19th Century Visual Art Movements

French Sculpture in the 19th Century

French sculpture in the 19th century was influenced by the revolutionary events undertaken by sculptors since 1830 to maintain their gains and rights.
Sculptors exaggerated and used imagination in their designs, leaning towards the Baroque approach that was more suited to the exaggeration they sought.
This led the designs to move away from the classical style to be replaced by Romantic sculpture.

Jacques-Louis David (1748 - 1825)

David is considered the leader of the modern classical school and one of the great artists France has produced.
Despite his beginnings among the Rococo school of painters, he later became the leader of the new classical school, imposing his style on the painters in France after taking over the leadership of the arts there.
He began his artistic life with his relative, the painter Boucher, who encouraged him to paint historical subjects and introduced him to the artist Vien.
He joined the art school attached to the academy at the age of eighteen and applied several times to win the Rome Prize, but he was only able to obtain it after getting to know Fragonard, with whom he worked for a period, and that was in 1774.
He traveled to study art with his teacher Vien, who was appointed director of the academy in Rome.
David's view of art changed after traveling to Rome and staying there for three years, during which he drew from classical arts with an ideal beauty.
The philosopher Katrmir revealed to him the beauty in Greek arts, whether in subject or method of execution.
Therefore, the style of this new movement was characterized by the nobility and seriousness of the subject.
This revolutionary movement was encouraged by Robespierre during the French Revolution, and supported by Napoleon, becoming painters of this trend expressing the official opinion of the state.
A large number of painters emerged, helping the prosperity of this school of photography.
Upon David's return to Paris, he aimed to bring French painting back to the stage where Poussin had concluded with his classical themes, turning to historical painting that reflects the realistic truth in his studio.
In 1793, David painted a portrait of Mara, a leader of the revolution and friend of David, who was killed by a rebel named Charlotte Corday while writing in the bathroom. This painting shows David's attention to recording the expressions of pain reflected on Mara's face after being struck by the killer's knife.
The painting emphasizes the importance of light and shadow.
David's political power weakened after the demise of his friend Robespierre in 1794, and he was confined to the Luxembourg Palace for a few months.
When he was released, he cut off from politics and settled in Paris. (Figure 19) Jacques-Louis David, Madame Recamier, 1800, Louvre Museum.
(Figure 20) Jacques-Louis David, Coronation of Napoleon, 1807-1800, Louvre Museum, Paris
(Colored painting No. 1) Jacques Auguste Ingres, The Harem Woman, 1814, Louvre Museum - Paris
Despite some critics accusing David of spreading rigidity in the art of photography through the new classical school, it cannot be denied that he was one of the giants of French art who created a revolution in French photography, as well as establishing the new classical school that produced many talented artists.
His style spread throughout Europe through his followers, as his new classicism expressed the art associated with French revolutionary politics.

Antoine Gros (1771 - 1835)

Gros was one of David's most brilliant students, beginning his studies with him in 1785, but he moved away from France during the French Revolution and Napoleon I's rule, heading to Italy.
After his return, he contacted Napoleon's entourage, becoming distinguished in the imperial court after getting to know the elite through Josephine, the emperor's wife.
When Gros became Napoleon's official photographer, the monarch took him on the battles he fought, beginning to record historical paintings for him since 1796, including the battles of Milan, Abu Qir, and the Pyramids.
Gros recorded several paintings at the beginning of the 19th century of sites affected by the plague during Napoleon's conquests, demonstrating his skill in expressing emotions and feelings in exciting events in the painting "The Plague in Jaffa" 1804 (Figure 21).
Gros also made several personal portraits of Napoleon and his wife, characterized by royal love, and Bonaparte granted him the title of Baron, taking over the leadership of art in France after David's exile to Brussels.
Despite Gros being a loyal follower of David, we notice that he restored the sense of movement and emotional colors to the painting, in which he deviated from his teacher's teachings and followed the style of Rubens, which made some of his paintings appear with an emotional romantic tendency.
The conflict between the two schools he practiced led to a spiritual crisis that befell him in his final days, leading him to suicide.
(Figure 21) Antoine Gros, The Plague in Jaffa, 1804. Louvre Museum, Paris

