Lesson 2

From the Age of Renaissance to Realism

Introduction

Written histories of European art often begin with the art of the Ancient Middle East and the Ancient
Aegean civilizations, dating from the 3rd millennium B.C. Parallel with these significant cultures, art of
one form or another existed all over Europe, wherever there were people, leaving signs such as carvings,
decorated artefacts and huge standing stones. However a consistent pattern of artistic development
within Europe becomes clear only with the art of Ancient Greece, adopted and transformed by Rome
and carried with the Empire, across much of Europe, North Africa and the Middle East.

The Renaissance Art

The origins of Renaissance art can be traced to Italy in the late 13th and early 14th centuries. During this
so-called “proto-Renaissance” period (1280-1400), Italian scholars and artists saw themselves as
reawakening to the ideals and achievements of classical Roman culture. Writers such as Petrarch (1304-
1374) and Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375) looked back to ancient Greece and Rome and sought to
revive the languages, values and intellectual traditions of those cultures after the long period of
stagnation that had followed the fall of the Roman Empire in the sixth century.

Renaissance art, painting, sculpture, architecture, music, and literature produced during the 14 th, 15th,
and 16th centuries in Europe under the combined influences of an increased awareness of nature, a
revival of classical learning, and a more individualistic view of man. Scholars no longer believe that the
Renaissance marked an abrupt break with medieval values, as is suggested by the French word
“renaissance, literally “rebirth.” Rather, historical sources suggest that interest in nature, humanistic
learning, and individualism were already present in the late medieval period and became dominant in
15th- and 16th-century Italy concurrently with social and economic changes such as the secularization of
daily life, the rise of a rational money-credit economy, and greatly increased social mobility.

The Florentine painter Giotto (1267-1337), the most famous artist of the proto Renaissance, made
enormous advances in the technique of representing the human body realistically. His frescoes were
said to have decorated cathedrals at Assisi, Rome, Padua, Florence and Naples, though there has been
difficulty attributing such works with certainty.

In the later 14th century, the proto-Renaissance was stifled by plague and war, and its influences did not
emerge again until the first years of the next century. In 1401, the sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti (c. 1378-
1455) won a major competition to design a new set of bronze doors for the Baptistery of the Cathedral
of Florence, beating out contemporaries such as the architect Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446) and the
young Donatello (c. 1386-1466), who would later emerge as the master of early Renaissance sculpture.

Florence in the Renaissance

Though the Catholic Church remained a major patron of the arts during the Renaissance – from popes
and other prelates to convents, monasteries and other religious organizations – works of art were
increasingly commissioned by civil government, courts and wealthy individuals. Much of the art
produced during the early Renaissance were commissioned by the wealthy merchant families of
Florence, most notably the Medici.

High Renaissance Art (1490 – 1527)

By the end of the 15th century, Rome had displaced Florence as the principal centre of Renaissance art,
reaching a high point under the powerful and ambitious Pope Leo X (a son of Lorenzo de’ Medici). Three
great masters – Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael – dominated the period known as the
High Renaissance, which lasted roughly from the early 1490s until the sack of Rome by the troops of the
Holy Roman Emperor Charles V of Spain in 1527. Leonardo (1452-1519) was the ultimate “Renaissance
man” for the breadth of his intellect, interest and talent and his expression of humanist and classical
values. Leonardo’s best-known works, including the “Mona Lisa” (1503-05), “The Virgin of the Rocks”
(1485) and the fresco “The Last Supper” (1495-98), showcase his unparalleled ability to portray light and
shadow, as well as the physical relationship between figures-humans, animals and objects alike- and the
landscape around them.

Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) drew on the human body for inspiration and created works on a
vast scale. He was the dominant sculptor of the High Renaissance, producing pieces such as the Pietà in
St. Peter’s Cathedral (1499) and the David in his native Florence (1501-04). He carved the latter by hand
from an enormous marble block; the famous statue measures five meters high including its base.
Though Michelangelo considered himself a sculptor first and foremost, he achieved greatness as a
painter as well, notably with his giant fresco covering the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, completed over
four years (1508-12) and depicting various scenes from Genesis. –

Renaissance Art in Practice

The Italian Renaissance was noted for four things: (1) A reverent revival of Classical Greek/Roman art
forms and styles; (2) A faith in the nobility of Man (Humanism); (3) The mastery of illusionistic painting
techniques, maximizing ‘depth’ in a picture, including: linear perspective, foreshortening and, later,
quadratura; and (4) The naturalistic realism of its faces and figures, enhanced by oil painting techniques
like sfumato.

Many works of Renaissance art depicted religious images, including subjects such as the Virgin Mary, or
Madonna, and were encountered by contemporary audiences of the period in the context of religious
rituals. Today, they are viewed as great works of art, but at the time they were seen and used mostly as
devotional objects. Many Renaissance works were painted as altarpieces for incorporation into rituals
associated with Catholic mass and donated by patrons who sponsored the mass itself.

Expansion and Decline

Over the course of the 15th and 16th centuries, the spirit of the Renaissance spread throughout Italy
and into France, northern Europe and Spain. In Venice, artists such as Giorgione (1477/78-1510) and
Titian (1488/90-1576) further developed a method of painting in oil directly on canvas; this technique of
oil painting allowed the artist to rework an image-as fresco painting (on plaster) did not- and it would
dominate Western art to the present day. Oil painting during the Renaissance can be traced back even
further, however, to the Flemish painter Jan van Eyck (died 1441), who painted a masterful altarpiece in
the Cathedral at Ghent (c. 1432). Van Eyck was one of the most important artists of the Northern
Renaissance; later masters included the German painters Albrecht Durer (1471 1528) and Hans Holbein
the Younger (1497/98 1543).

By the later 1500s, the Mannerist style, with its emphasis on artificiality, had developed in opposition to
the idealized naturalism of High Renaissance art, and Mannerism spread from Florence and Rome to
become the dominant style in Europe.

