Francisco José de GOYA y Lucientes, 1746-1828

Exact contemporary of David.  However, often associated with 19th century Romanticists due to his use of content and form but also a realist in some respects.  Unclassifiable as an artist, this transitional figure.

GOYA:  SELF-PORTRAIT, 1815
In order to study art in Rome, he joined a group of bullfighters to finance his trip in 1771.
1775-92:  employed by Royal Tapestry factory (Santa Barbara); intermittently involved in producing 7 series of tapestry designs for various Spanish royal palaces.  Subjects were pre-determined and designed for specific architectural settings.
1777:  first of Goya's illnesses.
1780:  elected to Spanish Academy; became successful portraitist.

GOYA:  DONA ISABEL COBOS DE PORCEL, c1806
o/c, c. 32x21, National Gallery, London.
Painterly style.

1786:  Goya was appointed Painter to the King;
1789:  became Court Painter.
After severe illness in 1792 which left him deaf at age 46, strange elements began appearing in his work.

GOYA:  SLEEP OF REASON PRODUCES MONSTERS, c1794-99
"Los Caprichos/Caprices" (etching, aquatint).
Caprices:  eccentricities, whims or freakishness.
Series of prints criticizing social and political customs.
Quality of aquatint gives off rich, velvery tonality, reflecting Rococo elegance.  Sensuousness causes image to be heightened.
Goya's style does not have same repulsive quality as subjects present.
Sleeping man = artist (see brush and pen).  Man is not awake, not rational or conscious.
He is surrounded by mysterious andhaunting dark images:  lynx (internal eye), bats, owl-like creatures embody nightmare.
Sleep of reason is a fantasy.  In classical artworks, imagination is rarely allowed precedence.  In this respect, Goya is more closely associated with Romantic tradition.
Goya is dealing with his own temperament; he makes it personal (subconscious).

GOYA:  DEATH OF MADRILENOS /3rd OF MAY 1808, 1814-15
Goya depects events in Spain that had occured six years earlier.
Late 1807-early 1808:  struggle to rule Spain between Carlos IV and his son Ferdinand VII.  Results in French coming in.
May 2, 1808:  rebellion took place in Madrid.
Scene depicts final event of rebellion in which leaders of insurrection are rounded up and led to royal square where they are executed by firing squad, one after the other.  Palace in background.
Goya approaches the subject very directly as an eyewitness.
Soldiers lined up at right appear as war machine and not as individuals.
They are anonymous:  no faces, no specific identification of uniforms.
Thus, not just anti-French, but a statement against all wars.

Opposite the soldiers in bright white, yellow and blood red are the citizens of Madrid.
Goya records individual reactions of people: sight and sound.
This painting represents Goya's anguished cry against inhumanity or war and Napoleon.  People keep coming and will overcome Napoleon.
Painterly style:  pigment is applied with great vigour and distress.  Paint varies from thick to thin.
Dramatic constrasts of dark and light heighten the emotion.
He uses facial expressions, gestures and poses to make his statement.

Defiant figure in centre with arm raised (allusion to Christ's sacrifice on cross).
Also very emotional expression as in:

NEWSWEEK COVER:  KENT STATE, MAY 1970
Female figure on magazine cover who reacts to sudden gunning down of four students at Kent State University by the National Guard in May 1970.

Goya introduces a modern attitude toward war:  protest vs glorification which will be repeated over and over again in art by Manet with Maxililian & Picasso with Guernica.

His artistic development does not follow usual linear evolution away from Academic, classical trainint toward freedom of subject and execution.
1816-17, trip to Rome (Sistine Chapel) and Florence caused his drawing style to become more calm and less violent.

GÉRICAULT:  RAFT OF MEDUSA, 1818-1819
o/c, 16x23', Le Louvre.
Exhibited at Paris Salon of 1819:  third royal Salon and largest one held in France since the fall of Napoleon's empire.
This painting served as pictorial criticism of the Bourbon monarchy.

July 1816:  the French naval ship Medusa went down in a storm off the coast of Senegal (loss of 135 of its crew and passengers).  A hastily constructed makeshift raft with 150 people on board was towed by lifeboat.  As they approached land, the ship's captain cut the towline and left the surivors adrift.  Two weeks later, there were 15 survivors found by the rescue ship Argos.

As facts about the event became known through newspapers accounts and interviews with survivors, the public was shocked.

Géricault did careful research:  interviewed survivors, read newspaper accounts published in 1817, saw actual raft on display in Paris, he made a small-scale model in his studio.
He felt the need to make details accurate in order to convey an emotional visual image.
He considered different episodes of this contemporary event and produced a series of compositional sketches to formulate the idea for final composition.

GÉRICAULT: RESCUE OF SURVIVORS
pen.ink, c.8x11, Paris
Raft and rescue boat are right up next to one another.

GÉRICAULT:  MUTINY ON THE RAFT
pen/ink/pencil, Stedelijk, Amsterdam
Depicts attempt to take over water and food supplies.
Classical organization of fore-, middle and background.
Sequence of planes with dramatic movement of light and dark creates diagonal.

