, androgyneity

Ann-Louis Girodet, Pygmalion and Galatea, oil/c., 1819

Girodet was fortunate in that he came from a wealthy family, thus being able to pursue his non-marketable subject matter and to obstinately engage in laborious pet projects that stretched over many years This was the case of the last major painting he executed during his life, Pygmalion and Galatea, originally commissioned in 1813 by a rich collaborator of Napoleon, the wealthy Italian collector Giovanni Battista Sommariva Girodet struggled desperately with the subject which drove him to the verge of a mental breakdown He reworked the surface completely three times in six years; still the paint application is uneven and clotted (not good for a history painting) Subject matter is the legendary Greek sculptor Pygmalion, who falls in love with his own statue Galatea, and turns to Aphrodite to bring her to life

Ann-Louis Girodet, Portrait of Jean-Baptiste Belley, oil/c., 1797

Girodet would remain unpredictable throughout his artistic career, and the first major painting he came out with after his return to Paris was a surprise to everyone The portrait of Belley depicts a Jacobin deputy in the National Assembly from the Caribbean colony of Saint-Domingue (today's Haiti), who continued to serve as a member of the Lower House during the Directory Portrait is a celebration of the abolition of slavery as exemplified by Belley's life story: He was taken as a slave from Senegal to the French colony in 1747; on Saint-Domingue, he managed to buy his freedom, became a captain of infantry, and was finally elected to the Convention in Paris in Sept. 1793, where he was seated with the deputies from the West Indies His maiden speech preceded the passage of a law abolishing slavery in the colonies and extending the rights of citizenship to all of their inhabitants (law revoked under Napoleon)

Francisco Goya, Conde de Floridablanca, oil/c., 1783

Goya owed his ascend undoubtedly to the support he received from Enlightenment circles, such as the Count of Floridablanca or the Duke of Ossuna Stylistic influences are hard to pin down, but probably the works are best described as a mixture between Northern European (e.g. Honthorst, Hogarth) and native Spanish (e.g. Velázquez) influences

Francisco Goya, Saturn Devouring His Children, Mural transferred to canvas, ca. 1820

Goya responded to these conflicts of interest imposed by circumstances beyond his control by withdrawing into the private and morbid world of his art Between 1820 and 1823 he worked on his co-called "Black Paintings," destined for his suburban Madrid residence, the Quinta del Sordo (Deaf Man's Hous) Saturn, according to Roman legend, was the deity associated with time, who was devouring his own children: the days, the months, the years In Goya's picture, the tragedy of Saturn's existence takes on a multiple meanings: it may be an allegory for the ideals of the Enlightenment negating their own purpose, or it may refer to the reactionary Holy Inquisition of the Restoration persecuting the artist and his friends

Antoine-Jean Gros, The Battle of Nazareth, oil o/canvas, 1801

Gros's entry to the competition won the prize much to everyone's surprise: Composition has no clear center; smaller altercations seems to take place everywhere, but we do not know which ones are important and which ones are not Lots of conflicting reports about the campaigns were in circulation, but there were not reliable accounts of this particular battle Gros made up most of the details himself, since he did not go along to Egypt in person

François Gérard, Ossian, oil/c., 1801

Gérard, another one of David's students, and Girodet had long been artistic rivals At the turn of the 19th century, a literary fashion for co-called Ossian poems gripped Europe Ossian was supposed to be a Celtic bard, who had allegedly written these poems even before Homer's age In reality, however, the author of these poems was a Scotsman by the name of James Mcpherson, who lived in the 18th century Ancient or not, the Ossian saga permitted an escape from traditional themes and contents in history painting to embrace Northern European mythological worlds of spirits, elves, and heroes

Théodore Géricault, Monomania of Envy, 1822-1823, oil o/canvas

Géricault executed up to 10 paintings in this series, illustrating types of "monomanias" (envy, delusion of military grandeur, gambling, theft, abduction of children, etc.); 5 are known to survive Series continues Géricault's practice of producing dense psychological studies of anonymous sitters, who somehow came to exemplify shifts in historical tides French Revolution was believed to promoted the spread of mental disorders, since millions of people whose fate in life under the ancien régime seemed to have been determined by birth, now felt encouraged to confabulate new and grandiose identities for themselves

Théodore Géricault, Riderless Races at Rome, 1817, oil/c.

Géricault loved painting horses; indeed, his premature death was due to a riding accident Géricault's only two travels abroad to Rome (1816) and London (1820) produced paintings capturing the energy and emotions attending horse races In Rome, he documented an annual event taking place during the carnival, when wild riderless horses (called "Barberi," because of their north-African origin) are being chased through the streets of Rome We are looking at a scene just from the start of the races, when the animals are goaded into frenzies by the spectators

Théodore Géricault, Raft of the Medusa, 1818-1819, oil o/canvas

Géricault's most famous painting; monumental dimensions Depicts aftermath of a disastrous shipwreck blamed on the incompetence of the restored Bourbon political leadership (after Napoleon's final ousting in 1815) Public reception of the work: Shown in the Parisian Salon of 1819 under the title Scene of a Shipwreck Conceived as an indictment of nepotism and corruption under Louis XVIII France allowed to reclaim African colony of Senegal after return of Bourbons to French throne Hugues Duroy de Chaumareys, captain of "Medusa" (name of ship), sent to reclaim Senegal Selected because he was a noble and a royalist; had not been a captain for decades Voyage to Senegal ended in disaster: "Medusa" ran on sandbank during good weather and calm sea due to a blatant navigational mistake, broke apart due to captain's bad decisions

John Constable, Cloud Study with Tree Tops and Building, oil/paper, 1821

He left numerous of "cloud studies" of the type shown here Detailed renderings of particularly dramatic cloud formations to be used as elements in landscape compositions Typically painted in oil on paper > oil sketches

Jacques-Louis David, Mars Disarmed by Venus and the Graces, oil/c., 1824

Not very many pictures survive from the Brussels period Compositions are drained of their virile and war-like character Here, even the classical god of war, Mars, is overcome by female seduction and leaves war aside Overall, an awkward composition that attests to David's declining powers in the 1820s and to the fact that neoclassicism had passed its heyday

John Martin

He was the antithesis of Constable His specialty are vastly oversized canvases that depict melodramas with Biblical or Near Eastern scenes, along with visual interpretations of Ossian and Milton Martin's art, too, was based on the fashion for the sublime gripping England and much of Europe during the 19th century Martin was a career artist who displayed his works in commercial venues so that they would earn him money His academic colleagues were not pleased by his work and condemned him for pandering to popular taste The critic William Hazlitt, for example, said that Martin's work "has no notion of moral principles [...] with this craving after morbid affectation." Such criticism was particularly harsh, since Martin had no academic training and had previously worked as a coach and a china painter, i.e. he came from the popular and decorative arts tradition Besides displaying his works for a fee, Martin derived revenue from the sale of prints, dioramas, and stage sets