The Mona Lisa is a half-length portrait painting by the Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci that
has been described as "the best known, the most visited, the most written about, the most sung about,
the most parodied work of art in the world." The Mona Lisa is also one of the most valuable paintings in
the world.

The Sistine Chapel ceiling, painted by Michelangelo between 1508 and 1512, is a cornerstone work of
High Renaissance art. (Wikipedia)

The School of Athens is one of the most famous frescoes by the Italian Renaissance artist Raphael. It was
painted between 1509 and 1511 as a part of Raphael’s commission to decorate the rooms now known
as the Stanze di Raffaello, in the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican.

Virgin and Child, painting on poplar wood by Sandro Botticelli, date unknown; in the Musée du Petit
Palais, Avignon, France.

Mannerism Art

In fine art, the term “Mannerism” (derived from the Italian word ‘maniera’ meaning style or stylishness)
refers to a style of painting, sculpture and architecture, that emerged in Rome and Florence between
1510 and 1520, during the later years of the High Renaissance. Mannerism acts as a bridge between the
idealized style of Renaissance art and the dramatic theatricality of the Baroque,

Characteristics of Mannerist Painting

Early Mannerism (c.1520-35) is known for its “anti-classical”, or “anti Renaissance” style, which then
developed into High Mannerism (c.1535-1580), a more intricate, inward-looking and intellectual style,
designed to appeal to more sophisticated patrons.

As a whole, Mannerist painting tends to be more artificial and less naturalistic than Renaissance
painting. This exaggerated idiom is typically associated with attributes such as emotionalism, elongated
human figures, strained poses, unusual effects of scale, lighting or perspective, vivid often garish colors
(Freedberg, 1993).

Origin and Development of Mannerism

The development of Mannerism was brought about by the religious turmoil in Italy. Based on Martin
Luther’s Wittenberg Theses, for the Protestants, the papacy had become the epitome of universal moral
and religious decadence. The chief bone of contention was the sale of so-called ‘indulgences’, with
which the faithful could buy forgiveness from the Pope. The rapid growth of the Reformation movement
demonstrated the need for fundamental reforms within the Church. The unity of the church broke
down; its authority was increasingly called into question.

This heliocentric view of the world entirely contradicted the Church’s view of itself, and its claims to
domination, since the idea that the representative of God did not sit at the center of cosmic events was
far from attractive. In addition, the spectacular circumnavigation of the world by Ferdinand de Magellan
and Christopher Columbus’ discovery of America bore out the suspicion that the earth was round not
flat, nor was central Europe the center of the world (Encyclopedia Britannica).

To this extent, the art of this period Mannerism is the art of a world undergoing radical change, impelled
by the quest for a new pictorial language. Mannerism reflects the new uncertainty.

The young generation of artists reacted against the perfection of the Renaissance. For this reason, the
Mannerists sought new goals, and like many of the avant garde artists of Modernism hundreds of years
later, they turned against the traditional artistic canon, distorting the formal repertoire of the new
classical pictorial language. Even the great Michelangelo himself turned to Mannerism, notably in the
vestibule to the Laurentian Library, in the figures on his Medici tombs, and especially in his Last
Judgment fresco painting in the Sistine Chapel (Cheney, 2004).

Mannerist painters stressed the individual way of painting, the personal vision and pictorial
understanding of things. They discovered the symbolic content of visual structure, the expressive
element of painting. They consistently resisted equilibrium. So the circular and pyramidal compositions
typical of the Renaissance disappeared.

Jacopo Pontormo combined the influences of his teachers Andrea del Sarto and Leonardo with impulses
from Raphael’s late work, as well as the painting of Michelangelo, arriving at a pictorial language which,
for all its realism, still seems other worldly.

Jacopo Carucci, usually known as Jacopo da Pontormo, Jacopo Pontormo or simply Pontormo, was an
Italian Mannerist painter and portraitist from the Florentine School. (Wikipedia)

In Parmigianino's painting of the Madonna dal Colla Lungo (1535, Uffizi Gallery, Florence) the immediate
foreground and the distant background appear without transition, almost fragmentarily juxtaposed. The
pictorial weights are unevenly distributed. On the left hand side of the picture, the painter places a
cramped band of angels, while spatial depth opens up on the right-hand side, its only focus being a
brightly-lit row of columns, behind which there stretches a broad, dark landscape.

Descent from the Cross

The Mannerist Reality

The Mannerists took the illusionistic picture space, with its imitation of reality, and transformed it into
an 'intellectual' picture space, showing what was really invisible and accessible only to the inner eye.
Modern art has its roots in this approach, in which the artist's individual vision and view of things
becomes the sole yardstick. Small wonder, then, that a painter like El Greco, one of the great masters of
Mannerism, was discovered by artists at the beginning of the 20th century as a key forerunner of
modern art.

Domenikos Theotocopoulos, who was only ever referred to as El Greco at the Spanish court where he
spent most of his life along with Tintoretto, from the school of Venetian painting is one of the most
important painters of the second half of the 16th century. Both painters wanted, like Parmigianino, to
create something new. But their paintings were not a refined game with new artistic media; rather,
above all they wanted to show intellectual content in their religious art, which would reveal the
invisible.

The Burial of the Count of Orgaz is a painting by El Greco, a Greek painter, sculptor, and architect of the
Spanish Renaissance. Widely considered among his finest works, it illustrates a popular local legend of
his time. Wikipedia

Tintoretto also admired the Renaissance masters, particularly Michelangelo and Titian. By his own
account, he aimed to "unite the drawing of Michelangelo with the color of Titian", in order to reveal the
impossible, the transcendent which could not be represented. He sought a pictorial language which
made it possible to sense the spiritual content, the divine. Please see, for instance: The Disrobing of
Christ.

