art hist final essays

1. Millais and Gauguin each reinterpret Christian imagery in their own time, but with very different approaches to realism, symbolism, and cultural setting. Compare how these two paintings relocate the holy figures—into a detailed English workshop and into a colonized Polynesian landscape—and how they use style, bodies, and religious symbols to make those scenes believable or strange. What does this pairing reveal about the difference between grounding the sacred in one’s own social world and projecting it onto an “exotic” culture?

Thesis: Even though the paintings differ in setting, style and iconography, both break away from traditional religious paintings and what it means to be “set apart” and divine,” whether that be in familiar or exotic environment

• Setting

  • Millais:

    • Set in messy carpenter’s shop

    • Domestic interior

    • Details like wood shavings on dirt on floor, wood planks stacked against wall

    • Rural countryside, sheep outside

  • Gauguin:

    • Lush outdoor space in Polynesia

    • Palm trees, plants, flowers → idealized Tahitian landscape of what Gauguin imagined as “paradise”

  • Analysis:

    • Millais - More humble and down-to-earth, familiar environment for working class people, show that divine is accessible to everyone

    • Gauguin - Projects religion onto the “exotic,” believes holiness and divinity is found far away in an “untouched” land like Polynesia

• Style/Bodies

  • Millais:

    • Christ is portrayed as small and vulnerable

    • Mary looks like a working-class mother who comforts her son → maternal and human

    • Other figures are leaning in concerned for Jesus’ injury

    • Detailed facial expressions → helps us to see their human emotions

    • Emphasized the “man” part of fully man fully God

  • Gauguin:

    • Stylized and flattened colors → more decorative rather than realistic

    • Portrays Madonna and child in Tahitian context with flowery red skirt

    • Expression is more mask-like, calm, serene → more symbolic

    • Women in background are worshiping Mary and Jesus, but otherwise seem further away, not really interacting

  • Analysis:

    • Both broke away from traditional academic depictions of Madonna and child

      • Millais - Less idealized, seem like commoners, more relatable → very human interactions, show emotion rather than stoic expressions

      • Gauguin - Dark-skinned rather than European depiction, patterned clothing of Tahitian culture instead of traditional or biblical costuming

• Religious iconography

  • Millais:

    • Symbols are part of material world and ingrained into the workshop

      • Jesus cutting his hand with nail - crucifixion

      • Wood beams - cross

      • Water basin - baptism

      • Dove on ladder - holy spirit

      • Sheep in background - sacrifice

  • Gauguin

    • More classical symbols placed in new environment

      • Halo on Mary and Jesus - holiness

      • Angel figure - divine witness

      • Hands in prayer - reverence

    • Place familiar symbols in unfamiliar culture - emphasize how these symbols are set apart and holy, while also projecting religion onto a different culture

  • Analysis

    • Millais - Show divine significance in everyday labor

    • Gauguin - Project religious iconography into a world that he believes is more “pure” and authentic

2. Both The Raft of the Medusa and Guernica are large paintings about public catastrophe, but they belong to very different artistic worlds. Compare how each work balances reportage and invention: how do Géricault and Picasso claim to show “what happened,” and how do they stylize or distort that event? In what ways do their different stylistic choices – Romantic anatomy and light versus fractured forms and black-and-white “newsprint” effects – shape the paintings’ impact as images of real historical disaster?

Thesis: Even though the artists differ in their use of color, lighting, characterization and shape, both paintings portray horrific disasters and comment on man’s cruelty, whether it’s through a single climactic moment or a more universal criticism of war.

Context:

• Raft of Medusa

  • Painted in post-Napoleonic France

  • Response to political scandal where over 135 people died out of 150 on a makeshift raft due to the incompetence of captain that resulted in not enough lifeboats

• Guernica

  • Commission that was painted in response to April 1937 bombing when German planes bombed the peaceful village of Guernica

Color/Lighting

• Gericault

  • Very dramatic - Uses chiaroscuro to show contrast b/w light and shadow

  • Stage-like spotlight - Theatrical, heroic, highlight bodies on raft

  • Corpses - Pale, cold skin tones → highlight death

  • Survivors - Warm skin tones → highlight life

  • Sky at horizon - Very bright, represent hope

• Picasso

  • Monochromatic color scheme to capture solemn feeling

  • Resemble black and white newsprint

    • Flattens scene → more timeless, universal

    • Reference to newspaper → period of mass media

    • Like collage, bodies are literally being torn apart like paper

  • Light source from light bulb - Jagged light rays, very violent, breaks up space instead of unifying space

• Analysis

  • Gericault - Uses color and light to guide the viewer through a clear storyline, dramatizes and heightens emotional intensity of moment

  • Picasso - Removes color to create feeling of numbness, highlight event as modern war atrocity in period of mass media

