artid121 - enlightenment and neoclassicism

Popes, Peasants, Monarchs, and Merchants:

Art of the Enlightenmentand Neoclassical ArtART ID 121 | Study of Western Arts

Slide concept by William V. Ganis, PhD NYIT Center for Teaching and Learning with Technology

With modifications by Arch. Edeliza V. Macalandag, UAP

The Age of Enlightenment

The Renaissance (14th-16th centuries) and the Enlightenment (1650-1800) name two distinctly

different periods of European history. They both heralded major changes in culture, art, philosophy,

science, and mathematics. The Renaissance is associated with

advances in literature, architecture, humanism, and a

world economy, while the Enlightenment is associated with

the scientific method, industrialization, rationality,

astronomy, and calculus.


Age of Enlightenment (or simply the Enlightenment or Age of Reason) was a cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe, that sought to mobilize the power of reason, in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted science and intellectual interchange and opposed superstition,[1] intolerance and abuses in church and state. Originating about 1650 to 1700, it was sparked by philosophers Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677), John Locke (1632–1704), Pierre Bayle (1647–1706), mathematician Isaac Newton (1643–1727), and historian Voltaire (1694–1778).


From about 1650-1800, Europe and the New World experienced an Enlightenment that introduced new paradigms of morality.

This, too, was a period of discovery, but is generally limited to the realm of science, mathematics, and technology.

Logic and reason reigned as thinkers became convinced that society and the natural world were like a giant, united machine.

While it may be complicated, it could eventually be dismantled, studied, and mastered.

The scientific method, which relied on the notion of objective observation leading to verifiable conclusions, spurred developments in astronomy, philosophy, medicine and physiology, transportation, chemistry, and ethics.

The Enlightenment: Philosophy and Society

The Enlightenment expanded the boundaries of European knowledge. It offered a new way of thinking critically about the world and about humankind. The Enlightenment employed reason and empirical evidence, and promoted the scientific method.

The Doctrine of Empiricism

The Doctrine of Empiricism, promoted by John Locke, argued that the mind is a blank tablet upon which our experience of the material world, acquired through the senses, is imprinted. Ideas are formed on the basis of this experience. Locke also believed that the law of Nature grants people the natural rights of life, liberty, and property, and that the purpose of government is to protect these rights.


The Doctrine of Progress

The philosophies in France identified individuals and societies-at-large as part of physical nature and argued that through the application of reason and common sense the problems of society could be remedied. They believed that knowledge was the basis of freedom and that through knowledge societies could be systematically improved.

A compendium of knowledge

The comprehensive compilation of articles and illustrations in the Encyclopédie provided access to all available knowledge. The Comte de Buffon's Natural History provided a kind of encyclopedia of the natural sciences.


Revolutionary change

Advances in manufacturing technology, together with advances in heating, lighting, and transportation, produced the Industrial Revolution, which also led to an expansion in the growth of cities and of an urban working class. The increase in the demand for cheap labor and raw materials also promoted territorial expansion and colonial exploitation. The new state and direction of society gave rise to "modern" art, which, with a new awareness of history, responded to and addressed these changes.


Enlightenment's champion

Houdon's marble bust shows Voltaire, whose writings and critical activism contributed to the conviction that fundamental changes were necessary in government in order for humankind to progress.

Scientific advances

Biomechanical and chemical studies of living nature advanced that field of human knowledge. In the field of life sciences, the study of the human body- its structures, function, and disorders- was at the center of scientific interest.

Industrial transformation

The discovery of steam power led to the invention of steam engines, which were used for industrial production and for transportation. Power was further harnessed using coal, oil, iron, steel, and electricity. Scientific and technological advances also led to the development of photography and to changes in architecture.

William Hunter

Child in Wombfrom Anatomy of the

Human Gravid Uterus

1774

drawing from dissection of a

woman who died in the ninth month of

pregnancy

Joseph Wright of Derby

A Philosopher Giving a Lecture at

the Orrery

ca. 1763-1765oil on canvas

4 ft. 10 in. x 6 ft. 8 in.

The wonders of the universe:

Joseph Wright of Derby's realistic

painting shows a demonstration of

an orrery, the mechanism of

which is scrupulously and

accurately rendered.

Joseph Wright of Derby

Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump

1768oil on canvas

6 x 8 ft.

The wonders of the universe:

Joseph Wright of Derby's realistic

painting shows a demonstration of

an orrery, the mechanism of

which is scrupulously and

accurately rendered.

Abraham Darby III and Thomas E.

Pritchard

Iron Bridge at Coalbrookdale

Coalbrookdale, England

1776-1779

Bridging the ages with iron:

Abraham Darby III and Thomas F.