The Trinity Painting by Tintoretto

The Mannerist illusionistic painting led the movement into the Baroque from about 1600. The
intellectual pictorial worlds, created by the Mannerists as early as the 16th century, reach their peak.
(Encyclopaedia of Art History).

The Baroque Art

Baroque art and architecture, the visual arts and building design and construction produced during the
era in the history of Western art that roughly coincides with the 17th century. The earliest
manifestations, which occurred in Italy, date from the latter decades of the 16th century, while in some
regions, notably Germany and colonial South America, certain culminating achievements of Baroque did
not occur until the 18th century. The work that distinguishes the Baroque period is stylistically complex,
even contradictory. In general, however, the desire to evoke emotional states by appealing to the
senses, often in dramatic ways, underlies its manifestations. Some of the qualities most frequently
associated with the Baroque are grandeur, sensuous richness, drama, vitality, movement, tension,
emotional exuberance, and a tendency to blur distinctions among the various arts.

The Origin of the Term

The term Baroque probably ultimately derived from the Italian word "barocco", hich philosophers used
during the Middle Ages to describe an obstacle in schematic logic. Subsequently the word came to
denote any contorted idea or involuted process of thought. Another possible source is the Portuguese
word barroco (Spanish barrueco), used to describe an irregular or imperfectly shaped pearl, and this
usage still survives in the jeweler's term baroque pearl.

In art criticism the word 'Baroque' came to be used to describe anything irregular, bizarre, or otherwise
departing from established rules and proportions. This biased view of 17th-century art styles was held
with few modifications by critics from Johann Winckelmann to John Ruskin and Jacob Burckhardt, and
until the late 19th century the term always carried the implication of odd, grotesque, exaggerated, and
over decorated. It was only with Heinrich Wölfflin's pioneer study "Renaissance und Barock" (1888) that
the term 'Baroque' was used as a stylistic designation rather than as a term of thinly veiled abuse, and a
systematic formulation of the characteristics of Baroque style was achieved.

Three Main Tendencies of the Era

Three broader cultural and intellectual tendencies had a profound impact on Baroque art as well as
Baroque music. The first of these was the emergence of the Counter-Reformation and the expansion of
its domain, both territorially and intellectually.

The Roman Catholic Church after the Council of Trent (1545-63) adopted a propagandistic stance in
which art was to serve as a means of extending and stimulating the public's faith in the church. To this
end the church adopted a conscious artistic program whose art products would make an overtly
emotional and sensory appeal to the faithful. The Baroque style that evolved from this program was
paradoxically both sensuous and spiritual; while a naturalistic treatment rendered the religious image
more accessible to the average churchgoer, dramatic and illusory effects were used to stimulate piety
and devotion and convey an impression of the splendour of the divine. Baroque church ceilings thus
dissolved in painted scenes that presented vivid views of the infinite to the observer and directed the
senses toward heavenly concerns.

The second tendency was the consolidation of absolute monarchies, accompanied by a simultaneous
crystallization of a prominent and powerful middle class, which now came to play a role in art
patronage. Baroque palaces were built on an expanded and monumental scale in order to display the
power and grandeur of the centralized state, a phenomenon best displayed in the royal palace and
gardens at Versailles.

Baroque coffered Ceiling of the Cupola of San Carlo at Fontane Rome

The third tendency was a new interest in nature and a general broadening of human intellectual
horizons, spurred by developments in science and by explorations of the globe. These simultaneously
produced a new sense both of human insignificance (particularly abetted by the Copernican
displacement of the Earth from the centre of the universe) and of the unsuspected complexity and
infinitude of the natural world.

Architecture. Painting, And Sculpture

The arts present an unusual diversity in the Baroque period, chiefly because currents of naturalism and
classicism coexisted and intermingled with the typical Baroque style. Indeed, Annibale Carracci and
Caravaggio, the two Italian painters who decisively broke with Mannerism in the 1590s and thus, helped
usher in the Baroque style, painted, respectively, in classicist and realist modes. A specifically Baroque
style of painting arose in Rome in the 1620s and culminated in the monumental painted ceilings and
other church decorations of Pietro da Cortona, Guido Reni, Il Guercino, Domenichino, and countless
lesser artists. The greatest of the Baroque sculptor-architects was Gian Lorenzo Bernini, who designed
both the Baldachin with spiral columns above the altar of St. Peter’s in Rome and the vast colonnade
fronting that church. Baroque architecture as developed by Bernini, Carlo Maderno, Francesco
Borromini, and Guarino Guarini emphasized massiveness and monumentality, movement, dramatic
spatial and lighting sequences, and a rich interior decoration using contrasting surface textures, vivid
colors, and luxurious materials to heighten the structure’s physical immediacy and evoke sensual
delight.

French architecture is even less recognizably Baroque in its pronounced qualities of subtlety, elegance,
and restraint. Baroque tenets were enthusiastically adopted in staunchly Roman Catholic Spain,
however, particularly in architecture. The greatest of the Spanish builders, José Benito Churriguera,
shows most fully the Spanish interest in surface textures and lush detail. He attracted many followers,
and their adaptations of his style, labeled Churrigueresque, spread throughout. Spain’s colonies in the
Americas and elsewhere.

Landscape with Saint John on Patmos, oil on canvas by Nicolas Poussin, 1640; in The Art Institute of
Chicago. A. Munger Collection, 1930.500/Photography The Art Institute of Chicago

The Baroque made only limited inroads into northern Europe, notably in what is now Belgium. That
Spanish-ruled, largely Roman Catholic region’s greatest master was the painter Peter Paul Rubens,
whose tempestuous diagonal compositions and ample, full-blooded figures are the epitome of Baroque
painting. The elegant portraits of Anthony van Dyck and the robust figurative works of Jacob Jordaens
emulated Rubens’ example. Art in the Netherlands was conditioned by the realist tastes of its dominant
middle-class patrons, and thus both the innumerable genre and landscape painters of that country and
such towering masters as Rembrandt and Frans Hals remained independent of the Baroque style in
important respects.

