Giaovanni Battista Piranesi, Prisons #14, 1746 - 1761

• Many ambiguities: where do the vaults end? The staircases lead? The balconies go to?

• Who are the wretched who wander up and down the stairs?

• By whose authority are they in prison? For what reason?

• Haunting, frightening, mysterious quality

• Monumental compositions• Zigzag of contrasting diagonals• Deeply enclosed structures• Sketchy and mysterious figures• Darkly inked engraving• Spikes emerge ominously from lower

left corner

Romanticism• Covers literature, painting, music, architecture, criticism, etc.

• Rejection of the precepts of order, calm, harmony, balance, idealization and rationality (Classicism)

• Reaction against the Enlightenment and physical materialism

• Visual art has a fondness for medieval literature

• Visible brushstrokes and rich color

• Recalls High Renaissance and Baroque painting – esp. Michelangelo And Rubens

Romanticism Emphasized

• the Individual • the Subjective • the Irrational • the Imaginative • the Personal • the Emotional• The Visonary• The Transcendental

• Deepened appreciation of nature

• Exaltation of emotion over reason

• Senses over intellect• Examintion of human

moods• Preoccupation with the

genius and ther hero

Romanticism

• Highly Influenced by Rousseau

• Starts in Germany with Goethe

• The Science of Light tells us nothing of the beauty of light

• Work for the sheer intrinsic value of it

• Emmanuel Kant – Science had left a philosophy that was too mechanical and indifferent to the human condition

Francisco Jose de Goya

Spanish

1746 - 1828

Goya

• Spanish Court Painter

• Bold painting Techniques

• Extreme Satire

• Belief in Artist’s vision over tradition

• Uncompromising Portrayal of his times

• Permanently Deaf in 1792 after illness

Romanticism in Spain

Goya, The Family of Charles IV, 1800 - 1801• Goya used a mirror asking the sitters to compare their likeness to the

painted likeness• Goya in shadow of painting, a reference of Velázquez’s Maids of

Honor• Magnificent ceremonial costumes seem overplayed• Left group dominated by Prince Ferdinand in blue• Center group dominated by Queen Maria Luisa, who was cruel and

ambitious in life, unfaithful to her husband• Right group dominated by King Carlos IV• Satire? • Background painting on left is of Lot and His Daughters: relationship

to the main painting?

Family of Charles IV, 1800

Family of Charles IV

• 13 members of the Royal Family

• Assembled in a Picture gallery

• Influenced by Velazquez

• Goya located at left in shadow

• Unmasked as evil?• Documentary?

Romanticism in Spain

Goya, The Third of May 1808• Historical background: French army

occupies Spain, and seizes King and Queen of Spain. The uprising is caused by the abandonment of the Royal Family, held in prison in France

• Uprising in Madrid brutally crushed by the French

• French round up suspects, killing 40-45 outside the city walls

• Christ-like figure in crucifixion pose with stigmata on hands expresses frustration

• French are faceless with robotic movements

• French fire at extremely close range• Emphasis on gory details• Various human emotions displayed• Dark background surrounds church

in distance• Spanish sacrifice for their country

but are unheroic figuresGoya, Saturn Devouring One of His

Children• Sinister blackness, panic stricken

eyes• Voracious mouth• Symbol: monstrous self-destruction

of humans• Symbol: time which destroys its

creations

Executions of the 3rd of May

• Social Protest Art

• Commissioned in 1814 by Madrid gov’t

• Faceless soldiers vs. helpless victims

Goya, Saturn Devouring One of His Children

• Sinister blackness, panic stricken eyes

• Voracious mouth• Symbol: monstrous self-

destruction of humans• Symbol: time which destroys

its creations

Don Manuel Osorio Manrique de Zuñiga1788

Majas on a Balcony

1810 - 1815

Los Caprichos – etchings with aquatint

• Published in 1799 in a time of social repression and economic hard times

• Denouncing superstition and social abuses

• Revulsion towards ignorance and intellectual oppression

• Ambivalence toward authority and the church

• Themes of the Spanish Inquisition

• Abuses of the Church and Nobility

• Witchcraft• frivolity of the young

(especially women)

Of What Ill Will He Die?

