Content Area 4: Later Europe and the Americas

Rococo Period (France before French Revolution)

• Scientific rev and enlightenment

  • Based on ideas on logic, observation, and reason

• Absolutism

• European conquest of the indigenous populations of the world

• Nobility will regain some of their power after the death of Louis XIV in France, many will leave Versailles for townhomes in Paris

• Time period of change

• Rococo age will end with the start of the French Revolution

Fragonard’s The Swing: (Rococo)

• Greenness = fertility

• Shoes come off = sexual occurances

• Dog is barking like crazy = no fidelity

• Elicit affair, common among the noble class

• Artist: Jean-Honore Fragonard

• Oil on canvas

• Frivolity of the nobility, garden like setting, naughtiness, undercurrent of sexuality

• Atmospheric perspective

• Rococo aristocracy engaging in pleasurable activities, very different from how the rest of the french lived

• Lower left hand corned a man is hidden in the bushes look up the dress of the woman on the swing

• Man controlling the swing is unaware of the hidden youth

• Some believe the man swinging the woman is a priest

• cupid/puti statue holds finger up to lips as if shushing

• Rococo paintings were a reaction against the French Baroque that were focused on the French King

  • This would have been in a noble townhouse in Paris, a rather small painting for a smaller setting

• This painting is best known for symbolizing the arrogance and carelessness of the nobility a few decades before the french revolution

Le-Brun Self Portrait: (Rococo)

• Colors of the French flag, the revolution

• Painted in Rome while in Exile

• Oil on canvas

• Elisabeth Louise Vigee-Le Brun was the main portraitist to Marie Antoinette (she lives at Versailles)

• This painting depicts Le Brun as she paints Marie Antoinette from memory (cause she isn’t there in exile)

  • Le Brun has to flee France during the French Revolution as she was associated with the monarchy

• She wears attire that was made fashionable by Marie Antoinette

  • Turban, sash of red ribbon

• The painting depicts alert intelligence, vibrancy and freedom from care (a bit of sadness for not being with marie antoinette

The Tête à Tête, from Marriage a la Mode: (Narrative) (English Rococo)

• William Hogarth

• London

• Oil on canvas

• One of the six-paintings in a series called “marriage a la mode.” narrative series

• Pokes fun at the English nobility

• Man has been out all night with another woman, dog sniffs at bonnet in his pocket (dog is not at rest, knows something is wrong)

  • Broken sword means he has been in a fight and lost (may mean something else…)

• Wife has been playing cards all night, bodice is slightly undone, accountant holds unpaid bills knowing the couple can’t pay because of her gambling

• Turned over char shows that the violin player left hurriedly when the husband came home, music in art was symbolic for sensuality

• Classicism is depicted through the home’s interior but many inexpensive recently purchased items cheap the interior, see the fireplace mantle

  • Classical statue with a broken nose

• In another painting in the series the husband goes to the doctor to be treated for syphilis, which appears on his neck in the painting

• The rest of the paintings show the debauchery and the charade of this marriage

  • Both husband and wife have been cheating/unfaithful

  • Husband gets killed by her lover

  • She poisons herself

  • Lover is hanged

  • Infant child has syphilis

• Hogarth’s overall message is one that tells that being aristocratic is not always what it seems, to be careful of who you marry, and never marry for money or prestige

A Philosopher Giving a Lecture at an Orrery:

• Joseph Wright of Derby

• Derby, England

• Oil on canvas

• Characteristic of the Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment

• Depicts a group who came together once a month to discuss astronomy, Lunar Society

• An Orrery is an early form of a model of the solar system, a sort of planetarium

  • Imitates planetary motion

  • Unseen lamp imitates the sun

• Mixed group of middle class people

  • Different reactions on their faces (have all four phases of the moon)

• Philosopher is stylized like Isaac Newton

• An eclipse is being demonstrated

• Notetaker on the left records major points of the discussion

• Each face in the painting depicts a certain phase of the moon, Lunar Society

• Inspired by Caravaggio/s use of tenebrism

• Wright painted a number of candle lit paintings like this

Neoclassicism (Later Europe and Americas)

• A reaction to the frivolous nature of the Rococo

• Will develop out of the French Revolution (and partly American Revolution), and be embraced by Napoleon

• Many enlightenment philosophers called for a new artform that embraced higher values and virtuousness

• Will borrow heavily from Ancient Greece and Rome and partly the Renaissance

  • Self sacrifice for the common good

  • The measure of a person is the good that he accomplishes

  • Greek democracy, Roman Republic all themes of the French Revolution and American Revolution

