19th Century European Art History

19th Century European Art

History

Short Histories of Major Art Movements and Select

Artists from ART 305

MEGAN BYLSMA
19th Century European Art History by Megan Bylsma is licensed under a Creative
Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except
where otherwise noted.

CC BY-NC-SA except where otherwise indicated.

This book was produced with Pressbooks (https://pressbooks.com) and

rendered with Prince.
Contents

Introduction 1

Acknowledgments 2
Acknowledgments

Part I. Main Body

1. Chapter 1 - Rococo through Neo-Classicism 5

France
Megan Bylsma

The Rococo 6

The Enlightenment 13

The Classical Paradigm 20

Neo-Classicism 26
2. Chapter 2 - French Revolution through to the End 30
of Napoleon
France
Megan Bylsma

The French Revolution 33

Marie Antoinette 44

Pierre-Paul Prud’hon and Other Post- 54

Revolutionary Developments
3. Chapter 3 - French Romanticism and the Academy 70
France

Antoine-Jean Gros 76

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres 80

Academic Genre Hierarchies 91

The Restoration 93

Romanticism in France 94
4. Chapter 4 - British Romanticism and the 102
Picturesque Tradition
Britain

America’s Raphael – Benjamin West 107

Henry Fuseli 115

William Blake 124

British Landscape Painting 128

John Constable 137

Joseph Mallord William Turner 142

John “Mad” Martin 151

5. Chapter 5 - Romanticism in Spain and Germany 160
Spain & Germany

Francisco Goya 163

German Romanticism 195

Philipp Otto Runge 197

The Nazarene Movement 201

6. Chapter 6 - French Realism 217
France
Megan Bylsma

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot 229

The Barbizon School 238

Théodore Rousseau 240

Jean-François Millet 242

Rosa Bonheur 248

Gustave Courbet – The First Realist 254

Honoré Daumier 272

Édouard Manet 286

7. Chapter 7 - Victorian England and the Pre- 297
Raphaelite Brotherhood
Britain

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood 322

John Everett Millais 328

William Holman Hunt 340

Dante Gabriel Rossetti 348

John William Waterhouse 358

The Aesthetic Movement 363

James Abbott McNeill Whistler 368

John Singer Sargent 375

8. Chapter 7 - John Singer Sargent 387
The Impact of Madame X (Virginie Amelie
Gautreau)
Lailey Newton
9. Chapter 9 - Japonisme 398
10. Chapter 9 - Impressionism 413
The Communication of a Moment’s Impression
Annika Blair
11. Chapter 9 - Pierre Auguste Renoir & Edgar Degas 425
Megan Bylsma

