Slideshow is a companion to Gardner's Art Through the Ages (Global) textbooks. Prepared for Montgomery County Community College. Jean Thobaben - Adjunct Instructor

1. 1
Rococo
ART 102 Gardners - Chapter 26
Jean Thobaben
Instructor
Scientific Revolution
Political Revolution
Rococo to Neoclassicism:
The 18th Century in Europe and America
Revolutions
Colonial America
The Enlightenment
Early American Art

2. 2
Rococo
Art of the Early 18th Century
• The 18th century was a time of change in European society.
• Industrialism was beginning and the establishment was being
challenged from all sides.
• Revolutions would occur in both America and France.
• Before the downfall of the monarchy, France would experience a
brief flowering of a late Baroque style we call Rococo.
• The Rococo substituted gaiety, charm and wit for Baroque
Grandeur.

3. 3
Late Baroque Architecture in England
• John Vanbrugh's taste for variety and contrast and dramatic effect
in his theatrically extravagant design for Blenheim Palace in
Oxfordshire recalls Italian Baroque architecture but includes a
number of ponderous and bizarre features.

4. 4
Late Baroque in
Germany and Italy
• Balthasar Neumann's
ingenious design for the
pilgrimage church of
Vierzehnheiligen was
strongly influenced by the
work of Borromini and
Guarini in its vivacious play
of architectural fantasy and
dynamic energy.
• The fluid interior space is
composed of tangent ovals
and circles

5. 5

6. 6
• The decoration of the
churches required a great
number of craftsmen in stucco.
• Germany received this
technique from Italy and
proceeded to develop it with
virtuosity.
• In the Rococo period, this art
graduated out of the craft
stage, since more and more
motifs with figures were
required and a number of
great artists applied
themselves to it. Assumption of the Virgin
1717-25, Marble and stucco
Pilgrimage-church,
Rohr, Bavaria
•These included, among
others,
Egid Quirin Asam
(1692-1750).

7. 7
• Giambattista Tiepolo's
illusionistic painting of The
Apotheosis of the Pisani
Family on a ceiling in the
Villa Pisani at Stra shows
elegant and graceful
figures foreshortened
overhead in a vast sunlit
sky with fleecy clouds.
The ceiling fresco is
conceived as a trompel'oeil.
The composition consists
of two sections which exist
independently of one another:
the portrayal of the Pisani
family and various allegorical
figures in the lower portion,
and the Continents in the
upper portion.
The figure of Fame, sounding
her trumpets in either
direction, connects the two.

8. 8
• Jakob Prandtauer adapted the Monastery at Melk to its natural
surroundings so that art and nature, convey an impression of unity
to the observer.
• In addition, in Melk the sacred elements are emphasized:
– Contrary to other Baroque monasteries, the church clearly dominates the
entire building.
• The abbey is built on a rocky promontory dominating the Danube.
• It is one of the most important monuments of the Austrian Baroque.
Monastery at Melk, overlooking the river Danube in Lower Austria, adjoining the Wachau valley.
Built between 1702 and 1736 to designs by Jakob Prandtauer.

9. 9
French Rococo
• The changes in French high society following the death of Louis XIV
in 1715 included a return to town life and a resurgence in aristocratic
social, political, and economic power.
• The hôtels (town houses) of Paris became the centers of a new
softer style in art called Rococo, which first emerged primarily as a
style of interior design.
• French Rococo interiors include elegant furniture, enchanting small
sculptures, ornamented mirror frames, delightful ceramics and silver,
a few "easel" paintings, and decorative tapestry complementing the
architecture, relief sculptures, and wall paintings.

10. 10
• The Salon de la
Princesse in the Hôtel
de Soubise in Paris,
designed by Germain
Boffrand, is a typical
French Rococo room.
• Painting, architecture,
and sculpture combine to
form a single ensemble
in which flexible, sinuous
curves are luxuriantly
multiplied in the
reflections of wall
mirrors.
Germain Boffrand, Salon de la
Princesse, with painting by Natoire
and sculpture by J. B. Lemoine,
Hôtel de Soubise,
Paris, 1737–1740.

