PortraitsNeoclassical or Romantic?

Neoclassicism is the name given to a Western movement in the decorative and visual arts and architecture that drew inspiration from the "classical" art and culture of Ancient Greece and Rome. 18th-century Neoclassical art responded to the perceived excesses of the contemporary Rococo style with a greater restraint in composition and severity of line. Neoclassical architecture emulated both classical and Renaissance (see Alberti’s façade of Sant’Andrea, Mantua, 1470) structures, emphasizing order and simplicity. The subject-matter of Neoclassical art and literature was inspired by the emphasis on martial (military) courage recorded in the Greek and Latin epics (The Illiad, The Odyssey).

Neoclassicism

Neoclassicism was a movement begun primarily by one very influential man: Johann Winckelmann. Winckelmann published a pamphlet, Thoughts on the Imitation of Greek Work in Painting and Sculpture that was enormously influential.

In this pamphlet Winckelmann 1. attacked Rococo as “decadent” and 2. argued that only through the imitation of classical models could art become great once again.

Neoclassicism

Romanticism is a complex artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Western Europe.

In part, it was a revolt against aristocratic social and political norms of the Age of Enlightenment and a reaction against the scientific rationalization of nature, and was embodied most strongly in the visual arts, music, and literature, but can be detected even in changed attitudes towards children and education.

Romanticism

The movement validated strong emotion as an authentic source of aesthetic experience, placing new emphasis on such emotions as trepidation, terror, horror and awe—especially that which is experienced in confronting the sublimity of untamed nature and its picturesque qualities, both new aesthetic categories.

In European painting, led by a new generation of the French school, the Romantic sensibility contrasted with the Neoclassicism being taught in the academies.

Romanticism

In a revived clash between color and design, the expressiveness of color, as in works of Turner, Gericault, and Delacroix, was emphasized in the new prominence of the brushstroke and impasto and in the artist's free handling of paint, which tended to be repressed in neoclassicism under a self-effacing finish.

In literature—among others—Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Blake, Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Shelley, and John Keats.

Romanticism

Jacques-Louis DavidPortrait of Antoine-Laurent and

Marie-Anne Lavoisier1788

Oil on canvas, 256 x 195 cmMetropolitan Museum of Art, New York

This work portrays one of the ideals of the Enlightenment: have faith in reason and empirical knowledge; after her marriage to Antoine-Laurent, Marie-Anne soon became interested in his scientific research and began to actively participate in his laboratory work; the majority of the research effort put forth in the laboratory was done by both together—and despite all this, Marie-Anne still was able to remain decorative….

Jacques-Louis DavidPortrait of the Marquise d'Orvilliers

1790oil on canvas, 131 x 98 cmMusée du Louvre, Paris

Jacques-Louis DavidPortrait of Madame Adélaide Pastoret

1791-92oil on canvas, 130 x 97 cm

Art Institute, Chicago

Jacques-Louis DavidMadame Raymond de Verninac

1798-99oil on canvas, 145 x 112 cm

Jacques-Louis David Madame Récamier 1800Oil on canvas 173 x 244 cm Musée du Louvre, Paris

Élisabeth Vigee-LebrunPortrait of Anna Pitt as Hebe1792Oil on canvas, 140 x 100cmThe Hermitage, St. Petersburg

Hebe is the goddess of youth; she is the daughter of Zeus and Hera.

Is this a Neoclassical painting?

Joshua ReynoldsMrs. Musters as Hebe1785Oil on canvas, 239 x 144,8 cm

Hebe is the goddess of youth; she is the daughter of Zeus and Hera.

Is this a Neoclassical painting?

Why is this painting so large?

“Because British patrons preferred portraits of themselves to scenes of classical history, Reynolds attempted to elevate portraiture to the level of history painting by giving the portrait a historical or mythological veneer” (Stokstad, 960).

Joshua ReynoldsLady Elizabeth Delmé and her Children1777-80Oil on canvas, 239 x 147 cm

Is this a Neoclassical painting?

Is it a Romantic painting?

Is this a “good mother” painting?

Élisabeth Vigee-LebrunMarie Antoinette with Her Children1787oil on canvas

Is it a Romantic painting?

Is this a “good mother” painting?

Is this a “history” painting?

Who is Vigee-Lebrun’s patron?

Élisabeth Vigee-LebrunSelf-Portrait with Her Daughter, Julie1786Oil on wood, 105 x 84 cm

Is this a Neoclassical painting?

Is it a Romantic painting?

Is this a “good mother” painting?

Élisabeth Vigee-LebrunSelf-Portrait 1800

Question: What is the purpose of this painting?

Answer: As one of only four women admitted to the French Academy (1783), Vigee-Lebrun faced many rumors that she did not paint her own canvases. This self-portrait is an explicit rebuke to those accusations.

Thomas GainsboroughMr. and Mrs. William Hallett (The Morning Walk)1785

Does this work emphasize one of the new values of the Enlightenment: the emphasis on nature and the natural as a source of goodness and beauty?

Has Gainsborough intentionally made the textures of the foliage seem the same as the texture of the woman’s hair and the lace on her dress? Does the woman seem to merge in some ways with the landscape?

Thomas GainsboroughSix Studies of a Cat1765

Thomas Gainsborough Mr. and Mrs. Andrews 1748-49

This portrait is the masterpiece of Gainsborough's early years. This work seems very different from his later, more lush works.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsolMavZwZc&edufilter=-UYcvQGRLktRabtXL3Eq1w&safe=active

Thomas GainsboroughMr. and Mrs. Andrews1748-49

This portrait is the masterpiece of Gainsborough's early years. It was painted after his return home from London to Suffolk in 1748, soon after the marriage of Robert Andrews of the Auberies and Frances Carter of Ballingdon House, near Sudbury, in November of that year.

The landscape evokes Robert Andrews's estate, to which his marriage added property. He has a gun under his arm, while his wife sits on an elaborate Rococo-style wooden bench. The painting of Mrs. Andrews's lap is unfinished. The space may have been reserved for a child for Mrs. Andrews to hold.

The painting follows the fashionable convention of the conversation piece, a (usually) small-scale portrait showing two or more people, often out of doors. The emphasis on the landscape here allows Gainsborough to display his skills as a painter of convincingly changing weather and naturalistic scenery, still a novelty at this time. From The National Gallery, http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/thomas-gainsborough-mr-and-mrs-andrews