Pierre-Auguste Renoir 426

Edgar Degas 434

12. Chapter 9 - Claude Monet 437
The Changes in the Art of Claude Monet during the
Times of his Mental Challenges
Kelsey Robinson
13. Chapter 9 - Mary Cassatt 450
Hannah Martin
14. Chapter 9 - Alfred Sisley 460
“Purest of All the Impressionists”
Lindsey Beamish
15. Chapter 9 - Cecilia Beaux 471
Defining Beaux’s Art
William Armstrong
16. Chapter 9 - Marie Bracquemond 480
Impressionism
Paige Ekdahl
17. Chapter 10 - Post-Impressionism 488
Post-Impressionism
18. Chapter 10 - Suzanne Valadon 505
Post-Impressionism
Morgan Hunter
19. Chapter 10 - Vincent Van Gogh 514
Post-Impressionism
Megan Bylsma
20. Chapter 10 - Paul Cezanne 530
Post-Impressionism
Bethany Miller
21. Chapter 10 - Paul Cezanne (part 2) 538
Post-Impressionism
22. Chapter 10 - Georges Seurat 560
Post-Impressionism
Kylee Semenoff
23. Chapter 10 - Paul Signac 569
Post-Impressionism
Makayla Bernier
24. Chapter 10 - Odilon Redon 579
Odilon Redon: Influence on Art History and
Symbolic Artwork
Hailee Sharyk
25. Chapter 10 - Henri Matisse 588
Henri Matisse and Modern Art
Taylor Dennis
26. Chapter 10 - Edward Mitchell Bannister 596
Post-Impressionism
Emily Becker
27. Chapter 11 - Art Nouveau 607
28. Chapter 11 - Antoni Gaudi (part 1) 616
A Brief Summary: Antoni Gaudi
Rebecca Sevigny
29. Chapter 11 - Antoni Gaudi (part 2) 624
Sagrada Família
30. Chapter 11 - Aubrey Beardsley 633
Art Nouveau
Spencer Beaudoin
31. Chapter 11 - Symbolism 642
Art Nouveau
32. Chapter 11 - Gustave Moreau 653
The Mystic Moreau
Eric Walters
33. Chapter 11 - Pierre Puvis de Chavannes 665
Symbolism & The Academy
Hannah Myles
34. Chapter 11 - Arts & Crafts Movement 675
Art Nouveau
Shayla Beauchamp
35. Chapter 11 - Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh 684
Art Nouveau
Collin Johnson
36. Chapter 11 - Kay Nielsen 692
Art Nouveau
37. Chapter 11 - Edvard Munch 699
Art Nouveau
38. Chapter 12 - Gustav Klimt 706
The Work of Gustav Klimt
Rachel Sluggett
39. Chapter 12 - Franz von Stuck 717
Art Nouveau
Kaydin Williams
40. Chapter 12 - Thomas Eakins 728
Samantha Donovan
Introduction
What happens when a class shares their collective knowledge about
their subject, rather than hiding it away and stuffing it down in
individual memory?
A textbook that is formed by the meeting of the minds!
As part of the ART 305 19th Century European Art History move to
online during the pandemic, a collective project was born: creating
a digital open-education resource, free to any who choose to access
it, and a way for the individuals in class to be part of a greater
community in an online learning environment.
With some chapters authored by the instructor of the class and
others created by the students as a result of their term’s research,
this text is a growing document that will encompass past, present,
and future learners as their collective body of knowledge grows.
Within the parameters of 19th Century European Art History this
text begins with the influence and beginnings of change during
the Rococo era in France and progresses through time until the
beginning of the 20th century. Each chapter and chapter sections
marks a specific era or a specific artist and chapter sections are
individually authored.
Welcome to ART 305! The 19th century awaits!

Introduction | 1
Acknowledgments
Acknowledgments

This project would not have been possible without the support and
expertise of many.
First thanks must needs go to Dr. Alena Buis of Langara College for
her excellent advice when this book was in its infancy. This project
would absolutely not exist without her encouragement and ideas.
She is the one who said the resource I wanted didn’t exist yet and
that I’d have to be the one to create it. Then she made me believe I
could do just that! One million thanks, Alena!
Sona Macnaughton, our information and digital literacy and open
educational resources librarian at Red Deer Polytechnic, was an
invaluable resource and liaison. Her willingness to expertly track
down OER resources is what led us to partner with the University
of Alberta Library’s Open Education Alberta project to platform and
create this book. I asked Sona a myriad of complicated and difficult
to answer questions during the making of this project and even
when it required her to contact individuals in other institutions she
was always able to find an answer for me. She also fielded questions
(so many questions) about intellectual property, copyright, and
creative commons licensing in the OER world. She also sourced
institutional policy that made it clear how students could share
their work in this text while maintaining their right to their
intellectual property. She made this project easy and I am so
appreciative of her time and effort! Thank you so much Sona!
Caitlin Ratcliffe was a copyright life line! A subject librarian at
Red Deer Polytechnic, she and Sona answered so many questions
about copyright and intellectual property that I’m sure they were
very over this project by the end of it. Caitlin was indispensable
at helping me support my students so they could fully understand
their rights as intellectual property creators and gave us so much

2 | Acknowledgments
information on what the different kinds of copyright and creative
commons options there were for authors and content creators in a
project like this. Thank you Caitlin for the resources you have shared
and the many questions you have answered!
Finally, true appreciation needs to be extended to the University
of Alberta Library and their Open Education Alberta project. This
allowed us to create this Open Education Resource, gave us access
to their expertise and support, and ultimately made a very daunting
task as smooth as possible. Thank you for your collaboration in
making this project possible.
Supported by:

Created in partnership with:

Acknowledgments Copyright © by Megan Bylsma. All Rights Reserved.