11. 11
• The Amalienburg in the park of the Nymphenburg Palace in
Munich is an elegant Rococo building harmoniously designed by
François de Cuvilliés.
• The circular Hall of Mirrors is a dazzling ensemble of silver-
and-blue architecture with organic stucco relief, silvered bronze
mirrors, and crystal.

12. 12
Antoine Watteau, The Gamut of Love, 1717, oils, 20” x 23”
Antoine Watteau (1684-1721)
• A French rococo
artist whose
charming and
graceful paintings
show his interest in
theater and ballet,
Watteau is probably
best known for his
fetes galantes.
• These romantic,
idealized scenes
depict elaborately
costumed ladies and
gentlemen at play in
fanciful outdoor
settings.

13. 13
• Watteau's
L'Indifférent is a
delicate image of a
languid, gliding dancer
moving in a rainbow
shimmer of color.
Antoine Watteau, L'Indifférent,
(The Casual Lover)
ca. 1716. Oil on canvas,
10" x 7".
Louvre, Paris.

14. 14
• Watteau's graceful, elegant, and delicate style is emphatically
Rococo in his use of soft and feathery brushstrokes, dainty
figures, and muted colors.
Antoine
Watteau,
View
through the
Trees in the
Park of
Pierre
Crozat
1714-1715.
Oil on
canvas, 18
3/8" x 21
3/4".
Museum of
Fine Arts,
Boston.

15. 15The Embarkation for Cythera , 1717; Oil on canvas, 129 x 194 cm, Louvre, Paris
Watteau's painting of the Return from Cythera shows luxuriously
costumed young women and men moving with gentle, elegant grace
in a delicately painted landscape of feathery trees.

16. 16
• Admiration for the drawings of
Watteau has always been
equal to that of his paintings.
• He drew few compositional
studies; mostly, he drew chalk
studies of heads or figures.
• Watteau seems usually not to
have made figure studies in
preparation for predetermined
compositions, but filled
sketchbooks with incisive
renderings of figures drawn
from life, which he would later
mine for his painted
compositions.
• This drawing of a Seated
Woman for example, has
captured all the spontaneity and
grace of a young woman's
natural movements, yet does
not seem to have been used in
a painted composition.
Watteau
Seated Woman, 1716–17
Black, red, and white chalk
9 1/2 x 5 3/8 in.
Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY

17. 17
• Although he limited himself to
chalk, there is a clear
evolution in the technique of
Watteau's drawings.
• His earliest studies are in red
chalk alone, with black chalk
eventually added to the red,
as in Savoyarde.
Savoyarde, ca. 1715
Watteau, Red and
black chalk; 12 15/16 x 8 in.MET

18. 18
• Around 1715, he added white
chalk to the mix.
• Although Watteau did not
invent the technique of trois
crayons, or three chalks
(Rubens among others, had
used it before him), his name
is always linked to the
technique for his intuitive
mastery of it, melding red,
black, and white to great
painterly and color effect.
• In Standing Nude Man
Holding Bottles the
three colors of chalk, in
combination with the
tone of the paper
reserve, create a
convincing rendering of
flesh tones.
Standing Nude Man Holding Bottles,
ca. 1715–16, Watteau, Red, black, and
white chalk;
10 15/16 x 8 15/16 in

19. 19
• Watteau's artistic legacy pervades French art up to the
emergence of Neoclassicism.
• The sweetness of his palette, in delicate pastels to suit the
scale and aesthetic of Rococo décor, was widely followed, as
was his preference for erotic genre subjects adapted from
seventeenth-century Dutch and Flemish sources.
• Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Pater was Watteau's only student, but
virtually every artist working in eighteenth-century France,
including François Boucher and Jean-Honoré Fragonard, owes
a major debt to Watteau's fêtes galantes and elegant trois
crayons drawings.