  • Greco Roman architecture will return

Monticello: (Neoclassicism)

• Thomas Jefferson

• Charlottesville, Virginia

• Brick, glass, stone, and wood

• Monticello means little mountain in Italian

• Jefferson wanted a new architectural concept that didn’t look like the Baroque

• Chief building on Jefferson’s plantation

• Symmetrically planned interior

• Brick building, stucco is applied to look like white marble

• Tall French doors and lots of windows to allow breezes to come in from any direction (appropriates from Palladio)

  • Lightly studied Renaissance architect Palladio in college (not his major)

• Appears to be a one story building but it is actually two stories

• Octagonal dome appropriates from Pantheon

• Appropriates from the writings of Palladio and from the Roman ruins Jefferson saw in France

  • Based off architecture he saw in France as the American Minister to France (diplomat)

The Oath of the Horatii: (Neoclassicism) (Narrative, but don’t pick it)

• Jacque-Louis David

• Paris, France

• Oil on canvas

• Patron: Louis XVI

• Exemplum Virtutis - painting that exemplifies virtues of self sacrifice and honor

  • Old roman myth

• Story of three brothers that pledge loyalty to their father and to Rome

  • Going to battle against Curiatti, another family

  • Woman crying on the right is Horatii daughter who is engaged to a Curiatti

• Male forms are rigid, vigorous, and power, gestures are unified

• Classical dress and architecture in the background

• However, appropriates from caravaggio in the lighting

• Three sons will fight to the death for rome

• Painted five years before French Revolution, major economic turmoil while the aristocracy lives in luxury

  • Unfair taxation

  • Food shortages

• David provided a new type of painting, one that exemplified self sacrifice and virtuous behavior in a time when those power showed none

• Considered to be the start of Neoclassical painting

• David created quite a stir at the Salon Art Exhibit in Paris as this piece was a complete departure from the Rococo

George Washington: (Neoclassicism)

• Jean-Antoine Houdon

• Carrara Marble

• Houdon from Paris, usually depicted subjects in classical dress, togas

• Washington demanded that he be depicted as an 18th century gentlemen

  • Vest too small

  • Protruding stomach

  • Button missing from jacket

• Houdon depicted Washington as a man of vision and the Enlightenment

• Badge of Cincinnatus

  • Cincinnatus was a Roman general that left his farm to temporarily become a dictator during crisis

  • Returned to the farm when the crisis was over. Very similar to Washington

  • Washington returned to his farm after presidency, many thought he might perform a coup d’etat

• Symbolism:

  • Plow behind Washington - plantation

  • Roman Fasces - rod tightly bound together like the 13 colonies

  • Washington leads on the 13 rods of the fasces as if his support comes from the 13 colonies

  • Gentleman’s walking stick in his hand, sword over at his sife

  • Stands very similarly to Polykleitos’ Doryphoros and therefore Augustus of Primaporta

  • Houdon consulted with Washington on all of these symbols

• An 18th Century American depicted of power

  • Power that is service to one’s country and the notion that power comes from the people

Romanticism (Later Europe and Americas)

• An embrace of freedom and democracy but a reaction to the French Rev and Age of Napoleon

• A reaction to the notion that reason embraced in the Enlightenment could solve all problems

  • It didn’t, it lead to the Reign of Terror

• An embrace of emotion over reason, nature over industry

• Romantics promoted freedom of expression, individual thought, and social independence

• Romantic artists often embraced gloomy, depressed, and pensive mindsets

• Romantic artists will embrace individuals capable of great heroic deeds

• Romantics will “romanticize” the middle ages as being a simpler, more honest time period

• Photography will develop in this time period

Y no hai remedio (And There's Nothing to Be Done), from Los Desastres de la Guerra: (culturally significant event + narrative) (Romanticism)

• Francisco de Goya

• Etching

• From the “Disasters of War Series”

  • 82 images that are critical of Napoleon’s occupation of Spain

  • Spain was in continuous warfare at this time period (and prior)

  • Original title, “Fatal Consequences of Spain’s Bloody War with Bonaparte and Other Emphatic Caprices”

  • Series explore the themes of war, famine, politics, power, and death

• And There is Nothing To Be Done

  • Spanish patriots about to be executed without a trial by French soldiers

  • Goya depicts them as civilians

  • French soldiers awaiting the order to fire

  • Mangled body on the ground

• A critique on the “Enlightened” rule of Napoleon

La Grande Odalisque: (Romanticism)

