Ch. 28 Rococo: The French Taste
(28-4) Return from Cythera
-ANTOINE WATTEAU -1717-1719 -Oil on canvas -"Fete Galante": type of Rococo painting that depicted the outdoor entertainment or amusements of upper-class society -Popularity of an emphasis on color on one's painting -The French Royal Academy was split other whether form (P) or color (R) was more important (either called Poussinistes or Rubenistes) -Represents a group of loves preparing to depart from the island of eternal youth and love, sacred to Aphrodite Observed slow motion from difficult and unusual angles, obviously intending to find the smoothest, and most refined attitude -Strove for the most exquisite shades of color difference, defining in a single stroke the shimmer of silk at a bent knee, etc -Theme of love and Arcadian happiness -The haze of color, the subtly modeled shapes, the gliding motion, and the air of suave gentility were all to the taste of the Rococo artist's wealthy patrons
(28-3) L'Indifferent
-ANTOINE WATTEAU -1716 -Oil and canvas
(28-51) Jaguar Devouring a Hare
-ANTOINE-LOUIS BARYE -1850-1851 -Bronze
SE: (28-34)
-Art as propaganda,,, Napoleon (divine right) -Christ-like figure by healing masses -Nationalism -Romantic because artist puts emphasis on death, suffering, emotion -No one rebelling... -Near East, exoticism
SE: (28-35)
-Based on novel
(28-33) Forever Free
-EDMONIA LEWIS -1867 -Marble
(28-13) Self Portrait
-ELISABETH LOUISE VIGEE-LEBRUN -1790 -Oil on canvas -Another variation of the "naturalistic" impulse in the 18th century French portraiture -Her mood is lighthearted and her costumes details echo the serpentine curve beloved by Rococo artists and wealthy patrons, nothing about Vigee-Lebrun pose of her mood speaks of Rococo frivolity -Independent role in society; lived a life of extraordinary personal and economic independence, working for the nobility throughout Europe -Famous for the force and grace of her portraits -After the French Revolution, her membership in her Academy was rescinded, because women were no longer welcome in that organization -Won renown of Queen Marie Antoinette -The naturalism and intimacy of her expression are similar to those in Thomas Gainsborough portrait of Mrs. Sheridan
(28-63) Draped Model
-EUGENE DURIEU and EUGENE DELACROIX -1854 -Demonstrate the symbiotic relationship between painters and photographers -Attempted to create a mood through careful lighting and the draping of cloth -Some artists saw photography as capable of displacing the work of artists, while others saw photography as a helpful auxiliary to painting
(28-43) The Third of May, 1808
-FRANCISCO GOYA -1814 -Oil on canvas
(28-50) La Marseillaise
-FRANCOIS RUDE -1833-1836 -Arc de Triomphe, Paris, France -An allegory of the national glories of revolutionary France by depicting the volunteers leaving to defend the nation's borders -The Roman goddess personifies liberty as well as the revolutionary hymn -Figures recall David's classically armored or nude heroes -Violence of motion, the jagged contours, and the densely packed,, overlapping masses relate more closely to the compositional method of dramatic Romanticism -The allegorical figure is the spiritual sister of (28-48), they share the same cap and badge of liberty -Represented in classical costume
(28-1) Salon de la Princesse
-GERMAIN BOFFRAND, with painting by CHARLES-JOSEPH NATOIRE, and sculpture by J.B. LEMOINE -1737-1740 -Hotel de Soubise, Paris, France
(28-38) Carceri 14
-GIOVANNI BATTISTA PIRANESI -1750 -Etching, second state
(28-60) The Opera
-J.L. CHARLES GARNIER -1861-1874 -Paris, France
(28-21) Oath of the Horatii
-JACQUES-LOUIS DAVID -1784 -Oil on canvas -Neoclassical painter-ideologist of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic empire -Favored the academic teachings about using the art if the ancients and of the great of Renaissance masters as models -Rebelled against the Rococo as an "artificial taste" and exalted classical art as the imitation of nature i her most beautiful and perfect form -Concurred with the Enlightenment belief that subject matter should have a moral -Depicts a story from pre-Republican Rome, the heroic phase of Roman history -Paragon of the Neoclassical style -Depicted the scene in shallow space much like a stage setting, defined by a severely simple architectural frame -Figures are deployed across the space, close to the foreground, in a manner reminiscent of ancient relief sculpture -Rigid forms of men versus the soft forms of women (French audience perceived such emotionalism as characteristic of women nature) -Its Neoclassical style soon became the semiofficial voice of the revolution
(28-22) The Death of Marat
-JACQUES-LOUIS DAVID -1793 -Oil on canvas -The cold neutral space above Marat's figure slumped in the tub makes for a chilling oppressiveness -Marat was a influential revolutionary figure was actually murdered by a member of the rival political faction -Placed narrative details to sharpen the sense of pain and outrage and to confront viewers with the scene itself -Composition reveals his close study of Michelangelo, especially Christ in Pieta -Composed to present Marat to the French people as a tragic martyr who died in the service to their state -Designed to inspire viewers with the saintly dedication of their slain leader -A severe neoclassical spareness pervades his work, yet it retains its drama