20. 20
François Boucher
(1703–1770)
• More than any other artist,
Boucher is associated with
the formulation of the mature
Rococo style and its
dissemination throughout
Europe.
• Among the most prolific of his
generation, he worked in
virtually every medium and
every genre, creating a
personal idiom that found
wide reproduction in print
form.
• He created hundreds of
paintings, decorative
panels, tapestries, theater
designs, and book
illustrations.
• These activities eventually
financed his trip to Italy in
1728.
The Rest on the Flight to Egypt, 1737;
The Hermitage Museum

21. 21
• Boucher's most original contribution
to Rococo painting was his
reinvention of the pastoral, a form of
idealized landscape populated by
shepherds and shepherdesses in silk
dress, enacting scenes of erotic and
sentimental love.
• This form was closely tied to
contemporary comic operas,
especially those produced for the
Théâtre de la Foire by Boucher's
friend Charles-Simon Favart,for whom
he occasionally produced stage and
costume designs.
• The Interrupted
Sleep painted as an
overdoor for Madame
de Pompadour's
château at Bellevue,
exemplifies this type of
subject matter.
• A fetching
shepherdess, clad in
ivory-colored silk,
lacking all trace of dirt
or labor, is asleep and
vulnerable to the
mischief of a shepherd
boy, tickling her cheek
with a piece of straw.
The Interrupted Sleep, 1750, Oil on canvas; 32 1/4 x 29 5/8 in. 31 x 27 3/4 in.

22. 22
• Boucher’s success was
encouraged by his patron, Marquise
de Pompadour, mistress to Louis
XV.
• He painted her portrait several times.
• Boucher's Cupid a Captive is
composed of gracefully posed
figures arranged in a composition
of decorative curvilinear forms to
create a scene
of delicate sensuousness and gentle
eroticism.
François Boucher, Cupid a Captive; c.1754;
Oil on canvas; 164.5 x 84.5 cm;
Signature: 'f. Boucher.
Wallace Collection, London

23. 23

24. 24
• Admired as an amateur dancer
and actress, Madame de
Pompadour had played the title
role in a production of La
Toilette de Vénus staged at
Versailles in 1750, perhaps the
inspiration for the next painting.
• The Toilet of Venus is
an exquisite cabinet
painting in which the
surface has been brought
to a high state of polish,
setting off the pearly flesh
tones of Venus and the
sumptuous fabrics that
surround her.
The Toilet of Venus, 1751,
Oil on canvas;
42 5/8 x 33 1/2 in.
Metropolitan Museum of Art

25. 25
• Boucher's impact on the
decorative arts of the Rococo
period, in France and throughout
Europe, is difficult to overstate.
• Aside from the three dozen or so
plates he etched himself, a great
number of printmakers found it
lucrative to reproduce his
paintings and drawings; some
1,500 prints after Boucher are
known today.
• La Petite Reposée is one
of Boucher’s more
ambitious efforts in this
medium.
• The rather static
composition of a young
woman and a boy placed
before a rustic wall is
enlivened by his very free
use of the etching needle.
La Petite Reposée, 1756, Boucher Etching;
249 x 183 mm (plate),
287 x 219 mm (sheet). MET

26. 26
• Boucher's fertile imagination
and unified aesthetic were also
well suited to the medium of
tapestry, and the manufactory
of Beauvais had many
commercial successes based
on his designs
• Boucher’s series Fêtes
Italiennes went into
production in 1736.
The Collation: From the Fêtes Italiennes
(Italian Village Scenes), 1734–36, Designed
by François Boucher (1703–1770); Woven
at the Beauvais workshop under the
direction of André Charlemagne Charron,
Wool and silk; 130 x 102 in.

27. 27
Jean-Honoré Fragonard
(1732-1806).
• A French painter whose scenes of frivolity and gallantry are
among the most complete embodiments of the Rococo spirit.
• Fragonard was a pupil of Chardin for a short while and also of
Boucher, before winning the Prix de Rome in 1752.
Fragonard, The Bathers, 1765, Musée du Louvre, Paris.

28. 28
• In his playful "intrigue"
painting of The Swing,
Jean-Honoré
Fragonard shows a
flirtatious young woman
painted in glowing
pastel colors on a
swing in a luxuriant
woodland setting.
Jean-Honoré Fragonard,
The Swing, 1766. Oil on canvas,
approx. 35" x 32".
Wallace Collection,
London.

