18th CENTURY ART:
THE ENLIGHTENMENT
NEOCLASSICISM
ROMANTICISM

CONTEXT - The Enlightenment and 18th in Northern Europe: 

1. The Enlightenment:
  • great advances in the pure and natural sciences; the decline of the Church
  • The writings of Rousseau, Locke, Diderot, Voltaire, Kant, and Wickelmann
  • Thinking about the world, independent of religion, myth, or tradition
2. Beginnings of the Industrial Revolution:
  • begins with the invention of the steam engine and electricity
3. Exploration of the new world:
  • and the emergence of Britain as the dominant maritime power
4. Colonialism:
  • the beginning of the colonization of Africa, India, and the South Seas

CONTEXT

​The Enlightenment and 18th Century political revolutions
1. New Archaeological Discoveries 
  • Herculaneum (1709) and Pompeii (1748) lead to Neo Classicism,
  • Winckelmann’s “Thoughts on the Imitation of Greek Works in Painting and Sculpture” (1755)
2. Rise of the Academies 
  • theoretical writing and training of artists in Royal Academies and Societies and the yearly Salons - shows juried by senior members of the Academies
3. Beginning of democratic movements
  • growing democratic movements and revolutions
  • 1789 French Revolution begins with the First French Republic from 1792-1794
  • 1776 America adopts Neoclassicism - the visual language of Greece and Rome

​HISTORY

  1. Death of Louis XIV in 1715 brought a resurgence of aristocratic life.
  2. Town houses became centers for the Rococo style.
  3. French Revolution broke out in 1789 which brings about an interest in the Greek ideal of Liberty and democracy. 
  4. Napoleon saw himself as a new "Caesar", crowned in 1804.
  5. Neoclassicism takes architectural hold in the U.S. with Thomas Jefferson.
  6. New ways of thinking about the new world. 
  7. Voltaire (1694-1778) = Science/Technological Improvement 
  8. Rousseau (1712-1778) = Nature alone must be society's guide
CONTENT: What do you see?
FORM: The details (what you see more exactly). How the artist delivers the content.
CONTEXT: Everything NOT observable.
FUNCTION: The intended purpose of the work.

APAH 250 Images:

101. The Swing, Jean Honoré Fragonard
98. The Tete a Tete (from Marriage a la Mode), William Hogarth
100. A Philosopher Giving a Lecture on the Orrery, Joseph Wright of Derby

VOCABULARY

Calotype
Camera Obscura
Caprice
School
The sublime
Academy
Exemplum virtutis
Pastel
Academies
salon Enlightenment Neo Classicism Rococo
Caprice Odalisque
​Fete galante Grand Tour

Key Ideas: Rococo

  • 1700-1750
  • Shift of power to the aristocrats paralleled in Baroque and Rococo
  • French Royal Academy set the taste for art in Paris
  • Strong Satirical paintings
  • Epitome: paintings that show aristocratic people enjoying life's leisures
  • Rococo comes from the French words rocaille and coquilles. Rocaille means stone and coquilles means shells. So "rococo" is a combination of the two French words, thus meaning "stone shells"

NEOCLASSICISM

Key Ideas: Neoclassicism ​

(the start of the Enlightenment)
  • 1750-1815
  • Enlightenment brought about the rejection of royal and aristocratic authority
  • Supported by Napoleon in order to associated himself with the successes of the Ancient Roman's Empire.
  • Jacques-Louis David becomes First Painter of Napoleon
  • Neoclassical art was more democratic- themes of courage and patriotism, civil duty
  • Current events depicted have classical influences
  • Late 18th century = Industrial Revolution (cast iron, and carvings from bronze is cheaper than carving marble- Coalbrookedale Bridge)

APAH 250 Images:

103. The Oath of the Horatii, Jacques-Louis David
105. Self Portrait, Elisabeth Louise Vigee Le Brun
107. Le Grande Odalisque, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres
102.  Monticello, Thomas Jefferson
104. George Washington, Jean-Antoine Houdon

ROMANTICISM

​APAH 250 Images:

