Art from 1780-1880 Midterm

Benjamin West, The Death of General Wolfe, 1770

• History paintings done in classical dress up until this point

• Portraying the Battle of Quebec between French and English, English win and decide the colonies 

• Composition forms a pyramid

• General Wolfe positioned like death of Jesus; he’s a martyr

• Indigenous warrior looks like The Thinker

• Military paintings were always done in the classical style; they are in contemporary dress

• Revolutionized history painting

Joseph Wright of Derby, A Philosopher Lecturing on the Orrery, 1776

• Mechanical depiction of the movement of the planets

• This is a painting depicting the Enlightenment; science is the basis for things

• Light is brightest on kids faces as they are the future

Henry Fuseli, The Nightmare, 1781

• Imp/incubus sitting on chest is representing how its hard to breathe

• The mare represents “nightmare”; evil spirit who suffocates people

• Sleep/dreams were big subject for Fuseli

• Unrequited love, love lost

Jacques-Louis David, Oath of the Horatii, 1785

• His first royal commission, loved by the king

• First really big success

• Comes from story about Horus (everybody dies)

  • Men swearing to act on behalf of Rome

  • Women mourning already, someone is going to be hurt 

• Diagonal construction of painting gives movement

  • Roman arches and columns

• Loyalty to the state, no matter the cost

• Light appears on the swords the most (the oath)

• Proposing new ideals of public virtue

Jacques-Louis David, The Death of Marat, 1793

• A pamphleteer after French Revolution 

• Poses Marat like the Pieta by Michelangelo

• Stab mark similar to Deposition of Christ by Caravaggio

• Trying to portray Marat as “one of us”

• Shallow space, use of light

Goya, Portrait of the Duchess of Alba, 1797

• Husband has died, in mourning

• Covered in lace

• Pointing down to words reading “only Goya”

• Idea that she and Goya had love affair

• She only wants him doing her portraits

• Rings say “Alba” and “Goya”

Goya, The Dream of Reason Produces Monsters, from Los Caprichos, 1797-98

• Statement of artistic principles

• Reason is counterbalance to imagination, stress of imagination looks forward to romantic era

• Owls=foley, bats=ignorance, cats=witchcraft

Jacques-Louis David, The Sabine Women, 1799

• Ends up becoming court painter to Napoleon

• Women and babies in the middle of the battlefield

  • Women are trying to stop the war

• This worked

• Idea of pleading for people to reunite after revolution, love prevailing over conflict

Goya, Family of Carlos IV, 1800-01

• Reached top of ladder of painter

• Everyone sketched separately and then put together

• Queen Maria Lousia seizes husbands power

• Face turned away bc she hasn’t married into family yet

• Poking fun at vs. being complicit to royal family

• Includes himself in background

Jacques-Louis David, Napoleon Crossing the Alps at the St. Bernard Pass, 1800-01

• Image of a contemporary scene, in contemporary dress

• Napoleon going to the Battle of Marengo between France and Austria

• Equates himself to Hannibal and Charlemagne

• Heroic posing, used for propaganda

Antoine-Jean Gros, Bonaparte Visiting the Plague House at Jaffa, 1804

• Show Napoleon as humane leader

• Napoleon touches the sick, didn’t know how illness spread

• Needed this because his men r*pe, pillage, steal, and k*ll thousands of civilians, Napoelon ordered slaughter of 3,000 surrendered Turkish soldiers 

• Left behind 50 of his sick men, ordered they should be poisoned

• Makes him look compassionate, republican virtue (Horatii), channeling God like figure healing the sick (making himself semi-divine)

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Portrait of Napoleon on his Imperial Throne, 1806

• Commissioned by legislative body

• Holding Charlemagne's scepter and Hand of Justice of French Kings in the other hand

• Golden laurel wreath, coronation robes

• Many people viewed this as a step too far

• Alluded openly to the extent of his powers

Goya, Execution of the Rebels on the Third of May 1808, 1814

• Horrors of war had profound impression on Goya

• French soldiers firing squad

• People on right waiting to be shot

• Central focus is man in white pose like crucified Christ, dying for his cause

• Often considered first work of modern art

Caspar David Friedrich, Woman in Front of the Setting Sun, c. 1818-20

• Feeling when we realize how small we are in front of nature

• Half see has positive, communion with nature

• Others see path as announcement of death and boulders are faith

• Metaphorical communion with God

Thèodore Gèricualt, The Raft of the Medusa, 1819

• Ship taking colonists to Senegal, ship runs aground, not enough lifeboats

• Moment is when the remaining people on raft are found

• Caused scandal bc people blame king for drunk aristocratic captain

• Give us the moment of hope when they spot Argos, also fear they won’t be spotted