29. 29
• Fragonard’s work
constitutes a further
elaboration of the Rococo
idiom established by Antoine
Watteau and François
Boucher, a manner perfectly
suited to his subjects, which
favored the playful, the
erotic, and the joys of
domesticity.
• The Portrait of a Woman
with a Dog is related to an
inventive series of virtuoso
imaginary portraits referred
to collectively as the
Figures de fantaisie.
• The sitter's costume recalls
the court dress of Marie de
Medici as recorded by
Rubens in the series of
paintings now in the Louvre
which Fragonard is known
to have studied.
Portrait of a Woman with a Dog
Jean Honoré Fragonard
Oil on canvas; 32 x 25 3/4 in.
metropolitan Museum of Art, NY

30. 30
• Similar achievements can be cited in the realm of drawing.
• A Gathering at Woods' Edge like many sheets Fragonard made
for the increasingly active collector's market, is not a study for a
painting, but a finished work of art on paper.
• In its unhesitating technique and varied range of graphic notation, it
is testimony to Fragonard's unmatched mastery of the red chalk
medium.
A Gathering at Woods' Edge, ca. 1760–80, Fragonard , Red chalk; 14 3/4 x 19 3/8 in. MET

31. 31
• The decorative arts proliferated during the Baroque and
Rococo eras and the courts of Europe could not get
enough.
• Arts worked in furniture, glass, tapestries and tabletop
sculpture.
• Next, a compact desk was made for Louis XIV by the
relatively unknown Dutch cabinetmaker Alexandre-Jean
Oppenordt (1639–1715).
• It was one of a pair made for the king's study, a small
room in the north wing of Versailles.

32. 32
• In Germany the Rococo style was based on French
prototypes and enriched by native Baroque traditions.
• This extraordinary piece is part of a set of four side
chairs, two armchairs, and two settees made for the
Franckenstein Pavilion in the gardens of Seehof
Castle, near Bamberg.

33. 33
• This bust of the elder son of
Grand Duke Cosimo de' Medici
and that of his father belong to a
series of compelling images
representing members of the
Medici family.
• The dramatic, vigorous late
Baroque style reveals the
influence of Bernini and his
followers on Foggini.
The artist captures his
dreamy and sensitive
nature, which radiates from
his handsome, regular
features.
His face is framed by a
mass of cascading curls that
merges with the lavish
Venetian gros-point lace of
his jabot and the folds of his
generous mantle.
Grand Prince Ferdinando de' Medici
(1663–1713), Portrait Bust, Giovanni
Battista Foggini ,
Florence

34. 34
• The art produced
during the 17th and
early 18th centuries
was truly diverse,
making any
comprehensive
summary of the
"Baroque" period
impossible.
Clodion, Nymph and Satyr, ca. 1775.
Terracotta, approx. 23" high.
Metropolitan Museum of Art
New York

35. 35
THE ENLIGHTENMENT
• The Enlightenment expanded the boundaries of European
knowledge.
• It offered a new way of thinking critically about the world and
about humankind.
• 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.

36. 36
• The comprehensive compilation of
articles and illustrations in the
Encyclopédie provided access to all
available knowledge.
• 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.
Right: Portrait of Denis Diderot
by Louis-Michel van Loo, 1767.
Diderot is best known for serving as co-founder and
chief editor of and contributor to the Encyclopédie.

37. 37
Jean Antoine Houdon
(1741-1848)
• A French sculptor whose works
are definitive expressions of the
decorative 18th-century style of
sculpture.
• This sculpture shows Voltaire,
whose writings and critical
activism contributed to the
conviction that fundamental
changes were necessary in
government in order for
humankind to progress.
Voltaire, 1781, Terra-cotta, Musée Fabre, Montpellier

38. 38
• Houdon created four different
busts of Voltaire in addition to
bust of many 18th century
people.
• Through exacting realism, he
convincingly captured the
skin's texture, and the
underlying bone and
musculature his sitters.
Bust of Marie-Sébastien-Charles-François
Fontaine de Biré, Paris, 1785
Houdon’s portrait bust of Napoleon

39. 39
• The vividness with which he expressed both physiognomy and
character places him among history's greatest portrait sculptors.
• He left us a wonderful record of our American founding fathers in busts of
George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin.

