Chapter 19: Rococo and Neoclassicism

Industrial Revolution

The \______ began in the latter half of the eighteenth century, and while it brought about improvements in quality of life, it was frequently countered by a new form of slavery to mechanized labor and harsh working conditions.

Enlightenment

A period of new intellectual development during which scientists and philosophers began to base their theories on logic and observation rather than on received wisdom and tradition.

Diderot

He organized and edited a massive 52-volume French encyclopedia in 1764

Johnson

He composed the first English dictionary singlehandedly in 1755

Rousseau

He discussed how a legitimate government was an expression of the general will in his 1762 Social Contract.

Johann Winckelmann

He publish The History of Ancient Art in 1764 when he discovered Pompeii

Academy

an institution whose main objectives include training artists in an academic tradition, ennobling the profession, and holding exhibitions

French Academy

They showcased selected works by its members in an annual or biannual event called the Salon, which greatly increased an artist's prestige and the value of their paintings.

Salon

a government-sponsored exhibition of artworks held in Paris in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries

Grand Tour

in order to complete their education young Englishmen and Americans in the eighteenth century undertook a journey to Italy to absorb ancient and Renaissance sites

Fête galante

an eighteenth-century French style of painting that depicts the aristocracy walking through a forested landscape

Rococo art

This art is sensual and erotic, with playful scenes of love and romance that tease the imagination.

Rococo paintings

These paintings features curvy, delicate frames with limbs of figures spilling over the sides, blurring the line between painting and sculpture.

Pastel

a colored chalk that when mixed with other ingredients produces a medium that has a soft and delicate hue

Satirical Paintings

Eighteenth-Century English Painting was known mostly for \_____.

Neoclassical buildings

These were not simply imitations of ancient architecture but rather a smart adaptation of classical principles for modern living.

Monticello

It is a “little mountain” in Italian, sited on a hilltop in Virginia.

exemplum virtutis

Paintings like the retelling of the story of the Horatii were called \____, as they emphasized self-sacrifice for the greater good.

Bronze

It was the most expensive and highly prized sculptural medium before the Industrial Revolution.

13 colonies united in a cause

Washington leans on the Roman fasces: a group of rods bound together on the top and the bottom; the 13 rods symbolize the _________.

wild frontier

Arrows between the rods likely refer to Native Americans or the idea of America as _____.

Plow

____ behind Washington symbolizes his plantation as well as the planting of a new world order.

The Swing

* By Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1767)
* Pastel palette; light brushwork; a dreamlike setting.
* Commissioned by an unnamed “gentleman of the Court”
* Fragonard answers the libertine intentions of his patron by painting in the Rococo style.

Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun Self-Portrait

* By Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun (1790)
* Light Rococo touch in the coloring.
* The artist was 45 when this was painted, but she appears much younger.
* Subject in the painting looks admiringly upon the painter.

The Tête à Tête from Marriage à la Mode

* By William Hogarth (c. 1743)
* Highly satiric paintings about a decadent English aristocracy and those who would have liked to buy their way into it.
* A series of six narrative paintings; later turned into a series of prints.

A Philosopher Giving a Lecture on the Orrery

* By Joseph Wright of Derby (1763–1765)
* One of a series of candlelight pictures by Wright; inspired by Caravaggio’s use of tenebrism.
* Influenced by a provincial group of intellectuals called the Lunar Society
* Each face in the painting is an aspect of the phases of the moon.

Monticello

* By Thomas Jefferson (1768–1809)


* A brick building with stucco applied to the trim to give the effect of marble.


* Name itself is “little mountain” in Italian, sited on a hilltop in Virginia.
* Inspired by books by the Italian Renaissance architect Palladio and by Roman ruins Jefferson saw in France.

The Oath of the Horatii

* By Jacques-Louis David (1784)
* Painted under royal patronage, Louis XVI.
* Story of three Roman brothers who do battle with three other brothers from the nearby city of Alba
* Exemplum virtutis.

George Washington

* By Jean-Antoine Houdon (1788–1792)
* Naturalistic details
* Stance inspired by Polykleitos’s Doryphoros
* Commissioned by the Virginia legislature
* Meant to commemorate the central position for founding of American independence.