Goya

He would certainly be remembered today as an important, local artist at the turn of the 19th century, if all he ever painted were the pictures we saw so far What defines his distinct role in the history of art is that he was caught between the fronts of the Enlightenment: BEFORE the French Revolution (and especially the Terror), the Enlightenment thinking of the French philosophers was considered progressive and familiarity with it put Goya in touch with Spanish reformers in leadership positions AFTER the French Revolution run its course and reactionary tendencies regained the upper hand (the Holy Inquisition, for instance, was reinstated and gained in strength after the end of the Napoleonic occupation of Spain; superstition superseded the reform spirit, etc.) such associations were no longer desirable to maintain, if one wanted to keep one's privileges these circumstantial difficulties were compounded by health problems: Goya turned deaf in the 1790s and suffered at the beginning of the decade a serious mental breakdown

Philippe-Auguste Hennequin, Triumph of the French People (Allegory of the August 10), fragment, oil/c., ca. 1794-1797

Hennequin's most important work was a monumental canvas depicting The Triumph of the French People as an Allegory of the 10th of August He presented the painting at the 1797 Salon, and it brought him the first award from the jury The canvas was later cut up into pieces (not an unusual practice at the time), and survives only in fragments today The 10th of August was one of the key dates of the French Revolution: on that day, the Parisian population stormed the Tuileries gardens, close to the Louvre, to exact revenge on the royal family after 400 Revolutionary insurgents had been killed by the king's body guard (or Swiss guard)

James Barry, Satan and His Legion Hurling Defiance Towards the Vault of Heaven, etching and black ink, 1792-93

Illustration of a scene from Milton's Paradise Lost Barry was also a skilled printmaker Subject choice, treatment similar to what one would expect from Blake: same kind of swelling musculature, dramatic foreshortening, single light source outside the picture frame, interest in Satanic motives Barry became interested in the idea of the sublime through Burke, who wrote a treatise entitled A philosophical Inquiry into the Sublime and the Beautiful (1756): the sublime defined as a pleasure of terror and the thoughts of fear, privation, and subjection to attain a state of visual overstimulation and illusion of omnipotent power The cult of the sublime continued to have a strong following particularly in the early 19th century

Francisco Goya, Courtyard with Lunatics, oil/c., 1793-94

In 1793/94 Goya started a series of eleven paintings meant to illustrate the ideas of "fantasy and invention" In this series, Courtyard with Lunatics is certainly the most startling picture The scene takes place inside a late eighteenth-century insane asylum, and we cannot be sure whether Goya was familiar with the setting as an inmate or a visitor; in either case, the painting was apparently meant to inspire sympathies with those institutionalized Prior to the psychiatric reform movements of the 19th century, insane people received no treatment, but were simply locked up like criminals; they were regarded to be on one level with animals and treated accordingly The administration of such asylums earned revenues by giving outside visitors a chance to watch the insane against a small fee: such outings became a fashionable pastime especially of the aristocracy, who enjoyed watching a "freak show" Such a visit may also have provided Goya with the opportunity to capture the scene depicted here

François Gérard, Cupid and Psyche, oil/c., 1798

In 1798, Gérard continued his series of Salon successes with Cupid and Psyche Psyche, the personification of innocence, is about to feel her first kiss by an invisible (!) cupid Allegory for the awakening to sexuality that is alluded to in very subtle and sensuous terms

Jacques-Louis David, Le Sacre, oil/c., 1805

In 1804 Bonaparte crowned himself Emperor, and David was given the job to paint another giant piece of propaganda art Work captures the moment just after Napoleon had crowned himself at Notre-Dame cathedral, and now elevates his wife Josephine to the rank of Empress by crowning her David considered recording the moment when Napoleon crowned himself, but refrained from this solution, because the act was politically too daring and outrageous

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Henri IV Playing with His Children, oil/c., 1817

Ingres also tried his hand at Troubadour painting and was financially very successful with this subject matter Troubadour painting: historical episodes from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (see discussion of Devéria) Iconography celebrates the founder of the Bourbon monarchy, Henri IV; type of subject that was highly appreciated by Restoration society Henri IV and his family are being surprised by the Spanish ambassador as they are enjoying family life Completely contrived, pseudo-historical episode Style of painting is meant to imitate Flemish interiors and portraits In the back we see Raphael's Madonna and Child, used not only to reinforce the mother-and-child iconography of the composition, but also to pay tribute to Ingres's artistic role model from the Renaissance Above the bed: coat of arms featuring the "fleur-de-lis" symbol of the Bourbons

William Blake

In 1809 Blake organized a self-sponsored one-man exhibition held at his brother's London residence (a hosiery shop), featuring sixteen of his "Poetical and Historical Inventions," among them two tempera paintings, described in the accompanying Descriptive Catalogue: No. 1: "The spiritual form of Nelson guiding Leviathan, in whose wreathings are unfolded the nations of the earth" No. 2: "The spiritual form of Pitt; he is that angel, who, pleased to perform the Almighty's order, rides on the whirlwind, directing the storms of war: He is ordering the Reaper to reap the Vine of the Earth, and the Plowman to plow up the cities and the Towers" Blake was not a modest artist, since he hoped to attract through the exhibition enough attention to receive public commissions for monumental frescoes adorning public monuments Ambitions unrealistic, but Blake was not an artist grounded in rational expectations Exhibition not a success; aborted prematurely > Blake fell into oblivion Almost all of his works outside the book illustrations were executed in tempera on canvas, a technique Blake favored because it allowed him to avoid the alleged pretentiousness of oil painting

Ingres

In 1824 Ingres returned from his self-imposed exile in Italy to Paris He himself was not sure what to expect upon his return, but soon found that he was celebrated frenetically as the new leader of Neoclassicism, increasingly under siege by the Romantic School The Salon of 1824 openly revealed the conflict between the two schools (Neoclassicism and Romanticism), when Delacroix showed his Massacre at Chios and Ingres his Vow of Louis XIII The public and academic success of the Vow of Louis XIII was such that Ingres was named president of the École des Beaux-Arts As a teacher, Ingres professed the classical dogma relentlessly (Delacroix said that he taught beauty like one teaches arithmetic)

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Odalisque with Slave, oil/c., 1842

In 1834, after one of his paintings was badly received at the Salon, Ingres asked to be transferred back to Rome as the president of the French Academy there; he stayed in Rome until the 1840s Upon his second return to Paris, he concentrated on portraits of kept women in Oriental harems Fantasy products of the Western imagination, at the crossroads of voyeuristic/(male) erotic interests and the ongoing fascination with a "despotic" Orient Odalisque with Slave is a subject situated in one such environment of an Oriental harem An African eunuch in the back is watching over the nude in the center, enjoying the musical entertainment provided by her companion Languid pose of nude recalls Raphael and/or Renaissance and Mannerist pictures

After Philippe-Auguste Hennequin, The Remorse of Orestes, engraving, 1800

In Hennequin's case, the promotion of radical politics through art was a genuine concern, as he made clear in 1800 with his Remorse of Orestes (here: engraving) According to Greek legend, Orestes murdered his mother Clytemnestra (moon goddess) and her lover Agisthus (darkness) to avenge their assassination of his father Agamemnon as well as attempts at his own life Henceforth, Orestes was punished for his matricide by persecution through the Furies; he is finally saved by his sister, Iphigenia, and becomes the king of Mycenaea In Hennequin's version, the classical tragedy is transformed into an allegory enticing sympathies for those still loyal to Republican virtues and the Revolutionary cause