40. 40
• Human knowledge
of living nature was
advanced through
biomechanical and
chemical studies.
• A system of plant
classification was
established by Linnaeus.
• Science was further
advanced through
technological
applications of drafting
and model building.
William Hunter, Child in Womb, drawing from dissection of a
woman who died in the ninth month of pregnancy, from
Anatomy of the Human Gravid Uterus, 1774.

41. 41
• 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 to
changes in architecture.

42. 42
• Joseph Wright of Derby's realistic painting shows a
demonstration of an orrery, the mechanism of which is
scrupulously and accurately rendered.
• (orrery comes from orbit and refers to a scale model of the
solar system)
A Philosopher Giving a Lecture at the Orrery (in which a lamp is put in place of the sun), ca. 1763–1765.
Oil on canvas, 4'10" x 6'8". Derby Museums and Art Gallery, Derby, England..

43. 43
• 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.
Abraham Darby III and Thomas F. Pritchard, iron bridge at Coalbrookdale,
England (first cast-iron bridge over the Severn River), 1776–1779. 100' span.

44. 44
• 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.

45. 45
• Antonio Canaletto's veduta paintings of Venice were acquired
by English tourists as pictorial souvenirs.
• He often used a camera obscura to help make his on-site
drawings more true to life.
Canaletto,, Bacino di San Marco, Venice, 1726–38
Oil on canvas, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

46. 46
• Giovanni Antonio Canal, known as Canaletto, was the foremost
painter of vedute, or views, of Venice, and his works were much
in demand among eighteenth-century travelers.
• The clear light and the drifting clouds that dapple the water unite
all this activity into a grand, unified whole.
• Canaletto composed his paintings from several viewpoints so as
to encompass more buildings than actually could be seen from
one place.
• A contemporary wrote: “He paints with such accuracy and
cunning that the eye is deceived and truly believes that it is
reality it sees, not a painting.”
Basin of San Marco from San Giorgio Maggiore,
ca. 1740. Oil on canvas. Wallace Collection, London.

47. 47
• 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.
• 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 Greuze, The Village Bride, 1761. Oil on canvas, 3' x 3' 101/2". Louvre, Paris.

48. 48
• 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.
Chardin, Grace at Table, 1740. Oil
on canvas, 1' 7" x 1' 3". Louvre,
Paris.

49. 49
Elizabeth Vigee-Lebrun
(1755 – 1842)
• Vigee-LeBrun traveled
extensively and became a
major player in 18th century
high society despite her
middle class upbringing.
• A professional portrait
painter by the age of 15
year sold, Vigee-LeBrun
made considerable amounts of
money and achieved
economic independence for
her family.
Self Portrait with Daughter, 1789
Oil on Canvas, The Louvre

50. 50
Empress Maria Fedorovna, 1800,
(114" x 82") , oils, Hermitage
This is believed to be an oil study
for a larger painting.
Mme. du Barry -1789
oil on canvas
Private collection
Mme du Barry is 46 years old
in this portrait. This is the
third painting Vigée Le Brun
painted of Mme du Barry, and
the artist had to abandon
work after only completing
the head. She completed the
painting after her return to
France.

51. 51
• Her naturalistic Self-
Portrait shows the self-
confident artist in a light-
hearted mood.
Élisabeth Louise Vigée-Lebrun,
Self-Portrait, 1790.
Oil on canvas, 8' 4" x 6' 9".
Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.

52. 52
The Taste for the "Natural" in England
• William Hogarth (1697-1764)
• Hogarth gained his reputation as a painter of English
manners and customs by two series of paintings, A Harlot's
Progress (1731-1732), and A Rake's Progress (1735).
• These cycle paintings were meant to tell a moralistic story in
a narrative sequence.

53. William Hogarth, Marriage à-la-mode: 2. The Tête à Tête, 1743,
Oil on canvas, 69.9 cm × 90.8 cm (27.5 in × 35.7 in) National Gallery, London
53

54. 54
• Through the sets of
engravings he made from
these paintings, Hogarth
gained renown as a brilliant
satirist of moral follies.
• Plagued by the artistic
piracy to which his popular
engravings were subject,
he secured the passage of
a copyright act, often
called Hogarth's Act, in
1735.
• This clearly had
implications for future
generations of artists.

