A Review of Isms Baroque A period in

A Review of Ism’s

Baroque A period in the history of art lasting from the end of the 16 th century (1580’s) into the 18 th century (1700’s). As a formal style, Baroque is characterized by • open compositions in which elements are placed or seem to move diagonally in space • a loose, free technique in which the artist uses rich colors and dramatic contrasts of light and dark • tenebrism : a technique in which forms emerge from a dark background into a strong light that often falls from a single source outside the painting • visual verisimilitude; naturalism; a desire for realism

Baroque Often in Baroque Art, the viewer is purposefully drawn into the frame of the work of art so that the viewer becomes a participant. This effect may be achieved through the composition and/or the content of the work. The viewer was expected to be emotionally involved in the work of art; the work was intended to draw the viewer in visually and/or emotionally.

Religious Images Entombment Caravaggio 1603 -1604 oil on canvas What makes this image a “Baroque” work? • This is an open composition in which elements are seem to move diagonally in space. • Caravaggio has used rich colors and dramatic contrasts of light and dark. • This work demonstrates tenebrism: a technique in which forms emerge from a dark background into a strong light that often falls from a single source outside the painting. • Caravaggio has attempted to depict this scene with as much realism as possible.

The Calling of St. Matthew Caravaggio 1599 -1600 oil on canvas Contarelli Chapel, San Luigi dei Francesi, Rome

The Jewish Bride Rembrandt c. 1665 oil on canvas

Rococo Characteristics of Rococo • According to Stokstad, Rococo is refined, fanciful, and often playful (939). • Rococo is characterized by pastel colors, delicately curving forms, dainty figuresm and a light-hearted mood. • Appeared in France around 1700, primarily as a style of interior design as the French court moved from Versailles back to Paris and all the rich courtiers (think entourage but incredibly wealthy) redecorated their hotels (mansions) in the latest style of the moment. • Paintings on canvas were used to decorate the walls.

Characteristics of Rococo: • According to Gardner, Rococo appeared in France around 1700, primarily as a style of interior design (780). • Shells and shell forms are the principal motifs in Rococo ornament • Expect irregular painted shapes surmounted by sculpture (imagine a painted surface with a white, sculpted putto on top). • Painting, architecture, and sculpture will combine to form a single ensemble, (see Francois de Cuvillies, Hall of Mirrors, the Amalienburg, Nymphenburg Palace park, Munich Germany, early 18 th century). • Expect soft colors; themes of love and happy scenes in outdoor settings Hall of Mirrors a putto

Jean-Antoine Watteau Pilgrimage to Cythera 1718 -20 oil on canvas Cythera is the island of love in classical mythology; the young couples have journeyed to Cythera to pay tribute to Venus, the goddess of love. The boat on the left waits to return these couples back to the every day life.

François Boucher The Toilet of Venus 1751 Oil on canvas, 108, 3 x 85, 1 cm This painting and its pendant, Venus Consoling Love (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D. C. ), were commissioned by Madame de Pompadour, mistress of Louis XV, for her Château de Bellevue, near Paris. Madame de Pompadour had played the title role in La Toilette de Vénus staged at Versailles in 1750. From http: //www. metmuseum. org

Jean-Honoré Fragonard The Stolen Kiss 1787 -89 oil on canvas

Jean-Honoré Fragonard The Swing 1767 Oil on canvas

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. 18 th-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 was a movement begun primarily by one very influential man: Johann 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.

Jacques-Louis David The Oath of the Horatii 1784 oil on canvas, 330 x 425 cm Musée du Louvre, Paris

Jacques-Louis David The Death of Marat 1793 oil on canvas, approx 5’ x 4’ This work constructs Marat as an icon figure of the French Revolution: he is at once like a classical god and a religious martyr.