Characterization

• Gericault

  • Actually studied corpse bodies to draw them anatomically correct

  • Poses are very noble, hands reaching out → desperation

  • Very heroic, idealized even when dying

• Picasso

  • More abstract, symbolic

  • No individualized faces, distorted → figures are anonymous

  • More archetypical, not specific individuals but represent different responses - Screaming mother, fallen soldier, horse, fleeing women

  • Distorted bodies - Limbs twist and jaws gape unnaturally, figures shattered by violence

• Analysis

  • Gericault - Figures are personalized and idealized → highlight heroism of the victims

  • Picasso - Less personalized, fractured symbols of suffering in a mechanized war → emphasize criticism of war over individual victims

Shape

• Gericault

  • Pyramidal composition

    • Despair at bottom of pyramid, hope at top

    • Stability → clear sense of direction and narrative

    • Highlights climax at top of pyramid, specific moment

• Picasso

  • Fragmented composition

    • Sharp, jagged, geometric forms

    • Angular - Triangular jaws, diamond-shaped eyes

    • Similar to broken glass → Reflect brutality of violence

    • Chaotic diagonals - Similar to actual explosion

• Analysis

  • Gericault - Highlights specific narrative moment, organize tragedy into heroic visual narrative

  • Picasso - Emphasize chaos, violence and instability of event → more universal, comment on war as a whole rather than specific moment

3. Constable’s Golding Constable’s Kitchen Garden and Monet’s Boulevard des Capucines both present elevated views of spaces being reshaped in the aftermath of conflict and social change. Compare how each artist constructs these environments—as a family estate in post-Napoleonic Britain and as a Haussmannized Paris street after the Commune. What do their choices of viewpoint, brushwork, and the presence or absence of crowds reveal about shifting meanings of landscape, reconstruction, and bourgeois identity in the 19th century?

Thesis: Even though both artworks differ in style, brushwork and presence of figures, both use similar viewpoints to reflect on how humans control space and the ways that the rising bourgeoisie asserted status after a period of instability, whether that’s through private property or through public life.

Context:

• Golding Constable’s Kitchen Garden - Focus on family estate in post-Napoleonic Britain to highlight stability of domestic life

• Le Boulevard des Capucines - Shows newly renovated Paris street bustling with people following the Paris Commune

Viewpoint

• Constable

  • Elevated viewpoint to show view of neatly arranged plots and paths of family estate

  • Still limited - Doesn’t show beyond the estate to other parts of the city → focus on one’s intimate surroundings

• Monet

  • Elevated viewpoint above street level to capture bustling boulevard and expansiveness of Haussmanized streets

  • Highlights uniformity of the boulevards and flow of pedestrians as one collective gathering

• Analysis

  • Constable - Shows desire to assert control and stability in one’s immediate surroundings after period of uncertainty

  • Monet - New organized streets show desire for order and control, while populated streets show how people sought energy and excitement after period of uncertainty

Brushwork

• Constable

  • Precise but textured brushstrokes to define individual plants, trees, clouds, and structures → creates intimate feel of estate

  • Using careful labor to cultivate and bring out beauty in one’s natural surroundings

• Monet

  • Loose, fluid strokes to capture constant motion of crowds, carriages ad shifting light

  • Reflect bourgeois values of leisure and new energetic social life under Haussmannization

• Analysis

  • Constable - Stressed stability and beauty

  • Monet - Emphasized changing of pace and vitality

Figures

• Constable

  • Very few people on estate, only a few tiny figures tending the garden

  • Suggests intimate, private space where the natural landscape is more emphasized than human presence

  • Shows that personal wealth comes from self-sufficiency in one’s own quiet sanctuary, away from the distractions of the outside world

• Monet

  • Boulevard bustling with people, carriages and shops → people engaged in daily urban life

  • Broad boulevards designed as open spaces where people can mingle and shop

  • Blurred faces emphasize collective crowd over individual people

• Analysis

  • Show shift in bourgeoisie values in different times

    • Constable - Emphasize private ownership

    • Monet - Emphasize social life and public visibility

4. Courbet’s Burial at Ornans and Seurat’s La Grande Jatte are both large canvases filled with many figures from different social backgrounds, arranged in frieze-like bands. Compare how each painting organizes its crowd and uses style—Courbet’s Realism versus Seurat’s pointillist Neo-Impressionism—to address questions of class, ceremony, and social distance. How do these works differently visualize the tension between being together and being isolated in a modern crowd?

Thesis: Even though Courbet and Seurat differ in style and technique, both use horizontal scale and large crowds to explore how class shapes public behavior and how individuals remain isolated even within a crowd.