Adélaïde Labille-Guiard, Self-Portrait with Two Pupils, oil/c., 1785

In many ways, Labille-Guiard's career suggests parallels with Vigée-Lebrun's Both were admitted to the Academy (mostly a male domain) in 1783, both specialized in portraits, and both were patronized by the royal family Labille-Guiard became in 1785 the official portraitist of "Mesdames," the king's unmarried aunts Labille-Guiard's involvement with the Parisian artistic community is expressed in this self-portrait: she depicted herself in front of a large canvas with a palette and brushes; more canvases, plaster casts for study purposes are in the background She is attended by two attentive female students of hers, observing her skills as she paints

Ann-Louis Girodet, The Deluge, oil/c., 1806

In the Salon of 1806 Girodet showed his next large project Title (The Deluge) seems to imply a Biblical subject, while iconography illustrates Virgil's Aeneid, where Aneas rescues (carries on his shoulders) his father from the burning city of Troy to settle in Italy; subject therefore suggests a mixture of Christian and classical themes Painting is drama on great scale: A man tries to rescue his family amidst a thunderstorm: His father is sitting on his shoulders, while he is about to loose his grip on his wife, who is pulled down by their two children

Jacques-Louis David, The Tennis Court Oath, pencil drawing, 1791

In the early 1790s David turned from full-time painter to part-time politician, culminating in his casting the ballot for the king's death while being a deputy In 1791, he comes out with plans for a new subject matter: he leaves the world of classical antiquity behind and tackles contemporary events For the first post-Revolutionary Salon of 1791, David presented a complex drawing, which he hoped soon to transfer on a canvas of monumental scale Scene depicts a key moment in the history of the French Revolution: the Third Estate declared itself the National Assembly and delivers oath not to disband until constitution was drafted and France would be free Moment of oath-taking (June 20, 1789) is depicted here In the center, President of the National Assembly, the astronomer Bailly Setting is a tennis court outside Paris

François Gérard, Belisarius, oil on canvas, 1795

In this climate, Gérard came out with his Belisarius in the Salon of 1795, the first under the Directory A dramatic continuation of the Belisarius story already painted by David: Belisarius's youthful guide has been bitten by a snake, which is still coiling around his feat; the blinded general tries to find the way on his own through a deserted landscape > setting sun spells doom for the immediate future of the two Subject matter was meant to entice sympathies for unjustly persecuted exiles: less so for aristocrats of the first hour, but for those moderates who fled the repressions of the Terror (for instance Girondin faction > the prescribed Girondins who had left France since May 1793 were now eliminated from the list emigrés and allowed to return to France without being punished)

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, François-Marius Granet, oil/c., ca. 1807

Ingres finally arrived in Rome in 1806, painted the portrait of a fellow-student called François-Marius Granet Specifically Roman setting: background with Villa Medici, which housed the French Academy in Rome Besides being a history painter, Ingres was also one of the greatest portrait painters of the nineteenth century

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Jupiter and Thetis, oil/c., 1811

Ingres's second "envois" back to Paris Conceived as a prelude to the previous The Ambassadors of Agamemnon Visiting Achilles, also taken from Homer The sea nymph Thetis begs Jupiter to grant victory to the Trojans in order to avenge an insult to her son Achilles by Agamemnon The request is granted, in spite of the fact that in granting it, Jupiter will incur the wrath of Juno Jupiter and Thetis is a return to the awkward compositions of the type of the enthroned Napoleon, which was so strongly criticized by the academic camp Jupiter is again a bulky figure, rendered in stark, frontal pose Composition is deprived of depth; no true interaction between Thetis and Jupiter Thetis figure, kneeling subserviently before the god and lifting her hand to his chin, seems like she was painted in as an afterthought

A Comparison with Hubert Robert

John Constable, Hadleigh Castle, Mouth of the Thames - Morning after a Stormy Night, oil/c., 1829 Constable is engaging this tradition, with one notable difference: he does not depict ruins from classical antiquity, but ancient British monuments vs Hubert Robert, Young Girls Dancing around an Obelisk, oil/c., 1798

Contsable: Presence of the Dutch Landscape Tradition

John Constable, Stratford Mill, oil/c., 1820 vs Jacob van Ruisdael, Wooded Landscape, oil/c., 1660

A Comparison with Claude Lorrain

Joseph Mallard Turner, Dido Building Carthage, oil/c., 1815 vs Claude Lorrain, Morning in Harbor, oil/c., late 1630s

A Comparison with Monet

Joseph Mallard Turner, Rain, Steam, and Speed -The Great Western Railway, oil/c., 1844 vs Claude Monet, Gare St. Lazare, oil/c., 1877

Ann-Louis Girodet, The New Danaë, oil/c., 1799

Last painting Girodet completed during the Directory; subject of the greatest "art scandal" of its day In 1799, Girodet was commissioned by Mlle Lange to paint her portrait for exhibition at the Salon of that year She had a history of somewhat shady affairs with a variety of men, but now she was about to marry a famously rich supplier to the armies named Michel Simons Painting was supposed to celebrate her beauty, her newly found social status, as well as her upcoming marriage When Girodet hung the completed picture in the Salon, she asked him at once to remove it, because "it is said to bring no glory to you, and is compromising my reputation for beauty" Girodet removed the portrait and slashed the canvas, destroying the original work

William Blake, The Ancient of Days, relief etching finished with gold, body-color (blood?), and Watercolor, 1827

Last work Blake ever created: frontispiece to his poetic book Europe Scene depicts Elohim (Blake called him Urizen), who is the precursor to Jehovah mentioned in the earliest, primitive Hebrew scriptures More simply put: scene depicts God in the act of creation, but Blake wanted to give a mysterious and archaic twist to the scene Blake published in 1794 a book called The First Book of Urizen, from which he seems to interpret the following passage in visual terms: "And Urizen formed golden campasses and began to explore the abyss" The passage, in turn, appears to copy/interpret Milton's Paradise Lost: "He took the golden compasses, prepared in God's eternal store, to circumscribe this universe, and all created things" Composition is typical for Blake's style: gust of wind blows God's hair to the left, dark atmosphere, pronounced musculature Partly painted with blood Blake considered creation an error; nevertheless it was a tremendous, unparalleled act > he tried to convey this opinion through his art

Pierre-Narcisse Guérin, Aurora and Cephalus, Second version for Prince Yusupoff, oil/c., 1811

Like Girodet, Guérin (Rengnault's student), also tried to reposition himself in the neo-conservative environment of the Empire, and especially the Restoration In 1809, the influential Italian collector Sommariva had unsuccessfully attempted to buy Girodet's Endymion from the artist; this request was denied and Sommariva turned to Guérin to produce an analogous canvas on the subject of a classical goddess holding an unconscious, ephebic, beautiful youth captive The result was so spectacular that another collector, the Russian nobleman Prince Yusupoff, commissioned a copy for himself Compared to Girodet's composition, Guérin's re-interpretation comes across as saccharine, effeminate, almost like a relapse into Rococo sensibility Success of the canvas and demand for copies is evidence that subject matter perfectly accommodated the taste of the Empire Contemporaries used the new catchword "Anachreontic," after the Greek poet of sensory pleasure, to describe this style

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Oedipus and the Sphinx, oil/c., 1808

