Unit 3 Introductions

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Figurative/ Neoclassical Sculpture

  • Rise in Neo-classical portraits/ sculptures 18th-19th c.
  • Renewed interest in classics from the Grand Tour and Enlightenment ideals of American War of Independance and French Revolution
  • Classical themes of noble man seen in Canova's 'Thesus and the Centaur' (1805-9)
  • Classical sculptures timeless therefore a better representation of empire e.g. Canova's 'Pauline Borghese as Venus' (1808)
  • In Britain, the first British master sculpture Flaxman used classical subjects, this was coupled with growing demand for national indentity in valuing old tradition and heritage
  • Also a desire to commemorate e.g. Chantrey's 'Sleeping Children' (1817)
  • Sculpture seen as half alive, with permanence and realism 
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Portraits

  • Napoleon major political figure in 19th c. - able to atract attention and command major artists
  • Power and influence of campaign, as promoted in works like David's 'Napoleon at St. Bernard's Pass'
  • Had art budget to serve state, and looted art from Louvre and parts of Italy
  • Ingres' 'Napoleon on his Imperial Throne' (1806) has stately religiousity
  • David's 'Napoleon in his Study' (1812) unidealised Napoleon as a man of the people
  • Canova's 'Napoleon as Mars the Peacekeeper' (1803-9) shows him as a Neo-classical, idealised God of war
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Nude

  • 19th c. trasitional period between nude as a passive patricipant and an independant individual
  • Ingres' 'Une Odalisque' (1814) a passive, Neo-classical nude, othered by being placed in an Oriental setting
  • Manet representing a more accurate depiction of modern life, as influence by Baudelaire, in 'Olympia' (1863) which moves away from academic depictions like Cabanel of perfectionalism and idealism removed from reality
  • Gaugin moves even further away from tradition in depiciting a non-Western nude in 'Nevermore' (1897)
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Religion

  • Artists painting religious materials as a representation of visual richness and pious nature of Medieval past
  • Gothic revival in Britain - shows power of Empire by looking back at Christian past
  • Blake challenges this by using 'Satan Smiting Job with Sore Boils' (1826) in a revolutionary way
  • Rise of High Anglicanism in the Oxford Movement and Cambridge Camden Society
  • Relgious imagery of the PRB associated with Tracterianism, and influenced by hyper-realism of Renaissance
  • Millais' 'Christ in the House of his Parents' (1850) and Rossetti's 'The Annunciation' (1850) challenging traditional religious representation
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Landscape and Nature

  • Popularity of landscape in 19th c. due to industrialisation and nostalgia for country
  • Ruskin's 'Modern Painters' saw industrialisation as the degeneration of humanity
  • Also sense of nationalism with countrys reunifying or gaining idependence, seen in Friedrich's 'Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog' (1818)
  • Views of nature influences by new ideas of aesthetics e.g. Gilpin's studies of the picturesque, Burke's on the sublime, exemplified in Turner's 'Snow Storm: Hannibal Crossing the Alps' (1812)
  • Increased scientific study of nature e.g. Luke Howard's cloud studies, influencing Constable's 'The Hay Wain' (1821)
  • Nature and landscape becoming a subject in it's own right rather than backgrounds like Lorrain in the 17th c.
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Politics and Criticism of the World

  • Political turmoil from Napoleon Wars, to reinstalled Bourbon and Orleans monarchy to Third Republic
  • To convey difficult times, Romantic art focused on the dark side of humanity e.g. Gericault's 'Raft of the Medusa' (1818-19) commenting on French political corruption
  • Goya does this with 'Shootings of May 3rd 1808' (1814), anti-Enlightenment comment on the French destrcution of innocent people
  • Delacroix's 'Liberty Leading the People' (1830) is both a celebration and condemnation of the effects of revolution
  • Realism also gave artists a means to express a direct observation of society and politics
  • Influences by Baudelaire's concept of the flaneur, watching modern life 
  • Courbet critcised the politics of Napoleon III and the Academy des Beaux Arts in 'The Painter's Studio' (1855-6)
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Revivalist Architecture