Pritchard designed and built the first

cast-iron bridge. The bridge's exposed

cast-iron structure prefigures the

skeletal use of iron and steel in the

nineteenth century.

VOLTAIRE VERSUS ROUSSEAU: SCIENCE VERSUS THE TASTE FOR THE "NATURAL"

While Voltaire thought the salvation of humanity was in science's advancement and in society's rational improvement, Jean-Jacques Rousseau believed that the arts, sciences, society, and civilization in general had corrupted "natural man" and that humanity's only salvation was to return to its original condition. The "Natural" Landscape

The eighteenth century developed a taste for depictions by artists of "natural" landscapes. Growing travel opportunities, including the "Grand Tour," also increased interest in the depiction of particular places and geographic settings.

The taste for the "natural" in France:

Rousseau placed feelings above reason as the most "natural" of human expressions and called for the cultivation of sincere, sympathetic, and tender emotions. Because of this belief, he exalted as a model for imitation the unsullied emotions and the simple, honest, uncorrupt "natural" life of the peasant.

Jean-Baptiste Greuze

The Village Bride

1761oil on canvas

3 ft. x 3 ft. 10 1/2 in.

The Sentimentality of Rural Romance: The expression of

sentiment is apparent in Jean-Baptiste Greuze's

much-admired painting of The

Village Bride, which shows a peasant family in a rustic

interior.

Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin

Grace at Table

1740oil on canvas

1 ft. 7 in. x 1 ft. 3 in.

The charm of the ordinary:

Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin's Grace at Table, which shows

an unpretentious urban, middle-class mother and two

daughters at table giving thanks to God before a meal, satisfied a taste for paintings

that taught moral lessons and upheld middle-class values.

Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin

The Soap Bubble

ca. 1739oil on canvas

61 x 63 cm

..

Élisabeth Louise Vigée-Lebrun

Self-Portrait

1790oil on canvas

8 ft. 4 in. x 6 ft. 9 in.

Portrait of a woman artist:

Élisabeth Louise Vigée-Lebrun's naturalistic Self-

Portrait shows the self-confident artist in a light-

hearted mood.

Adélaide Labille-Guiard

Self-Portrait with Two Pupils

1785oil on canvas

6 ft. 11 in. x 4 ft. 11 1/2 in.






William Hogarth

Breakfast Scene from Marriage à la Mode


2 ft. 4 in. x 3 ft.

The taste for the "natural" in England:

Visualizing Morality through Satire: William Hogarth expresses the

taste of the newly prosperous and confident middle class in England in

his moralizing satires of contemporary life. In his

carefully detailed painting of the Breakfast Scene

from Marriage à la Mode, Hogarth comments on the social evil of the arranged

marriage.

Thomas Gainsborough

Mrs. Richard Brinsley Sheridan

1787oil on canvas

7 ft. 2 5/8 in. x 5 ft. 5/8 in.

Grand manner portraiture:

Thomas Gainsborough's portrait, painted in a soft-hued light and with feathery

brushwork, shows Mrs. Richard Brinsley Sheridan dressed informally and seated in

a rustic natural landscape of unspoiled beauty. Gainsborough's painting is also

an example of "Grand Manner portraiture," in which the sitter is elevated and the refinement and

elegance of her class is communicated through the large scale of the figure

relative to the canvas, the controlled pose, the "arcadian" landscape setting,

and the low horizon line.

Sir Joshua Reynolds

Lady Sarah Bunbury Sacrificing to the Graces

1765oil on canvas

7 ft. 10 in. x 5 ft.

…

Sir Joshua Reynolds

Lord Heathfield

1787oil on canvas

4 ft. 8 in. x 3 ft. 9 in.

Great people and noble deeds:

Honor, valor, courage, resolution, self-sacrifice, and

patriotism were included among the "natural" virtues that produced great people

and great deeds.

Defending Gibraltar:

Sir Joshua Reynolds's painting shows an honest English officer who was honored for his heroic

defense of Gibraltar with the title Baron Heathfield of

Gibraltar.

Charles Wilson Peale

George Washington


95 x 61 3/4 in.

…

Benjamin West

The Death of General Wolfe

1771oil on canvas

approximately 5 x 7 ft.

General Wolfe's heroic death:

Benjamin West's The Death of General

Wolfe shows a contemporary

historical subject with realistic figures in

modern costume, but in a composition arranged in the

complex and theatrically ordered

manner of the grand tradition of history

painting, which West uses to transform the

heroic battlefield death into a

martyrdom charged with religious

emotions.