55. 55
A Rakes Progress The Young Heir Taking Possession
Here we see both the original
oil and the print version of
the first scene.
Tom Rakewell inherits his
father’s fortune.

56. 56
Scene 2
Surrounded
by Artists
and
Professors

57. 57
Scene 3 -
The Tavern
Scene
Tom has a
“fling.”

58. 58
Scene 4
Tom is Arrested
for Debt

59. 59
Scene 5
Tom Marries a
Wealthy, Old,
Maid

60. 60
Scene 6
Scene in a
Gaming
House
Tom continues
to live
extravagantly

61. 61
Scene 7
Prison Scene –
Tom’s
squandered a
second fortune.

62. 62
Final Scene -
Bedlam –
Unable to
cope, Tom
Goes Mad

63. 63
• that of what he called the "ordinary reader" and
• that of the "reader of great penetration" who was
expected to have a working knowledge of the classics and
the scriptures and to understand that the pursuit of meaning
was one of the more rewarding parts of the aesthetic
experience.
Hogarth’s prints were crafted to work at two levels:

64. 64
Grand Manner Portraiture:Thomas
Gainsborough's
(1727-1788)
painting is 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.
Mrs. Richard Brinsley Sheridan, ca. 1785.
Oil on canvas, approx. 7' 2" x 5'.
National Gallery of Art, Washington

65. 65
Gainsborough was probably the most versatile English painter of the
18th century. Some of his early portraits show sitters grouped in a
landscape.
Mr and Mrs Andrews, 1748-49, Oil on canvas, 70 x 119 cm, National Gallery,

66. 66
As he became famous and
his sitters fashionable, he
adopted a more formal
manner.
Children,animals, women
and men, everything that
moves, looks natural in
Gainsborough's
enchanted world, so that
'nature' seems to include
silks and feathers and
powdered hair as much as
woods and ponds and
butterflies.
Mr and Mrs William Hallett
('The Morning Walk'), 1785, Oils, 236
x 179 cm, National Gallery, London

67. 67
Although he made his living painting portraits,
Gainsborough would have preferred to spend all
of his time painting landscapes.
Wooded Landscape with Peasant Resting, 1750,oils, 24 x 30 “, Tate gallery, London.

68. 68
• Honor, valor, courage,
resolution, self-sacrifice, and
patriotism were included
among the "natural" virtues
that produced great people
and great deeds.
• 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.
Sir Joshua Reynolds,
Lord Heathfield, 1787.
Oil on canvas,
approx. 4' 8" x 3' 9".
National Gallery, London.

69. 69
Sir Joshua Reynolds
(1723-92)
Reynolds was an English painter in
the “Grand Manner”, who was the
foremost portraitist
of his day.
Lady Sarah Bunbury Sacrifices to the Graces,
1765, oils, 93 x 59”
Art Institute of Chicago.

70. 70
• When the
Royal Academy of Arts was
instituted in 1768, Reynolds
was elected president and
was knighted.
• In 1769 he delivered the first
of his annual Discourses to
the students of the academy
in which he set forth the
idealistic, moralizing
principles of academic art.
Colonel George K.H. Coussmaker, oil
on canvas, Metropolitan Museum of
Art, New York.

71. 71Portrait of Mrs. Siddons as the Tragic
Muse, exhibited 1784.
Reynolds is credited with more
than 2000 portraits.
Stylistically, he was influenced
by Michelangelo and the
Flemish painter Peter Paul
Rubens.
Reynolds's portraits were
distinguished by calm dignity,
classical allusions, rich color,
and realistic portrayal of
character.

72. 72
The Taste for the "Natural" in the
United States
• In early America, most artists were immigrants.
• They brought with them the traditions of their homelands.
• Aspiring artists born here, returned to Europe to study at the Royal
academies.
• The exception were a few itinerant artist whom we call primitives
who were largely self-taught.