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1780 - 1867)

Ingres grew up in an artistic environment where his father, a tailor in the city of Montauban, practiced photography, sculpture, and music in his spare time.
When he went to Paris to study art, he joined the art school created by David, becoming one of his most brilliant followers who relied on line in photography, winning the Rome Prize in 1801, but he was unable to travel due to his lack of financial resources.
(A museum was established in his name in his hometown, containing four thousand drawings and a number of pictures.)
(Figure 22) Jacques Auguste Ingres, Miss Riviera, 1805. Louvre Museum, Paris
Ingres was famous for his inclination to draw women in his subjects.
Despite being an admirer of Raphael's spiritual art and enthusiastic about it during his stay in Rome, we notice that his nude women do not have the delicate ideal beauty known in Raphael's women.
Ingres highlighted in his paintings the feminine beauty full of life, not the ideal beauty found in Greek statues.
This worldly style is illustrated in the painting "The Harem Woman" 1814 [Colored painting No. 1], which depicts a reclining nude woman. French artists at that time were fascinated by fictional subjects related to the East.
Studying this painting, we notice Ingres's interest in the overall design of the image, with emphasis on the importance of the line that begins behind the neck and ends at the curtain.
This beautiful painting was met with scathing criticism when it was displayed in the 1819 salon, with critics accusing him of being a late Gothic photographer from the Chimbabowe school.
Ingres turned to drawing portraits that were his most important source of income, showing brilliance in that type of art, surpassing his contemporaries until the end of his life.
Ingres is considered the last to take the personal painting as a profession for him, as the use of the camera appeared in 1840.
Although his skill appears in the painting "Miss Riviere" - 1805 (Figure 22), this painting was criticized by supporters of David's school when it was displayed in the 1806 salon, with Ingres accused of returning to the Gothic style.
Ingres treated the mythological photography that flourished at the hands of David, drawing the painting "Jupiter and Thetis" (1) 1811. (Figure 23), although Ingres was considered this painting among his best works, especially as it shows the ultimate precision required in classical work, but it gives us a romantic spirit.
This painting was met with a storm of criticism from critics who accused him of returning to the Gothic style.
Ingres's admiration for Raphael's spiritual style is evident in the painting "The Oath of Louis XIII" 1821 (Figure 24) that he drew for the cathedral of his hometown Montauban, depicting the king kneeling before the Virgin, gifting her his crown and scepter.
It is clear that the way the Virgin and her child were drawn above the clouds is derived from Raphael's paintings, but Ingres was unable to achieve the sanctity that the giant bestowed on such scenes, where one feels as if it is a daily event.
Ingres displayed this painting after his return to Paris in the 1824 salon, met with admiration from the men of the academy who were looking in the exhibited works for a new leader of Classicism after David's exile from France.
It became clear in this exhibition the conflict that began to appear between the classical school and the romantic school represented in the paintings of the photographer Delacroix, which were displayed in the same salon, so the academics appointed Ingres as the leader of the classical school since that period.
Ingres was appointed a member of the French Academy, then its director in 1826. King Charles X also bestowed upon him the Legion of Honor.
Since Ingres believed that line is the basis of the art of photography, he applied this principle in the school of fine arts, so the student trained in drawing with a pen for several years before being allowed to use colors.
(Figure 23) Jacques Auguste Ingres. Jupiter and Thetis: 1811. Montauban Museum.
(Figure 24) Jacques Auguste Ingres, Oath of Louis XIII 1821, Montauban Museum

Style Transition

The style of returning to classicism also transitioned into furniture and applied arts.
This is particularly evident in a type of blue pottery known as Wedgwood (1) Figure (25).
The white-raised decoration themes include classical myths designed by artists like John Flaxman.
The Imperial style appeared in furniture in France in the period 1800-1850, which was comfortable from ancient arts with some Egyptian elements.
The new classicism, characterized by solid lines and serious subjects, began to lose its position in France due to the ultimate precision and rigidity that characterized its compositions.
This was a reason for the emergence of a new artistic trend looking for excitement and imagination in photography and sculpture.

