Romanticism: Identity and Difference

Orientalism
1. Accurate observation
  1. William Holman Hunt
  2. Young Arab, Vernet
    1. Civilised
      1. Delacroix noticed a nobility which reminded him of the ancient greeks
      2. They had retained the order that the western world had lost
      3. Dignified
  3. Prayer in the mosque at Amir, Gerome,1872
  4. Recording the untouched land and culture of the orient, where Jesus lived, because the orient was becoming modernised - a record before everyone started to wear a baseball cap!
    1. Biblical
      1. The finding of the Saviour in the temple, W H Hunt
      2. Judah and Tamar, Vernet
      3. Christian Artists
      4. Untouched biblical world being modernised - a record before this started to happen
    2. Record of architecture and customs
      1. Expanding western knowledge
  5. Places actually seen by the artist
    1. Accuracy and respect
2. Imagined
  1. Odalisque with Slave, 1842, Ingres
    1. Ingres hadn't been there
      1. Instrument a still life of one brought back by someone
      2. He makes it different, sensual and exotic
  2. Harem Scenes
    1. Ingres, Harem Scene, 1863
      1. Finished it when he was 83!! Painted young naked ladies
    2. Gerome, Grand Bath in Turkey
      1. Different sexual morality
    3. No christian man could go into a harem - only the sultan could
3. Middle East
  1. Opened up to western world with Napoleon's invasion
    1. Colonisation
      1. Trade opened up
4. Exotic and different
Problems with style labels
1. History painting
  1. Classical subject, Romantic style
    1. Modea, 1838, Delacroix
      1. Had children with Jason and he was going to send her away when he got bored
      2. She takes her sons to a cave to kill them
        Strongly lit wriggling children and Modea
      3. Looking back over her shoulder to check they aren't following her
      4. Emotion, movement
        Energised
        Triangular composition
        Madona and Child
        Twisted the serenity into something murderous and nasty
        Romantic
        They also painted mentally ill patients
      5. Shadow over half her face
        Can't fully see her expression of dispair
    2. Marcus Aurelius, Delacroix, 1845
      1. Romantic artist
      2. Romantic: Softer brushwork, bright colour, death of a man (emotional)
      3. Classical subject matter: death of a Roman emperor
        Handing over the empire to Comodus (baddie)
      4. Classical: Frieze-like composition
    3. Death of Sardanapalus, 1827
      1. Poem by Lord Byron (scottish romantic poet)
        Sardanapalus' (ancient east) enemies coming to topple empire
        He has a holocaust and takes everything with him
        Palace burning behind him
        His soldiers masacaring the women of his hareem as he relaxes amidst the bloodletting
        Energetic movement
        Lies on bright red bed
2. Classical composition and sculptural modeling, Romantic colours, sky, landscape and story
  1. Raft of Medusa, Géricault, 1819
    1. Enormous
    2. Louis 16th sent a ship manned by incompitant officers
      1. Landed on a sandbank
      2. Raft of 120 people
        Delacroix posed for one of the figures
      3. Gericault used it to criticise the monarchy
        Political scandal when exhibited at the salon that year
        Important stylistic shift from neoclassicism to something more modern and highly charged in emotion and mood with dramatic contrasts between light and dark
    3. Neoclassical: strong lighting, sculptural
    4. Baroque diagonal
      1. In narative and composition
        Man of dispair, grieving over his son at lower left, to hope, upper right who waves a flag at a ship spotted on the horizon
    5. Pathetic fallacy
      1. Weather used to represent mood
        Storms overhead but light of hope on the horizon - they are going to be rescued
    6. Went to the mortuary and painted still lifes of severed heads and arms
      1. Toyed with painting the cannibalism that took place
        Head, arm and torso lower left - cannibalism??
  2. Roger and Angelica, Ingres, 1819
    1. Neoclassical artist
    2. Classical: highly finished, sculptural, frieze-like
    3. Angelica tied to the rock: exaggerated pose
      1. Drawn with exaggeration - the neck
    4. Romantic subject matter
      1. Damsel in distress
  3. The Dream of Ossian, 1813, Ingres
    1. Scottish myth
      1. Imagined myth from the north
        Romantic: Fantasy, imaginary, fiction, dream
    2. Monochrome sculptural figures (mythic warriors) - lit in a neoclassical way
    3. Another pupil of David
  4. Riots in Cairo, 1810, Girodet (David's pupil)
    1. Neoclassical: Frieze-like composition
      1. Profiles
      2. Shallow picture space
    2. Romantic in colour, drama, bloodshed and exoticism of the east
      1. 1798 invasion by Napoleon
      2. Dramatic, energetic
3. Classical style with romantic elements
  1. Napoleon Crossing the St Bernard's pass, David
    1. Classical: Sculptural, frieze-like composition, cool handling of paint
    2. Romantic: dramatic, heroic, larger than life (literally and in importance of the figure)
4. Neoclassicism was adaptable to Romantic characteristics
  1. Mood, colour, stylistc, drama, the hero
  2. Flexibility of styles
5. Art doesn't move from one style to the next in separate categories - it is one continuous evolution and development
  1. Affected by politics, culture etc like David
Weather and the sky
Landscape
1. Realism
  1. The group of oaks at Apremont, Rousseau, 1852
    1. Portrait of the trees
      1. Carefully observed and detailed
    2. Deeply identified with nature
      1. Deforrestation painted and called "masacre of the innocence"
        Romantic
    3. Timelessnes of nature and feableness of man
      1. The trees have lasted more generations than the farmers beneath them - like Keats' Ode to a Nightingale (atleast 30 years earlier) in which he talks about the never changing song of the bird - how many generations it has seen... heard by ancients and contemporaries alike
2. 1820 shift to national/patriotic landscape painting
  1. Nationhood rising in Europe after Napoleon had squashed a lot of nations
    1. National folklaw
      1. Hans Christian Anderson around this time
    2. Constable in England
    3. Painting of Chartres cahtedral
      1. The medieval styles of the Gothic in France - National
    4. France: The picturesque old buildings
      1. Pierefonds (tres riche heurs)
      2. People want to hold onto what they know in a fast progressing society - industrial revolution
Opposite of Classicism
1. Feeling, passion, vibrant, unbalanced
2. Classicism had been hijacked by Napoleon - with the restored monarchy they needed a different style
3. Didn't entirely reject classicism or the past - looked at the changeless orient, medieval too, ancient literature - didn't reject the past
  1. But did look at the modern and contemporary literature and politics too
Theodore Géricault
1. The Charging Chasseur, 1812
  1. Life-size
  2. French Cavalry officer turning round, urging his men to fight on with him
    1. Heroic
    2. Something he had actually witnessed
  3. The year Napoleon was at his height, the year he tried to invade Russia
2. The Wounded Cuirassier, 1814
  1. Off his horse, vulnerable, looking anxious over his shoulder, thunder clouds
    1. Echo's Napoleon's collapse
Derived from "roman" the french word for a novel
1. Associations with literature - the idea of a story
  1. Delacroix was a very literary artist
  2. Hamlet's Ophelia
  3. Byron
  4. Sir Walter Scott - the abduction of Rebecca
  5. Romantic writers floated his boat
    1. Extreme and emotive

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Romanticism: Identity and Difference

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