73. 73
Benjamin West
(1738-1820)
• Born in Pennsylvania,
Benjamen West
studied in Rome and
settled in London
where he lived most of
his life.
• West established a
salon where he was
very hospitable to
young Americans
abroad.
Self-Portrait, 1770, The
Baltimore Museum of Art

74. 74
• 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.
Benjamin West, The Death of General Wolfe, 1771. Oil on canvas,
approx. 5' x 7'. National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

75. 75
Left: detail,
The Death of
General Wolfe,
Oils, 60 x 84”,
National Gallery
of Canada,
Ottowa.

76. 76
John Singleton
Copley(1738-1815)
• This remarkable portrait
of Paul Revere was
painted by John
Singleton Copley.
• Copley would eventually
move to London to study
at the Royal academy
and in the American
Salon of Benjamin West.
Paul Revere, 1768-70
Oils, 35 x 28“
Museum of Fine Arts
Boston

77. 77
• Early Americans were a
pragmatic people and
wanted an art that
would reflect that.
• This fondness for
realism would dominate
American art for more
than a century.
Mrs. Thomas Gage, Margaret
Kemble, 1771
Oil on canvas, 50 x 40 in.
Timken Museum of Art

78. 78
Neoclassicism
• Neoclassicism arises in part as a rejection of the Rococo, but
also from a renewal of interest in Classical ideas and design.
• Napoleon Bonaparte uses the Neoclassical style to reinforce his
image as an all-powerful ruler.
• Neoclassicism becomes imbedded as the preferred style of the
art academies.

79. 79
• 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.
Angelica Kauffmann, Cornelia Presenting Her Children as Her Treasures, ca. 1785. Oil on
canvas, 3' 4" x 4' 2". Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond

80. 80
Neo-Classicism in FranceJacque Louis
David
(1748-1825)
• Jacque Louis David
became the most
important artist under
Napoleon.
• He often used
allegory to suggest
the ideals of classical
republicanism.

81. 81
• His uncompromising subordination of color to drawing and his
economy of statement were in keeping with the new severity of
taste.
• His themes gave expression to the new cult of the civic virtues
of stoical self-sacrifice, devotion to duty, honesty, and austerity.
• Seldom have paintings so completely typified the sentiment of
an age as David's The Oath of the Horatii ( 1784) and The
Death of Socrates (1787).

82. 82
The Oath of the Horatii is a huge painting that uses a Roman
story to arouse passion for French unity.
Jacques-Louis David, The Oath of the Horatii, oil on canvas, 3.3 x 425m, Louvre, Paris.

83. 83
In The Death of Socrates , Socrates continues teaching his
students while accepting the cup he knows to be poisoned.
Jacques-Louis David, The Death of Socrates, 1787 Oil on canvas
129.5 x 196.2 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY.

84. 84
• David was in active sympathy
with the Revolution as a
Deputy and voting for the
execution of Louis XVI.
• His position was
unchallenged as the painter
of the Revolution.
• His three paintings of
“Martyrs of the Revolution”,
though conceived as portraits,
raised portraiture into the
domain of
universal tragedy.
Marat Assassinated , 1793 , Oils, 65 x 0 1/2 in) Musees
Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique
Death of Marat, 1793
oil on canvas
162 cm × 128 cm (64 in × 50 in) Royal
Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium

85. 85
David became an ardent supporter
of Napoleon and retained his
dominant social and artistic
position.
Between 1802 and 1807 he painted
a series of pictures glorifying the
Emperor.
In this portrait , the details are
meant to reveal aspects of his
personality to the French people.
Napoleon in His Study , 1812 Oil on canvas,
80 1/4 x 49 1/4 in, The National Gallery of
Art, Washington, D.C.

86. 86
Neoclassicism in England
• The appeal of Classical antiquity was also felt in England, where it
emerges in a simple and commonsensical style of architecture derived
from the authority of Vitruvius through the work of Andrea Palladio
and Inigo Jones.
• 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.
Richard Boyle (Earl of Burlington) and William Kent,
Chiswick House, near London, begun 1725. British Crown Copyright.