Like every student of the French Academy in Rome, Ingres had to send back an "envois" to Paris to show his progress The first painting he sent to satisfy this requirement was his Oedipus and the Sphinx According to Greek legend, the sphinx in question terrified the city of Thebes, killing any passerby who could not answer her enigmatic questions Oedipus was the first who could answer her three fateful questions, slew her and was made king of Thebes by the thankful citizens Ingres captured precisely the moment of Oedipus's answering of the questions On the bottom of the composition we see the skeletons of those who failed the tests In the background the city of Thebes is depicted with one of its terrified citizens Ingres deliberately created a very polished composition; its appeal rests on the fantastic rendering of the sphinx (half marble/half living creature) and the psychological introspection of Oedipus who is really thinking hard before answering the questions

Thomas Girtin, Bamburgh Castle, Northumberland, watercolor, ca. 1797- 1799

Like many artists of his time, Girtin was fond of the depiction of ruins, which he and others liked to place in wilderness landscapes Fashion for ruins, the ultimate picturesque motive, dated back to the 18th century Dramatic, awe inspiring quality of the foreshortened cliff enhances the sublime aspect of the picture (awe and terror before nature's powers is a central quality of the sublime) Dramatic cloud formation above The picturesque => relates mostly to man-made structures The sublime => Awe and terror inspired by untamed nature; underlying idea is that God's handiwork can be perceived by contemplating nature and natural monuments Picturesque elements are made obvious in "Bamburgh Castle" by the fact that the ruins are inhabited by small human figures Grandeur of nature, past civilizations dwarf all current accomplishments

Neoclassicism

Line Heroism Classical Antiquity Flawless bodies Meticulous brushwork Complex iconography

John Constable, Dedham Lock and Mill, oil/c., 1817

Locks were another innovation in the British countryside Beginning in the late 19th century, locks made many smaller rivers navigable, thus facilitating transport and promoting industrialization Constable depicted such a lock as a bucolic and thoroughly rustic place The tending and operating of the locks is one of those activities Constable liked to depict, because it allowed the worker to be depicted as engaged in passive or sluggish activities, which do not interfere with the serenity of the picture

Francisco Goya, The Sleep of Reasons Produces Monsters, from Los Caprichos, Pl. 43, 1799, etching and aquatint

Los Caprichos=Fantasy scenes First of Goya's series of prints Famous for fantastic and moralizing prints, produced in thematic series Filled with references to recent historical events: French Revolution 1798, French occupation of Spain in 1808 Printmaker has fallen asleep over his work, haunted by night creatures Reference: French Revolution (1789) was a product of the dream of Reason (Enlightenment) Ever since 1792: series of bloody Revolutionary wars that affected almost every country in Europe, including Spain

Francisco Goya, Ridiculous Folly, from Los Disparates (Pl. 3, Los Proverbios), c. 1816-1817, etching and aquatint

Los Disparates (Follies) last series of Goya's etchings, executed between 1816 and 1817 (22 plates) Published only in 1864 under the title Los Proverbios (Proverbs) Summary of themes previously discussed: follies of male/female relationships, abuse of Church and clergy, pretensions, condemnation of ignorance, fear, terror, etc. Huddled human mass on a tree like birds; misery as an essentials component of the human condition

John Martin, The Expulsion of Adam and Eve, oil/c., ca. 1813

Martin deliberately exploited grandiose landscape settings to enhance the emotional impact of his work He drew on a range of sources for his subject matter, from the Bible...

Théodore Géricault, Severed Limbs, 1818, oil o/canvas

Medusa subject painstakingly researched Interviews survivors, ship carpenter (built model of the raft for painting) Interest in rotting bodies (antithesis of an idealized body ; key theme of Romanticism) Artist believed to have procured body parts from morgue to study decomposition, discoloration of human flesh in his studio Rumors fueled by oil studies of body parts undertaken while Géricault worked on the Medusa composition

Théodore Géricault, Monomania of Gambling, 1822-23, oil/c.

Mental breakdown after completion of Medusa Géricault treated in private hospital of J.-E.-D. Esquirol, the principal proponent of scientific psychiatry Prior to Esquirol and his followers, insane people were regarded and treated on one level with animals Esquirol advocated for the humane treatment of the insane, and proposed to devise insanity into several, scientifically distinct categories he called "monomanias" Géricault paints series of portraits typifying "monomanias" (abnormal mental conditions) Alternative explanation: Attempt to help another progressive psychiatrist Etienne-Jean Georgette to make the case for insanity plea in capital cases (?) Not enough information is known about series

John Martin, The Fall of Ninevah, mezzotint, 1820

Mezzontint = Half-tone print, hand-colored Typical feature for Martin's art: mass destruction within a giant temple complex The Mesopotamian city of Ninevah (today Iraq) was also called the "bloody city", the "city of thieves" or the "mistress of the East" Because of her great luxury and wickedness, the prophet Jonah warned that the city would become a dry waste, a prophecy which came true at the death of Ashurbanipal Martin's scene, more specifically, refers to the showdown between God's realm and that of Belshazzar, with Daniel as a righteous middleman pointing out the errors of the king's ways (Old Testament) Martin further enhanced the story by envisioning a violent end for the city, but the message remains the same: Luxury and its attendant debauchery will breed God's wrath and divine punishment, to which the swirling clouds allude in the distance

Eugène Delacroix, Greece on the Ruins of Missolonghi, 1827, oil o/canvas

Missolonghi: another site of defeat and misery for the rebelling Greeks Greek defenders decided to blow themselves up rather than surrender British Lord Byron fought in the defense of Missolonghi and died there This time, battle is represented by female personification of Greece, appealing for help from Western Europe (France, Germany, GB) > allegorical picture; turbaned, triumphant Turk in background She is modeled after "Marianne," the female representation of France, popularized during the French Revolution by the Jacobins Géricault's Medusa continues to haunt Delacroix: > Livid limbs of victims visible underneath rubble

William Blake, The Spiritual Form of Nelson Guiding Leviathan, tempera on canvas, 1809

Nelson, too, is firmly in charge of Leviathan, while ordinary mortals are entrapped in his coils Nelson died in 1805 during sea battle of Trafalgar; he also destroyed Napoleon's fleet during the Egyptian campaign The admiral is depicted here as a mixture between a haloed, loinclothed Christ and a classical Adonis Blake was a pacifist and an opponent of war > Are Napoleon, Pitt, Nelson all the same in the end? Or does he want to celebrate British prowess, heroism, and superiority? Is this an eschatological vision of the world coming to an end? Complexity, contradictory meanings and iconography destroy any clear and coherent reading

Francisco Goya, Hunting for Teeth, from Los Caprichos, Pl. 12, 1799, etching and aquatint

No narrative or particular order is implied by Goya's Caprichos Prints deplore the cruelty and injustice with which humans treat each other Source material from superstitious beliefs rampant in Spain, proverbs, popular culture, etc. Here: illustration of folk belief that the teeth of hanged men were precious for casting spells

Joseph Mallard Turner, Hannibal and His Army Crossing the Alps, oil/c., 1812

ON THE EXAM Another one of Turner's Cathaginian paintings: Hannibal was the Carthaginian general, who, during the Second Punic War (218 B.C.) famously crossed the Alps with an army mounted on elephants Carthage being in North Africa, his army hade made it all the way across modern-day Libya, Morocco, Spain, France and entered Italy from the north; Romans were surprised by the threat from their back door ("Hannibal ante portas") Nevertheless, Carthage was defeated and the way was free for the Roman domination of the Mediterranean Turner did a lot of research on the historical circumstances of the incident: Hannibal's crossing of the Alps took place in fall, when the Carthaginian troops were surprised by a thunderstorm, represented here in terms of a vortex-shaped, rolling cloud formation Sky is darkened by clouds; sun is occluded by darkish waves Climatic condition finds its correspondence in the activities below: Foreground: scenes of plunder, rape, and slaughter take place Middle ground: Hannibal, in minute scale, is seated on the back of an elephant Goya, like Turner, considered these scenes as part of the "disasters of war" Turner considered the canvas a warning for Great Britain: he felt that there was a connection between the fate of Carthage and the possible defeat of England during the Napoleonic wars: Rome had triumphed, so had France (Napoleon himself wrote: "Europe watches/France arms/History writes/Romes destroyed Carthage."