Acknowledgments | 3
1. Chapter 1 - Rococo through
Neo-Classicism
France
MEGAN BYLSMA

By the end of this chapter you will be able to:

• define the terms ‘Rococo’, ‘Enlightenment’, and

‘Classicism.’
• describe the Rococo style and its purpose.
• identify the philosophies of the Enlightenment.
• explain the historical basis of Neo-Classicism.
• describe the identifying characteristics of Neo-
Classicism.

Chapter opening in audio:

One or more interactive elements has been excluded

from this version of the text. You can view them online
here: https://openeducationalberta.ca/
19thcenturyart/?p=5#audio-5-1

Chapter 1 | 5
The Rococo
It is easy to look at the Rococo era as nothing more than silly,
insipid rich people celebrating their wealth in the most opulent
ways. Which, in some part, it really was. However, there was also
more going on with the Rococo then just “Wheee! We’re rich! And
lascivious!” But not by much.
It is difficult to really understand the reality of the Rococo Era
by just looking at pictures of its art. The Rococo was a full sensory
experience, from how the fabric you were wearing felt and the
sound it made when it moved, to the food you ate, the company you
kept, the topics you talked about, the people you flirted with, the
music that was played (either by you or someone else) and the way
the rooms were decorated while you talked and played. This was
an expensive, time consuming, experiential aesthetic lifestyle. And
it was a lifestyle and aesthetic for the rich. (As most aesthetic-based
lifestyles are.)
The Rococo (also spelled ‘Roccoco’) period could not have come
about were it not for the earlier years of the 1700s. The absolute
power of the King of France had kept the aristocracy trapped at the
Palace of Versailles, under his watchful eye, and away from their
city homes in Paris. After his death, the aristocracy flooded back
to Paris. Happy to be free of the palace, feeling resentful for the
amount of control exercised over their lives, and moving back into
apartments in serious need of a decorating update due to their long
absence. With all the money and time they could desire at their
disposal, they indulged in creating the most comfortable, exciting,
and luscious surroundings possible.

6 | Chapter 1
 “In the early years of the 1700s,
at the end of the reign of Louis
XIV (who died in 1715), there
was a shift away from the
classicism and “Grand Manner”
(based on the art of Nicolas
Poussin) that had governed the
art of the preceding 50 years in
France, toward a new style that
came to be known as Rococo.
The Palace of Versailles (a royal
chateau that was the center of
political power) was abandoned
by the aristocracy, who once
again took up residence in
Hyacinthe Rigaud, Louis XIV, oil on Paris. A shift away from the
canvas, 1701 (The J. Paul Getty
Museum) – Rumour has it that his guy monarchy, toward the
only took a bath twice in his life. YUP. aristocracy characterized the
YOUR READ THAT RIGHT.
art of this period.
The aristocracy had enormous political power as well as enormous
wealth. Many chose leisure as a pursuit and became involved
themselves in romantic intrigues. Indeed, they created a culture of
luxury and excess that formed a stark contrast to the lives of most
people in France. The aristocracy—only a small percentage of the
population of France—owned over 90% of its wealth. This disparity
in wealth fuelled growing national discontent.”
Excerpted from an Essay by Dr. Steven Zucker and Dr. Beth Harris,
“A beginner’s guide to Rococo art,” in Smarthistory, January 7, 2016,
https://smarthistory.org/a-beginners-guide-to-rococo-art/.
All Smarthistory content is available for free at
www.smarthistory.org

Chapter 1 | 7
Fragonard’s The Swing and Sexual Mores

Jean-Honoré Fragonard, The Swing, oil on canvas, 1767 (Wallace

Collection, London)

Rococo paintings do not often have deep meaning or high moral

reasoning. In Fragonard’s The Swing the scene is focused on a
young woman in a beautiful dress floating through the air on a
swing being pulled by her elderly husband in the darker right hand