Horizontal scale/Crowd Organization

• Courbet

  • Mourners stand in long, continuous frieze

  • All roughly the same height → different classes are distinguishable by clothing, but all standing side by side, no single class dominates

  • Fill the entire space, minimal gaps between people

  • However, classes are distinctly grouped together by clothing - local officials, priests, nuns, regular villagers

    • Each group is distinct, but all together in one group

• Seurat

  • Vertical lines from parasols and trees + horizontal lines from shoreline and shadows create grid-like quality

  • Each group appears isolated in their own square on the grid

  • Different social groups - Bourgeois couples, nannies with children, soldiers, working class man

• Analysis

  • Courbet - Uses large horizontal scale to show the collectiveness of the community even despite class difference because they still follow the same procedure

  • Seurat - Share same physical space in a park, but are all individual units

Style

• Courbet

  • Rough and unidealized, sky is very dark and somber

  • Everyone is slouched → no heroism in death, rather just a solemn procedural event that whole community has to participate in

  • Show realities of the community → not always happy or fully united, but the different groups still tolerate each other and gather together

• Seurat

  • Pointillism style - Apply tiny dots of color in a detailed and meticulous manner → emphasize order

    • No mixing of colors or strokes, each individual point is separate → metaphor for how even though people are next to each other like the points, they don’t mix or intermingle

• Analysis

  • Courbet - Use unidealized and rough painting style to highlight the perhaps sad or less romantic realities of life

  • Seurat - Use pointillism to emphasize division of class and people sticking to their individual units

Expressions

• Courbet

  • Figures all looking in different directions

  • Different emotions: One lady wiping face with handkerchief, some are frowning, some look indifferent, some looking towards the burial site, and some looking away from the burial site

  • While physically grouped together, not completely unified

• Seurat

  • Expressions are all blank and neutral

  • Poses look very rigid, similar silhouettes → people are “locked” within their social role, no interaction between groups

5. David’s Oath of the Horatii and Malevich’s Black Square make very different claims about what a painting can be and how it should function in public. Compare how each work uses format and display—David’s enlarged history painting presented high on the Salon wall for public debate, and Malevich’s small Black Square hung in the “icon corner” of the exhibition—to signal its ambitions. How do their decisions about subject matter, simplification, and the relationship between image and viewers reflect changing ideas about the role of the artist and the boundaries of painting itself?

Thesis: Even though the paintings differ in scale, placement, subject matter and degree of simplification, both artists use these formal features to show what they believe the purpose of art should be and how viewers engage with it—David hopes to depict a clear moral lesson, while Malevich invites interpretation by depicting shape at its “0-point.”

Context

• Oath of the Horatii - Painted by Neoclassical artist Jacques-Louis David as a commission for the king, eve of French Revolution

• Black Square - Painted by Russian abstract artist Malevich during the avant-garde movement

Scale + Placement

• David:

  • Monumental size, over 10ft wide

  • Hung high on wall where everyone in salon can view it → symbolic, like a teacher, has authority over viewers

  • Size places it in “history painting” genre → meant to teach moral lessons about civic virtue

• Malevich:

  • Smaller in scale

  • Displayed at “icon corner” → traditionally reserved for religious icons in Russian homes

  • Transforms plain geometric shape into something to be contemplated like a spiritual symbol

• Analysis:

  • David - Uses scale and placement to command attention and emphasize the painting’s civic and moral authority

  • Malevich - Uses placement to elevate his abstract art and challenge traditional ideals of “spiritual art”

Subject Matter + Simplification

• David:

  • Roman story of 3 brothers swearing oath to their father to defend their city to the death

  • Women on side crying → self-sacrifice, place state’s needs above family

  • While figures are detailed and anatomically precise and shown under light, David simplifies and darkens the background to remove distractions and place focus on the oath

• Malevich:

  • Doesn’t contain traditional painting elements → no people, objects, story, setting

  • Reduced to most basic visual element: black square on white background

  • Removes recognizable subject matter → rejects idea that painting must depict real world, instead exist as independent, non-narrative experience

• Analysis:

  • David - Precise details and simplification of distracting elements help highlight moral values of story like self-sacrifice and civic virtue

  • Malevich - Radical simplification and removal of recognizable subject matter reveals Malevich’s belief that art should exist beyond material world and express pure feeling

Role of Viewer

• David:

  • Composition guides viewer through clear storyline

  • Triangular composition + converging diagonals put viewer’s attention on moment of oath

  • Arches in background frame the action

  • Minimal ambiguity - Every pose and expression is articulated

• Malevich:

  • No narrative cues

  • Viewers simply confront the emptiness and interpret the painting on their own

  • Relationship b/w painting and viewer is more open-ended

• Analysis:

  • David - Viewer is meant to take away a clear moral message

  • Malevich - More ambigous, viewer’s role is more active, meant to form their own interpretation