United States History

Mr. Meyers

David Derish

Unit One

2/22/04

Art in Paris Prehistory

It was not until the late 19^th century that the great Parisian painter, Paul Gauguin, actually articulated the questions underlying the tremendous political, social, and artistic upheaval that had occurred over the prior four centuries: “Where do we come from? Who are we? Where are we going?” (ref) The period from the Renaissance in the 15^th century up until the formation of the Republic in the 18^th century witnessed dramatic changes in all aspects of French life, culture, and politics. These changes were mirrored in the country’s art. During these 300 years France developed into a world power and Paris became the visual arts capital of the world. From the passionate embrace of the Italian-based Renaissance with its emphasis on Classicism by Francis I, through the true beginnings of Parisian art with the Baroque style popularized during the reign of Louis XIV, to the eventual return to Romanticism and Neoclassicism in the days of the Republic, French art imitated French life--and French politics. Art divided the country and the people, much like politics did. Just as different classes developed in France over these three centuries of change, there developed an art of royalty and an art of the people, and the artistic style that predominated at any particular time--along with accessibility to that art--reflected the strength of the monarchy versus the strength of the populace. The Evolution of art in this period reflects the changes in every aspect of the French life from which it came, and the wealth of art produced by French artists helps us understand how Paris became one of the most important cultural centers of the world.

Since the French Royalty – who had acquired a taste for Italian art after being exposed to it during the Italian wars – brought the Renaissance to France, Paris, the seat of the French monarchy, became the center of French Renaissance art. The Renaissance was a period marked by a revival of interest in the artistic style and values of classical antiquity. It had its start in Italy with the study of Roman monuments and antique statuary. The Renaissance period was characterized by both a renewed interest in classical antiquity and an emphasis on perfection in technique. Painting was transformed as the result of technical development, advances in drawing (with the reintroduction of the nude, which had been discouraged by Christianity), increased knowledge of perspective and anatomy, and the invention of oil paints.

Jean Fouquet was one of the outstanding French painters of the Renaissance. Fouquet started out as a draftsman and his paintings are characterized by a strong sculptural character, along with a delicacy of line. He was influenced by prominent Italian artists of his day, particularly Fra Angelico. Fouquet was recognized as the royal portraitist of France and served as court painter to Charles VII and Louis XI. “He understood that the mode of representation best suited to his own time, the 15^th century, might well turn out to revive a style routed in the art of a thousand years earlier.” (ref)

Fouquet: Portrait of Charles VII

Another important French Reniassance artist of this period was Francois Clouet, who served as court painter under Francis I, Henry II, Francis II, and Charles IX. He also was a skilled draftsman and his paintings are characterized by their clarity and precise lines.

Clouet: Portrait of Charles IX

The greatest sculptor of the later sixteenth century was Germain Pilon, who merged Mannerism with elements taken from ancient sculpture and was influenced by Michelangelo, as well as the Gothic tradition.

Renaissance painting became the art of the royalty, because only an elite, educated few could appreciate the subtle, sophisticated art of highly-trained Renaissance painters. The majority of French people did not like or appreciate this Renaissance art, and a stratum of art appreciation was created between the royalty and the common man, producing a breach in the artistic unity of the French people. This rift would grow wider and wider and extend into social and political spheres as time went on, ultimately leading to the French Revolution.

The Baroque period took place during the era of the absolute French monarchs (Louis XIII and Louis XIV). Under Louis XIV France became the most militarily and culturally powerful nation of Europe. By the late seventeenth century, it had become the world capital of the visual arts. French Baroque art sprang from the tradition of sixteenth-century art, and was marked by extravagance and rich ornamentation, all for the purpose of glorifying the absolute monarchy in power. Painting represented noble and serious human actions in a logical and orderly way. Artists focused on form and composition, appealing to the mind, not the senses. Nature was depicted as if it were perfect, not as it was. This often produced unrealistic paintings, but paintings that were crafted in such a way that the viewer was able to interpret them logically.

In the mid-1600s classicism became the premier painting style in France, and the artist most responsible for popularizing it was Nicholas Poussin. He has been called “a philosopher who expressed himself in paint.” (ref) Contrary to the court painters of the Renaissance period, Poussin preferred painting what he chose, not what he was commissioned for. His work embodied the aesthetic and moral values of classicism, and his compositions were carefully contrived to create a sense of balance. His most famous painting, The Rape of the Sabine Women, displays emotion in abundance, but the stiffness and sculptural quality of the figures make it somewhat

Poussin: Rape of the Sabine Women

cold and inaccessible.

Another important Baroque painter was the great French landscapist, Claude Lorraine, who brought out the idyllic aspects of the landscapes in his paintings. He was more concerned with the poetic qualities of his paintings than their exactitude and realism. Compositions depicted serene landscapes, containing hazy, luminous atmospheres, which contributed to the general feeling of Italian High-Renaissance nostalgia, common among Baroque classical art.