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

Paulina Borghese as Venus Victrix 1804 -08 white marble

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

Romanticism Usually Romantic works have dramatic and intensely emotional subject matter but Romantic landscapes also often also meant to convey the artist’s almost religious reverence for the landscape—which became increasingly important as a industrial revolution intensified. Romantic landscape painting is dramatic • the content emphasizes turbulent or fantastic natural scenery • disasters • the sublime (something that inspires awe) naturalistic • the content represents tranquil nature • the content signals a religious reverence toward nature Romantic painting is characterized by • • • fluid, loose brushwork strong colors complex compositions powerful contrasts of light and dark expressive poses and gestures

Thomas Gainsborough Mr. 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?

Antoine-Jean Gros Napoleon in the Plague House at Jaffa 1804 oil on canvas

Eugene Delacroix Scenes from the Massacre at Chios 1822 -1824 oil on canvas

Goya The Third of May, 1808: The Execution of the Defenders of Madrid 1814 oil on canvas

Eugène Delacroix Liberty Leading the People (28 th July 1830) 1830 oil on canvas

John Henry Fuseli The Nightmare 1781 oil on canvas

Realism A term first used in 1850 to describe a kind of naturalism that had a political or social message: think Courbet or Daumier.

Gustave Courbet The Stone Breakers, 1849

Gustave Courbet Burial at Ornans 1849 -50

Honore Daumier The Third-Class Carriage, c. 1862

Impressionism began as a loose association of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence in the 1870 s and 1880 s. The name of the movement is derived from the title of Monet’s Impression: Sunrise which provoked a critic to describe his work satirically as just a bunch of impressions—not “real” painting at all.

Impressionism Works of art that are considered examples of impressionism have at least a few of these characteristics: • visible brushstrokes • the artist is usually interested in representing the particular quality of light of a specific moment • often the works are painted in en plein air (outdoors) • paint is used opaquely (not painted on in thin glazes like Rogier van der Weyden did in the painting Portrait of a Lady) • often the work is framed in an abrupt manner (figures are truncated) Nota Bene: the mid-century introduction of premixed paints in lead tubes (resembling modern toothpaste tubes) allowed artists to work more spontaneously; before, artists had to laboriously mix their own paints.

Impressionism: japonisme These characteristics suggest that the artist was probably influenced by Japanese woodblock prints. A characteristic of Impressionism is the evident influence of Japanese prints. – a tendency toward flatness (the background presses toward the surface or foreground of the image) – flat areas of strong color – surface patterning; the decorative quality of the surface pattern becomes almost as important as the content represented – asymmetrical composition (the compositional freedom in placing the subject off-centre) – abrupt framing – a lack of perspective and shadow – a high horizon line

Pierre-Auguste Renoir Le Moulin de la Galette 1876

Claude Monet Wheatstacks, Snow Effect, Morning 1891

Mary Cassatt The Boating Party 1893

Post-Impressionism • Four major artists: Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, Paul Cezanne, and Georges Seurat • Post-impressionism focused on line, pattern, form, and color. • Post-Impressionism can be identified by their color scheme: these artists used complementary colors in their work which made the colors “pop. ” • They rejected the Impressionists’ emphasis on light and sought to create more formal and structured art.

Georges Seurat Bathers at Asnieres 1884

Vincent Van Gogh Sunflowers 1888

Paul Gauguin The Meal or The Bananas 1891

Paul Cezanne Les Grandes Baigneuses 1898– 1905

Symbolism • According to Stokstad, Symbolism is an intellectual movement in late-nineteenth-century art and literature • Symbolism seeks a deeper and more mysterious reality then the one we encounter in everyday life • Symbolism originated in France but had a profound impact in the art of other European countries, where it often merge with expressionist tendencies • Artist transformed appearances in order to give pictorial form to psychic experiences and they often compared their works to dreams

Symbolism • According to Gardner, Symbolism started in the late 19 th century with a group of artists and poets who shared a view that the artist was not an imitator of nature but a creator who transformed the facts of nature into a symbol of the inner experience of that fact • Symbolism involves the freedom of the imagination, expression, and form • Expect the subjects of the Symbolists to be increasingly esoteric and exotic, mysterious, visionary, dreamlike, and fantastic

Gustave Moreau Oedipus and the Sphinx 1864 oil on canvas, 206 x 105 cm

Henri Rousseau The Sleeping Gypsy oil on canvas, 1. 3 x 2. 03 cm 1897

Gustave Klimt The Three Ages of Woman 1905

Art Nouveau • Art Nouveau appeared in France around the early 1890 s. The man responsible of introducing the Art Nouveau style in architecture and decorative arts was a Belgian, Victor Horta. The staircase in the Van Eetvelde House is a perfect example of the Art Nouveau style. • Art Nouveau is can be most easily recognized through its curving lines and emphasis on the decorative. • Art Nouveau appears in architecture, decorative art like furniture, jewelry, posters, and even in metro stations.