Francisco Goya, Queen Maria Louisa Wearing a Mantilla, oil/c., 1799

One of the first works alluding to Goya's fascination with the Spanish popular culture of Majism The cult of Majas and Majos gripped all levels Spanish society, including the upper aristocracy Majism, Majo, Maja are terms that are difficult to translate The Spanish "Majism" can be understood as part of the international movement of dandyism, culminating around the turn of the 19th century The embrace of "Majism" by the leadership class was a play with fire, since emulating the proletariat, while denying the people (pueblos) political rights and ignoring widespread poverty and political discontent was to ask for sedition

John Constable, The Hay Wain, oil/c., 1821

Only at second glance a picture of agricultural labor Depicts a scene from a hay harvest In the far distance, a band of dots indicate haymakers working in the fields; the cart in the foreground is used to transport hay Work, presented as a peaceful activity, is kept safely at a distance Workers' industriousness is depicted as an entirely passive virtue; they submit to work silently so that social peace may not be disturbed The more "romantic," picturesque activities (those not redolent of hard work, sweat, and poverty) are kept in the foreground (driving the hay wain, fishing, etc.) Exhibited in the Salon of 1824 in Paris, where it became a huge critical success Constable received a gold medal from the newly installed French king Charles X The painting was prominently displayed in the "Salon Carré" where the French writer Stendahl saw it; he later described it as "magnificent and delicious" The French public engaged in a more superficial reading of the composition and did not question the underlying social reality of the iconography

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, The Valpinçon Bather, oil/c., 1808

Over the course of his career, Ingres returned to the theme of the female nude over and over again Earliest example of this type of iconography is the Valpinçon Bather, so called after the first owner of the picture Ingres tried to hide the overtly voyeuristic preoccupation implicit in these nudes by situating them in a classical or Oriental environment, especially the Oriental harem, which removed the contents in terms of time and space Thus, the figure of the Valpinçon Bather, for instance, is copied from a Nereid figure on a Roman sarcophagus

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Vow of Louis XIII, oil/c., 1824

Painting merges Neo-Catholic and ultra-royalist currents, which defined the intellectual climate of the Restoration Its success with the contemporary Salon audience had more to do with its political message than with its aesthetic qualities Compositional elements are utterly derivative: Upper part reproduces rather faithfully a Madonna by Raphael in Dresden Louis XIII, who followed Henri IV on the throne in 1610, was also regarded as one of the founders of the Bourbon dynasty; consecrated France and his crown to the Virgin in 1634 (event depicted here) For the depiction of the supplicant king, Ingres copied a figure from the French seventeenth-century painter Philippe de Champaigne

Joseph Mallard Turner, London, oil/c., 1809

Panorama picture of the type seen before with Girtin Painted with great attention to topographic detail Greenwich Naval Hospital depicted in middle ground On the horizon: city of London, identifiable by the dome of St. Paul's cathedral City's hectic urban life is alluded to by the mist hovering above the city Commercial life of the city contrasts with the serenity of the countryside, implied by deer in foreground

John Constable, Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows, oil/c., 1831

Perhaps Constable's ultimate sublime picture Man is exposed helplessly to the terrifying elements and the raging thunderstorm; picture is meant to inspire sense of awe before God's creation God's presence, however, is only implied both through his handiwork (nature, rainbow) and the church tower in the background

Joseph Mallard Turner, Slavers Throwing over Board the Dead and the Dying - Typhoon Coming on, oil/c., 1840

Picture painted at a moment when public consciousness had just recently been cleared May illustrate an episode from Clarkson's book about the slave trader Zong: When an epidemic broke out on board one of the slave ships, Zong ordered the sick and dying to be thrown overboard so as to claim insurance money Insurance would only recognize claims made for slaves "lost at sea," but not for those who died from natural causes or mistreatment Opportunistically, the captain ordered to have victims thrown overboard Ocean is littered with manacled bodies Blazing red color of the sky is reflected in the blood-stained (?) water of the ocean The whole picture was an indictment of the crime of slavery Beyond this, the painting is an epitome of the idea of the sublime: bodies are tossed around by the elements like toys; human arrogance and cruelty are inviting the revenge from a high moral order Typically for Turner, the depiction of atmospheric effects in the sky takes on an abstract quality

Eugène Delacroix, Women of Algiers, 1834, oil o/canvas

Political background to Orientalist painting: Colonialist expansion of France, other European countries In 1830: France newly acquired Algeria as French colony (1830-1962) Delacroix traveled to Algeria Depicted real harem women he saw Not a literary product or figment of artist's imagination (like Ingres) Foundation piece of Orientalist painting in the 19th century

William Blake, A Negro Hung Alive by the Ribs to the Gallows, book illustration, engraving, 1796

Politically, Blake's stance was no less idiosyncratic and contradictory: he embraced the theories of political and social change arriving in GB from France > he favored political liberty over the despotic and royalist authority of church and state He was active in the Abolitionist Movement and was incensed in particular by the brutal treatment of slaves in the colonies In 1796 he prepared the engraving to the left for John Stedman's book Narrative of a Five Year's Expedition against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam, in Guiana, on the Wild Coast of South America, depicting an African man hung by the torso from the gallows > scene from the aftermath of one such revolt > deliberate emphasis on stoic expression on the face of the victim Blake was always explicit in depicting violence, and did not shy away from including skulls and bones of previous victims in the scene; in the background a ship is visible Slave ship > indictment of slave trade, slavery is implied

Pierre-Paul Prud'hon, Portrait of the Empress Josephine in the Park of Malmaison, 1805, oil/c.