(28-23) The Coronation of Napoleon
-JACQUES-LOUIS DAVID -1805-1808 -Oil on canvas -Napoleon approached David and offered him the position of First Painter of the Empire -Documents the pomp and pageantry of Napoleon's coronation -David was present at the coronation as a spectator -Included details that weren't there: pope raising hand in blessing, present mother -Retained the structured composition center to the Neoclassical style -Action was presented as if on a theater stage -Conceptually divided the painting to reveal polarities (church vs imperial court) -Napoleon embraced all links with the classical past as sources of symbolic authority for his short-lived imperial state
(28-36) Apotheosis of Homer
-JEAN-AUGUSTE INGRES -1827 -Oil on canvas
(28-12) Grace at Table
-JEAN-BAPTISTE-SIMEON CHARDIN -1740 -Oil on canvas
(28-28) Royal Crescent
-JOHN WOOD THE YOUNGER -1769-1775 -Bath, England -Intended not for royalty but for the well-to-do members of society who came to "take the waters" at the city's hot springs -Joins 30 residences in a great semi-ellipse facing it across an intersecting roadway, so as to suggest the ancient Roman Colosseum -Sweeping parade of colossal Ionic columns along the lofty, curving basement -The roofline, punctuated regularly with clusters of chimney pots, is traditionally English -The Bath designs, with many variations, became a standard for British urban architecture -Announced a new classical Roman presence in what was still a Palladian edifice
(28-54) The Slave Ship (Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and the Dying, Typhoon Coming On)
-JOSEPH MALLORD WILLIAM TURNER -1840 -Oil on canvas
(28-62) Crystal Palace
-JOSEPH PAXTON -1850-1851 -London, England
(28-9) A Philosopher Giving a Lecture at the Orrery (in which a lamp is put in place of the sun)
-JOSEPH WRIGHT OF DERBY -1763-1765 -Oil on canvas
(28-65) Early Operation under Ether, Massachusetts General Hospital
-JOSIAH JOHNSON HAWES and ALBERT SANDS SOUTHWORTH -1847 -Daguerrerotype
(28-67) Ophelia, Study no. 2
-JULIA MARGARET CAMERON (Among the most famous portrait photographers in Victorian England, who photographed more women) -1867 -Albumen print -Often depicted her female subjects as characters in literary or biblical narratives, and the slightly blurred focus also became a distinctive feature of her work -Blurred stylistic trait was intiated when she began photographing with a lens that had a short focal length, which allowed only a small area of sharp focus -Blurriness adds an ethereal, dreamlike tone to the photographs, appropriate for the fictional "characters" that she was presenting -Has a mysterious, fragile quality reminiscent of PreRaphaelite (29-17) paintings of the same subject
SE: (28-09)
-Lighting: tenebrism, baroque lighting, tip of the hat to Caravaggio -Scientific rationalism, Enlightenment, reason.. learning, text in the back right, young apprentice scribbling facts, young minds curious, men on right in awe
(28-27) Chiswick House
-RICHARD BOYLE (earl of Burlington), WILLIAM KENT -1725 -London, England
(28-45) Raft of the Medusa
-THEODORE GERICAULT -1818-1819 -Oil on canvas -Abandoned the idealism of Neoclassicism and instead invoked the theatricality of Romanticism -The shipwreck that took place irl was because of the incompetence of the captain, a political appointee -Departed from the straightforward organization of Neoclassical compositions and instead presented a jumble of writhing bodies -Survivors and corpses are arranged in a powerful X-shaped composition -Decision to place the raft at a diagonal so that corner juts out toward viewers further compels their participation in this scene -Visited hospitals and morgues to examine corpses, interviewed the survivors, and had a model of the raft constructed in his studio -Inserted a comment on slavery (Gericault) was a member of the abolitionist movement) -Given his apathy to slavery, it is appropriate that he placed Jean Charles, a black soldier and one of the survivors, at the top of pyramidal heap of bodies
(28-55) The Oxbow (View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm)
-THOMAS COLE -1836 -Oil on canvas
(28-15) Mrs. Richard Brinsley Sheridan
-THOMAS GAINSBOROUGH -1787 -Oil on canvas
(28-68) A Harvest of Death, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, July 1863
-TIMOTHY O'SULLIVAN, original print by ALEXANDER GARDNER -Functions to impress on people the high price of the Civil War -Presented a scene that stretches as far as the horizon -Suggestion of innumerable other dead soldiers -Far more sobering and depressing than (29-11) -Though it was years before photolithography could reproduce photographs like this in newspapers, they were publicly exhibited and made an impression that newsprint engravings never could. -Photography had an influence on modern life and brought immense changes to communication and information management -Great events could be recorded on the spot and the views could be preserved for the first time
(24-8) Child in the Womb, drawing from dissection of a woman who died in the ninth month of pregnancy, Anatomy of the Human Gravid Uterus
-WILLIAM HUNTER -1774