• Jean-Auguste Ingres

• Paris

• Oil on canvas

• Patron is the Bonaparte Queen of Naples (Napoleon’s sister), out of power when the piece was completed

• Ingres is David’s student

• Considered to be a blend of neoclassical and romantic 

• Should be viewed as a continuation of the development of the female nude

• Depicts a French interpretation of a Turkish Harem - French Imperialism (romanticizing the concept of the foreigner)

• Has elements of exotic (foreign) which are the romanticizing elements

  • Turban

  • Hookah

  • Feather fan

• Elements of Renaissance mannerism, back is elongated, left leg is out of place, right arm is very long

  • This was done to give an element of sensuality

  • These are the classicizing elements

• Appropriated from the Neoclassical pieces by David, Ingres’ master

• Compare to:

  • Titian’s Venus of Urbino

  • Manet’s Olympia

  • Any piece showing the female form

Liberty Leading the People: (Culturally significant event) (Romanticism)

• Eugene Delacroix

• Paris

• July Revolution of 1830 that overthrows Bourbon King Charles X and installs Citizen King Louis Philippe

• Symbolism:

  • Red, white, and blue motifs throughout the painting

  • Child represents students that were a major part of the uprising

  • Middle class man with rifle (Delaxcroix), lower class man with sword show that this is a “revolt of the people”

  • Liberty wears a red cap that is worn in the ancient world by freed slaves

  • Notre Dame Cathedral can barely be seen through the smoke

  • French Tricolor from the first revolution is carried by liberty

• French government sought to hight the painting from 1831 to 1856 because of its subversive message

• Iconic image to the final downfall of the Ancient Regime

Slave Ship: (humans and nature) (Romanticism)

• JMW Turner

• English Romanticism

• Oil on canvas

• Full name: Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying, Typhoon Coming On

• Based on true story from 1781

  • Slaves were insured against accidental drowning but not sickness

  • Illness started spreading through the ship

  • The captain cast the sick overboard because he couldn’t collect insurance unless they drowned

• Slavery was outlawed in England in 1833, but some exceptions were still allowed in terms of trade

• This painting brought the horrors of slavery back into the public eye

• Recognizable forms but unclear

  • Ship, hands, chains

  • Turbulent seascape, storm

  • Foreboding sunset acts as a symbol of the inhumanity

• Turner used loose and rapid brushstrokes

View from Mount Holyoke: (humans and nature) (Romanticism)

• Thomas Cole, American Romanticist

• Also called The Oxbow

• Oil on canvas

• Cole is the founder of the Hudson River School which painted American landscapes in a Romanticist style

• Massachusetts landscape

  • Division of two different landscapes

  • Left: dark, dense forest, boats on river, bright clear weather

• Painted as a reply to a British book that Americans had destroyed their environment with industrialization 

• Manifest Destiny is an undercurrent of this piece in the manner in which it shows civilization slowly taking over the land

  • Tiny homes with fireplaces

  • Agriculture

  • Herding

  • Ferry

• Compare to:

  • Fan Kuan’s Travellers

  • Pieter Brughel’s Hunters in the Stone

  • Any landscapes

Still Life in Studio: (Romanticism)

• Louis Daguerre

• France

• Daguerreotype (early photography)

• Still life inspired by painted still lifes like vanitas paintings

• Variety of textures: fabric, wicker, metal, wood

• Daguerreotype was an early form of the camera that has no negative and imprints an image on shiny metal with the use of photosensitive (light) chemicals

• Significant because it is the advent of a new form of art that will play a significant role in the 20th Century

• Not Romantic, just something that occurs in the time period

Palace of Westminster (Houses of Parliament): (governing authority in architecture) (Romanticism)

• Romanticism = romanticize the middle ages, why it looks gothic

• Barry and Pugin

• Victorian Era, London

• Limestone, masonry, and glass

• Parliament building burned down in 1835. Competition held for a new design. Barry and Pugin won

• Enormous structure, 1100 rooms, 100 staircases, 2 miles of hallways

• Barry was a classical architect, which accounts for the classical “Elizabethan” elements and layout of the building (more greco-roman, mostly in the rotunda - from pantheon)

• Pugin was a gothic architect, which accounts for the gothic elements and exterior decoration

• Romanticist because of Gothic elements

• Big Ben is the clock tower that is meant to be a village clock tower for all of England

• Central lobby:

  • Situated between the House of Commons and House of Lords

  • Constituents can meet their Parliamentarians here

  • Sculptures of the Kings and Queens of England and Scotland around the sides of an octagonal room

    • Similar to the rotunda of the US Capital

  • Four very large mosaics over each doorway representing the four saints that represent the different parts of Great Britain

• Westminster Hall:

  • This portion of the building is the only part that remains of the original building that burned

• The entire structure was built during the Industrial Revolution which was viewed as dark, polluting, and ugly. 

