2. Context of Romanticism: Emerged from a desire to be free Desire for freedom in: politics; feelings; thought; action; worship; speech; taste Freedom is the right and property of all. Path to freedom was through imagination, not reason Freedom functioned through feeling not accepted wisdom Originated among German literary groups (ironically) Neoclassicism v. Romanticism Reasons Feelings Calculation Intuition Objective Nature Subjective emotions Interest in Classical Interest in Medieval art and literature and sublime
3. Context of Romanticism cont… Middle Ages- fantasy; ghoulish, infernal, terrible, nightmarish, grotesque, sadistic, horror “Reason crept into a cave.” Edmund Burke’s study of the Sublime, 1757; feelings of awe mixed with terror, the most intense human emotions caused by fear can often be thrilling. The Fantastic, the occult, the macabre where the soul journeys into dangerous regions of consciousness.
5. Caprichos Plate 77Now One, Now AnotherUnos à otros Caprichos Plate 2 “They Swear to be faithful but marry the first man who comes along.” Caprichos Plate 55 Hasta la Muerte "UntilDeath"
6. Francisco Goya, Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters, from Los Caprichos (The Caprices) Plate 43, 1798, etching and aquatint.
11. William Blake, God Creating the Universe (Ancient of Days), Frontispiece of Europe: A Prophecy, 1794, metal relief etching, hand colored with watercolor and gouache. And did those feet in ancient time Walk upon England’s mountains green? And was the holy lamb of God On England’s pleasant Pastures seen? William Blake “Jerusalem”
12. On September 3, 1822, Eugene Delacroix’s first journal entry read, "I am carrying out my plan, so often formulated, of keeping a journal. What I most keenly wish is not to forget that I'm writing for myself alone. Thus, I shall always tell the truth, I hope, and thus I shall improve myself." “Cold exactitude is not art; ingenious artifice, when it pleases or when it expresses, is art itself.” "The eyes of many people are dull or false," Delacroix wrote in the last entry. "They see objects literally, of the exquisite they see nothing." “Of which beauty will you speak? There are many: there are a thousand: there is one for every look, for every spirit, adapted to each taste, to each particular constitution.” “What makes sovereign ugliness are our conventions.” “All painting worth its name, …,must include the idea of color as one of its necessary supports, in the same way that it includes chiaroscuro, proportion, and perspective.”
16. 30 minute Essay Question: Characterize what is meant by "sublime," and discuss the qualities of the sublime in Theodore Gericault, Raft of Medusa, 1818-1819
17. Romanticism Landscape painting: 19th Century Increased tourism along with the Railroad Often used landscapes as allegories Commented on the spiritual, moral, historical, or philosophical issues Wolfgang van Goethe [nature is] “…the living garment of God.” Expressed the soul unified with nature
18. Caspar David Friedrich, Abbey in the Oak Forest, 1810 “The artist should not only paint what he sees before him, but also what he sees within him. If he does not see anything within him, he should give up painting what he sees before him.”
19. John Constable, The Haywain, 1821. “Painting is but another word for feeling.”
20. Joseph Turner, The Slave Ship (Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying, Typhoon Coming On,) 1840
21. 10 minute essay: Fully identify a landscape painting and explain how it was used as an allegory for politics during Romanticism.
Editor's Notes
Edmund Burke, philosophy published in 1757 “A Philosophical Enquiry into the origins of Our ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful” his definition sublime is the feelings of awe mixed with terror, the most intense human emotions caused by fear can often be thrilling.
The Spanish realized that the French were invaders and fought against them fearlessly on May 2nd 1808On the Third of May the French started executing Spanish citizensThe wall of French Soldiers, are depicted as ruthless, standing so close, killing unarmed and terrified peasantsHow does the artist encourage empathy? Horrified expressions, anguish on faces; humanity not seen in the French Legion; the peasant is kneeling in the cruciform position, evoking empathy, use of darks and light; blood and executed peasants, The moment another is to be shot, peasants grouped to go next.
The eighty etchings that make up Goya’s most important series of prints, Los Caprichos (1799), have long been recognized as one of the supreme monuments of European art. Goya, royal painter to the kings of Spain during the late eighteenth-early nineteenth centuries, eventually died in exile, both of his major print series having been "donated" to the crown to protect him from the Inquisition. his works show what happens when reason is trampled underfoot by individual human follies and corrupt social customs.
Los Caprichos emerged after Goya thought deeply about the proclivity for rationality and order in Neoclassicism.He is asleep, slumped on a table while creatures converge on him . The creatures are Owls, then a symbol of folly and bats a symbol of ignorance; What is romantic about it? Monsters, creatures, imaginative, emotional, nightmarish , fantasy not reason
Goya 1746-1828, David’s contemporaryDismissed Enlightenment and NeoclassicismCharles the IV promoted Goya to First Court painter in 1799This is very different from his drawing of the CapricesThe king and queen Maria Luisa are surrounded by their children, face the viewer in an interior space, Goya is on the left dimly visibleBasic elements of the family, their clothing, the Spanish people preferred Ferdinand VII son of the royal couple to Charles and Maria Luisa To overthrow his father Ferdinand asked Napoleon Bonaparte and willingly sent French troops, as he also had his eye on the throne. After the overthrow Napoleon insisted that his brother Joseph Bonaparte rule and he did.