87. 87
• In contrast, the interior
is ornamented in a
Late Baroque style,
while the informal
gardens are irregularly
laid out.

88. 88
• 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 semi-ellipse.
John Wood the Younger, the Royal Crescent, Bath, England, 1769–1775.

89. 89
• 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.
James Stuart, Doric portico, Hagley Park, Worcestershire, England, 1758

90. 90
• The discovery and initial excavation of
Pompeii and Herculaneum inspired
Neoclassical interior design.
• Wall paintings and other artifacts of Pompeii
inspired the slim, straight-lined, elegant
"Pompeian" style.
• 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. Robert Adam, Etruscan
Room, Osterley Park
House, Middlesex, England,
1761. Victoria and Albert
Museum, London..

91. 91
Neo-Classicism in AmericaAnyone who has ever visited Washington D.C. can see the influence of
Neoclassicism in colonial America, especially in architecture.
Thomas Jefferson was also an architect who, after a trip to Europe,
declared the Maison Carre, in Nimes, France, the most
beautiful building ever constructed.

92. 92
Although never formally trained in architecture, Jefferson had studied the
structures of Europe and read extensively on the great architects of Europe.
Possessed by a penchant for Palladio and a natural ability for design,
Jefferson set out to the wilderness of Piedmont Virginia to create his
architectural masterpieces in a community he would establish as the ideal
American village: The University of Virginia.
UVA ~The Library, the hub of the campus appears in the center in this photo.

93. 93

94. 94
Jefferson believed that architecture was the heart of the American cause. In
his mind, a building was not merely a walled structure, but a metaphor for
American ideology, and the process of construction was equal to the task of
building a nation.
Monticello
This
unique
American
style
became
known as
Georgian.

95. 95
• 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."

96. 96
The United States capitol was begun as a Georgian structure
and enlarged by Benjamin Latrobe (1764-1820).
Thomas Walter added the dome in 1863.
The dome is raised on a high columned drum.
It has an internal diameter of over 98 feet and rises 220 feet above the floor.

97. 97
• Horatio Greenough's
monumental Neoclassical
statue of
George Washington
shows the first president as a
half-naked pagan god.
Horatio Greenough,
George Washington, 1832–1841.
Marble, approx. 11' 4" high.
Smithsonian,
Washington, D.C

98. • For his Washington, Houdon
combined the time-honored with
the current, classical idealism with
a down-to-earth naturalism,
creating a version of classical taste
that appealed to Americans.
• In this figure the artist balanced
the dualities of military and civil,
war and peace, ancient and
modern.
In the rotunda of the Capitol in Richmond, Jean-
Antoine Houdon’s Washington has stood for more
than 200 years.
The portrait in marble unfolds the layers of
Washington’s life: general, statesman, farmer,
citizen. It may be his most exact likeness. 98

99. 99
Summary:
• 18th century artists sought the “natural” landscape. Artists
like Greuz and Chardin found dignity in paintings of
“common” people.
• A defining characteristic of the late 18th century is a
renewed interest in classical antiquity, which is manifested
in painting, sculpture, and architecture, as well as in fashion
and home decor.
• Jacques-Louis David, Napoleon’s favorite painter used
classical themes,settings, and costumes to promote a
democratic ideal. Likewise the sculptor Antonio Canova
applied the same devices to sculpture.

100. 100
• In America, Thomas Jefferson and American architects
designed the new capitol in a neoclassic style.
• American artists went to London to study where they were
led by American born Benjamin West in the academic
style promoted at the Royal Academy.
• Classical antiquity was also felt in England, where it
emerges in a simple and commonsensical style of
architecture derived from the authority of Vitruvius through
the work of Andrea Palladio and Inigo Jones.
• Other artists moved beyond the somewhat structured
confines of Neoclassicism in their exploration of the exotic
and the erotic and in the use of fictional narratives for the
subjects of their paintings.

101. 101
LINKS:
• National Gallery London (Index)
• Metropolitan Museum of Art (N.Y.)
• WEB Museum (Paris)
• Carol Gerten’s Fine Arts - Artists Index
• Mark Harden’s Artchive
• The Louvre (Paris)