• Building this in a Gothic style showed a desire to return to the part, to a simpler time, along with showing historical permanence of the government. 

• This example of the embrace of the Medieval is what makes the Palace of Westminster Romanticism

• Compare to:

  • Versailles

  • Forum of Trajan

  • The Agora

  • Forbidden City

  • Nan Madol

  • Or any governing structure related to power and authority

Realism (Later Europe and Americas)

• Brought on by the revolutions of 1848 that started in France and spread throughout Europe

  • Revolutions focused on bringing about democracy, better conditions for the working class

  • Inspired Karl Marx to write the Communist Manifesto

• Artists began to want to push the limits of what was considered to be “art”

• Realism was a reaction to the manner in which Romanticism romanticized the past and focused on emotions and vague ideas. Realists wanted that which honest, real, and gritty

• Courbet, “Show me an angel and I will paint one.” is a major theme of the realists

• Realists often painted the lower classes in their environment 

The Stonebreakers: (Realism)

• Gustave Courbet

• France

• Oil on canvas

• Courbet submitted this piece to the Salon of Paris art exhibition. Created a great shock

• Stone breaking to build a paved road

• Poverty is emphasized, old man and young man. Born poor, die poor

• Reaction to the labor unrest of Revolutions of 1848

• Massive painting, which is usually reserved for grand historical or governmental pieces

Nadar Elevating Photography to Art: (Realism)

• Honore Daumier

• Lithograph

• Nadar was a photographer that took aerial photographs of Paris in the 1850s

• Lithograph depicts Nadar as so focused on a good picture that he almost falls from balloon, loses hat

• Every building has “photographie” written on it

• Mocks the idea of photography as art

• Completed after a french court decision that determined photography to be art and should be considered art by the Paris Salon

Olympia: (Realism)

• Edouard Manet

• Paris, France

• Oil on canvas

• Created a scandal at the Paris Salon of 1865

• Appropriates from Titian’s Venus of Urbino

• Unlike Venus, Olympia’s is cold, uninviting, and making direct eye contact with the viewer

• A mistress was common to upper class Parisian men at this time

• Olympia is a common “stage name” for a courtesan/prostitute in Paris

• Maid delivers flowers from an admirer or customer

• Simplified modeling, yet her hands are highly modeled with shadowigng

• Not a classically beautiful face like Urbino, instead it is a real woman’s face with natural imperfections

• Dark contrasts

• Cat at foot of bed (Urbino’s dog)

  • Dogs are loyal, cats will leave if you don't give them what they want

• Created a stir due to the fact it was a prostitute being depicted as a Venus

• Her uncaring and direct look was found to be unnerving to the viewers

The Horse in Motion: (Narrative, but not really telling a story) (Realism)

• Eadweard Muybridge

• Patron: Leland Stanford

• Photograph

• By 1870s photography now advanced enough that it can capture moments the human eye cannot

• In this piece a bank of cameras snap pictures triggered by trip wires at different points on a horse track, showing sequence

• Designed to show whether a horse ever takes all four feet off the ground

• Photography has advanced greatly and is now better able to catch an exact moment in time

• Major influence to impressionist painters

• Compare to other technical advancements in art:

  • Steel in architecture

  • Oil paint vs fresco

  • Lost wax technique vs subtractive method

The Valley of Mexico from the Hillside of Santa Isabel: (humans in nature) (Realism)

• Jose Maria Velasco

• Mexico

• Oil on canvas

• Velasco was mainly a landscape painter by training

• Keen observer of nature: rocks, clouds, and waterfalls

• Rejected realist landscapes of Courbet and the Romanticist landscapes of JMW Turner

• Glorifies the Mexican countryside

• Mexico City can be seen off in the distance

• Basilica of Guadalupe can be seen (Virgin of Guadalupe)

• Lake Texcoco is seen yet it has been somewhat filled in

• Hints of industrialization appear, dust kicked up by machines

• Two volcanoes in the back are major parts of Aztec myths

• Essentially, this painting is a celebration of Mexico, its history, present, and mythology

• Compare to culturally significant landscapes:

  • Fan Kuan’s Travellers

  • The Oxbow

  • Bruegal

  • The Great Wave

Impressionism (Later Europe and Americas)