Art Nouveau • Stokstad writes that Art Nouveau rejected the values of modern industrial society and sought new aesthetic forms that would retain a preindustrial sense of beauty. Art Nouveau drew inspiration from nature: from the shapes of snakes, flowers, vines, and winged insects, whose forms were the basis of attenuated linear forms. • According to Gardner, Art Nouveau emerged at the end of the nineteenth century and adapted the twinning plant form to the needs of architecture, sculpture, painting, and all decorative arts. • Art Nouveau borrowed pattern styles of Van Gogh, Gauguin, and their Post-Impressionists and Symbolist contemporaries.

Victor Horta Stairway, Tassel House, Brussels 1892 -93

Victor Horta Brussels 1892 -93

Antonio Gaudi Casa Mila Barcelona, Spain 1907

Hector Guimard metro entrances Paris, France 1900

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec Avril poster 1893

Gustave Klimt The Kiss 1907 -1908

Modernism Characteristics: • a commitment to radical innovation • engagement in a process of experimentation and discovery • a tendency toward non-representational art (abstraction) • a tendency to emphasize the physical processes of artmaking • their work signals a continual questioning of the nature of art itself

Cubism (Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Juan Gris) Characteristics Purism (Fernand Leger) Futurism (Umberto Boccioni, Gino Severini, Giacomo Balla) Rationalism (Piet Modrian) Dada (Marcel Duchamp, John Heartfield, Max Ernst, Hannah Hoch) Surrealism (Salvador Dali, Andre Breton, Giorgio de Chirico, Joan Miro, Meret Oppenheim)

Cubism was a 20 th century avant-garde art movement, pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music and literature. The first branch of cubism, known as Analytic Cubism, was both radical and influential as a short but highly significant art movement between 1900 and 1910 in France. In its second phase, Synthetic Cubism, the movement spread and remained important until around 1919, when the Surrealist movement gained popularity. Characteristics: a reduction and fragmentation of natural forms into abstract, often geometric structures which are usually rendered as a set of discrete planes

Pablo Picasso Les Demoiselles d'Avignon 1907

Georges Braque Houses at L’Estaque 1908

Pablo Picasso Ma Jolie 1911

Georges Braque The Portuguese 1911

Pablo Picasso Still Life with Chair Caning 1912 Synthetic Cubism

Purism • According to Stokstad, purism was strongly inspired by “the machine” and emphasized the geometric purity simplicity, and harmony of ordinary objects.

Fernand Leger The Three Women or Le Grand Dejeuner 1921

Surrealism • According to Stokstad, Surrealism was a movement founded by the French writer Andre Breton(1896 -1996). • Breton believed the human psyche is a battleground where the rational, civilized forces of the conscious mind struggle against the irrational, instinctual urges of the unconscious. • Salvador Dali, possibly the most famous Surrealist, contributed the “paranoiac -critical method” theory, in which the sane person cultivates the ability of the paranoiac to misread ordinary appearances and become liberated from the shackles of conventional thought.

Surrealism • According to Gardner, Surrealism was an exploration of ways to express in art the world of dreams and the unconscious. • Surrealists were especially interested in the nature of dreams. • There are two types of Surrealists, one type interested in biomorphic(life forms) with automatism-- “dictation of thought without control of the mind. The other is Naturalistic Surrealists, who present scenes that seem to have metamorphosed into a dream or nightmare. • Much of the impact of Surrealist works begin with viewers' sudden awareness of the incongruity and absurdity of what is pictured.