Baldachin, St. Peter's, Vatican City, by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, 1624-33SCALA/Art Resource,

New York

The Baroque did have a notable impact in England, however, particularly in the chuches and palaces
designed respectively, by Sir Christopher Wren and Sir John

The Hippopotamus Hunt, oil on canvas by Peter Paul Rubens, c. 1615-16 in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich;
photograph, Joachim Blauel/Artothek

The last flowering of the Baroque was in largely Roman Catholic southern Germany and Austria, where
the native architects broke away from Italian building models in the 1720s. In ornate churches,
monasteries, and palaces designed by LB. Fischer von Erlach, L.L. von Hildebrandt, Balthasar Neumann,
Dominikus Zimmermann, and brothers Cosmas Damian Asam and Egid Quirin Asam, an extraordinarily
rich but delicate style of stucco decoration was used in combination with painted surfaces to evoke
subtle illusionistic effects.
Detail of Baroque stucco work by Egid Quirin Asam, c. 1721, in the Abbey church of Weltenburg,
Germany.

Rococo Art

Rococo painting, which originated in early 18th century Paris, is characterized by soft colors and curvy
lines, and depicts scenes of love, nature, amorous encounters, light-hearted entertainment, and youth.
The word “rococo” derives from rocaille, which is French for rubble or rock. Rocaille refers to the shell-
work in garden grottoes and is used as a descriptive word for the serpentine patterns seen in the
Decorative Arts of the Rococo period (Hopkins, 2014).

After the death of Louis XIV, the French court moved from Versailles back to their old Parisian mansions,
redecorating their homes using softer designs and more modest materials than that of the King’s grand
baroque style. Instead of surrounding themselves with precious metals and rich colors, the French
aristocracy now lived in intimate interiors made with stucco adornments, boiserie, and mirrored glass.
This new style is characterized by its asymmetry, graceful curves, elegance, and the delightful new
paintings of daily life and courtly love, which decorated the walls within these spaces.

Antoine Watteau, Pilgrimage on the Isle of Cythera (1717)

The exteriors of Rococo buildings are often simple, while the interiors are entirely dominated by their
ornament. The style was highly theatrical, designed to impress and awe at first sight. Floor plans of
churches were often complex, featuring interlocking ovals; In palaces, grand stairways became
centrepieces, and offered different points of view of the decoration (Hopkins, 2014).

Jean Honoré Fragonard (French, 1732-1806) was one such painter who attempted to adapt his style to
the artistic changes of the period; unlike Watteau,

Fragonard’s skill wasn’t recognized until well after his death. Today, Fragonard is best known for his
Rococo-style paintings like La coquette fixée (The Fascinated Coquette), which depicts an amorous
encounter between a female and two males. The lustful male gazes establish the female figure as the
focal point of the painting. As a work of light-hearted entertainment, there is no complex meaning or
story behind the piece. It is a bright, cheerful scene meant for amusement and delight

The Rococo Branicki Palace in Białystok, sometimes referred to as the “Polish Versailles”

Sculpture and Porcelain

Religious sculpture followed the Italian baroque style, as exemplified in the theatrical altarpiece of the
Karlskirche in Vienna. However, much of Rococo sculpture was lighter and offered more movement than
the classical style of Louis XIV. It was encouraged in particular by Madame de Pompadour, mistress of
Louis XV, who commissioned many works for her chateaux and gardens. The sculptor Edmé Bouchardon
represented Cupid engaged in carving his darts of love from the club of Hercules Rococo style-the
demigod is transformed into the soft child, the bone-shattering club becomes the heart-scathing arrows,
just as marble is so freely replaced by stucco. Étienne-Maurice Falconet (1716-1791) was another
leading French sculptor during the period.
The French sculptors, Jean-Louis Lemoyne, Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne, Louis Simon Boizot, Michel Clodion,
and Pigalle were also active. In Italy, Antonio Corradini was among the leading sculptors of the Rococo
style. A Venetian, he travelled around Europe, working for Peter the Great in St. Petersburg, for the
imperial courts in Austria and Naples. He preferred sentimental themes, and made several skilled works
of women with faces covered by veils, one of which is now in the Louvre.

A new form of small-scale sculpture appeared, made of porcelain, mounted on bronze or marble
pedestals and displayed on console tables and dining room tables. The Swiss-born German sculptor
Franz Anton Bustelli produced which valued reason over authority. The influence for art, culture, and
fashion shifted its centre from Versailles to Paris. The exuberant, playful, elegant style of decoration and
design that we now know to be ‘Rococo’ was then known as ‘le style rocaille’, ‘le style moderne’, ‘le
gout’ (Coffin, 2008). A style that appeared in the early eighteenth-century was the ‘robe volante’ a
flowing gown, that became popular towards the end of King Louis XIV’s reign. This gown had the
features of a bodice with large pleats flowing down the back to the ground over a rounded petticoat.
The color palate was rich, dark fabrics accompanied by elaborate, heavy design features.

The beginning of the end for Rococo came in the early 1760s as figures like Voltaire and Jacques-
François Blondel began to voice their criticism of the superficiality and degeneracy of the art. Blondel
decried the “ridiculous jumble of shells, dragons, reeds, palm trees and plants” in contemporary
interiors (Kimbal, 1980). By 1785, Rococo had passed out of fashion in France, replaced by the order and
seriousness of Neoclassical artists like Jacques-Louis David. In Germany, late 18th century Rococo was
ridiculed as Zopf und Perücke (“pigtail and periwig”), and this phase is sometimes referred to as Zopfstil.
Rococo remained popular in the provinces and in Italy, until the second phase of neoclassicism, “Empire
style”, arrived with Napoleonic governments and swept Rococo away.

Neo Classicism

As the term implies, neoclassicism is a revival of the classical past. The movement began around the
middle of the 18th century, marking a time in art history when artists began to imitate Greek and Roman
antiquity and the artists of the Renaissance.