John Singleton Copley

Portrait of Paul Revere


2 ft. 11 1/8 in. x 2 ft. 4 in.

Paul Revere, Silversmith:

A sense of directness and faithfulness to visual fact is conveyed in John Singleton

Copley's Portrait of Paul Revere, which shows the figure

informally posed in a plain setting with clear lighting.

Antonio Canaletto

Basin of San Marco from San

Giorgio Maggiore

Venice, Italy

c.a. 1740

Oil on Canvas

…

Jean-Antoine Houdon

Voltaire

1781marble

approximately life-size

…

Jean-Antoine Houdon

Voltaire

1778marble

18 7/8 in. high






Jean-Antoine Houdon

George Washington

1788-92marble

6 ft. 2 in. high

…

THE REVIVAL OF INTEREST IN CLASSICISM

Models of Enlightenment: A defining characteristic of the late eighteenth century is a renewed interest in classical antiquity, which is manifested in painting, sculpture, and architecture, as well as in fashion and home decor. The geometric harmony of classical art and architecture embodied Enlightenment ideals, while classical cultures of the Greek and Roman republics, with their traditions of liberty, civic virtue, morality, and sacrifice, served as ideal models of enlightened political organization. The excavations of Herculaneum and Pompeii also stirred public interest in the classical past. The ancient world also became the focus of scholarly attention, notably in the work of Johann Joachim Winckelmann, the first modern art historian, who characterized Greek sculpture as manifesting a "noble simplicity and quiet grandeur" and who drew attention to distinctions between Greek and Roman art.

Angelica Kauffmann

Mother of the Gracchi


3 ft. 4 in. x 4 ft. 2 in.

Setting the Stage for Neoclassicism in Art

A Roman example of virtue:

Angelica Kauffmann contributed to the replacement

of "natural" pictures with simple figure types, homely

situations, and contemporary settings with subject matter of

an exemplary nature drawn from Greek and Roman history

and literature. Her Cornelia Presenting Her Children as Her Treasures treats the theme of

virtue with the example of Cornelia presenting her own

sons as her jewels.

Jacques-Louis David

Oath of the Horatii

1784oil on canvas

approximately 11 x 14 ft.

Neoclassicism in FrancePlanting the seeds of glory:

Jacques-Louis David, the Neoclassical painter-ideologist

of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic empire, favored

the classical and academic traditions. His painting of the Oath of the Horatii depicts a

heroic story of courageous and patriotic self-sacrifice set in pre-

Republican Rome, in which carefully modeled rigidly

statuesque male figures enact a virile drama in a shallow space

defined by a severely simple architectural framework. The

rectilinear forms and noble virtues displayed by the men

are contrasted with the curvilinear collapsing forms of

the women, whose weak female nature is shown overcome by

emotion and sorrow.

Jacques-Louis David

Death of Socrates

1787oil on canvas

51 x 77 1/4 in.

…

Jacques-Louis David

The Death of Marat

1793oil on canvas

approximately 5 ft. 3 in. x 4 ft. 1 in.

A martyred revolutionary:

In a spare Neoclassical composition, David painted the

assassinated revolutionary Jean-Paul Marat as a tragic

martyr who died in the service of the state.

Jacques-Louis David

The Coronation of Napoleon

1805-1808oil on canvas

20 ft. 4 1/2 in. x 32 ft. 1 3/4 in.

Napolean's ascendance:

In the large The Coronation of Napoleon,

David documented the pomp and pageantry of

Napoleon's coronation in December of 1804. The

action is presented as if on a theater stage, and

makes a complex statement about the changing politics in Napoleonic France.

Jacques-Louis David

Monsieur Lavoisier and His Wife

1788oil on canvas

8 ft. 8 1/4 in. x 7 ft. 4 1/8 in.

…

Étienne-Louis Boulée

Cenotaph for Isaac Newton (never built)

1784ink and wash drawings

each 15 1/2 x 25 1/2 in.

…

Jacques-Germain Soufflot

The Panthéon (Sainte-Geneviève)

Paris, France

1755-1792

Roman Grandeur in France:

Jacques-Germain Soufflot's grand design for the Neoclassical

portico of Sainte-Geneviève, now the Panthéon, in Paris, was

inspired by the Roman ruins at Baalbek in Syria.

Pierre Vignon

La Madeleine

Paris, France

1807-1842

A Napoleonic "Temple of Glory":

La Madeleine was intended to serve as a "temple of glory" for

Napoleon's armies and a monument to the newly won glories of France.

Pierre Vignon's grandiose design includes a high podium and broad

flight of stairs leading to a deep porch in the front, which recall

Roman imperial temples.