8 | Chapter 1
corner. In the lower left hand corner a young man is partially
concealed in the bushes, catching a peek under the woman’s skirts
as she flies over his head. In Rococo images narrative was often
embedded through the use of settings, props, and attention to
where the people portrayed were focused; Rococo relied on some
of the same theatrical elements that the earlier Baroque art had
also used. In The Swing there are two small cupids leaning on snail
next to the elderly husband in the background. They can be seen to
be a representation of the slow, unexciting commitment of a sedate
marriage between the young woman and the older man. This along
with the dog that barks a warning from below, can be seen as a
reminder of fidelity and loyalty. The woman is looking at the young
man in the bushes below her, indicating that she is aware of his
presence and is spreading her legs to afford him a better view.
Following the sweeping diagonal of her dress and foot a shoe can
been seen flying off. Compositionally, this leads the painting
viewer’s eye to the solitary cupid in the upper left hand corner who
is whispering a ‘shh’ the young man and woman. The solitary and
secret keeping cupid can been seen to represent the secret love
and infidelity of the woman and the young man.

The story in Fragonard’s The Swing is one of flirtation,

concupiscence, and infidelity; but in this painting there is no
judgement or call to resistance. Martial infidelity was a common,
cultural occurrence among French nobility at this time. As early as
the 1500s the king of France had a mistress as part of his court.
The title given to the woman in this position was maîtresse-en-titre
and this semi-official position came with power and apartments
at the palace (whereas a petite maîtresse was an unacknowledged,
completely unofficial mistress to the king). Therefore it is not
strange that by the 1700s it was expected that every married man of
means would keep at least one mistress. The keeping of mistresses
was merely part of the way of life for the upper classes in France at
this time – all the wealthy men had them and all the women knew
about them. Paintings, like The Swing, that celebrated, normalized,

Chapter 1 | 9
and made light of the moral decadence of the ruling classes added
fuel to the fire of the Enlightenment. Those that called for social
and moral reforms used examples of art like this to call society to a
searching for their moral fiber and to value heroism and duty over
self-indulgence and avarice.

La salon de la Princesse and Madame de Pompadour sections in

audio:

One or more interactive elements has been excluded

from this version of the text. You can view them online
here: https://openeducationalberta.ca/
19thcenturyart/?p=5#audio-5-2

Boffrand’s Le salon de la Princesse and Seeds of

Dissent

10 | Chapter 1
Germain Boffrand, Le salon de la Princesse, Hôtel de Soubise, Paris, 1735–40

Rococo architecture and interior design were as indulgent and over

the top as the paintings of the time. This salon was created for a
new, young, wife in a city mansion located at 60 rue des Francs-
Bourgeois, in Paris. The gilted and highly decorated interior
highlighted here was not an unusual feature for Rococo interiors.
Integrated wall paintings like those in the spaces between the
window arches near the ceiling, were popular – as were silk wall
coverings punctuated with easel paintings.
This integrated painting is a series of paintings in the alcoves in
this room that relate the story of Eros and Psyche. Now remember
that these paintings would be seen in either daylight, or more often,
as this was a room for entertaining guests, by candlelight. Seen in
microscopic singular detail, as is often the case with digital viewing
in the 21st century, these paintings seem odd and over the top. But
in situ, in the ambience of candlelight reflecting off of glass, mirrors