Neoclassicism grew to encompass all of the arts, including painting, sculpture, the decorative arts,
theatre, literature, music, and architecture. The style can generally be identified by its use of straight
lines, minimal use of color, simplicity of form and, of course, its adherence to classical values and
techniques.

Johann Joachim Winckelmann, founder of modern archaeology and art history, praised the Greeks and
believed them to be as close to perfection as possible. Following Winck elmann's words, many artists
began to study Greek architecture and create classically inspired works of art. In 1738, excavations of
Pompeii and Herculaneum led to the finding of well-preserved, colourful paintings, mosaics, and pottery.
These discoveries only fuelled artistic fascination and curiosity for antiquity, and artists began to use this
new knowledge of the past in their art, creating their own "new" classical style that was extremely
different from the Rococo-a style popular during the early to mid 18th century.
One such artist was Jean-Auguste Dominique Ingres (French, 1780 1867). His painting of Oedipus and
the Sphinx (1808) represents a scene from the classical Greek plays of Sophocles.

Oedipus and the Sphinx, 1864, The Walters Art Museum

The discovery of preserved ancient artefacts also played a huge role in the Decorative Arts of the time.
Josiah Wedgwood (British, 1730-1795), one of the most famous English ceramic manufacturers of the
18th century, founded the Wedgwood company in 1759, which produced classically inspired jasperware,
cream ware, and black basalts, formed using simple geometric lines, and decorated with frieze-like
scenes reminiscent of ancient Greek and Roman pottery.

John Flaxman (British, 1755-1826), prominent neoclassical sculptor, a illustrator, and designer, began
working for Wedgwood around 1775. His oeuvre includes illustrations for classical literature like the
Odyssey, and designs for classically inspired decorative works of art produced by Wedgwood, and
monuments for military heroes and nobles.

In music, the period saw the rise of classical music and in painting, the works of Jaques-Louis David
became synonymous with the classical revival. However, Neoclassicism was felt most strongly in
architecture, sculpture, and the decorative arts, where classical models in the same medium were fairly
numerous and accessible. Sculpture in particular had a great wealth of ancient models from which to
learn, however, most were Roman copies of Greek originals,

Rinaldo Rinaldi, Chirone Insegna Ad Achille a Suonare La Cetra: Executed in a classical style and adhering
to classical themes, this sculpture is a typical example of the Neoclassical style.

Neoclassical architecture was modelled after the classical style and, as with other art forms, was in many
ways a reaction against the exuberant Rococo style. The architecture of the Italian architect Andrea
Palladio became very popular in the mid 18th century. Additionally, archaeological ruins found in
Pompeii and Herculaneum informed many of the stylistic values of Neoclassical interior design based on
the ancient Roman rediscoveries.

Neoclassicism – Characteristics

Neoclassical works (paintings and sculptures) were serious, unemotional, and sternly heroic.
Neoclassical painters depicted subjects from Classical literature and history, as used in earlier Greek art
and Republican Roman art, using somber colors with occasional brilliant highlights, to convey moral
narratives of self-denial and self-sacrifice fully in keeping with the supposed ethical superiority of
antiquity. Neoclassical sculpture dealt with the same subjects, and was more restrained than the more
theatrical Baroque sculpture, less whimsical than the indulgent Rococo. Neoclassical architecture was
more ordered and less grandiose than Baroque, although the dividing line between the two can
sometimes be blurred. It bore a close external resemblance to the Greek Orders of architecture, with
one obvious exception there were no domes in ancient Greece. Most roofs were flat.

The most recent phase of neoclassicism – the Classical Revival in modern art – emerged between about
1900 and 1930, with active participants including Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Fernand Leger (1881-1955)
and Giorgio de Chirico (1888 1978).
Famous Neoclassical Buildings

Buckingham Palace, London (1821-35)

By John Nash

Arc de Triomphe, Paris (1806-36) by Jean Chalgrin

Pavlovsk Palace (1781-86), Russia

By Charles Cameron

Pantheon, Rome (1756-97) by Jacques Germain Soufflot

The Tegel Palace (1821-4) by Karl Friedrich Schinkel

Romantic Art

Brandenburg Gate (1789-91) by Carl Gotthard Langhans

Despite the early efforts of pioneers like El Greco (Domenikos Theotocopoulos) (1541-1614), Adam
Elsheimer (1578-1610) and Claude Lorrain (1604-82), the style we know as Romanticism did not gather
momentum until the end of the 18th century when the heroic element in Neoclassicism was given a
central role in painting. This heroic element combined with revolutionary idealism to produce an
emotive Romantic style, which emerged in the wake of the French Revolution as a reaction against the
restrained academic art of the arts establishment.

The tenets of romanticism included: a return to nature – exemplified by an emphasis on spontaneous

plain-air painting – a belief in the goodness of humanity, the promotion of justice for all, and a strong
belief in the senses and emotions, rather than reason and intellect. Romantic painters and sculptors
tended to express an emotional personal response to life, in contrast to the restraint and universal
values advocated by Neoclassical art. 19th Century architects, too, sought to express a sense of
Romanticism in their building designs

Origins

After the French Revolution of 1789, a significant social change occurred within a single generation.
Europe was shaken by political crises, revolutions and wars. When leaders met at the Congress of Vienna
(1815) to reorganize European affairs after the Napoleonic Wars, it became clear that the peoples’
hopes for ‘liberty, equality and fraternity’ had not been realized. However, during the course of those
agitated 25 years, new ideas and attitudes had taken hold in the minds of men.

Respect for the individual, the responsible human being, which was already a key element in
Neoclassical painting, had given rise to a new but related phenomenon emotional intuition. Thus cool,
rational Neoclassicism was now confronted with emotion and the individual imagination which sprang
from it. Instead of praising the stoicism and intellectual discipline of the individual (Neoclassicism),
artists now also began to celebrate the emotional intuition and. Perception of the individual
(Romanticism). Thus at the beginning of the 19th century, a variety of styles began to emerge – each shaped by national characteristics – all falling
under the heading of ‘Romanticism’.