GÉRICAULT:  MUTINY ON THE RAFT
gouache, c.16x20", Fogg

GÉRICAULT:  CANNIBALISM SCENE
ink/wc/gouache, Paris private collection

GÉRICAULT:  RAFT OF MEDUSA FINAL STUDY, 1819
Louvre.

This method of working relates to classical step-by-step process.

Eugène DELACROIX, 1798-1863

Along with Ingres, these two artists dominated the classical and romantic traditions in 19th century France.
They both remain active as artists until their deaths in the 1860s.
Delacroix's teacher (Guérin) had been a follower of David; so he learned the classical tradition second hand.
Géricault was actually Delacroix's teacher "in spirit".

DELACROIX:  BARK OF DANTE, 1822
His first Salon appearance but does not receive important public recognition yet.
Unusual theme from late Medieval/early Renaissance literature: Dante's Divine Comedy (Christian allegory).  The Inferno is the first of three parts in which Dante (1265-1321) is conducted by the spirit of the ancient poet Virgil through 24 great circles of Hell, on the first stage of their long journey to God.
Colour of their clothing denotes mood: red for blood and green for life.
Expressions of horror, yet fascination on their faces, embodies repulsion/attraction.  Beautiful and sublime.

DELACROIX:  BARK OF DANTE (WATER DROPS) Close details
See beads of water on voluptuous nude's thigh.
Uses painterly sytle to create form colouristically, relating back to 17th century colourist Rubens.

RUBENS:  ARRIVAL OF MARIE DE MEDICI (Water nymph's thigh with water drops)
See underpainting and glaze: highlight, shadow and reflected light which are defined by white, olive green, yellow and vermilliion.  No lines are used.  Just paint.
He also creates form through the interrelationship of warm and cool colours and between intensity and neutrality.

RUBENS:  ARRIVAL OF MARIE DE MEDICI AT MARSEILLE, 1822
It is known that Delacroix was familiar with Rubens' work designed for Luxembourg Palace in Paris.

• DELACROIX:  COPY AFTER RUBENS' NYMPH ARRIVAL OF MARIE DE MEDICI, MARSEILLE
• RUBENS:  NYMPH, ARRIVAL OF MARIE DE MEDICI, MARSEILLE

Delacroix even made a copy of one of the sea nymphs in Rubens' painting.

DELACROIX:  LIBERTY LEADING THE PEOPLE, 1830.
o/c, 8'6"x10'8",  Le Louvre.  Salon of 1831.
Commemorates middle-class Revolution of 1830 that took place in Paris after a decade of industrialization and resulted in the end of the Bourbon monarchy.
Delacroix depicts an incident he had witnessed.  One of theatre's owners had hidden away guns under the pretext that they were theatrical props.  At a specific moment, he brought them out and helped arm the revolution.

Specific location is referred to in the painting:  looking south from the Place de Greve.
See Parisian landmark:  towers of Notre-Dame.
Actual event in which a woman whose son was the flag carrier had been shot and killed, grabbed the fallen tri-colour flag and rallied the Republican insurrectionists.

Typology of central monumental female figures recalls ancient Greek sculpture.

PAIONAS:  VICTORY FIGURE, 4th C B.C.
She symbolizes the enthusiasm and dedication of the people.
Viewer visually enters the picture acorss the dead bodies in the foreground, a device used earlier in Géricault's Raft of the Medusa.

DELACROIX:  STUDY LIBERTY LEADING
Fluid application of paint adds to drama:  here he works out warm and cool colour system as well as light and dark contrasts.
Delacroix combines real observation and allegorical representation to create a dramatic statement.

DELACROIX:  THE LION HUNT, 1861
AIC
Romantic theme of struggle in nature.
Painterly style and colouristic.
Similar subject, composition, painterly stule and use of colour as Rubens.

DELACROIX:  AFRICAN SKETCHES CAMELS, 1832
Trip to North Africa.

 

Antoine-Louis BARYE, 1795-1875

Animal sculptor and friend of Delacroix; same age.
1812-1814:  in Napoleon's army.
1817:  studied with a student of David (Gros).
1818:  admitted to École des Beaux-Arts.
By mid-1820s, he studies zoology and begins making small animal bronzes.
Salon of 1831:  his first public success with a large scale animal scene.

BARYE:  LION CRUSHING A SERPENT, 1832
Bronze, H: 10" - Le Louvre.  Salon of 1833.
State ordered bronze cast for Tuileries Gardens;  Barye received the Cross of Legion of Honour.
Theme of sublime:  struggle with nature.  Also relevant to contemporary France;  seen as a tribute to the July Revolution (zodiacal sign of Leo).
Symbolic:  the lion represented power of people and the snake the evil of the Bourbon dynasty.

BARYE:  BULL HUNT, 1834
Struggle between man and nature.

BARYE:  JAGUAR DEVOURING A HARE, 1850-51
Bronze, Le Louvre.
Barye uses much realistic detail, but is not a Realist.