  • Neo-Gothic revivalist style saw a surge in art, architecture and literature during the 19th c.
  • Exemplified in Pugin and Barry's 'Houses of Parliament' (1836-40s), Butterfield's 'All Saint, Margaret Street' (1849-59) and Scott's 'St. Pancras Great Midlands Hotel' (1866-8)
  • Response to desire to return to religion and tradition after Industrial Revolution, and contrasted Neo-Classical architecture of France and America associated with Republicanism and Revolution
  • Church Building Commission set up 1818 to build Gothic churches
  • Cambridge Camden Society promoting Medieval art and architecture
  • Gothic chivalric traditions, sense of mystery, Queen Victoria promoted it as a time of greatness for the traditional monarchy, whilst demonstrating the modern power of the Empire
  • Ruskin's 'The Nature of Gothic' promoted it as artistic fullfillment: 'we need no new style, old forms are enough'
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Modern Life, Entertainment and Leisure

  • Rapid development of Paris under Napoleon III, development of travel, commerce and population growth to 2 million
  • Increased middle class, more money and time for leisure and tourism, development of theatre shown in Renoir's 'La Loge' (1874) and bars in Manet's 'Bar at the Follies Bergers' (1882)
  • Huge boom in the prostiution industry, seen as a normal part of modernity
  • Captured by artists promoted by Baudelaire's idea of the flaneur, detached observer of modern life
  • Artists also rejecting academic painting for more of a focus on colour and technique e.g. in Monet's 'La Grenouillere' (1869)
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Urban

  • 19th c. growth of leisure and middle class in Paris, who had more money and time
  • Paris industrialised under Napoleon III, creating boulevards by Haussmann and urbanisation, as seen in Monet's 'Boulevard des Capucines' (1873-4)
  • Mass production of iron and steel and the growth of industry and travel, as featured in Caillebotte's 'Pont de L'Europe' (1875)
  • Population of Paris expanded from 1 million in 1848 to 2 million by 1870
  • Baudelaire influencing artists to become flaneurs but taking inspiration from the city, but also talks about the isolation of it
  • High demand to lesiure in city among working classes e.g. in circuses and cabarets, seen in Seurat's 'La Chahut' (1889-90)
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Gender

  • Victorian era- women's place in the domestic sphere
  • Church and empire enforcing moral power of these values, and books like Conventry Patmore's 'Angels in the Home'
  • Family unit linked to Theory of Evolution- more evolved people more moral
  • Men could express sexual desire in prostitution, but women's was 'akin to lunacy', dangers of this seen in Egg's 'Past and Present' (1858)
  • Sexuality linked to hysteria, women sometimes locked in mental instiutions
  • Philanthropists looking at and critising society e.g. Mayhew's London Labour and the London Poor, Hunt's 'The Awakening Conscience' (1853) offers a sympathetic view of prostiutes
  • 'Fallen' women had little legal protection, with some rather kill themselves than resort to prostiution, as seen in Rossetti's 'Found' (1853)
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Work and Poverty

  • France and Britain- mass industrialisation and more emphasis on class based society
  • Publication of Engles and Marx's Communist Manifesto in 1848- more awareness of working class
  • Realism in France portraying the lower classes as unembellished e.g. Millet's 'The Gleaners' (1857)
  • Baudelaire's idea of the flaneur, finding grand themes in ordinary existence
  • In Britain, middle class society developing with men sometimes unable to support family on their own, so women had to get jobs
  • Working in domestic sphere as seamstresses, servants or governesses
  • Seamstress seen as honest, pious work as portrayed in Redgrave's 'The Seamstress' (1844)
  • Mayhew's 'London Labour and the London Poor' revelling working conditions of London, shown in Brown's 'Work' (1852-65)
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Iron and Steel

  • Paxton's 'Crystal Palace' (1851), Koechlin and Eiffel's 'Effiel Tower' (1889) and Cubitt's 'Kings Cross Station' (1851)
  • 19th c. saw huge expansion of iron and steel as a result of the Bessemer Process
  • New types of building could be made, stronger, taller with studier foundations, pre-fabrication of parts meant buildings could be put together quickly
  • New trend of metallurgy in construction, cheaper materials, faster construction and more variety in designs
  • Buildings could carry more pressure due to strength of iron and steel, force directed into structure rather than building - use of glass
  • Era of architect and engineer working together, more away from time where architects saw iron as ugly, it created it's own aesthetic
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