Lorrain: Oracle at Delos

The role and popularity of art in society shifted greatly as a result of the reign of Louis XIV (1638-1715). It saw a dramatic growth in royal patronage as well as the establishment of the Academie Royale de peinture et de sculpture, and the thoughts and actions of the entire nation were subjected to his strict control. He governed France as his predecessors had failed to and turned patronage into a royal right and a duty. During this period, French art had the goal of glorifying the king, and it was the expression--as well as a product--of his power. The official royal style was classicism, based heavily on the classic styles of the High Renaissance in Italy, as well as those of ancient Greek art. Louis XIV was a champion of the baroque, with its grandiose, richly ornamented, and often extravagant style.

Fragonard: The Bathers

Two significant shifts occurred after the death of Louis XIV. First, the scene of the royal court moved from Versailles back to Paris and both the monarchy and the members of the court essentially relocated to the true capital. Second, there occurred a split in the membership of the Royal Academy, with division into Poussinistes (who maintained the academic orthodoxy based on the style and philosophy of Nicholas Poussin) and Rubenistes (who argued in favor of color and Venetian art), with the latter eventually prevailing. The Rubenistes (named after their primary influence, the Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens) ultimately won the Quarrel of Color and Design with the induction of the painter Antoine Watteau, whose refined and whimsical paintings became the standards of Rococo style, into the Academie Royale de peinture et de sculpture. This represented a triumph of the concept of art as something to be appreciated by all as opposed to an elite few, signaling an important shift in French art and in French society.

After the death of Louis XIV, the centralized administrative power of his monarchy lost power, and the nobility, no longer attached to the court at Versailles, chose to live in elegant town houses in Paris, known as hotels. The reign of Louis XV (1715-1774) is said to have produced the art style established for the interior decoration of these hotels – the Rococo. The Rococo was an offshoot of the Baroque, characterized by a light, delicate, and superficial style with repetitive motifs of shells, scrolls, and flowers. The emergence of the Rococo style, and the widespread use of carved paneling and mirrors devalued the traditional role of painting, and threatened the status and position of history painting. The most prominent painter of the Rococo school was Jean-Honore Fragonard, whose graceful, fluid style is exemplified in The Bathers.

This era also saw the advent of the art critic. The most important critic of the day was La Font de Saint-Yenne. At this time there were two distinct schools of art: the Versailles School and the Parisian School. La Font criticized the absolutist classicism of the Versailles School, calling it old-fashioned, superficial, and immoral. He championed the more sober and republican art of the Paris School. The Parisian public became more vocal in rendering its own artistic verdicts. The rising power of the people forced the monarchy to start listening to the artistic “demands of enlightened modernity.” (ref)

The Thinkers of the Enlightenment, who were the intellectual forefathers of the Revolution, strongly fostered the anti-Rococo trend in painting. Jean-Baptiste Greuze was at the forefront of this trend. He was a painter who, like the Enlightenment thinkers of his time, had a social mission, which he conveyed to the viewer through his paintings, appealing to their moral sense with his powerful imagery. His canvasses depicted bourgeois (and, therefore, modern) life. His work was very popular with the public, who appreciated his sentiment and the novelty of his subject matter. It was said that “He wished to express the spirit of his age, an age that longed to be touched.” His painting, The Village Betrothal, is a scene of lower-class family life. This painting illustrates the natural virtue of common people through the gestures and emotions of its figures. Greuze was instrumental in bringing about the rise of Neoclassicism

Under Louis XVI (1774-1793), more state funds were directed towards history painting to present an image of enlightened absolutism. This, along with the didactic aims of art, as advocated by Enlightenment critics, created a moral and serious art form, known as Neo-Classicism. It was an early aspect of Romanticism that remained popular until around 1800, and was defined as a new revival of classical antiquity, more consistent than earlier classicisms. One of the most prominent proponents of the Neoclassical trend in painting, which drew inspiration from the art of classical antiquity (especially 17^th century French and Italian sources) to invest it with a sense of seriousness, was Jacques-Louis David. He concentrated on the creation of a virile and austere style in his painting, capable of communicating messages of morality and virtue. Neoclassicism was very much interconnected with Romanticism, and as Neo-Classicism started to lose popularity toward the end of the 18^th century, new forms of Romanticism in art took center stage.

Romanticism refers less to a specific style than to an attitude. It represented a movement in art characterized by a return to nature. It was a reaction against the artificial barriers and rationalism of the Baroque Period, an exaltation of emotion and the senses over the intellect.

The style of Romanticism in art was based on revivals of rediscovered older forms. The greatest creative achievement of Romanticism in the visual arts was seen in painting. It appealed more to the individualism of the romantic artist, because it was less dependent on public approval than architecture or sculpture, allowing the painter more freedom of expression. Within the Romantic movement, there was a complex and subtle relationship between art and literature, with literature.becoming a source of inspiration for Romantic artists and vice versa, providing painters with a new range of subjects, emotions, and attitudes.