Goya in Appreciation to his friend Dr. Arrieta, 1820

Until Death

Birds of a Feather

Out Hunting for Teeth

Los Disastres de la Guerra

Napoleonic Invasion and War of Independence 1808-1814

The Dark or Black Paintings

1819 - 1824

Saturn devouring his son 1819-23

Rubens 1636

Romanticism in France

Jean Gros, Napoleon at the Pesthouse of Jaffa, 1804

• Event that took place March 11, 1799• Violent outbreak of bubonic plague in

Napoleon’s army in the Middle East• Painted to respond to negative publicity

Napoleon earned when he ordered the poisoning of prisoners whom he could not afford to house nor feed

• Acting out his legend as a divinity he enters the pesthouse to calm the panic by demonstrating he is not afraid

• Comforting them, touching them, in a reference to the Doubting Thomas of the Bible

• Napoleon as Christ with the miraculous powers to heal

• Sacred tradition of the healing king• Napoleon’s touching of the sick man was

to disprove that the disease was contagious and incurable

• Semi-nudity of figures• Cf. Oath of the Horatii• Architectural framework sets the scene• Gothic arches• Young doctor, himself stricken with

plague, holds the body of a dying man in his lap at lower right

• Napoleon’s trim figure is bordered by the naked flesh of two monumental plague-stricken men

• Napoleon’s men hide their noses from the stink of decaying flesh

Antoine-Jean Gros, 'Napoleon in the Plague House at Jaffa' 1804

Romanticism in France

Gericault, The Raft of the Medusa, 1818• Government ship bound for Senegal

wrecked in 1816• Life boats accommodated the

wealthy, 149 other passengers were deserted by the captain, placed in a raft 65 by 35 and cut loose in the Atlantic

• Only 15 survived• Géricault made scale model of raft in

his studio, interviewed and painted survivors

• Concentration on moment of rescue• Use of foreshortening• Pyramid structure• Heroic musculature

• Delacroix upside-down in foreground• Monochromatic• Concentric zones: outer margin of green

water and blue sky frames the brown mass of raft which, in turn, holds the grayish figures

• Appears in twilight, warm diffuse glow of the morning sun

• Foreground: weight of corpses and massive mourners

• Middle ground: figures lifting and holding

• Ascent: climax of the painting at the intersection of the diagonals

• Painting dips down into our own space• References to Michelangelo

Romanticism in France

Gericault, Insane Woman

• Insightful portrait of the insane

• Artist’s own fragile mental health

• History of insanity in his family

• Suffered a mental disorder in October 1819

• Painted 10 paintings of lunatics, 5 survive

Romanticism in France

Ingres, The Grand Odalisque• Criticized as “three too many vertebrae” and “no muscle, no bone, no life”• Exotic Turkish setting• Sculpturesque style• Raphael inspired head• Cool detachment• Arms are out of proportion with one another• Position of legs structurally impossible• Suppleness of her curves• Elongation: Italian Mannerism, i.e. Parmigianino, Bronzino• Flatness of forms• Cf. Canova, Pauline Borghese as Venushttp://cgfa.dotsrc.org/ingres/p-ingres8.htm

Ingres, The Grand Odalisque, 1814

Romanticism in France

Ingres, Apotheosis of Homer, 1827

• Composition centered around the enthroned Homer, seated in front of an Ionic temple, crowned by Fame

• On either side are personifications of Iliad (left) and Odyssey (right)

• Inspired by The School of Athens

• Symmetrical, balanced, orderly

• Neoclassical style

Theodore Gericault (1791 – 1824)The Charging Chausser, exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1812

Raft of the Medusa, 1819

The Raft of the Medusa by Gericault

New Monarchy established after Napoleon under Louis XVIII

4 Ships leave France in 1816 to repossess Senegal from British

Medusa Captained by Chaumarey – a political appointee with no experience in 20 years at sea

152 initial members on the raft

only 156 survivors after 13 days

Studies for the painting

                                                                                    

Raft of the Medusa, 1819

Eugene Delacroix

1798-1863

Romanticism in France

Eugene Delacroix, Death of Sardanapalus, 1827• Inspired by a tragic drama by Byron, published in 1821• The satrap, on his bed of state, surrounded by a funeral pyre• Faced with defeat, he destroys all so that nothing will survive for the victors• Eunuchs, wives, concubines, pages, dogs, horses killed before his eyes• Pandemonium of passions• Whirling mixture of human and animal forms• King: cf. Etruscan Sarcophagus from Cerveteri• Vignette: an empty central part of the painting, clear in center and objects

scattered toward edges• Tempestuous, crowded• Rubenesque women• Triangular composition

Massacre at Chios1822-24

Ottoman fleet attacks island of Chios

100,00 inhabitants

20% killed

All but 900 carried off into slavery

Death of Sardanaplaus – 1827

Liberty Leading the People: July 28, 1830Revolution puts Louis Phillipe on the Throne – the Citizen King

Romanticism in FranceDelacroix, Liberty Leading the People• July Revolution of 1830• Anecdote that Delacroix had witnessed

a young girl who saw the nude corpse of her brother who had been shot by the Swiss Guards; she took up arms and killed nine Royalist troops before she was shot