• A growth out of realism in the idea that an artist can break the rules

• Heavy influence of Japanese Woodblock Prints that were being brought from Japan

  • Highly influential, new and out of the ordinary for western art

  • Japanese carved designs on wood, colored, and used as a sort of stamp to recreate the image in the wood

  • Impressionists were highly inspired and included elements into their paintings

• Main characteristics:

  • Very bourgeoisie, middle class

  • Momentary slice of life

  • Effect of light on color instead of light on black

  • Very limited use of black paint

  • Use of complementary colors

  • Cropped edges (influence of photography)

• Avant-Garde, impressionists were considered “ahead of the mainstream” and somewhat radical - rejected by the salon

• Their art will become mainstream and then will no longer be considered avant garde

• Manet, Monet, Degas, Cassatt

The Saint-Lazare Station: (Impressionism)

• Claude Monet

• France

• Oil on canvas

• Exhibited at the impressionist exhibition of 1877

• Monet is famous for painting series of paintings of the same object at different times of day, seasons, months, years

• This is one of the series depicting this train station

• Effects of steam, light, and color are the primary concern, the travelers and machines are secondary

• Forms dissolve, colors become the main focus to the viewer

• Monet usually focused on natural settings and landscapes

• This one focused on modern machine, industrialization

• Line is almost ignored

• Shows the effect of industrialization on French society, but also gives the notion of a growing middle class that can live in suburbs

• Monet’s intent is to focus on the play of light and color rather than creating an academically correct image of a train coming into a station

The Coiffure:

• Mary Cassatt

• France (Cassatt is an American expatriate)

• Drypoint and aquatint (form of etching with color)

• Able to be mass reproduced

• 1890 the French School of Fine Arts showcased a number of Japanese Woodblock prints (The Wave was one)

• Woodblock prints had a tremendous effect on the young artists of the time period

• Cassat’s work is almost always of women, women who are depicted without men, independent 

• No posing or acting, momentary slice of life

• Highly appropriates Japanese Woodblock art

• Japanese hairstyle and point of view, seen from the back

• Contrasting curves of the female figure with the straight lines of the wall and chair

• Pastel colors

• Cassatt made hundreds of these etchings in her home studio between 1890-91

• Her pieces depicted the bourgeois working class women of the 19th century

• White nude, but there is no eroticism

• More based on a momentary slice of life as a working woman gets ready

• After a few quality reprints, Cassatt would destroy the copper on which the originally etching was created so that it wouldn’t be copied

Post Impressionism (Later Europe and Americas)

• Should be seen as an extension of Impressionism, not a completely different genre

• post-Impressionists wanted to focus on line, shape, and color more than impressionists did

• Abstract versions of the natural world that were almost the opposite of the Renaissance’s desire to closely imitate nature

• Post Impressionists wanted to do more than just copy nature, they wanted to include the artist’s interpretation of nature

The Starry Night: (humans in nature) (Post Impressionism)

• Vincent Van Gogh

• Oil on canvas

• Thick short brushstrokes, impasto technique

• Possibly a view from Van Gogh hospital room in St. Remy

• Part of the plain white canvas can be seen in the swirls of different parts, every space need not be filled

• Left to right wave like design broken by a tree and church steeple, stars over a placid village

• Cyprus looking tree looks like a green flame, cyprus is a tradition symbol of death and eternal life

• Van Gogh completed Starry Night while in an asylum for a breakdown

• His room had a view, but the studio where he painted it did not

• It is believed that Starry Night is his mind’s interpretation, painted from memory

• Strong example of post impressionism as it is more focused on the artist’s interpretation other than reality

Where do we come from? Where are we going?: (Narrative + blending of cultures) (Post Impressionism)

• Paul Gauguin

• French, painted in Tahiti

• Oil on canvas

• Gauguin will paint this in Tahiti after he leaves France

• He suffered from infections, very impoverished, mental health issues

• Painting reflects the emotions he felt with the death of this daughter

  • He planned to kill himself and have this painting be his last piece

    • He didn't

• It is supposed to tell the story of life, read RIGHT to LEFT

• Right: birth and starting of life

• Middle: mid life, making your way in the world

• Left: death

  • Death figure is that of a Peruvian mummy that was exhibited in Paris, this mummy will appear in many pieces of art at this time

• Uses Tahitian motifs throughout

• Blue Tahitian idol represents the afterlife/spirituality

• Tahiti depicted to be an Eden like place

• Gauguin was influenced by many non Western cultures, a product of 19th century Imperialism