Chapter 1 | 11
and gold, it would have seemed quite in keeping with the tastes
of the day. The selection of this story of Psyche on the alcoves is
interesting because it is the love story of the human Psyche and
the god Eros. In this story, Psyche is a beautiful human who, after
a series of misadventures, is the object of the god Eros’ affections.
Eros had been given the task of destroying Psyche, but instead
he had fallen in love with her and knew that to keep their love a
secrete from Aphrodite, Psyche must never see his face. However,
she eventually sneaks a peek during the night and Eros immediately
leaves her. After much sad seeking of her love, Psyche asks
Aphrodite for help and is given dangerous tasks to complete. In the
end, she is rescued by Eros, who asks Zeus to allow Psyche into
the pantheon of gods and demi-gods so that their love is no longer
forbidden and to appease the anger of Aphrodite. When Psyche is
elevated to Mount Olympus, she and Eros live happily ever after.
This story is considered to be one of the first and few fairytale like
stories from Greek myth, but it has an interesting moral that can
be argued from the story. As Petra ten-Doesschate Chu explains
in her book Nineteenth-century European Art, to use the story of
Psyche and Eros seems like a lovely love story in keeping with
the flirtatious expectations of the Rococo. Yet, this particular love
story may have also seen as a story about questioning authority
and rebelling against the absolute rule (as the nobles had just been
released from Versaille by the death of King Louis the XIV) and
bending the will of the ruler to that of the ruled. Just as the moral
of the story of Psyche and Eros is deeply hidden and really only a
small factor in the overall message of the story so the questioning of
authority was only a glimmer of a growing idea in the minds of the
French people at this time.
Even the smallest of glimmering flames can be fanned into a
raging fire, though. Fed up with the self-indulgent and self-
congratulating celebration of the bourgeoisie, the seeds of the
Enlightenment were planted.

12 | Chapter 1
The Enlightenment
The fact that one section ended and another began in this resource
would make it seem like the Rococo era ended and was succeeded
dramatically by the Age of Reason, but in reality the Rococo and
the Enlightenment sort of melded one into the other. In the fancy,
rich interiors of Rococo extravagance there were dinner parties
with witty, rich, and intelligent people having conversations and
questioning authority. As these conversations grew more strident
and the thoughts become more clearly formed people like the
philosophers of the eighteenth century – Voltaire, Diderot,
d’Alembert – came to believe that reason, logic, and duty were the
only things that would save humanity from its own decadence.

Chapter 1 | 13
 Madame de Pompadour

This portrait of Madame de

Pompadour – the king’s leading
mistress – shows her with
books, papers, and music – a
nod to her intelligence, ‘good
taste’ and patronly generosity.
Jeanne Antoinette Poisson,
Marquise of Pompadour – aka
Madame de Pompadour – used
her position in the royal court
to shrewdly wield her influence
for the arts and other
intellectual endeavours.
Maurice Quentin de La Tour, Madame Maurice Quentin de La Tour’s
de Pompadour, pastel, 1755 (Louvre) portrait of Madame de
Pompadour surrounded by
books, including a copy of Encyclopédie, was an acknowledgement
of her role in the intellectual undertaking of the first ‘Encyclopédie’,
or what we now refer to, in English, as an Encyclopedia. It was to be
a compendium of illustrated knowledge that encompassed
everything known to the intellectuals at the time – from horse tack
to liturgical seasons. Madame de Pompadour became its protector
as rival intellectuals from the French Academy and high ranking
members of the Catholic Church, including Archbishop of Paris
Christophe de Beaumont and Pope Clement XIII, were quite against
1
the undertaking as some of the articles in it were quite provoking.

1. Évelyne Lever, Madame de Pompadour: A Life, translated

by Catherine Temerson (New York: St. Martin's Press,
2003), 176.
14 | Chapter 1
 Due to Madame de Pompadour’s diplomatic interventions the
Encyclopédie was completed and published (although it was placed
on the list of banned books by Pope Clement).
Jeanne Antoinette Poisson,
Marquise of Pompadour is an
excellent example of the dual
existence of Rococo excess and
Enlightenment intellect.
Madame de Pompadour was the
official mistress to the king – a
role she received by calculated
and direct flirtation with him.
She attended salons where
food, talk, music, and wit
flowed. She hosted grand
parties and redecorated her Love at Peace in the Reign of Justice;
many dwellings frequently and engraved print by Madame de
Pompadour of a drawing by Boucher,
opulently. She held even after an engraved gemstone by Guay c.
greater power in the king’s 1755
court once she received the
title of lady-in-waiting to the Queen of France. She lavished money
and favours on those she deemed worthy; she removed those that
disappointed her from their positions. Her influence was felt
especially in the arts and other realms of intellectual pursuit. She
was an also an artist after a fashion, although some debate whether
her work was really her own, or a collaboration with the artists she
2
championed. She learned how to engrave gemstones from the
king’s own engraver, Jacques Guay and learned printmaking from
François Boucher, a member of the French Royal Academy of

