The Enlightenment: Philosophy and Society

"doctrine of progress" and the belief in openly questioning and persuing science--religious, political, and scientific freedom in england

dramatic rise of technology in about 1740--conflicts between employeers and employees and middle class and aristocracy

Romanticism was a reaction against this dehumanization

The Early Eighteenth Century: Late Baroque and Rococo

"Intricate and witty artifice" "lucurious, frivolous, sensual, and clever" Rococo replaced the Baroque in the desiers of major patrons of the arts, the aristocracy

JOHN VANBRUGH "Blenheim Palace" 1705 -- "love of variety and contrast,, tempered by his ability to create areas of focus"-- huge projecting pavilions and a unifying column motif--massive

Palladian design (Andrea Palladio)-- simple, "good sense" usefull, harmonic designs--KENT "Chiswick House" 1725

Buildings in Bath by JOHN WOOD 1769 brought a more classical roman feeling to the Palladian design

BALTHASAR NEUMANN "Vierzehnheiligen" (14 saints church)--remarkable unification of architecture and painting and relief--very complex oval oriented ground plan makes for a fresh design

sculpture used for entierly pictural effects

ASAM "Assumption of the Virgin" 1723 -- inspired from BERNINI’s "Ecstacy of St. Theresa"

discard rhetoric for purely pictoral effect--pariticularly in ceiling scenes

started about 1700--people moved to hotels (town houses) in Paris and out of versialles and decorated them in a style that eventually became exuberant and feminine

"Artifice reigned supreme, and it was condsidreed in bad taste to be enthusiastic or sincere." no more heroics and rhetoric of the Baroque

GERMAIN BOFFRAND "Salon de la Princesse" 1737--the strong straight lines of the Baroque (hall of mirrors) are replaced with soft, flowing lines--the sculpture and painting merge perfectly with the architecture--the dome smoothly flows into the walls

Rococo was mostly in small, very fine, undulating things--silverware, furniture

CUVILLIÉS "Hall of Mirrors, the Amalienburg" 1734 -- rythmic placement of relief around the room, very ornamental, very unified, seems almost alive--outside of the building is unified and integrated with the sculpture

French Rococo

"L’Indifférent" 1716 -- small, not pompous, humman pose

"Return from Cythera" 1717 -- Rubenesque--emphesis of color over form--elegance and variety in poses, very studied--fine detail in color shading--figures appear to be almost dancing

gliding motion, suave gentility

"Cupid a Captive" 1754 -- pyramid of "rosy infant and female flesh" frivolous, gay and superficial

"The Swing" 1766 -- "intrigue" picture--statues against what is going on--luxuriand landscape-- "glowing pastel colors" set the mood and the sensuality of the theme

Famous for pastel portraits

"Self-Portrait" 1751 -- simle of "confident, interested, amused, slightly mocking" reclined restful pose

The Enlightenment: Science and Technology

Reaction against the Rococo: The Taste for the "Natural"

Rousseau--view that humanity is inhernetly good and should move back towards primativeness--encouraged movement away from the frivolity of Rococo--ornament, mythological subjects, erotic overtones mostly removed--pompus aristocratic rank dismissed-simple honesty

THOMAS GAINSBOROUGH "Mrs. Richard Brinsley Sheridan" 1785 -- combination of honest face and expression with a Rococo background and overall sense.

realism also used to document trips--ANTONIO CANALETTO--1740s--exactness and excellent detail and perspective

WILLIAM HOGARTH--satirical, moral subject matter--first great English painter--extreme detail and story in his moral commentary series ("Breakfast Scene" from "Marriage á la Mode")

"understanding and delicacy." "sensibility and morality"

The Rise of Romanticism

human freedom--going with feelings rather than thought

"The Gothick imagination stretched its apparition of the Middle Ages into all the worlds of fantasy open to it, touching the sublime, the infernal, the terrible, the nightmareish, the grotesque, the sadistic, adn all the remaining imagery that comes form the chamber of horrors when reason is asleep."

sublime = exciting--wanted empassioned, dark images

HENRY FUSELI "The Nightmare" 1781--darkness of the human subconcious

Romantic eclecticism evolved from the realization that each society had its own different "naturalism"

Natural styles became more popular than ordered ones--gardens

by mid 1700s a revival of interest in greek architecture

interiors: "the glory that was Greeece / And the grandure that was Rome"--noble Classical world--wall paintings from Pompeii replaced Rococo

Going back to classicism

Jeferson and Monticello and the Capitol (Latrobe)

JOHN FLASMAN "Electra Leadin gthe Procession to Agamemnon’s Tomb" 1795--wholly rejects the Rococo excesses in favor of greek inspired simplicity--purely lines (engraving) no chiaroscuro--manages to keep motion and order without going to excess--ideal of neoclasicism

exemplum virtutis--example or model of virtue--praised in Neoclassical art

JEAN0ANTOINE HUDON "Diana" 1970--did the bust of Voltaire--bronze sculpture of Diana-- "No Rococo sensuality, but also no doctrinare, Necolassical rigidity"

very strong beliver in Greek style (blindly)

willing to use the public and the French Revolution as a propoganda medium

"Oath of the Horatii" 1784--appeared political--put manly virtues over love and emotions--shallow--simple backgrounds--immediately identifiable subject and meaning--women relegated to the background

"Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier and Wife" 1788--shows her as a classical loving wife with her husband

"Dath of Marat" 1793--meant to serve as an altar piece to a new civic "religion"--the presense of the knife and the letter and the great space overhead show him as a symbolic martyr--form is reminiscent of Michelangelo’s Pietá--sever spareness like Flaxman

"The Sabine Women" 1799--very Bastile like fortress in the background--women form a central symetric point seperating the warriors--not much depth--clasical poses and armarment and clothing

Neoclassical--parallel to the plane of the image

"Napoleon" 1801--quasi-Baroque--flowing motin and color--