Prud'hon came to be regarded the unofficial painter to the empress Josephine, depicted here in the garden of Napoleon's country estate Malmaison Artist captured her a reflective pose, far removed from the pomp and circumstance of the "official" Empire Typical example of Prud'hon's chiaroscuro tenebrism, which was often compared to Corregio and Leonardo da Vinci In fact, dark tonalities were the result of Prud'hon's mixing his oil glazes with bitumen, which continues to darken paintings for a long time after completion (conservation problems)

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Apotheosis of Homer, 1827, oil o/canvas

Quintessence of Ingres's academicism Familiar compositional recipe: dominant, frontal pose of a bulky male figure in center Painting originally commissioned in 1826 by the royal household for the ceiling of the "Museum Charles X" in the Louvre Ceiling was later removed and the painting was prepared for vertical viewing Again, Ingres quotes Raphael, this time his School of Athens Homer surrounded by the greatest poets, orators, writers and artists of all ages An artistic Pantheon across time and space

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, The Turkish Bath, 1852- 1863, oil o/canvas

Recombines individual nude figures Ingres had painted over the course of the previous decades Fantasy harem containing no less than 25 nudes Painting was originally rectangular, but after a previous owner returned it to the studio, Ingres re-worked it into a round composition Ingres's harem women are a reminder that even the head of the neoclassical school occasionally engaged in "Romantic" themes The dividing line between Neoclassicism and Romanticism is a fluid one

Turner and Industrialization

The marriage between art and industry was the hope of the Victorian age Turner, however, did not buy into it However, he was the exception among artists of the time in that he looked for beauty in industrialization, instead of being appalled by it Turner admired the age of steam and modernity

Eugène Delacroix, The Massacre at Chios, 1824, oil o/canvas

Scene from the revolt against the Ottoman Turks on the Greek island of Chios Turkish massacre of the Greek citizens of this island; in the foreground, despairing Greek prisoners are threatened by turbaned Ottoman warriors (Orientalist overtones); middle-ground: fierce battle drawing to an end, burning town Hints at Oriental despotism conspicuously scattered across the scene: abduction of woman to the right (sold to harem); male prisoners to be sold into slavery Stylistically close to Medusa: pyramidal composition; sprawling masses of near-lifeless or despairing bodies

Joseph Mallard Turner, Ulysses Deriding Polyphemus - Homer's Odyssey, oil/c., 1829

Seascapes were another one of Turner's specialties; in this case he uses the iconography as a backdrop to depict one of the legends of Homer's Odyssey Homer's hero, Ulysses, has just escaped from a night of terror in the cave of the giant Polyphemus, whom he blinded and whose huge contours one can make out on the summit of the Sicilian promontory Ulysses stands on the prow of the ship, holds aloft a torch and taunts his adversary; his followers on the ship watch on with fascination as Polyphemus contorts in agony Nereids (sea goddesses) with stars on their forehead swim playfully before Ulysses's ship Innovative approach to capturing the giant Polyphemus: face and body seem to merge with the clouds and become con-substantial with them (idea of the sublime) Rising sun, rays of light lend a dramatic air to the scene, appropriate for subject matter

James Barry, King Lear Weeping over the Body of Cordelia, oil/c., 1786/87

Shakespearian subject matter interpreted in terms of classical Rome The temple in the background (a Druid trilithon temple) and the armor and dresses of the persons in the foreground appear like anglicized Greek and Roman artifacts The weather-beaten hairdo of king Lear looks like a direct quote from Blake's Urizen 40 years later, introducing an unexpected and pre-maturely Romantic element Picture was painted for the so-called "Shakespeare Gallery" of alderman John Boydell > a privately operated museum displaying art works dealing with scenes from Shakespeare, which were commissioned from Britain's leading artists

Ann-Louis Girodet, Ossian Receiving the Napoleonic Officers, oil/c., 1802

Shortly after Gérard had delivered his painting, Girodet followed suit, this time introducing Napoleon into the action His Ossian Receiving the Napoleonic Officers was also a commission for the Malmaison Like the New Danaë, the painting suffers from symbolic overcharge: In the center of the composition, the blind Celtic bard welcomes Napoleon's officers killed in recent campaigns; he is being carried by the spirits in the lower third of the composition

Henry Fuseli, Titania's Awakening, oil/c., 1785/89

Since Boydell's gallery was a commercial enterprise, depending on entrance fees, he painted as many fairies as he could cram into the pictures to increase the visual interest

Jean-Baptiste Regnault, Lamentation of Christ, oil/c., 1789

So far, we only discussed David and his students; however, the Parisian art world consisted of many such studios with masters and pupils The second most important one (after David's) was that of Jean-Baptiste Regnault, a comparatively conservative painter The Lamentation of Christ was a state commissioned work, destined for the main altar of the chapel at Fontainebleau In was shown in the Salon of 1789, where it attracted the greatest interest of all pictures prior to the belated arrival of David's Brutus Painting was considered striking for its naturalism (especially in the treatment of Christ's corpse), as well as its theatrical contrasts between light and shadow (possibly, these choices were influenced by Girodet's Pietà from the same year)

Benjamin West, The Death of General Wolfe, oil/c., 1770

Soon after Cleombrotus, West abandoned classical settings and switched to contemporary events located in North America This move allowed him to introduce native Americans in his pictures, which greatly enhanced his standing with the British art world General Wolfe was the first picture in this series Illustrates an episode after the capture of Quebec in Canada by the British in 1758 The iconography alludes to Christian Lamentation scenes with General Wolfe replacing the dead Christ and other military officials the mourning saints What earned the picture its sensational reception with the British public was the picturesque figure of the contemplative Indian warrior to the left Figure attracted attention because it was among the very first images of native Americans that became available in Europe and GB at the time West was criticized for depicting the European protagonists in the costumes they actually wore, rather than classical garb

Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun, Marie- Antoinette and Her Children, oil/c., 1787

State commission of the official portrait of Marie-Antoinette with her three children Expresses the same kind of affection between mother and children as the self-portrait Centerpiece of a PR campaign to improve the public image of the queen Intended audience was the public of the Salon of 1787; work was ultimately not shown for fear of negative responses

John Constable, Stratford Mill, oil/c., 1820

Stratford Mill was one of the mills on Constable's estate; its presence added a picturesque element to the nature setting, whose appearance otherwise closely followed similar works by van Ruisdael: a small river flowing in the foreground, flanked by groups of trees off to the sides of the composition Human presence in the form of a man and children fishing (foreground), rider (background), boatsmen on what might be the Stout river, shepherds Constable creates a rural idyll for the viewer, but this idyll has many shortcomings Work strongly inspired by van Ruisdael, as the following comparison with the Dutch master's Wooded Landscape shows

Francisco Goya, Family of the Duque de Osuna, oil/c., 1788

The Ossunas, for instance, were known as patrons of the arts, sciences, and letters, and kept an Enlightenment Salon in Madrid Their adherence to Enlightenment ideas is also signaled in the portrait by showing parents emotionally involved with their children

Francisco Goya, The Executions of the Third of May, 1808, oil/c., 1814

The Third of May is a startling subject matter with unexpected emotional density, showing the mutineers facing a French firing squat the day after the uprising A shocking document of human frailty, vulnerability, fear, and brutality When Goya painted these commissions, he certainly did so with mixed emotions: a lot of his friends from the eighteenth-century Enlightenment circles that he frequented had supported the French and were now being persecuted Goya himself was dragged before the restored Holy Inquisition on grounds of obscenity charges related to his Clothed and Naked Maja He certainly did not approve of the reactionary and backward-looking intellectual climate of the restored Spanish Bourbons

Jean-Germain Drouais, The Dying Athlete, oil/c., 1785

The first major painting Drouais completed for himself in Rome Ostensibly, he was just fulfilling a requirement by the Academy that every Rome Prize winner had to comply with: sending an "académie" (or study of a male nude) back to Paris (this was called an "envois," i.e. a picture to be sent back) Drouais took great liberties with this seemingly standard assignment: He enlarged the canvas and came up with a highly polished painting full of deep psychological connotations Refused to have the work corrected by his teachers; labored day and night over the work

Joseph Mallard Turner, The 'Fighting Téméraire' Tugged to Her Last Birth to Be Broken up, oil/c., 1839

