Romanticism

1
Romanticism

• The expression of emotions in the Arts, ca.
  1789-1840

2
Art beforehand.

• After the Baroque come two related movements
  rococo and Neoclassical.
• Rococo uses pastels to show idyllic life as
  well as erotic subjects, all light-hearted
• The Neoclassical is just as tied to strict
  rules as Rococo, but it emphasizes serious
  subjects, often from ancient history
• The Watteau to the right is of Giles the Clown.
  It is one of the few Rococo works to be sad,
  ambiguous but the formal composition (cross and
  X) is adhered to.

3
Naughty Rococo!

• But the usual Rococo painting (sold only to
  rich connoisseurs) would have had an erotic
  tinge, such as in Fragonard's saucy Girl in
  Swing. Now where is that young man looking..
• These are often called Academic paintings,
  since most painters would learn the rules at a
  Royal Academy. One rule would be main
  composition in the form of a cross, secondary as
  an X. See?

4
Neoclassical

• Neoclassical art can show real people posed and
  serene, as in J-L. Davids portrait of the
  chemist Lavoisier and his wife.
• The neoclassical was fonder of ancient Rome and
  Greece, as in Davids stiffly posed Rape of the
  Sabine Women. Note the melodramatic postures,
  which evince an interest in the theater of the
  period, where a scene could look just so on
  stage.

5
Classical emotions?

• When all the rules require you to maintain
  dignity and form, how can you depict emotion?
  What can you say about Ingres Jupiter and
  Thetis?
• Or about David's Oath of the Horatii? What
  might Romantic painters have rebelled against in
  these paintings?

6
Romantics passion!

• And indifference.
• Gericaults
• Sardanapalus

7
Romantics action!

• Even David got into the swing with his
  action-painting of Napoleon crossing into
  Switzerland. Compute his height, though, based
  on this.
• Gericault shows high drama and action in his
  immortal Raft of the Medusa. After the
  shipwreck, what? Apropos, Louis XV said After
  me, the deluge. What does that mean? Now, why
  does Gericault abandon the cross for the dominant
  X?

8
Romantics nature

• Nature, like great humans, loves loneness. The
  wild. The sad-contemplative. But also the
  joyous.
• Caspar David Friedrich (German) is the great
  exemplar of Romantic nature painting. Others did
  wildlandscapes, but he pioneered the eerie, the
  lonely, the sublime.

9
Romantics politics

• Romantics on the left reacted to the French
  Revolution and Napoleon in political ways, but
  their aim was often to glorify a defeated nation
  Here is Goyas Third of May 1808.

10
Romantic politics again

• And the political barbs can be subtle, as in
  Goyas unretouched portrait of the Spanish royal
  family. Do any of these royals look slightly
  insane? dumb? yukky-boo.

11
The Sublime

• Lofty sentiments, the feeling of the infinite,
  the thrill of looking down a mountain slope, the
  glory of a sunset. Things that make you sighor
  gasp. These are the Romantics sublimities. JMW
  Turners The Fighting Temeraire.

12
Women painters

• Mme Vigée LeBrun was a novelty a
• professional woman painter. What is
• womanly about her subject matter? She
• pioneered (right-side) in showing a womans face
  doing what that
• had been associated with commoners or tarts with
  low morals?

13
Classical ? Romantic music

• The so-called classical era (Haydn, Mozart, early
  Beethoven, etc.) is not the same as Classical
  music, a category that covers composers from
  Palestrina (1572) to Corigliano (now).
• Wolfgang A. Mozart (1756-91), a child prodigy,
  was perhaps the greatest composer ever. In his
  opera, Cosi fan tutte, two men test their
  girlfriends fidelity, but one woman wonders
  whether he, now gone, is being faithful Smanie
  implacabile! (Oh, unquenchable madness! (Segue
  to Youtube snippet) Classical restraint?
• Later, the Romantic composer Modest Mussorgsky of
  Russia shows the usurper-tsar, Boris Godunov,
  having his mad scene, laden with guilt that he
  killed the rightful heir and has allowed Russia
  to be overrun by Poles and Jesuits Boris death
  scene (Youtube).
• Was there any difference in the musical depiction
  of raging passion?