The movement began in Germany where it was motivated largely by a sense of world weariness
(“Weltschmerz”), a feeling of isolation and a yearning for nature. Later, Romantic tendencies also
appeared in English and French painting.

German Romanticism (1800-1850)

In Germany, the young generation of artists reacted to the changing times by

A process of introspection: they retreated into the world of the emotions – inspired

By a sentimental yearning for times past, such as the Medieval era, which was

Now seen as a time in which men had lived in harmony with themselves and

The world. In this context, the painting Gothic Cathedral by the Water by Karl

Friedrich Schinkel was just as important as the works of the ‘Nazarenes’ – Friedrich

Overbeck, Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld and Franz Pforr – who took their lead

From the pictorial traditions of the Italian Early Renaissance and the German art of
The age of Albrecht Durer.

The Romantic movement promoted ‘creative intuition and imagination’ as the basis of all art. Thus, the
work of art became an expression of a ‘voice from within’, as the leading Romantic painter Caspar David
Friedrich (1774-1840) put it.

The preferred genre among Romanticists was landscape painting. Nature was seen as the mirror of the
soul, while in politically restricted Germany it was also regarded as a symbol of freedom and
boundlessness. Thus the iconography of Romantic art includes solitary figures set in the countryside,
gazing longingly into the distance, as well as vanitas motifs such as dead trees and overgrown ruins,
symbolizing the transience and finite nature of life.

With the European Restoration set in motion and the persecution of the demagogue, the enthusiasm for
German romanticism had faded. German Romanticism were set aside in favour of those of the
Restoration. In the face of such political conservatism, the artist-citizen withdrew into his private idyll,
ushering in the Biedermeier period (1815-1848) of Late Romanticism, exemplified by the works of
Moritz von Schwind (1804-71), Adrian Ludwig Richter (1803-1884), and Carl Spitzweg (1805-1885).
Spitzweg was perhaps the outstanding representative of the Biedermeier style: narrative, anecdotal
family scenes were among his favorite pictorial themes, although his cheerful and peaceful paintings
have a deeper meaning. Behind his innocent prettiness, he is satirizing the materialism of the German
bourgeoisie.

Spanish Romanticism (1810-30)

View of the Copper Mill in Vietri by Adrian Ludwig Richter

Francisco de Goya (1746-1828) was the undisputed leader of the Romantic art movement in Spain,
demonstrating a natural flair for works of irrationality, imagination, fantasy and terror. By 1789, he was
firmly established as official painter to the Spanish Royal court. Unfortunately, about 1793, he was
afflicted by some kind of serious illness, which left him deaf and caused him to become withdrawn.

Goya produced one of his greatest masterpieces – The Third of May, 1808 (1814, Prado, Madrid).
Another masterpiece is The Colossus (1808-12, Prado, Madrid). After 1815 Goya became increasingly
withdrawn. His series of 14 pictures known as the Black Paintings (1820-23), including Saturn Devouring
His Son (1821, Prado, Madrid), offer an extraordinary insight into his world of personal fantasy and
imagination.

French Romanticism (1815-50)

In France, as in much of Europe, the Napoleonic Wars ended in exile for Napoleon and a reactionary
wave of Restoration policies. The French republic once again became a monarchy. In fine art terms, all
this led to a huge boost for Romanticism, hitherto restrained by the domination of Neo-classicists such
as the political painter Jacques Louis David (1748-1825) and other ruling members of the French
Academy who had reigned unchallenged. Broader in outlook than their German counterparts, French
Romantic artists did not restrict themselves to landscape and the occasional genre painting, but also
explored portrait art and history painting.
Napoleon Crossing the Alps by David Jaques Louis

Another strand of 19th century Romanticism explored by French artists was Orientalist painting, typically
of genre scenes in North Africa. Among the finest exponents were the academician Jean-Leon Gerome
(1824-1904) and the more maverick Eugene Delacroix.

Whirling Dervices – Jean-Leon Gerome

Theodore Gericault (1791-1824) was an important pioneer of the Romantic art movement in France. His
masterpiece Raft of the Medusa (1819, Louvre) was the scandal of the 1820 Paris Salon. No painter until
then had depicted horror so graphically. The impact of the painting was all the more effective for being
based on a true-life disaster.

Eugene Delacroix (1798-1863), who later became the leader of French Romanticism, followed in
Gericault's footsteps after the latter's early. demise, painting pictures whose vivid colors and impetuous
brushwork were designed to stimulate the emotions and stir the soul. In doing this he deliberately
rekindled the centuries old argument about the primacy of drawing or color composition. His
masterpiece in the Romantic style is Liberty Leading the People (1830, Louvre), painted on the occasion
of the 1830 Revolution.

Liberty Leading the People

Other French artists who worked in the tradition of Romanticism include: Pierre-Paul Prud'hon (1758-
1823), Anne-Louis Girodet-Trioson (1767-1824), Francois Gerard (1770-1837), George Michel (1763-
1843), Antoine-Jean Gros (1771 1835) and Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (1796-1875). An unusual case is
the classical history painter Paul Delaroche (1797-1856), who specialized in melodramatic historical
scenes typically featuring English royalty, such as the Execution of Lady Jane Grey (1833, National
Gallery, London). Immensely popular during his life, he made a fortune from selling engravings of his
pictures.

Romanticism in England (1820-1850)

This emancipation of color is particularly characteristic of the painting of William Turner (1775-1851).
For Turner, arguably the greatest of all English painters of Romanticism, observation of nature is merely
one element in the realization of his own pictorial ambitions. The mood of his paintings is created less by
what he painted than by how he painted, especially how he employed color and his paint brush. Many
of his canvases are painted with rapid slashes.