2. Melissa Hyde, "The "Makeup" of the Marquise: Boucher's

Portrait of Pompadour at Her Toilette," The Art Bulletin,
82 no. 3 (2000): 453–475. doi:10.2307/3051397.
Chapter 1 | 15
 3
Painting and Sculpture. Boucher created a series of drawings of
pieces by Guay that Madame de Pompdour engraved and printed.
The Academy, the Salon, and the Critic in audio:

One or more interactive elements has been excluded

from this version of the text. You can view them online
here: https://openeducationalberta.ca/
19thcenturyart/?p=5#audio-5-3

The Academy, the Salon, & the Critic

Gabriel-Jacques de Saint-Aubin, Vue du Salon de 1765, 1765, watercolour, pen

and black and grey ink, graphite pencil on paper, (Louvre)

3. Fletcher William Younger, Bookbinding in England and

France, (Moscow: Рипол Классик, 1897), 70.; Jean
Adhemar, Graphic Art of the 18th Century, (London:
Thames and Hudson, 1964), 43, 106, 108, 113.
16 | Chapter 1
This is an artist’s rendering of the Royal Academy of Painting and
Sculpture’s Salon of 1765 – exhibitions like this were extremely
important to the art world. The public came in crowds to see the
new art and artists’ careers were dependent on being accepted into
the Salon shows. However, this also had a stifling effect on creativity
as the Salon juries and the Academy controlled what kind of art and
subject were accepted. If a style or subject was not popular with the
Academy it would either be denied entry to the Salon, or it would be
hung in a place where it would be easily overlooked. The term ‘Salon
hang’ comes from the way art was arranged at these shows; because
the shows were popular, art was hung side-by-side and next to each
other, nearly floor to ceiling. The spaces not taken up by paintings of
all sizes were filled with sculptures, and by contemporary standards
the final product was a very cluttered and overwhelming display
space where things could be easily missed by a viewer enveloped in
a crowd.
The Academy controlled what art was accepted and where art
pieces were hung – if the artist was a watercolour artist
(watercolour was considered inferior and not good enough for
finished works of art or was left to hobbyists and female artists) who
managed to get into the Salon with a smaller sized piece of work, the
work was likely to be ‘skied’ or hung up at the top where the huge
historical genre paintings were hung – so no one saw it anyway.
Ironically, much of the documentation of the Academy Salons was in
the form of watercolour works, like this piece by Gabriel-Jacques de
Saint-Aubin.
Eventually, the Academy Salon shows gave rise to the creation
of the art critic. Completely accepted as a form of journalism, art
critique was common in the journals, pamphlets, and newspapers
from the mid-18th-century on. Almost immediately, art critics
began to lament the state of art being created (somethings never do
change). These critics condemned the decadence and sensual self-
indulgence that was evident in the artwork. Of course, the artists
hated the critics for daring to critique their work. Artists at that
point were not used to be criticized because until the emergence

Chapter 1 | 17
of the art critic the fact that their art had been chosen to be
showcased in an Academy exhibition proved that their art was part
of unquestionable and unchallenged strata of creative work. To
question the value, message, or technique of the art in the Academy
exhibition was like critiquing the Academy! The Academy was
formed by the king and run by aristocratic members of society,
therefore questioning the art they approved was like questioning
the king himself (in the minds of those who managed the Academy
and its artists). Artists who had had the fortune of being sheltered
within the Academy shows had only had to deal with critique and
dramatic snobbery from withing the cultural structure of the
Academy itself. The outside judgement of the critic-in-the-press
was an unwelcome source of insubordinate antagonism. Thus began
a long and complicated relationship between the established, main
stream controller of art (the Academy), the artist, and the critic.
One particularly hated critic was Étienne La Font de Saint-Yenne.
He was aghast at the level of decay and self-appreciation in the fine
art and wrote works that called artists to abandon the frivolous,
erotic themes of the Rococo art market and pursue themes of
nobility and calm grandeur. He challenged artists to put away their
sensuous colours, self-congratulating virtuoso brush work, and
arousing asymmetrical compositions, and to find inspiration in
Classical Greek and Roman art. La Font de Saint-Yenne felt that it
was the right and duty of all intellectuals to challenge decadence
when they saw it and he was not popular with the artists that he
wrote about. Because the relationship between art critic and artist
was very new at this time, many artists felt that a writer had no right
to critique or judge visual arts in anyway. Judging the artist that
had been accepted into an Academy Salon was akin to criticizing
the Royal Academy – one of the king’s appointed power-brokers of
cultural influence – and the French art world found the change to
be a difficult adjustment.

