id 2242 neoclassicism and (intro to) romanticism

neoclassicism and romanticism

neoclassicism:
- late 18th century - early 19th
- continues characteristics of moralizing art and rejects rococo
- didacticism, moral stories about being a good citizen of the new french republic

romanticism:
- 19th century
- literature; “the sublime” story-telling about tragedy
→tragic events: shipwrecks, murder, tragic heroes, martyrs, anti-heroes;; “irrational nature” “irrational consciousness: nightmares”

Jacques-Louis David, Oath of the Horatii, 1784
Neoclassicism

subject matter:
- Livy’s The History of Rome (1st c. BC): 3 members of the Roman Horatii family have been chosen for a duel against 3 from the Curiatii family to settle disputes b/w Romans & another city

content: Horace - father, Horatii - family
- story of “sacrifice” of the individual for the good of many
- used as propaganda for the french revolution

*one of the daughters (on right) is married to one of the enemy (she’ll either lose her husband or her brother)

melodramatic moment: horace in center; axial balance; 3 brothers paralleling in agreement (parallelism = unified)
→ (“Baroque subject matter”) *but w/ selection of story of heroism
- (“cult of hero”) *patriotic/political agenda
- hero = good citizen → french rev. propaganda

composition: all action in the foreground, stage-like setting, tenebroso
- life-size scale artwork → adds to the depth of the story
- architecture divides them: sons on left, father centered, daughters on right
- repetition of red/blue colors (drawing on patriotic colors → french flag)

The French Revolution

1789 - 1799: societal reform
overthrow of monarchy
establishment of a (democratic) republic
storming of the bastille, 1789
signing of the “rights of man,” 1791
reign of terror: more than 18k citizens executed by guillotine in 1793 to 1794

signing of the “rights of man & citizen”, 1791
1. men are born and remain free and equal in rights
2. preservation of the rights of man: liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression

republican calendar
→ celebrated the revolution “as a return to natural time,” counted Year 1 from 1791 and remained until Year XIV (1806)
→ renaming months after the seasons—Brumaire, Germinal, Thermidor
→ weeks divided into ten day units called the decade
- days: Primodi, Duodi, Tridi, Quartidi w/ the 10th day, the Decadi, as the official day of rest
→ replacing holidays w/ names of flowers, veggies, and farming utensils: day of the pumpkin, day of the eggplant, etc

republican time:
→ each day in the calender was divided into 10 hours, each hour into 100 decimal minutes
→ an hour = 144 conventional min
→ a min = 86.4 conventional sec
→ a sec = 0.864 conventional sec

David, Death of Marat, 1763
Neoclassicism

“cult of the hero”

Jean-Paul Marat: best known as a radical journalist and politician from the french revolution
→ assassinated on July 1793 by Charlotte Corday, while he soaked in a bath as treatment for a skin condition

• didactic: how to be a good citizen

  • death = peaceful

• propaganda for french revolution

  • politician at work, simplicity of setting

“Baroque composition”: all action in foreground, stage-like setting, tenebroso

propaganda → “the pen is mightier than the sword”

David, Napoleon Crossing the Alps, 1800
Neoclassicism

“cult of the hero”: engaged eye, control of animal

approx. 9ft tall and 7ft wide → life-size

Napoleon Bonaparte: (Corsica, 1769 - 1821)
- while a general, invaded Egypt
- 1799, seized power in France
- crowned himself emperor, 1804
1800: crosses Alps to Italy to reinforce French troops fighting against Austrian occupation
*signature in bottom right, also has leader before him → Hannibal, Charles the Great

Antoine Jean Gros, Pest House at Jaffa, 1804
Neoclassicism

commissioned by Napoleon

+in 1799 during the campaigns in the middle east, while in Jaffa, Napoleon’s army fell victim to a plague epidemic
+Napoleon visited them in a hospital (called a Pest House: “pestilence”)

→ Napoleon in the hero here (cult of the hero → him touching the plague victim)

+life-size scale, setting → mosque, minaret

Theodore Gericault, The Mounted Officer of the Imperial Guard, 1812
Romanticism

~he’s a deserter → fleeing from battle
~anti-hero
~tragic story

• romance literature: “the sublime”

  • introduced into french culture by Edmund Burke, “A Philosophical Inquiry into our idea of the sublime & the beautiful,” 1756":

    • educational reform, studied “how we learn” → “how a lesson is engraved in our being”

  • proposed that we have a sublime experience when we intensely learn something: awe inspiring, intense, emotional

~ tragic story, victim, fear, ugliness, “irrationality”

• literature, art, drama: ways of having a “sublime" experience” as a surrogate and not a victim

George Stubbs, Lion Attacking a Horse, 1763
Romanticism

content:
the sublime: tragedy, irrationality/power

Henry Fuseli, The Nightmare, 1781
Romanticism

the sublime: an incubus, engaged eye

~incubus: male demon, lies to sleeping people
~female horse: Germanic folktales: ppl in bad dreams visited by horses/hags

J.A.D Ingres, Oedipus and the Sphinx, 1801
Romanticism

“refers to a type of French novel”
~Roman a clef / roman a cle: “tragic twist in a plot”

Romantic literature - a story w/ tragic overtones

• “the sublime” as subject matter

embodying answer to riddle: a human → as a child crawls on all fours, as an adult walks on 2 legs, in old age uses a stick as a 3rd leg

• child→ abandoned: crawling on 4s

• mature adult: Oedipus at cave

• blinded man: walking w/ stick

planimetric separation:

• used to tell episodes in story

• foreground (sphinx, riddle), middle ground (witness), background (Thebes: where tragedy concludes)

implied lines

Goya, Saturn Devouring his Children, 1823
Romanticism

saturn/crones: roman god

• prophesized that one day Saturn would lose power when one of his children would depose him

  • to prevent: he ate his kids

• when 6th, Jupiter (eventually defeats Saturn), was born, the wife spirited him away to Crete island

tragic “sublime”

out of focus: “irrationality”

tenebroso

engaged eye: wild eyed

Goya, Third of May 1808, 1814
Romanticism

may 2nd 1808

• spanish peasants rose up against mercenaries of Napoleon’s army occupying Madrid

may 3rd

• revolutionaries were killed by firing squad by the French army

tenebroso

sublime

moment: tragic

~sequence: waiting to be killed, then you’re up, then outcome
~firing squad → united force

• you don’t see the moment, you see the anxiety building up to the moment

viewer’s vantage point: parallel

~guy holding hands up: cross → crucifix of Christ