Other English Romantic painters include William Blake (1757-1827) and John Martin (1789-1854).

Impact of Romanticism

The Romantic style of painting stimulated the emergence of numerous schools, such as: the Barbizon
school of plein air landscapes, the Norwich school of landscape painters; the Nazarenes, a group of
Catholic German and Austrian painters; Symbolism like Arnold Bocklin (1827-1901) and the Aestheticism
movement.

Greatest Romantic Paintings

Works of Romanticism hang in many of the best art museums around the world. Here is a short selected
list of works.

The Slave Ship (1840) Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Steam-Boat off a Harbour’s Mouth (1842) Tate,
London

Rain, Steam, Speed – The Great Western Railway (1844) National Gallery, London

Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840) Winter Landscape (c.1811) National Gallery, London

Man and Woman Contemplating the Moon (1824) Nationalgalerie, Berlin

Francisco Goya (1746-1828)

The Third of May, 1808 (1814) Museo del Prado, Madrid

Saturn Devouring One of His Children (1821) Prado, Madrid William Blake (1757-1827)

The Night of Enitharmon’s Joy (1795) Tate Britain, London

Satan Arousing the Rebellious Angels (1800) Victoria and Albert Museum

Theodore Gericault (1791-1824) The Raft of the Medusa (1819) Louvre, Paris

Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze (1816-68)

Washington Crossing the Delaware River (1848) Metropolitan Museum, NY

Eugene Delacroix (1798-63)

The Death of Sardanapalus (1827) Musee du Louvre

Liberty Leading the People (1830) Musee du Louvre

John Martin (1789-1854)

The Great Day of his Wrath (1853) Tate, London

Jean-Baptiste Corot (1796-1875)

Memory of Mortefontaine (1864) Louvre, Paris

Ville d’Avray (1867) National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Arnold Bocklin (1827-1901)

Mary Magdalene Grieving over the Body of Christ (1867) Kunstmuseum, Basel

The Art of Realism

From 1400 to 1800, Western art was dominated by Renaissance-inspired academic theories of idealized
painting and high art executed in the Grand Manner. Thereafter, caused partly by the huge social
changes triggered by the Industrial Revolution, there was a greater focus on realism of subject that is,
subject matter outside the high art tradition. The term Realism was promoted by the French novelist
Champfleury during the 1840s, although it began in earnest in 1855, with an Exposition by the French
painter Gustave Courbet (1819-77), after one of his paintings (The Artist’s Studio) had been rejected by
the World Fair in Paris. Courbet set up his own marquee nearby and issued a manifesto to accompany
his personal exhibition. It was entitled “Le Realisme.”

Characteristics: Genres and Subject Matter

The style of Realist painting spread to almost all genres, including history painting, portraits, genre-
painting, and landscapes. For example, landscape artists went out to the provinces in search of the ‘real’
France, setting up artistic colonies in places like Barbizon, and later at Grez-Sur-Loing, Pont-Aven, and
Concarneau.

Favorite subject matter for Realist artists included genre scenes of rural and urban working class life,
scenes of street-life, cafes and night clubs, as well as increasing frankness in the treatment of the body,
nudity and sensual subjects. Not surprisingly, this gritty approach shocked many of the upper and
middle class patrons of the arts, both in France and in the Victorian art of England, where Realism was
never fully embraced.

A general trend, as well as a specific style of art, Realism heralded a general move away from the ‘ideal’
(as typified by the art of Classical mythology, so beloved by Renaissance artists and sculptors) towards
the ordinary. Thus, in their figure drawing and figure painting, Realists portrayed real people not
idealized types. From now on, artists felt increasingly free to depict real-life situations stripped of
aesthetics and universal truth. (No more cute-looking child beggars, picturesque streets and views,
healthy-looking contented peasants and so on.) In this sense, Realism reflected a progressive and highly
influential shift in the significance and function of art in general, including literature as well as fine art. It
influenced Impressionism – see, for instance, Realism to Impressionism (1830 1900)- and several other
modern art styles, such as Pop Art. The style retains its influence on the visual arts to this day.

Realist Artists

Realist artists, strongly associated with the 19th century movement include: Jean-Francois Millet (1814-
75), Gustave Courbet (1819-77), Honore Daumier

The

Realist movement, championed by Gustave Courbet, first confronted the official Parisian art
establishment in the middle of the 19th century. Courbet was an anarchist that thought the art of his
time closed its eyes on realities of life. The French were ruled by an oppressive regime and much of the
public was in the throes of poverty. Instead of depicting such scenes, the artists of the time
concentrated on idealized nudes. And glorious depictions of nature. In his protest, Courbet financed an
exhibition of his work right opposite the Universal Exposition in Paris of 1855, a bold act that led to the
emergence of future artists that would challenge the status quo.

Exhibitions in Paris and the Salon des Refusés

In 1863, at the official yearly art salon, the all-important event of the French art world, a large number of
artists were not allowed to participate, leading to public outery. The same year, the Salon des Refusés
(“Salon of the Refused”) was formed in response to allow the exhibition of works by artists who had
previously been refused entrance to the official salon. Some of the exhibitors were Paul Cézanne,
Camille Pissarro, James Whistler, and the early iconoclast Édouard Manet. Although promoted by
authorities and sanctioned by Emperor Napoleon III, the 1863 exhibition caused a scandal, due largely to
the unconventional themes and styles of works such as Manet’s Le déjeuner sur l’herbe (1863), which
featured clothed men and naked women enjoying an afternoon picnic (the women were not classical
depictions of a nude, but rather women that took off their clothes).

Edouard Manet and the Painting Revolution

Edouard Manet was among the first and most important innovators to emerge in the public exhibition
scene in Paris. Although he grew up in admiration of the Old Masters, he began to incorporate an
innovative, looser painting style and brighter palette in the early 1860s. He also started to focus on
images of everyday life, such as scenes in cafés, boudoirs, and out in the street. His anti-academic style
and quintessentially modern subject matter soon attracted the attention of artists on the fringes and
influenced a new type of painting that would diverge from the standards of the official salon. Similar to
Le déjeuner sur l’herbe, his other works such as Olympia (1863) gave the emerging group ideas to depict
that were not previously considered art worthy.

