Rococo, Neoclassicism, Realism and Impressionism

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Rococo, Neoclassicism, Realism and Impressionism
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Rococo Art

• A reaction against the formal style of Louis XIV
  at Versailles
• Characterized by a more lighter, delicate
  decoration suitable for peoples houses

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The Blue Boy. Thomas Gainsborough. 1770

• This painting was a deliberate challenge between
  Gainsborough and another artist, Sir Joshua
  Reynolds.
• Reynolds said that blue should only be used as a
  background color and Gainsborough proved him
  wrong.
• Reynolds never publicly admitted that
  Gainsborough proved him wrong after the painting
  became a huge success
• Later, Reynolds visited Gainsborough, who was on
  his deathbed. No one knows what was said but
  after Gainsborough died, Reynolds delivered a
  lecture with tears in his eyes and praised his
  rival for challenging him.

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Art in SpainThe Third of May 1808 The Execution
of the Defenders of Madrid. Francisco Goya. 1814

• French invade Spain
• A fight breaks out outside the Royal Palace and
  French troops executed Spanish patriots they had
  taken prisoner
• This painting captures the dramatic event
• Patriots are lined up about to be shot
• Soldiers are like robots- cold, unfeeling and
  unthinking
• Central figure in white with arms raised (pose
  suggests sacrifice Christ-like)

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Neoclassicism

• Art period based on Ancient Greece and Rome
• Buried ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum were
  discovered in the 1730s and 1740s
• Sought to revive the ideals of ancient Greece and
  Rome and was characterized by balanced
  compositions flowing contour lines and noble
  gestures and expressions

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The Death of Socrates Jacques-Louis David. 1787

• Famous Greek philosopher surrounded by his
  followers in prison.

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The Death of Marat. Jacques-Louis David. 1793.

• Marat was a major figure in the French
  Revolution.
• Marat had a skin condition which made him take
  baths to alleviate the pain
• The figure is slumped over the sides of the
  bathtub
• The murder weapon is still on the floor
• The contrast lies in the textured wall against
  his smooth skin and the pale skin and the red
  blood
• Color is used sparingly
• The painting is meant to stir your emotions and
  get you involved in the drama
• You share the pain and anger he felt as a martyr

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Napoleon in His Study.Jacques-Louis David. 1812
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Grande Odalisque. Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres.
1814.
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The Paris Salon

• The official art exhibition of the Academy in
  Paris, France
• 1737- public exhibitions were held
• Exhibited paintings floor to ceiling and on
  every available inch of space (this display
  became the subject for many other painters)
• The modern day art critic was born
• The conservative and academic jurors refused
  entry to the impressionist painters who organized
  a counter salon, The Salon des Refuses in 1863
  which marked the birth of the avan-garde

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Realism

• Represents everyday scenes and events as the
  actually looked
• Rejected Neoclassicism
• Factories in France were expanding and people
  were moving from rural areas to the cities for
  work
• New technologies were invented
• Paintings took a more familiar scenes and events
  as they really looked

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Gustave Courbet

• Forefront of the Realist Movement
• Art critics and the public were accustomed to
  pretty pictures that made life better than it
  was.
• Courbet, against much opposition, truthfully
  portrayed ordinary places and people

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The Stone-Breakers. 1849.Gustave Courbet

• Depicts everyday life
• A scene you might stumble upon as you were
  walking down a road

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Eduard Manet 1832-1883 More concerned with how
to paint than what to paint

• The Railway. 1873
• Woman with sleeping puppy on her lap looking up
  from her book
• You feel like you can come up on her by chance
  and she looks up to see who it is
• You exchange glances and then look to the black
  rail
• The little girl stands looking at the train and
  her arm unites with the woman
• The arm breaks up the vertical lines of the
  picture
• Manet paints them as he found them instead of
  posing them
• He is much more concerned with the technique of
  painting

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Le Bar aux Folies-Bergere. Eduard Manet. 1881-82.

• woman in thought
• Possibly a barmaid
• Man to right is waiting to be served
• Shows everyday life scene from theater
• Champagne in bottom left of painting

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Impressionism

• Definition art style that tried to capture an
  impression of what the eye sees at a given moment
  and the effect of sunlight on the subject
• A further quest for Realism
• Easels and paints come outside instead of in the
  studio
• The new style stressed the effects of atmosphere
  and sunlight
• The artists tried to capture this effect by using
  quick short brushstrokes
• Their paintings were made up of tiny dabs or
  spots of colors but when viewed from a distance,
  they blended together to create the effect
• The artists avoided poses but preferred a casual
  arrangement or a quick snapshot in time

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Claude Monet (1840-1926)

• ImpressionSunrise
• Monet exhibits this painting and critics took the
  name Impression and criticized all the work in
  the Salon by calling the artists Impressionists

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Haystacks

• In 1891, Monet stands in a field and paints
  haystacks
• He notices the light changing and put down his
  recent work to begin another painting
• By sunset, Monet had more than a dozen paintings
  with each capturing a different moment of light
• For months, Monet painted the haystacks at all
  hours of the day trying to record in paint the
  exact color he saw
• When Monet exhibited the paintings in Paris, the
  critics were angry and claimed Monets work
  looked unfinished and sketchy
• Monet also began a series of poplar trees along a
  river and critics loved these paintings

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Monets Haystack Series
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Monets Poplar Tree Series
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Rouen Cathedral

• 26 paintings total of the cathedral
• Monet visited his brother and looked out the
  window and saw the cathedral
• He sent for his canvases and paints
• He setup shop over the next three winters to
  paint the façade of the cathedral
• The viewer sees the rich impression but not a
  solid form

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Monets Waterlillies at Giverny
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Giverny(Monets estate)

• Monet buys a house in rural Giverny
• Spends the rest of his life setting up a garden
  with a Japanese bridge and waterlilies and
  painted

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Pierre Auguste Renoir1841-1919

• Best known and best loved of all the
  Impressionists for his subject- pretty children,
  flowers, beautiful scenes and lovely women

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RenoirA Girl with a Watering Can. 1876.