Greuze: The Village Betrothal

Probably the most important event transforming life, politics, and art in France was the French Revolution (1789-1799). The King fled in 1791 and the Republic was declared in 1792. Revolution artists had the task of celebrating glorious events or commemorating Republican martyrs. Jacques-Louis David was probably the most important artistic figure during the revolution. He supported the Revolution and remained artistically active during the turmoil, creating art with a political message. His paintings of the period were spectacular propaganda pieces, possibly the best examples being his The Death of Marat and The Oath of Horatio. The former depicts Marat, one of the political leaders of the French Revolution, after he had been murdered in the bathtub. It combines powerful emotion with historical account. The latter prefigures the revolutionary public spirit and celebrates the citizen-soldiers who swear to conquer or die. As the political scene changed, however, the artistic topics popular during the revolution soon became outdated. Official and aristocratic patronage collapsed, and history painters in particular suffered. Artists were painting what they could sell, and the salons of Paris were full of portraits, genre scenes, still-lives, and landscapes.

An important artistic/political/social feature of this period was the change in accessibility to art. This was largely due to the French Revolution. In the later half of the 18^th century, there was a popular movement to increase the public’s access to art, resulting in the opening of a temporary art museum in the Luxembourg Palace, available to the masses twice a week as a public service. In 1793 the Louvre opened, with the public being admitted three out of ten days of the

revolutionary work week. “The Jacobians, led by David, achieved their objective of showing that the culture once reserved for the pleasure of the monarch was the natural right and endowment of the whole of mankind.” (ref) And “every citizen who entered The Louvre inherited the collection of the kings of France.”

The most important figure in the era of French politics immediately following the French Revolution was undoubtedly Napolean, whose rise, first as Consul (1799) and then as Emperor (1804), provoked far-reaching changes in French art. During this time, there was an abundance of portraits and paintings commemorating famous victories. Artists were required to create a Napoleonic myth through their artwork, which was free of associations with the monarchy, and that suggested parallels with Roman emperors and even with Christ. Jacques-Louis David returned to artistic prominence in the First Empire under Napolean, with his Bonapartist and propagandist art. His artistic direction mirrored his politics, and after being imprisoned by the Directory for his revolutionary sentiments, and nearly executed, he gained a new hero with Napolean, producing many portraits of The General-turned-Emperor and Josephine. In his painting, The Coronation of Josephine, David drew on the Caravaggesque tradition of religious art for style, and the painting embodies David’s commitment to direct visual experience with its captivating directness

David: The Death of Marat

David: The Oath of Horatio

David: The Coronation of Josephine

Another important artist of this period was Antoine-Jean Gros, a pupil of David’s, who inaugurated the era of Neo-Baroque, with Napolean at Arcole, his first portrait of Napoleon.

Gros: Portrait of Napoleon

he was greatly influenced by the Neo-Baroque style of the paintings of Francisco Goya, whose work became known to him after Napoleon occupied Spain in 1808. He was drawn toward the color and the drama of the Baroque, and revived the style in his Neo-Baroque paintings. His portrait conveys Napoleon’s magic with Romantic enthusiasm, and represents the Neo-Baroque Romantic emphasis on the psychological aspects of the subject of the painting.

The fall of Napolean and the subsequent restoration of the Bourbon Monarchy (1814) marked a shift in the emphasis of artistic subject matter in paintings, from a central hero to the common people. Artists reverted to traditional sources of inspiration for their art, including mythological subjects from Greek and Roman legends, and religious themes were the first significant trend in the art of the Restoration Salons. However these themes soon lost their popularity as artists turned to more recent sources for inspiration, illustrating the work of the popular post-classical writers, such as Goethe and Shakespeare, and prints became popular with the introduction of lithography.

The year 1824 was very significant for French painting. It was the year that The Massacre of Chios established Eugene Delacroix as the foremost Neo-Baroque Romantic painter.

Delacroix: The Massacre of Chios

The Massacre was inspired by a contemporary event: the Greek war of independence against the Turks, which stirred a sympathetic response throughout Western Europe. Delacroix aimed for “poetic truth” rather than accuracy in his paintings, and the Massacre exhibits sensuousness and intense emotion, eliciting reaction from the viewer. The later work of Delacroix reflects the attitude that eventually doomed the Romantic movement: its growing detachment from the harsh, contemporary reality of the industrial revolution.

It has been said that art imitates life. In the case of French art from the 15^th through the

19^th century, it was more a case of art imitating social and political change. During the Renaissance, French art was strongly influenced by Italy, the recognized artistic capital of the world at that time. The emphasis on classicism and perfection in technique made this an art for royalty, confined to a small privileged group capable of appreciating it. It was not the art of the people and it led to what has been described as a “breach in the artistic unity of the French people.” It took a Revolution in France to shift from monarchy to republic and solve this problem. There was a second revolution in French art, moving from Classicism, through Baroque, Rococo, Romantic, and Neoclassical periods, and as a true French artistic style gradually emerged, Paris established itself as a world center for painting and sculpture, and French art became once again the property of all Frenchmen.