The Romantic Movement in Visual Arts

Introduction

Romanticism is a trend that aims to emphasize psychological and emotional expression as an opposing style to the traditional search for aesthetic values in artistic creation.
The romantic spirit can exist in all times, but the artistic romantic movement is a revolution against the control of African origins over the fields of art, where the artist is restricted by classical imitation that prevents innovative imagination and expression of psychological emotions.
The romantic art was characterized by the appearance of a kind of emotions that did not appear in the new classical trend.
While there is no movement in the new classical art, the romantic art is full of curved lines.
The artist seeks in his works to elicit our sympathy for the suffering and oppressed.
Romantic literature spread throughout Europe, appearing in France at the hands of Hugo and Demoset, in England at the hands of Shelley and Byron, in Germany at the hands of Goethe and Schiller, and in Russia at the hands of Pushkin.
The artistic romantic movement spread with amazing speed in the field of photography in the European countries where the influence of the new classical art was less.
It appeared in England among fantasy and nature photographers, and in Germany in the form of revival of religious arts, and in Spain in revolutionary subjects.
France, which was the leader of the new classical movement, also participated with some development in this opposing movement.

Romantic Movement Outside France

The Romantic movement spread in many European countries. Several photographers carried its banner in Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Portugal, but its peak was in England, Germany, and Spain.

England :

While the new classical school of thought failed to conquer the field of photography in England, romanticism gained great popularity among some English photographers.
Early in the 19th century, there was an exchange of visits between photographers of the romantic trend in London and Paris.
Personal photography remained the main field of photography in England until the late 18th century, but the trend towards historical photography in the late century paved the way for the romantic movement, which began to grow at that time.
Two photographers from the United States who resided in England, West and Cooley, contributed to this development.

Benjamin West (1738 - 1820)

West grew up in Pennsylvania, United States, and studied art in Philadelphia. He wanted to learn about the styles of art in Europe, so he went to Rome in 1760. His arrival caused a stir in artistic circles, as he was the first known American photographer to reach Europe, and from there he moved to England in 1763 to settle there.
West's artistic experience when he went to London expressed a modern artistic style, so he became famous and gained favor with King George III, who appointed him a founding member of the Royal Academy in 1768, then its president in 1792 after the death of Reynolds.
His style of expressing historical events is not restricted to the styles of classical historical subject photographers, but rather reacts in a romantic realism.
The painting "The Death of General Wolfe" 1770 (Figure 26) proves this.
This historical subject depicts the death of the leader during his siege of the city of Quebec during the war between the French and the Native Americans.
West recorded the death of a contemporary hero in a realistic style full of emotions, so West included a Native American in the foreground of the painting to show the place and time in which these events took place.
(Figure 26) Benjamin West, The Death of General Wolfe, 1770, Ottawa, Canada, Museum

John Singleton Copley (1737 - 1815)

Copley was one of the prominent American photographers who settled in England.
He was famous for his skill in drawing personal paintings in his city of Boston when he was young, during the period when this type of art was widespread in England.
He went to London and settled there with encouragement from West and Reynolds after a short visit to Italy.
He turned to taking pictures of contemporary historical events.
He was commissioned to paint a true event that happened to Mr. Watson while he was bathing in Hawaqana, "Watson and the Shark" 1778 (Figure 27).
This painting shows the shark when it attacked Watson while he was swimming near the port of Havana, and next to him is the boat that rescued him.
In this image drawn from imagination, the emotions and movement that show the tragedy before the rescue operation are evident.
Another team of photographers who drew their subjects from the unreasonable, dreams, imagination, and some Greek myths contributed to the flourishing of romanticism that appeared in England.
(Figure 27) John Cobley, Watson and the Shark, 1778, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Henry Fuseli (1741 - 1825)