  • Egyptian figures used for inspiration

  • Japanese woodblock prints when Gauguin uses solid fields of color

  • Tahitian imagery, Tahiti is a French colony at this time

• Gauguin saw this painting as his ultimate personal expression

• Most significant because it embodies Post Impressionist characteristics with the influence of non-Western cultures

Mont Sainte-Victoire: (humans and nature, but not an anchor piece) (Post Impressionism)

• Paul Cezanne

• France

• Oil on canvas

• One of 11 in a series about this mountain

• Painted towards the end of Cezanne’s life

• Many Post Impressionist artists were painting very flat painting that were influenced by Japanese Wood-block prints

• Cezanne detested flat paintings, wanted to show the true solid nature of the subject matter in a Post Impressionistic style (houses are the only thing that have lines)

• He sought rounded compositions with geometric construction made with color splashes

• Employed proper perspective, which many post impressionist artists did not

  • Did this by putting darker, heavier colors in the forward part of the image and cooler, lighter colors in the background

• Not impressionist because Cezanne is more focused on geometric forms than momentary lighting and slices of life 

• Significant because Cezanne is pushing the boundaries and adapting what PI artists were doing. 

  • Will have major impact on the Cubists like Picasso

• Compare to other landscapes

  • Hunters

  • Valley of Mexico

  • Travellers

Symbolism

• Trying to symbolize a state of mind

• Reaction against the 19th century belief in the advance of science and technology

• Sometimes called Art Nouveau

• Sometimes it is mistaken for post-impressionism

• Artists were less concerned with the visible world of surface appears

• Major artists were Rousseau, Munch, Klimt, and Rodin

• Heavily influenced by romanticism and Goya’s black painting like Saturn Devouring His Children

• Instread… the focus of their art was to give visual form to states of mind

  • Imagination taking precedence over nature

  • Visualizing an emotion, fear, anxiety, or idea, not necessarily realistic

  • Irrational notions within the mind

  • Sigmund Freud and Psychology are major topics of discussion at this time

The Scream: (Symbolism)

• Edvard Munch

• Norwegian

• Tempera and Pastel on cardboard

• Munch uses long thick brushstrokes swirling around the painting

• Peruvian mummy exhibit in Paris, same as Guagin, was the inspiration

• Figure cries out in scream, landscape echoes the emotions of the figure

• Colors symbolize anguish (not nature)

• Figure looks emancipated with a skull-like head

• Has patterns that are similar to another contemporary art form known as Art Nouvea

The Kiss: (Symbolism)

• Gustav Klimt

• Art Nouveau/Symbolism

• Vienna Austria

• Oil on canvas with gold leaf

• Art Nouveau movement began around 1890 and will end at WWI

  • Sought to combine many art forms into one, a unification of mediums

• The Kiss shows very little of the human body, just the two heads, four hands, two feet

• Male figure is symbolized by rectangular symbols and the female by circular/round symbols

• Suggestive of passion, all consuming love, sensuality, eroticism yet not overtly sexual

• The turning of the man’s neck is suggestive of power and control

• The woman’s hand caressing the man’s hand as he pulls her in

• Reminiscent of the icons from the Byzantine empire

• Gustav Klimt may have been trying to create a modern icon by showing the escape that passion provides lowers.

The Burghers of Calais: (culturally significant event) (Late 19th Century Sculpture)

• Auguste Rodin

• Bronze casting

• Patron: city council of Calais

• The artist’s interpretation includes the work of his hands like the impressionist painter’s brush strokes can be seen

  • The physical imprint of the artist’s hand is analogous to the impressionists brush strokes

• Tells the story of the burghers of Calais that sacrificed themselves to save their city during the 100 years war in the 1300s

• By offering their lives the burghers ensured the people of Calais would be given food after a long siege 

• Sculpture embodies the feelings that many french felt after the germans took over france in 1871 during the franco-prussian war

  • Very tied to the nationalism of the time

• Each figure was sculpted individually and each one shows a different reaction to their impending death

  • All figures suffer from lack of food

  • Some fearful, some resigned, some pitifully sad, some committed their death for their city

• Central figure is eustache de saint pierre, noose around neck for hanging

• Rodin intended for the sculpture to be placed at ground level so viewers could see the emotions eye to eye

• The city of calais will reject the work, they wanted something that showed a single personification of the figures, they wanted something heroic

  • City council insisted on a federal to life the figures up

  • Rodin cast another set for eye level and put it in paris