Olympia is a painting by Édouard Manet, first exhibited at the 1865 Paris Salon, which shows a nude
woman lying on a bed being brought flowers by a servant. Olympia was modelled by Victorine Meurent
and Olympia’s servant by the art model Laure. (Wikipedia)

Post Impressionism

Post-Impressionism is a term used to describe the reaction in the 1880s against Impressionism. It was
led by Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh and Georges Seurat. The Post-Impressionists
rejected Impressionism’s concern with the spontaneous and naturalistic rendering of lighImpressionis

Post-Impressionists extended Impressionism while rejecting its limitations: they continued using vivid
colors, often thick application of paint, and real-life subject matter, but were more inclined to emphasize
geometric forms, distort form for expressive effect, and use unnatural or arbitrary color.

Expressionist art tried to convey emotion and meaning rather than reality. Each artist had his own
unique way of “expressing” his emotions in his art. In order to express emotion, the subjects are often
distorted or exaggerated. At the same time, colors are often vivid and shocking.

Known for their diverse yet distinctive styles and their subjective perceptions of the world around them,
the Post-Impressionists pioneered a new approach to painting at the turn of the century. Post-
Impressionist artists were not unified by a single aesthetic approach. Rather, what brought them
together was a shared interest in openly exploring the mind of the artist.

Characteristics of Post Impressionism

1. Emotional Symbolism – As Fry explained, Post-Impressionists believed that a work of art should
not revolve around style, process, or aesthetic approach. Instead, it should place emphasis on
 symbolism, communicating messages from the artist’s own sub conscious. Rather than employ
subject matter as a visual tool or means to an end, Post-Impressionists perceived it as a way to
convey feelings. According to Paul Cézanne, “a work of art which did not begin in emotion is not
a work of art.”
2. Evocative Color – Unlike the Impressionists who strived to capture natural light’s ef fect on
tonality, Post-Impres sionists purposely employed an artificial color palette as a way to portray
their emotion drive perceptions of the world around them. Saturated hues, multicolored
shadows, and rich ranges of color are evident in most Post-Impressionist paintings, proving the
artists’ innovative and imaginative ap proach to representation.

Neo-Impressionism

Neo-Impressionism is a movement in French painting of the late 19th century that reacted against the
empirical realism of Impressionism by relying on systematic calculation and scientific theory to achieve
predetermined visual effects.

Yellow Christ by Paul Gauguin

3. Distinctive Brushstroke – Like works completed in the Impressionist style, most Post-
Impressionist pieces feature discernible, broad brushstrokes. In addition to adding texture and a
sense of depth to a work of art, these marks also point to the painterly qualities of the piece,
making it clear that it is not intended to be a realistic representation of its subject.

The Bathers by Paul Cezanne

Whereas the Impressionist painters spontaneously recorded nature in terms of the fugitive effects of
color and light, the Neo-Impressionists applied scientific optical principles of light and color to create
strictly formalized compositions. Neo Impressionism was led by Georges Seurat, who was its original
theorist and most significant artist, and by Paul Signac, also an important artist and the movement’s
major spokesman. Other Neo-Impressionist painters were Henri-Edmond Cross, Albert Dubois-Pillet,
Maximilien Luce, Théo Van Rysselberghe, and, for a time, the Impressionist painter Camille Pissarro. The
group founded a Société des Artistes Independents in 1884.

The Theory of Neo-Impressionism

The discoveries of “optical blending” and “simultaneous contrast” that Seurat read about became the
theoretical foundation of Chromoluminarism, which came to be known as Neo-Impressionism. While
working at Gobelins dye factory in Paris, Michel-Eugène Chevreul had to answer customer complaints
about the quality of the yarn’s color. While trying to address the problem, he discovered the principle of
“simultaneous contrast,” or the effect of the color of an adjacent yarn on the perception of another
yarn’s color. Subsequently, Chevreul wrote The Principles of Harmony and Contrast of Colors in 1839.
Ogden Rood’s Modern Chromatics discussed how the viewer’s eye “blends” or “mixes” adjacent colors,
and David Sutter’s Phenomena of Vision (1880) established rules for the relationship between painting
and science. To achieve the most brilliant colors and a shimmering effect, Neo-Impressionism relied
upon applying dots or brushstrokes of complementary colors to the canvas. Rather than mixing
pigments on a palette, Neo-Impressionist painters relied on the viewer’s eye to “blend” the colors that
appeared on the canvas.

Though some of these theories are now considered only quasi-scientific, at the time they seemed cutting
edge. Seurat telt he had discovered the science of painting, one that required discipline and precise
application and that could achieve an intensity of color. He applied his color theory and a new technique
that he called balayé, criss-crossing strokes to apply matte colors, in his 1884 Bathers at Asnières, a
monumental work that depicts a number of workmen bathing in the river on a hot summer day.

Subsequently Seurat began work on A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte (1884) by
undertaking extensive preliminary studies and sketches. Depicting the bourgeoisie in the park along the
river, the work used the Pointillist style Seurat developed tiny dots of complementary colors placed next
to each other.

In 1890 Seurat publish Esthetique, his foundational work on Neo Impressionism’s scientific color theory.
Other. Neo-Impressionists were to continue exploring this scientific basis; for instance, around 1887
Albert Dubois Pillet developed the idea of passage, where the separate pigment of each of the primary
light colors created a passage between different hues.

A Sunday on La Grande Jatte-1884, oil on canvas by Georges Seurat

By the 1890s the influence of Neo-Impressionism was waning, but it was important in the early stylistic
and technical development of several artists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including Vincent
van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and Henri Matisse.