François RUDE, 1784-1855

Came from the Burgundy region.
1812: won the Prix de Rome but was prevented to attend du to lack of funds, all being diverted for Napoleon's last campaigns.
Rude never went to Italy.  He returned to his native Dijon with its own sculpture tradition.

RUDE:  NEAPOLITAN FISHERBOY, 1831-33
Marble, h. 31-1/2"
Life-size, unidealized figure observed directly from nature.
Realistic treatment of detail and texture achieved by subtractive technique of stone carving.
Subject from Italian folklore appealed to romantic taste for distant people and places.
It's not classical because it represents genre subject.

RUDE:  LA MARSEILLAISE/DEPARTURE OF VOLUNTEERS IN 1792, 1833-36
Arc de Triomphe, Paris, 1806-1836.
Louis Philippe's aim in commissioning the completion of the sculptural program for the huge triumphal arch honouring Napoleon I was to affect national reconciliation.
Subject of the 40' high relief:  French people rallying to defend the Republic against foreign enemies in 1792.
Deeply carved high relief stone sculpture (substractive process) causes strong light/dark contrast.
Crowded composition and diagonal movement further dramatize the emotional event.

The English had a greater feeling for landscape than most continental artists but it was not until Constable and Turner that they made a major contribution to the development of 19th century art.

John CONSTABLE, 1776-1837

Son of a well-to-do farmer and miller.
Favourite subject of his paintings was intimate countryside of Stour River Valley near the east coast  of England with which he was familiar.
Area characterized by rich farmland in which he recorded scenes of human activity:  agricultural or cultivated landscape.
1799-1802:  he studied at the Royal Academy; anatomy, live model and perspectie.  Also studied works of Caracci, Ruisdael, Claude Lorrain, Wilson and Gainsborough.
1808:  he had completed his academic training by age 32.
1809-16:  period of long courtship in which he had to prove his profession to Maria Bicknell's father;  it was also a crucial stage of artistic development.
1816:  Constable's father dies, leaving him a substantial inheritance and the means to marry.
He felt that landscape painting must be based on observable facts.  Its basic aim should be to "embody a pure reception of the natural effect."

CONSTABLE:  THE HAYWAIN, 1821
o/c, c.50"x73", National Gallery, London
Originally titled Landscape: Noon, it takes its popular name from the empty hay wagon about to ford the Stour River to join harvesters at distant right.
This picture marks Constable's first official artistic recognition.
It was admired by Géricault who saw it at the Royal Academy's 1821 show when he visited London.  A collector bought it and took it to Paris.
Constable received a gold medal for it at the Paris Salon of 1824 where it was exhibited in the Foreign Section and where it was supposed to have influenced Delacroix and his famour Massacre at Chios.

DELACROIX:  MASSACRE AT CHIOS, 1824
Manifesto of Romanticism at Salon of 1824.
Delacroix is supposed to have made changes to it on Varnishing Day.
Like Delacroix, Constable introduces touches or red as complements that cause the greens to vibrate.

CONSTABLE:  WILLY LOTT'S HOUSE, 1810-15
oil/paper, c 9x7", V&A, London
Earlier separate study in which he works with light and dark, and sense of mass applying paint in loose patches.
Recognizable site of cottage.
Painted in London studio during the winter.
Method of working:
1.  makes numerous oils sketches outdoors.  Not first use of this method but his were more concerned with intangible qualities and conditions of sky, light and atmosphere than with concrete detail
2.  created full-size study:  intermediate stage between on-site recording and final work
3.  painted final version of landscape in his studio.

CONSTABLE:  FULL-SIZE STUDY OF HAYWAIN,  1820-21
Freely brushed full-size study has narrow colour range:  browns, greens and blues.  Limited colours allow him to study the distribution of light and shadow throughout the composition.
In the final work, greens are brought up to full intensity:  freshness of the green is created by breaking up colours into green, green-yellow and yellow.
Since the sky is the source of light, it becomes one of the principle subjects of the landscape.

The Haywain marked the beginning of change in Constable's work.  He subsequently develops less descriptive, darker colours. heavier paint and slashes of palette knife to evoke moe emotion.

CONSTABLE:  STOKE-BY-NAYLAND, 1836
o/c, 49x66", AIC
This later work shows looser, more fluid style and thiker application of paint.

Constable died of a sudden heart attack in 1837.
His major contribution to landscape painting tradition is that he combines scientific observation of the changing aspects of nature with the poetic and this attitude and method of working anticipates the later movement of Impressionism.

Joseph Mallord William TURNER, 1775-1851

ROMANTIC REVIVAL ARCHITECTURE

Much of the 19th century architecture is characterized by revival styles, ie Neo-classicism marked a return to the glorious past of ancient Greece and Rome as a means of identifying with those past cultures.  Architecture of the Romantic movement is associated even more so with taste for eclecticism (incorporating various historical styles) and is characterized by exotic stylistic alternatives and definite taste for the picturesque in seeking to establish a mood as with Romantic painting and sculpture.

ENGLAND:  ECLECTIC AND NEO-GOTHIC

John NASH, 1752-1835