• Diagonals

• Black cabin boy given place of heroism in painting bc Géricault was an abolitionist 

• Naked instead of nude

• Awesomeness of nature, wave/storm clouds

• First time in modern history that contemporary subject was used to contest regime rather than propaganda for it

Eugène Delacroix, Scenes from the Massacres at Chios, 1824

• Greek fight against Ottoman Turks

• Ottoman Turks massacring Greeks on island of Chios

• Those not killed were sold into slavery

• More interested in color over line

Caspar David Friedrich, Hutten’s Grave, 1824

• Imaginary monument of nationalist

• Epithet of Patriotic movement, all hope completely abandoned 

• Gothic ruin with man (freedom righter) reflecting at monument

• Names of fighters of 1813 inscribed on base

• Broken statute of Hope

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, The Vow of Louis XIII, 1824

• Broke through back in France, commissioned by Ministry of Interior

• Louis XIII placing France under protection of Virgin of Assumption

• First major public showing since Napoleon on imperial throne

• Returned to super traditional representation of royalty and church 

• Based on Rafael’s Sistine Madonna

• Spectacular success, propaganda, union of church and state

• First critical accolades and election to academie

• Expands historical painting to include French/European history not just classical history

Eugène Delacroix, The Death of Sardanapalus, 1824

• Painted before Delacroix visits Morocco

• Diplomatic party sent by France to Morocco, Delacroix goes to paint pictures (like photographic press)

• Based on poem written by Byron of the same name written in 1821

• Sardanapalus is king of Nineveh in Assyria (between Tigris and Euphrates)

• Chaotic, strong diagonal and sharper focused middle

• In poem S was harsh to everyone

  • As palace is besieged, S doesn't want others to get stuff (women, servants, animals) so he kills them

  • The bed he’s lounging on will become his pyre

• Male fantasy of naked women, violence and sex

• Lurid representations before Europeans came in contact

• After visit Delacroix compared North African life to Ancient Romans

Eugène Delacroix, Liberty Leading the People: July 28, 1830, 1830

• Woman is embodiment of France

• Wearing cap associated with revolution

• Carrying outlawed French flag from 1792

Thomas Cole, View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts (The Oxbow), 1836

• Reads left to right, storm to clear/peace

• Oxbow is question mark, to Jewish people means touch of almighty 

• Cultivation would destroy natural wilderness

Louis Daguerre, Seashells, 1839

• Photography as art, artistic side

• How artists plays with light and more artistic styles

• Play with light and shadow, rather than exact crispness

• Workshop burned and all but 20 works were destroyed 

David Octavius Hill & Robert Adamson, The Birdcage, 1843/48

• Serious because people couldn’t smile for 2 minutes

• Professional vs. candid

• Adapt Fox Talbot to take photos of people

• Changed understanding how world would translate into pictures

• Bird is metaphor for caged heart, haven't found love yet

• Posed like in a painting

Asher B. Durand, Landscape: Progress, 1853

• Strand of art that say “mankind taking over nature for their own purposes” is a good thing, all about Manifest Destiny thought not out west

• Left- wilderness, native people are “barbarians”

• Right- has been “tamed” by Americans, work our way from horse and carriage to steam train 

• End up at factories

• A story to read

Jean-Léon Gérôme, Snake Charmer, late 1860s

• Focusing on accuracy of detail, not accuracy of culture

• Instead of a cobra the boy is holding a python from the Americas

• There is an Indian flute charmer 

• The boy is standing on an Afghani rug

• Bedouins from Saudi Arabia

• The blue wall is from Turkey

• The Arabic at the top is gibberish, it’s what the artist thought Arabic looks like

• What people expect Muslims to look like

Alexandre Cabanel, The Birth of Venus, 1863

• Emptying out of meaningful content from classical subjects

• Just a naked woman

• Eroticism without offending public morality

• Not a fight anymore between line and color 

Timothy O’Sullivan, A Harvest of Death, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, 1863

• Wet plate photography, exposed, fixed, and developed while wet

• Birth as photography as key documentary record

• Medium came into its own during Civil War

• Photography as transparent medium, what you see it what you get

• Bring war into homes of people, make it real

• Assumed bias in photos, printed in newspapers and put up in museum/galleries 

Jean-Léon Gérôme, The Call to Prayer, 1865

• Looks so realistic that you forget it is made up

• Influenced by photography with focus and blurry background

• Idea of orient to those who haven’t seen it

• Idealized version of the call to prayer, all those buildings don’t exist in the same place

E. Carolus Duran, Mademoiselle de Lancey, c. 1876

• One of great courtesan of Paris at this time

• Wearing white satin ballgown, sitting suggestively 

• All about fabric and color

• Ingres technique become standard for portraiture

  • Face tuned portraiture