A Review of Ism’s

A period in the history of art lasting from the end of the 16th century (1580’s) into the 18th 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.

Baroque

Religious Images

EntombmentCaravaggio1603-1604oil 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. MatthewCaravaggio1599-1600oil on canvasContarelli Chapel, San Luigi dei Francesi, Rome

The Jewish Bride Rembrandt c. 1665 oil on canvas

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.

Rococo

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 18th century).

•Expect soft colors; themes of love and happy scenes in outdoor settings

a puttoHall of Mirrors

Jean-Antoine Watteau Pilgrimage to Cythera 1718-20 oil on canvasCythera 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 BoucherThe Toilet of Venus1751Oil 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 FragonardThe Stolen Kiss

1787-89oil on canvas

Jean-Honoré FragonardThe Swing1767Oil 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. 18th-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

Neoclassicism was a movement begun primarily by one very influential man: Johann Winckelmann. 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.

Neoclassicism

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

Jacques-Louis DavidThe Death of Marat 1793oil 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 1800Oil on canvas 173 x 244 cm 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 18th 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

RomanticismUsually 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 GainsboroughMr. 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 GrosNapoleon in the Plague House at Jaffa

1804 oil on canvas

Eugene DelacroixScenes from the Massacre at Chios1822-1824oil on canvas

Goya The Third of May, 1808: The Execution of the Defenders of Madrid

1814 oil on canvas

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

John Henry Fuseli The Nightmare 1781 oil on canvas

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

Realism

Gustave CourbetThe Stone Breakers, 1849

Gustave CourbetBurial at Ornans

1849-50

Honore DaumierThe Third-Class Carriage, c. 1862

ImpressionismImpressionism began as a loose association of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence in the 1870s and 1880s.

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.

ImpressionismWorks 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: japonismeThese 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 RenoirLe Moulin de la Galette

1876

Claude MonetWheatstacks, Snow Effect, Morning

1891

Mary CassattThe 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 SeuratBathers at Asnieres

1884

Vincent Van GoghSunflowers1888

Paul GauguinThe Meal or The Bananas

1891

Paul CezanneLes 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 19th 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 MoreauOedipus and the Sphinx1864oil on canvas, 206 x 105 cm

Henri Rousseau The Sleeping Gypsy 1897

oil on canvas, 1.3 x 2.03 cm

Gustave Klimt

The Three Ages of Woman

1905

Art Nouveau• Art Nouveau appeared in France around the early

1890s. 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 HortaStairway, Tassel House, Brussels1892-93

Victor HortaBrussels1892-93

Antonio GaudiCasa Mila

Barcelona, Spain1907

Hector Guimardmetro entrancesParis, France1900

Henri de Toulouse-LautrecAvril poster 1893

Gustave Klimt

The Kiss

1907-1908

ModernismCharacteristics:

•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 art-making

•their work signals a continual questioning of the nature of art itself

CharacteristicsCubism (Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Juan Gris)

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 Cubism was a 20th 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 BraqueHouses at L’Estaque 1908

Pablo PicassoMa Jolie 1911

Georges BraqueThe Portuguese 1911

Pablo PicassoStill 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 LegerThe 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.

Salvador DaliThe Temptation of St. Anthony

1946. Oil on canvas. 89.7 x 119.5 cm

Max Ernst.

The Robing of the Bride.

Oil on canvas. 130 x 96 cm. 1940

Rene MagaritteThe Treachery of Images1928-1929Oil on canvas