The hallmark of Turner's art is the emotional investment of atmospheric effects, as in this case where he applies this method to a contemporary subject: Despite its rather late date, the historical context for the Fighting Téméraire was the Napoleonic wars Turner had painted the "Fighting Téméraire" before, in 1808, in a picture of the Battle of Trafalgar, where Admiral Nelson died During the Battle of Trafalgar, the "Fighting Téméraire" had become a symbol of naval heroism: it was the second ship in line during the battle and took fire aimed at Nelson's flagship called "Victory" Despite such Romatic interpretations, the picture's essence is all about the conflict between the industrial and the pre-industrial age: The Téméraire is a sail boat, large in size, yet incapable of moving by itself It is towed by a smaller, more powerful and modern steam ship The tow boat emits fire and dark sot into the air, which gives it a demonic air, compared to the serenity of the still majestic Téméraire

Jacques-Louis David, Socrates at the Moment of Grasping Hemlock, oil/c., 1787

The impact of the Horatii at the Salon of 1785 made David instantly a public figure of the Parisian art scene It also brought him private commissions, such as the Death of Socrates Painting was commissioned by one Troudaine de la Sablière, scion of a family close to the apex of liberal and intellectual society in Paris The impact of the Horatii at the Salon of 1785 made David instantly a public figure of the Parisian art scene It also brought him private commissions, such as the Death of Socrates

Francisco Goya, Naked Maja, oil/c., 1798-1805

The most famous instance of "Majism" in Goya's work were certainly his Naked and his Dressed Maja Various legends have evolved over time concerning the genesis of these paintings: One such legend claims that the sitter of the two portraits is the Duchess of Alba, allegedly the mistress of Goya, and that the Naked version was painted during the absence of the Duke of Alba > when the lovers received word of the Duke's imminent return, the Clothed Maja was quickly dashed off to conceal the affair The story is certainly false and Goya probably executed the two paintings - whose sitter remains anonymous - as demonstration pieces commissioned by the corrupt and libertine minister Godoy

Jean-Germain Drouais, Marius at Minturnae, oil/c., 1786

The next major painting Drouais executed in Rome was no less an act of bravado and defiance against the authority of the Academy: He painted a full-fledged history painting on a scale and of an ambition reserved to recognized masters Subject matter is typically Davidian: We are looking at an episode from near the end of the life of the Roman general and consul Caius Marius, as related by Plutarch:

Louis Hersent, Louis XVI Distributing Alms to the Poor, 1817, oil/c.

The notion of history painting itself went through a period of redefinition Advent of so-called Troubadour painting: Its focus is no longer moral lessons from classical antiquity, not even contemporary events, but sentimental pseudo-historical episodes with tenuous roots in reality Iconography frequently derived from Middle Ages and the Renaissance Here, another student of Regnault's, Hersent, painted a sentimental picture of Louis XVI mingling with the peasants near Versailles during the harsh winter of 1788 to distribute alms Message: Bourbon dynasty was a compassionate monarchy; it was unjustly persecuted by the Revolutionaries

Turner adn the Sublime

The notion of the sublime was not confined to any national culture; it caught on with American poets as easily as with German landscape painters In British painting, the idea of the sublime runs particularly strong in the art of Joseph Turner The importance of Turner's innovations in the history of art is determined by two innovations: The introduction of atmospheric effects that push his art into the direction of proto-Impressionism, and possibly even abstraction The introduction of subjects that highlight the changes of civilization brought on by the advance of industrialization Turner's approach is different from that of the Impressionists: for the Impressionists, light was an optical phenomenon or a part of happy everyday life; for Turner, it was a cosmic force and a manifestation of Romantic mystery Turner's work coincided with the onset of industrialization in GB (happened here earlier than in continental Europe); it is with him that the dichotomy between nature and the machine emerges Turner was the son of a barber from Devonshire who had settled in London and sold, while still a child, drawings to his father's clients, which he displayed in the shop window When a young adult, he worked on textile designs and colored prints, along with architectural drawings As an artist in his own right, he emerged for the first time together with the group of landscape painters working in watercolor around the group of Girtin

Delacroix

The one artist most directly influenced by Géricault was Eugène Delacroix Like Géricault, Delacroix passed through Guérin's studio; he also modeled for the Raft of the Medusa in 1817 Delacroix was believed to be the illegitimate son of France's longstanding and politically flexible foreign minister Talleyrand; a reputation that enhanced his social standing Delacroix continued Géricault's tradition of socially and politically engaged art, but, beyond that, will add new luster to Orientalist painting in particular, which he introduced to the canon of Romantic painting

William Blake, The Spiritual Form of Pitt Guiding the Behemoth, tempera heightened with gold on canvas, ca. 1805

The thematic link between the Pitt and the Nelson picture is established by the two Old Testament monsters (Behemoth, Leviathan) that are subdued by a contemporary British politician and a military leader In the Book of Job (illustrated by Blake previously), we find the land monster Behemoth mentioned; it is battling the sea monster Leviathan Leviathan is thought to be based on a crocodile; Behemoth on a hippocampus Leviathan is the male principle; Behemoth the female Leviathan returns annually to kill anew; hence it is the spirit of seasonal or vegetational myth Behemoth has come to signify anything huge or gigantic in size Quickly made himself a name for repressive politics against dissenters in the wake of invasion scares; finances depleted; famine In his youth, Blake had participated in the Gordon riots of 1780, anti-Catholic and anti-colonial war protests; he was also part of the crowd that stormed Newgate prison > certainly not a friend of Pitt Are Leviathan, Behemoth personifications of Napoleon? Men in background hold sickle and plough; they drive more men and women into the mouth of Leviathan Oddly, Pitt is holding the Behemoth on a leash, controlling it

Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun, Portrait of the Artist with Her Daughter, oil/c., 1789

This self-portrait with her daughter hints at Vigée-Lebrun's skills in treating this kind of subject matter Up to the 18th century, children were depicted as small adults > implicitly, childhood, as a distinct state in human development, was not recognized; women of some social standing employed nursemaids Here, Vigée-Lebrun depicts herself as a modern mother: she raises her children herself and has emotional ties to them; her daughter is rendered as a girl, not a small adult The same type of visual recipe would also appeal to Marie-Antoinette to redress her public image as a neglecting mother

John Martin, The Last Day, watercolor, ca. 1832

This watercolor took its inspiration from the namesake novel by contemporary author Mark Shelley, published in 1826, along with a poem by Thomas Campbell It presents an eschatological vision of the earth, as seen by the last man Earth has turned into a brownish-yellow desert planet, uninhabitable due to man's incompetence in handling his own affairs Particularly haunting picture due to the mass of corpses, dead trees, and abandoned ships, which seem to merge with the desertscape The work is a monument to 19th-century pessimism about the future of human civilization and mankind at-large

Théodore Géricault, The Charging Chasseur, 1812, oil o/canvas

Together with Delacroix the best known Romantic painter; both staunch Republicans Géricault the older of the two; died prematurely in 1824 with barely 33 years of age Stood still in the tradition of David, but a one step removed: student of Gros Grand debut at the Salon of 1812 with a spectacular equestrian portrait intended as Napoleonic propaganda Executed at his own expense; hoped that the French state would buy it Chasseur = light cavalryman