18 | Chapter 1
Values of the Enlightenment

Denis Diderot, a philosopher

and one of the editors of the
Encyclopédie, took up the cry
for artists to embrace noble,
edifying, and intellectual
sentiment based themes as
well. Diderot admired works
like Jean-Baptiste Greuze’s

Jean-Baptiste Greuze, Filial Piety (The

Filial Piety, for its reality and
Paralytic), 1763, oil on canvas, (The honour and sense of duty.
Hermitage, St. Petersburg)
Diderot praised Greuze’s work
for showing non-upper class
people living real, flawed lives with a noble sense of endurance. In
this piece, the patriarch of the family commands attention and
reverence from all, including the family pet, even from his sick bed
and all members of the family respect and care for him. This is an
image that is neither dramatic, nor sensual. It showcases and
celebrates the calm dignity and noble service of respectful and
dutiful family.
Which isn’t to say that Greuze didn’t have his own collection of
nearly pornographic Rococo paintings and portraits, but by this
time his work was frequently championing the same things that
Diderot’s writing valued – virtuous examples and genuine sentiment
mixed into contemporary realities.
The philosophers of the Enlightenment devised a social antidote
to the ills of the Rococo. They felt moral reform and a return to
the what they perceived were the values of the ancient Greeks and
Romans were the only hope. The main values of the Enlightenment
can be generalized as follows:

• nobility (noble action and attitude, not noble birth)

• calm grandeur

Chapter 1 | 19
 • edification (the instruction or improvement of a person
morally or intellectually)
• virtuous character
• genuine sentiment
• intellectual development
• reality
• honour
• duty

However, the aristocracy, who so liked their naughty pictures were

also buying these noble paintings and supporting this change in the
arts. It is clear that Rococo sensibilities weren’t killed off suddenly
as Enlightened ideals took over. Instead, the fashions simply co-
existed with one another until one became more popular and
sparked an initiative for drastic change.
And so the Enlightenment gradually came to be.
The Classical Paradigm in audio:

One or more interactive elements has been excluded

from this version of the text. You can view them online
here: https://openeducationalberta.ca/
19thcenturyart/?p=5#audio-5-4

The Classical Paradigm

The art that is often seen as the epitome of the philosophies of
the Enlightenment actually owes just as much to the ideas of the
Classical Paradigm.
Art in the mid-1700s, as seen in the Rococo style, was suffering
from a case of death-by-excess, or decadence. It was fluffy and

20 | Chapter 1
frilly and self-serving and some people felt that it was showing how
society at the time was the same. The Enlightenment called for
noble, edifying art that could repair the moral fabric of the nation.
But this also meant looking for new role-models in art aesthetics.
Looking to Baroque and Rococo artists for a guide would only lead
to more cotton candy lack-of-substance, looking to Michelangelo
or the Renaissance artists would not lead to purity of intention
or virtuousness since they also came from a flawed time and the
great artists of the Renaissance received their inspiration from the
Greeks. Scholars began to argue that the pinnacle of western
society was age of the Greeks and thus the art of the 1700s should
look to Homer, Plato and the Greek artists for pure and culturally
untainted inspiration.
The literary work of Johann Joachim Winckelmann – Reflections
on the Imitation of Greek Works in Painting and Sculpture, 1756 –
called to imitate what was thought as a nobler, healthier and more
fulfilling time. Winckelmann was one of the leading scholars at the
time arguing this was the right way to look at reviving morality in
culture.