Pierre VignonLa MadeleineParis, France1807-1842

The emperor's sister as goddess:

Napoleon's favorite sculptor, Antonio Canova, carved a sharply detailed marble portrait of Napoleon's sister, Pauline Borghese, as Venus shown reclining in a sensuous pose on a divan.Antonio Canova

Paulene Borghese as Venus

1808 | marble | life-size

Antonio Canova

Paulene Borghese as Venus

1808marblelife-size

Antonio Canova

Perseus with the Head of Medusa

ca. 1800marblelife-size

…

Antonio Canova

Cupid and Psyche

1787-93marble

5 ft. 1 in. x 5 ft. 8 1/4 in.

…

Karl Gotthard Langhans

Brandenburg Gate

Berlin, Germany

1788-91

…

Richard Boyle and William Kent

Chiswick House

near London, England

begun 1725

Invoking Palladio:

Lord Burlington's Chiswick House is a free variation on the theme of Palladio's Villa Rotonda. Its simple symmetry, unadorned planes, right angles, and stiffly wrought proportions give it very classical and "rational" appearance. In contrast, the interior is ornamented in a Late Baroque style, while the informal gardens are irregularly laid out.

Richard Boyle and William Kent

Chiswick House

near London, England

begun 1725

John Wood the Younger

The Royal Crescent

Bath, England

1769-1775

Palladian splendor:

John Wood the Younger's plan for the Royal Crescent in Bath links thirty houses into rows behind a single, continuous, majestic Palladian façade in a great semiellipse.

James Stuart

Doric Portico

Hagley Park, Worcestershire, England

1758

A Greek portico in England:

In the volumes of Antiquities of Athens,

James Stuart distinguished Greek art from the

"derivative" Roman style. His design for the portico

at Hagley Park reconstructs a Doric

temple known as the Theseion.

Wedgwood and Co.

Vase with Bridal Preparation Scene

black basalt stoneware1769-177518 in. high

…

Robert Adam

Etruscan RoomOsterley Park House

Middlesex, England

begun 1761

Adapting Pompeian decor:

Robert Adam's delicate Pompeian design of the Etruscan

Room at Osterley Park House is symmetrical and rectilinear.

Decorative motifs, such as medallions, urns, vine scrolls, sphinxes, and tripods derived from Roman art are sparsely

arranged within broad, neutral spaces and slender margins.

NEOCLASSICISM IN THE UNITED STATES

Thomas JeffersonMonticelloCharlottesville, Virginia1770-1806

Jeffersonian idealism:Thomas Jefferson wanted to adopt a symbolic Neoclassicism as the national architecture of the United States. He re-designed his own home of Monticello to emulate Palladio's architecture, with a façade inspired by the work of Robert Adam. Pierre L'Enfant's plan for the city of Washington, D.C., is logically ordered. In his design for the Capitol, Benjamin H. Latrobe said he wanted to re-create "the glories of the Greece of Pericles in the woods of America."

Horatio Greenough

George Washington

1832-1841marble

approximately 11 ft. 4 in. high

…

Benjamin LatrobeCapitol BuildingWashington, DC1803-1807

Major L’EnfantPlan of WashingtonWashington, DC1791

Benjamin Latrobe

Tobacco Capital

Washington, DC

1809

Benjamin Latrobe

Corncob Capital

Washington, DC

1809

Edmonia Lewis

Forever Free

1867marble

3 ft. 5 1/4 in. x 11 in. x 7 in.

Free at last:

The Neoclassical style Jefferson championed so

successfully for the architecture of the new

democracy was invoked by American sculptors as

well. The following sculpture depicts freed

African American slaves.

Hiram Powers

The Greek Slave

1843marble

5 ft. 5 1/2 in. high

…

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres

Apotheosis of Homer

1827oil on canvas

12 ft. 8 in. x 16 ft. 10 3/4 in.

Summarizing Neoclassical principles:

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres adopted what he

believed to be a truer and purer Greek style than that

employed by David. His conservative Neoclassical

taste and strict adherence to the doctrine of ideal form is

seen in the Apotheosis of Homer, which is a catalogue of painters, sculptors, poets,

philosophers, writers, and playwrights who since

ancient times had remained loyal to classicism.


Paganini

1819pencil drawing1 ft. x 8 1/2 in.

…


Grande Odalisque

1814oil on canvas2 ft. 11 in. x 5 ft. 4 in.

Sources

• http://websites.swlearning.com/cgi-wadsworth/course_products_wp.pl?fid=M20b&product_isbn_issn=0155050907&discipline_number=436

• Art Through the Ages, 12th/11th ed., Gardner

artid121 - enlightenment and neoclassicism

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