107. Le Grande Odalisque, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres
106. And There's Nothing to Be Done (Y no hai remedio), Francisco de Goya
* The Third of May 1808, Francisco de Goya
* Raft of the Medusa, Théodore Géricault
108. Liberty Leading the People, Eugene Delacroix
111. Slave Ship (Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying, Typhoon Coming On), Joseph Mallord William Turner
* The Haywain, John constable
109.  The Oxbow, Thomas Cole
* Among the Sierra Nevada Mountains, California, Albert Bierstadt
* Twilight in the Wilderness, Frederic Church
112. Palace of Westminster (Houses of Parliament)​

​KEY IDEAS: ROMANTICISM

  • P.I.N.E. (Past, Irrational/inner-mind, Nature, Exotic/Emotional) 
  • Early- mid 19th century
  • Grande Odalisque is a transition painting
  • Influenced by a sense of individuality and freedom of expression
  • Exploration of the subconscious and dreams/nightmares
  • Feelings/emotions and imagination over reason
  • Landscapes express the Romantic theme of the soul + the natural world
  • Introduction of Photography
  • Revival of Medieval architecture (Houses of Parliament)

​HISTORY

  1. Death of Louis XIV in 1715 brought a resurgence of aristocratic life.
  2. Town houses became centers for the Rococo style.
  3. French Revolution broke out in 1789 which brings about an interest in the Greek ideal of Liberty and democracy. 
  4. Napoleon saw himself as a new "Caesar", crowned in 1804.
  5. Neoclassicism takes architectural hold in the U.S. with Thomas Jefferson.
  6. New ways of thinking about the new world. 
  7. Voltaire (1694-1778) = Science/Technological Improvement 
  8. Rousseau (1712-1778) = Nature alone must be society's guide

Context - Europe and France: ​

The sublime mysticism (pertaining to art) Romanticism Gothic (pertaining to Romanticism) gothic sensibility
1. Revolution - and social unrest of the 19th century (in France in particular):
  • Greek War of Independence - cause celebre for Europeans (the English poet Byron)
  • Napoleon’s invasion of Spain - the atrocities of was (Goya)
  • July Revolution 1830 - (France) overthrowing the Bourbon monarchy - Louis Philippe - constitutional monarch 4. 1848 September Revolution - (France) overthrow of Louis Philippe’s government
2. Nature - Rousseau’s writings - “back to nature” - the soul in union with the natural world - the concept that nature was a mystical experience - for Goethe, “The living garment of God”
3. Sturm and Drang - Goethe’s writings - “Felling is all!” - emotional reality trumps the intellect - “Without daring - extreme daring - there is no beauty. I do not love reasonable painting” - Delecroix
4. Exoticism - Gothic novels and writings of Poe, Hugo, and Scott - for the romantics, the gothic sensibility was something mystical, weird, and fantastic

Manifestations of Romanticism: 

1. Historical paintings of disasters, revolutions, Greek liberation - romantic realism Raft of the Medusa - Gericault The Third of May, 1808 - Goya
2. Nostalgia and Exoticism - interest in other cultures and time periods medieval (Gothic) revival (architecture)
3. Fantasy and the imagination Goya’s late work - confronting personal and national demons
4. Landscape painting (England and in America - the Hudson River School):
  • Burke’s A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origins of Our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful the most intense human emotions are evoked by pain and fear (including the great “events” in nature such as extreme weather and the sea)
  • Rousseau - believed that nature was a mystical experience when a person became completely “at one” with nature, they lost everything except the sense of being
  • Goethe - the soul in union with the natural world nature was “the living garment of God” - belief in the beauty and innocence of nature, natural man was at his most virtuous - for many artists and writers of the early 19th century, nature replaced Christianity as a religious concept and source of inspiration - the divinity of nature, a “religion of Nature”
  • Nature = truth innocence beauty virtue - the divinity of nature, a “religion of Nature” - the worship of nature equated to morality - nature was not created by man and was something received through the senses - “our existence is nothing but a succession of moments perceived through the senses