• Unity of structure• Dead man seems to have been dead

eight days ago, critics said• Liberty: face similar to an ignudi on the

Sistine Ceiling• Frieze-like arrangement of the

background

• Pyramid structure rises up and triangular grouping comes toward us

• French tri-color atop Notre Dame

• Cf. Venus de Milo• Figure with the cocked hat in

the background symbolizes the role of the students from the Ecole Polytechnique for their role in helping the uprising

• Middle class man with rifle and top hat

• Proletariat with saber

Liberty Enlightening the World dedicated on October 28, 1886

Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi

England in the 19th Century

Introduction to RomanticismHenry Fuseli, The Nightmare, 1781• Girl: virginal white• Horse: peeks from behind curtain• Incubus: brown, cannot be seen by the girl even if her eyes

were open, sits on her chest• She feels the suffocation of the incubus• Sexual overtones• Curtain: dark and theatrically red• Nightmare conveys what is felt, not what is seen, by the

dreamer• Mirror reflects nothing• Mara: in Norse mythology a spirit who comes in the night

and suffocates sleepers, stealing their breath away• Contemporary scene, not mythological: contemporary

furnishings• Germanic violence and Italian Mannerism

Romantic LandscapeConstable, The Hay Wain• Painter of pastoral English scenery• Oneness with nature sought by Romantic poets• Man as a participant in the landscape• Sense of monumentality, rhythm, color, movement• Composed as if accidental• Clouds filled with color and light• Many colors in one: trees many shades of green,

clouds, reflections, etc.• Cottage camouflaged by trees• Legend about the occupant of the cottage: he was 80

and spent only four nights of his life elsewhere. He and the cottage are part of the natural landscape

• Colors and light are flecked and vibrant and tend to obscure details

John Constable, The Haywain

Romantic LandscapeTurner, The Slave Ship• 1833: slavery ended in Britain, but guilt of slave

trade cannot be erased by an act of Parliament• Slave traders are the sharks• In 1783 an epidemic broke out on a ship, The

Zong• Slaves thrown over board so that the owners could

collect insurance money. Slaves dying of disease were uninsurable

• Shipwrecks a common theme in English painting, 5000 people a year died at sea

• Color reflective of emotional state• Horror of man’s inhumanity to man is stressed• Fast sketchy brushwork• Blood red sunset acts symbolically• Blurred forms

Introduction to Romanticism

Blake, Ancient of Days, 1794

• From Europe, A Prophecy

• A sun, or a shield covering a sun, rays from behind

• Strong lateral wind

• Black abyss

• Compass: makes order out of chaos

• Influence of Italian Mannerism

• Figure’s name is Urizen: play on “Your Reason”

Romantic LandscapeCaspar David Friedrich, Abbey in the Oak Forest• Landscapes as temples• Paintings as altarpieces• Landscape as a representation of the unrepresentable God• Gothic cathedral as Christendom, oaks as the pagan past• Landscape itself elegized as a monument• Row of monks carrying a coffin• Immediate foreground, remote background• Winter: skeletal and chilling• Irregularity of Gothic ruins in step with the adjacent oak

trees• Feeling of melancholy• Divinity inherent in nature• Strong horizontals interrupted by verticals of trees and ruins• Many symbols of death

http://mariagecieletenfer.ath.cx/images/l/caspar-david-friedrich-abbey-in-an-oak-forest_28-39.jpg

http://mariagecieletenfer.ath.cx/images/l/caspar-david-friedrich-monastery-graveyard-in-the-snow_28-35.jpg

Romanticism in America

Thomas Cole, The Oxbow, 1836• Founder of the Hudson River School of landscape painting• Painted as reply to Captain Basil Hall’s book Travels in North America,

1829, in which he alleged that America was indifferent to its natural blessings

• Also alleged that American painters were incompetent and could not capture American scenery

• To Cole, America possesses the sublime and the beautiful in its landscape• Wildness of landscape on left compared to the domesticated landscape on

right• Cole is seated with an easel between both landscapes, looking at us• Left: contorted trunk, receding storm, wild mountains, impenetrable

forest• Right: cultivated, orderly, man taming nature, but remaining in harmony

with her• Oxbow as a counterstatement to Hall’s book

Cole, The Oxbow, 1836

Romanticism in America

Frederick Church, Twilight in the Wilderness

• Cole’s only pupil and his successor • Awe-inspiring view of the sun setting

over a majestic landscape• No trace of humanity• Idealistic and comforting view• Affirmation of the divine in nature• Strong horizontals interrupted by

verticals and diagonals• Color used as spectacle• Great detail in leaves of trees and

feathery clouds• Is it a symbol of the oncoming Civil

War?