Fuseli grew up in Zurich, Switzerland, and was appointed a priest in his town's church at the age of twenty, but he left it in 1764 and went to London to seek more freedom.
There, he met Reynolds, who encouraged him to go to Rome to study art, so he spent the seventies there, influenced by Michelangelo and Mannerist artists, not by classical art.
Fuseli was an admirer of Shakespeare. In his illustrations of universal literary works, "Dante and Virgil" and "Shakespeare," he used to draw his characters in contrived, exaggerated movements.
He turned to imagination in his paintings, especially after getting to know Blake.
Some of his works are characterized by inclination towards imagination and cruelty, such as the painting "The Nightmare" 1785 (Figure 28).
(Figure 28) Henry Fuseli, The Nightmare, 1785, Zurich Museum of Fine Arts.

William Blake (1757 - 1827)

Romanticism was clearly evident in England at the hands of the English photographer Blake, who was a poet, engraver, and a genius thinker for his time.
He was interested in poetry, hidden imagination, dreams, and the unreasonable in his subjects, and he found the material in the works of poets: Milton and Shakespeare.
It was also found in the Bible and the Divine Comedy.
Despite Blake being emotional and his paintings being dominated by the unreasonable and imagination, which confirms their romanticism, we notice that the colors in his paintings come second to the line.
Blake used several styles in his works.
He used watercolors in illustrating the Divine Comedy he painted in 1827 (Figure 29).
He also used engraving in illustrating the Book of Job in 1820 and the Book of Yastoral in 1820.
Blake also used wood printing in illustrating some of his works.
Due to the abundance of imaginary paintings, some of his contemporaries believed that he was suffering from a psychological illness and was mentally unbalanced, but this unique style did not spread after that.

Germany

In the early 19th century, the German Romantic movement sought to revive the national arts of the past to implement the present, which, in the Germans' belief, lacked a lot.
They praised the Gothic architecture represented in the cathedrals, as well as elevated the works of their photographer Dürer and placed them in the rank of Raphael's art.
The German Romantic movement produced its best in Romantic nature photographers, where a number of them stood out in the first half of the 19th century, distinguished by subjects that were delicate and poetic.
A group of photographers who wanted to revive the religious trend in art by returning to the styles and appearances of Italian arts in the early Renaissance and before also participated in the flourishing of German Romanticism.
The enthusiasm of the writer Schlegel for the Middle Ages gave a literary impetus to the artistic movement started by Overbeck in Vienna in 1809, known as Nazarene.

Johann Friedrich Overbeck (1789 - 1869)

Overbeck, along with some young photographers, Pforr from Frankfurt and Vogel from Zurich, established a religious studio in Rome in 1810 in the abandoned San Isidoro monastery.
By 1818, the society included a number of German photographers such as Cornelius from Dusseldorf and Schnor from Leipzig, and they were given the Christian name Nazarene.
Goethe and other writers gave them different expressions such as religious patriots, Roman Catholic Romantic art, and pre-Raphaelite.
One of the goals of this movement was to revive the art of the fresco, as shown by the paintings that depict the story of Joseph in Egypt, which decorated the Bartoldi Palace, which was occupied by the German Consulate in Rome.
Cornelius, Overbeck, Viet, and Shadow participated in implementing this huge project.
These paintings were transferred to the Berlin Museum, and the emotion with the religious subject is evident in Cornelius's (1783 - 1867) painting that depicts "Joseph Reveals Himself to His Brothers" 1816 (Figure 30).
When this photographer's fame spread due to his success in Rome, he was summoned to Germany to supervise the artistic works in the cities of Munich and Dusseldorf.
Although this movement did not succeed aesthetically due to its seriousness, it was one of the influences that founded the pre-Raphaelite school of thought in England.