Goya's later work , he became disillusioned and pessimistic, and illThis is one of his black painting, frescos he painted on the wall of his farmhouse, created on his terms only and for his viewing, Provide insight to Goya’s outlook, terrifying and disturbingWhat is the story about? The Greek god is Kronos, and a similar word in Greek means time KhronosSaturn too is associated with timeHow does it reflect Romanticism? It could be an expression of the artist’s despair over the passage of time, it conveys a wildness, boldness and brutality dark emotional image
Gericault, 1791-1824Works captivate the viewer with drama, visual complexity and emotional forceTrue story of a shipwreck in 1816 off the coast of Africa, Medusa was a French frigate Medusa, ran aground to due the incompetency of the captain, a political appointee, 150 passengers built a makeshift raft, it drifted for 12 days, the number of survivors dwindled to 15 when ship rescued the emaciated survivors. What makes this a romanticism work? Theatricality, fearful, horror, chaos, emotions and tragedy, suffering despair, deathWaving a red flag toward the horizon, lose brush strokes are evidentRafts juts out to pull the viewer into the tragic sceneThe corpses seem to be slipping into the viewers spaceShadows add to the gloomy tediousness of the scene
Mentally ill fascinated Gericault due to their irrational state of mind, a perfect scenario against Enlightenment’s rationalityHe examined the influence of the mental state on human faces and believed that the face accurately revealed the character especailly at the moment of death, What tells you she’s insane? Redness of her eyes, mouth is tense, lines in her face depict her suffering, Not the earlier idealized portraiture
Gouache is watercolor that becomes opaque when it dries.Blake longed to see religion reformed, yet again. He was an engraver, painter and poet but his works weren’t well known until hundred years after his death From 1793-1796 he illustrated the Prophetic Books using biblical themes. What is God doing here? Organizing the universe with a compassWhat mixture of styles and contrast do you see here? Renaissance body, baroque lighting, naturalistic clouds, precise circle and compass,Renaissance colors, Blake, rejected rationalism of the EnlightenmentAcknowledged the beast in humansFigure is Urizen, a pun on “your reason” an evil Enlightenment figure of rational thinking,
Delacroix, rumored to be the illegitimate son of Talleyrand, was a leader of the Romantic school. Writing in fluent script in notebooks and on scraps of paper, he recorded inner struggles and his analyses of earlier creators from Michelangelo to Shakespeare, as well as his contemporaries Balzac, Gèricault and George Sand. Delacroix also jotted down lists of pigments, the amount of money paid out to models, accounts of dinner parties and concerts and allusions of his failing health. The Journal has been called "a unique monument in the history of art." Walter Pach wrote that it "gives us perhaps the most complete record we have of any artist's life." Claude Monet considered it his favorite book. The diaries were not published until thirty years after the painter's death. They had passed from the hands of his housekeeper to one friend and then another. Some of the original entries were lost, but fortunately copies had been made. Even in the 1890s, after the journal was published, pages torn from the notebooks surfaced in bookshops on the rue de Seine where they could be purchased for a few francs.
July Revolution of 1830 against Charles X; Liberty with French tricolor flag marches over the barricades to overthrow government soldiersStrong pyramidical structureChild with pistols symbolizes the role of students in the revolt; middle and lower classes represented in the revoltShe was the head scarf of freed slaves as does the man at her feetShe is encouraging everyone to follow herWhat makes this romanticism?
The poetry of Lord Byron inspired a painting for the 1827 Salon, Death of Sardanapalus
Sculpture on the Arc de Triomphe, ParisRepresent the volunteers who protected France during the Austrian prussian invasion in 1792Winged figure: France or Victory or Bellona god of war helmeted, giving a war cryVolunteers have wide stance, arms spread high, none look prepared, they look confused, some are too old, other too youngWhat is classical? Clothing, nudity, bodies, drapery, winged Nike
Romantic transcendental landscape not experienced but knowable; philosophy independent of human experience of phenomena but within the range of knowledgeHis work Demands silence appropriate for sacred placesWhat are all the signs that lead to death? Bare treed, dark shaded forest, sundown, dark sky, casket, gothic ruins, old cemetery, tilted cross,
Industrial revolution influenced landscape painting, technological development, factories, urban centers, affected the countryside and land , had a huge influence of the price for agrarian products and caused unrest in the English countrysideConstable painted to remind viewers of country life and hard work on the farmsThis placid setting has billowy clouts floating lazily across the sky, muted greens and golds, brush strokes, suggesting the scene’s tranquility, oneness with nature, figures are participants in the landscape, part of nature, not the heart of the painting, Constable was a meteorologist so weather and climate were often depicted in his paintings,Haywain more significant for it does not show; civil unrest, agrarian working class struggles; violence and arson Constable paints the disappearing rural pastures
Turners style is the emotive power of color. Color is used to express the forces of nature and the painter's emotional response to the forces of natureIn 1783 a book explaining the slave trade was printed and accounted the incident when the captain of a slave ship realized that his insurance company would on pay for slaves lost at sea but ot those who died en route, had the sick and weak slaves thrown overboardThe emotion of the painting fits with the swirls of color and dangerous motion of the sea