• Pretty little girl with a watering can
• Soft features
• Little girl in a garden around age 6 watering her
  flowers

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Le Moulin de la Galette. Renoir. 1876

• Renoir delighted in the people's Paris', of
  which the Moulin de la Galette near the top of
  Montmartre was a characteristic place of
  entertainment, and his picture of the Sunday
  afternoon dance in its shaded courtyard is one of
  his happiest compositions.
• The girl in the striped dress in the middle
  foreground was said to be Estelle, the sister of
  Renoir's model, Jeanne. Another of Renoir's
  models, Margot, is seen to the left dancing with
  the Cuban painter, Cardenas. At the foreground
  table at the right are the artist's friends,
  Frank Lamy, Norbert Goeneutte and Georges
  Rivière.
• Nobody before him had thought of capturing some
  aspect of daily life in a canvas of such large
  dimensions.

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Edgar Degas. 1834-1917

• Degas copied paintings at the Louvre
• In 1865, some of his works were accepted in the
  Salon
• Degas helped to organize the first of the
  exhibitions that became labeled Impressionist
  Exhibitions
• Degas was very interested in ballerinas and race
  horses, feeling that both were in perfect
  condition

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Race Horses. Degas. 1866-68
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Degas Ballerinas
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The Absinthe Drinker. 1875-76.

• Slightly out of focus items near table
• 2 figures in upper right and your attention goes
  to the woman
• Newspaper in bottom serves as a bridge
• No legs on table to distract viewers eye
• Woman is sad and lonely, lost in her own thoughts
• The man is ignoring the lady and is looking at
  something else
• Drinking Absinthe-a hallucinogen

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Mary Cassatt 1845-1926

• American born
• Studied in US and moved to Paris
• As a woman, worked 2xs as hard to gain
  recognition
• Developed an admiration for Degas work and the
  two became friends
• Degas introduced her to the Impressionists who
  likes her and invited her to the exhibits

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The Boating Party. 1893-94
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Cassatts children painting
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Auguste Rodin1840-1917

• Dominated the world of sculpture at the end of
  the 19th century
• Captured the most fleeting moments of life in his
  work
• The Rodin Museum in Philadelphia (at base of the
  Art Museum steps)

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The Thinker

• Originally named "The Poet
• Rodin based his theme on The Divine Comedy of
  Dante.
• Each of the statues in the piece represented one
  of the main characters in the epic poem.
• "The Thinker" was originally meant to depict
  Dante in front of the Gates of Hell, pondering
  his great poem.
• The sculpture is nude, as Rodin wanted a heroic
  figure in the tradition of Michelangelo, to
  represent intellect as well as poetry.
• Over twenty casts of the sculpture are in museums
  around the world. Some of these copies are
  enlarged versions of the original work as well as
  sculptures of different scales.

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Rodins Gates of Hell1880

• A commission to create a portal for Paris'
  planned Museum of Decorative Arts was awarded to
  Rodin in 1880.
• Although the museum was never built, Rodin
  worked throughout his life on The Gates of Hell,
  a monumental sculptural group depicting scenes
  from Dantes Inferno in high relief.

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The KissAuguste Rodin

• the embracing couple depicted in the sculpture
  appeared originally as part of a group of reliefs
  decorating Rodin's monumental bronze portal The
  Gates of Hell, commissioned for a planned museum
  of art in Paris.
• The couple were later removed from the Gates and
  replaced with another pair of lovers located on
  the smaller right-hand column.
• The sculpture was originally titled Francesca da
  Rimini, as it depicts the 13th century Italian
  noblewoman immortalized in Dantes Inferno who
  falls in love with her husband Giovannis
  Malatestas younger brother Paolo. Having fallen
  in love while reading the story of Lancelot and
  Guinevere, the couple are discovered and killed
  by Francesca's husband.
• In the sculpture, the book can be seen in
  Paolo's hand. The lovers lips do not actually
  touch in the sculpture to suggest that they were
  interrupted and met their demise without their
  lips ever having touched.

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Neo-Impressionists

• Rejected Impressionism for a new scientific
  Impressionism that embraced optical and
  psycho-biological theories
• They sought to create art based on reflection,
  order and intelligent scientific design
• They used small dots of pure color juxtaposed
  together to maximize luminosity
• Became known as Pointillism or Divisionism
• Pointillism- a style of painting in which
  non-primary colors are generated by the visual
  mixing of points of primary colors placed in
  close proximity to each other
• when viewed from a distance, the points cannot be
  distinguished and the eye does the mixing, not
  the brush
• This style of art died out as fast as it came

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Georges-Pierre Seurat1859-1891

• Founder of Neo-Impressionism
• His painting-Sunday Afternoon on the Island of
  Grande Jatte is an icon of 19th century painting
• Began working in Pointillism
• Died of diptheria at the age of 31

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Figures assises. Seurat. 1884
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Bathers at Asnières. Seurat. 1883-1884
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Sunday Afternoon on the Island of Grande Jatte.
Seurat. 1884-86. oil on canvas 207.6 308 cm,
81.7 121.25 inches. Art Institute of Chicago
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Closeup of Sunday Afternoon
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The Models. Seurat. 1888
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Seurat. Le Chahut1889-1890