John Constable, Hadleigh Castle, Mouth of the Thames - Morning after a Stormy Night, oil/c., 1829

Towards the end of his career Constable became increasingly interested in the decaying monuments of Britain's past grandeur to enhance the picturesque effect of his paintings The decaying ruins of Hadleigh Castle are towering over the Thames river, thus infusing the scene with a sense of nationalist pride The use of ruins as picturesque elements dated back from the 18th century with works by such artists as the printmaker Piranesi or the French painter Hubert Robert, nicknamed "Hubert of the Ruins"

Francisco Goya, That Dust, from Los Caprichos, Pl. 23, 1799, etching and aquatint

Trial arranged by the Spanish Holy Inquisition Penitent (Defendant) with dunce's cap Holy Inquisition=Vatican's secret police founded in the Middle Ages Inquisition abolished under French rule, returned with the Bourbons Goya himself had trouble with the Inquisition in later years Inquisition depicted as instrument to perpetuate superstition and ignorance

Joseph Mallard Turner, Venice: The Dogana and San Giorgio Maggiore, oil/c., 1834

Turner liked to travel a lot, frequently went to Italy to paint: when he did so, his style changed almost completely Scene from Venice with, in the foreground, the Dogana (old port administration); Open view across the lagoon with St. Mark's square and San Giorgio Maggiore (a capriccio, not a real view) Remarkably, all dark tonalities vanished, as did the pre-occupation with atmospheric effects, vapor and nocturns Rather, paintings have a great degree of clarity Oddly enough, Turner conceived of the view of San Giorgio Maggiore as a pendant piece to the Keelmen He hung the two paintings next to each other at the Royal Academy of Art exhibition Turner liked the contrast between the two pictures: Light vs. dark Pre-industrialization vs. Industrialization Optimism vs. pessimism, etc.

Turner and the Anti-Slavery Movement

Turner probably got involved with William Wilberforce's anti-slavery society through a mutual friend named Walter Fawkes He sided with Abolitionists Turner may also have read Thomas Clarkson's History of the Abolition of the Slave Trade, which contained an account about the slave trader Zong, possibly inspiring Slavers Throwing over Board the Dead and the Dying - Typhoon Coming on Britain abolished slavery in 1838, however, the process was only supposed to be completed in 1840; parliament advanced the abolition taking effect by two years

Joseph Mallard Turner, The Falls of the Rhine at Schaffhausen, oil/c., ca. 1806

Turner was a great traveler all his life In 1806, he visited the "three-country triangle" between Germany, Switzerland, and France Painted one of the major natural landmarks, the fall of the Rhine river at Schaffhausen (CH) In terms of typology, this is a typical Romantic landscape: Artist picked a picturesque spot and enhanced the subject through details, such as the rainbow, which adds a sublime twist to the scene

Joseph Mallard Turner, Bridge of Sighs: Ducal Palace, Venice, oil/c., 1833

Turner was fascinated by architectural detail He depicted Venice as a white, neoclassical city (which it really is not) and took a lot of liberties with the subject matter (paintings not topographically correct) He liked to revel in the picturesque details of the setting, such as gondolas, costumes of the Venetians, etc. View paintings of Venice have been fashionable with artists ever since the 18th century: demand for "vedute" pictures by the first wave northern European tourists visiting Venice was satisfied by Canaletto; beginnings of "vedute" painting, a tradition that Turner continues here

Adélaïde Labille-Guiard, The Duchess of Parma, oil/c., 1788

Typical example of many such portrait commissions that came to Labille-Guiard from the aristocracy before the Revolution

Benjamin West, Death on a Pale Horse, oil/c., 1796

West frequently managed to anticipate stylistic developments of the future before they became firmly rooted in the mainstream of Continental art In 1802 West exhibited Death on a Pale Horse in the Parisian Salon, where it created a short-lived sensation Work anticipated the conventions of early 19th-century Romantic art; dynamic, yet somewhat fuzzy treatment of details invite comparisons with Géricault or Delacroix West's painting is particularly congenial to Géricault's art with is enjoyment of the frenzied energy of battles of horsebackparticularly congeni

Artistic Life in GB

When compared to Italy and France, Britain was in the 18th century a backward and parochial place for art Only during the second half of the century emerged some artists of international reputation, such as Reynolds and Gainsborough Conditions for art to prosper in Britain were excellent: civil war had come to an end in 1690, and the eighteenth century, except for the very end, was a period of peace Institutions which would provide a structure for artists to advance their careers were unknown > there was no Art Academy in Britain until the arrival of Joshua Reynolds on the scene; R. would become the first president of the Royal Academy (and retained this position until his death) in the late eighteenth century Some surprisingly early examples of history painting (1770s) exist by Benjamin West, who was American by birth At the time when the Royal Academy was established, history painting was widely thought of as a typically French genre > reluctance to embrace it only overcome towards the end of the century; reservations against history painting renewed with the Napoleonic age

Francisco Goya, The Colossus, oil/c., 1808

When looking at pictures such as this one, one understands that Goya found the political situation in Spain unbearable He left the country for France in 1825, where he died three years later

John Crome, Windmill near Norwich, oil/c., ca. 1816

While Gilpin prepared the field for the British passion for landscape painting in theoretical terms, a more direct inspiration came from the models provided by Dutch landscape painting British painters admired the idyllic qualities of such painters as Jacob van Ruisdael (Dutch 17th-century painter) Same low horizon lines, windmill for a picturesque touch Man and nature seem to exist in harmony; social tensions are light years away

Constable: Socio-Economic Considerations

With Constable, on the other hand, structures of economic dependence are less explicit; they are nevertheless present and one has to look beyond the idyllic and bucolic veneer of these painting to discern them Constable not only belonged to the class of landowners, but was also by birth part of the old-style rural Tories, who were convinced that the social and economic stability of Britain depended on a flourishing agriculture Constable's art reflects this background in that he depicts a productive and well-organized landscape, in which picturesque elements lead us away from the very real facts of rural poverty, vagrancy, and social unrest in the countryside after the end of the Napoleonic wars, when prices for agricultural products fell (they could now be imported from the continent again, after the sea blockade was lifted) Luddite insurrection, arson in East Anglica show that social harmony between landowners and agricultural workers was strained Constable's pictures are blissfully ignorant of these facts

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, "The Death of Leonardo da Vinci in the Arms of François I," oil/ panel, 1818

Work celebrates the patronage of the Renaissance genius Leonardo da Vinci and the French king François I (anecdotal iconography) In his old age, Leonardo had to flee Italy, died in France (archetype of a Renaissance man of genius; not recognized at home, but respected abroad) Allegedly, Leonardo died in the king's arms Again, interior decoration and painting style are reminiscent of Flemish paintings, while the scene itself supposedly pays tribute to the accomplishments of the Italian Renaissance

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, The Ambassadors of Agamemnon Visiting Achilles, oil/c., 1801

Work won Ingres the "Prix de Rome"; painted in the best Davidian tradition, both stylistically and iconographically Subject matter taken from Homer's Illiad: Achilles, the greatest warrior of the Greek army in Troyes, withdrew from fighting after a petty argument with his commander Envoys were sent by Agamemnon to convince Achilles to return to the battlefield They find him in the tent of his favorite Patroclus, where they sing of the feats of heroes Greek homoeroticism as the subtext for the two figures on the right, Achilles and Patroclus