Chapter 1 | 21
 This new kind of Classicism
(Neo-Classicism) was more
than just looking back to
Grecian ideals. It was about
finding ideals, purified of every
imperfection – which while the
Greeks also looked for what
they called the ‘ideal’, was a
different kind of ideal. When
ancient the ancient Greeks
looked to create an ideal form
they were were looking to
return to the ideal generic thing
that was created at the
beginning of the world;
understanding that the first
tree, animals, and humans
created were the perfect and
ideal specimen of each thing as
considered ideal for their role Copy of Polykleitos’ Doryphorus (Spear
by the gods. Therefore, if an Bearer), marble, original made 120-50
BCE
ancient Greek artist found they
had re-created perfection they
could simply keep copying that as a form because there would never
be a better version. In Grecian times, Polykleitos’ Spear Bearer, was
considered perfectly ideal or ‘canon,’ and was therefore a rule of
form that all others should follow. However, an artist couldn’t just
create a single perfect figure and use it in all situations. Each ideal
was home to its own ideals and narrative. For example, Polykleitos’
figure would have been a perfect athlete, a perfect young male (but
not youth), and a perfect warrior, but the figure could never have
been used to relay ideas of wisdom, age, or femininity. For those
ideals a different ideal form was required. To the French in the 1700s
the idea of ‘ideal’ didn’t have the same connotations of being related
to the divine original copy of creation. It was more closely related to

22 | Chapter 1
our contemporary understanding of ideal – something that is
perfect, and un-improvable. However, the French scholars did feel
that a Greek ideal would be closest to a cultural ideal of intelligence,
strong character, and civic duty.
Pompeii and Herculaneum were re-discovered around 1599, while
the first archaeological excavations began in 1764. Winckelmann was
one of the scholars heavily influenced by this discovery, and he,
as most other scholars, was sorely disappointed when he realized
that the murals they found at Pompeii and Herculaneum did not live
up to the preconceived ideas of what Greco-Roman art must have
been. At Pompeii and Herculaneum the art varied from technically
perfect to crudely rendered with subject matter that ran from the
benign to the scandalous. Much of what was found there did not
reflect a society that was perfect, healthy, and untainted by the
vagaries of moral decay. In reaction to this discovery, Winckelmann
hypothesized a developmental model for societies that has been
applied to Greek and Roman art and culture ever since. His theory
was that art in Greece and Rome must have had a life-cycle like
that of a living creature; a birth, flourishing, prime, decay, and death
arch. He explained, based on this theory, that the Classical Greek
period was the high point. It had a primitive kind of learning period
at the start of its life that flourished and grew into a high middle
point that eventually decayed and grew stagnant and self-indulgent
with the Roman period that built on the weakened ruins of the
previous society.

Chapter 1 | 23
 This model continues to be the ‘canon’ of art history as it
continues to be taught into the 21st century. Written in 1764, The
History of Ancient Art put forward that idea and it has stuck to this
day. It is challenging, though not impossible, to find any scholarly
theories of the evolution of Greek and Roman art and culture that
is not based on the model of a rudimentary beginning, perfected
middle and over-indulgent end. However, this is an area that may
require intense scrutiny as contemporary scholars have realized
that how the art of the Greeks and Romans were viewed in the 1700s
is not a representation of how the Greeks and Romans viewed their
own cultural output.

24 | Chapter 1
Polychrome recreation the goddess
Athena from the west pediment of the
temple of Athena Aphaia in Aegina.
Original created approx. 490 BC

Original sculpture of Athena as

found with the polychrome
weathered away

When Winckelmann and his associates saw the marbles of the

ancient Greeks and Romans, they saw them in their weathered and
unpreserved states; weathered down to their raw marble
foundations. The scholars of the 1700s accepted these sculptures as
pieces that would have been presented in their raw white form
because they were familiar with sculptures from the Renaissance,
which were revered for their pristine white marble surfaces.
The sculptors of the Renaissance had also been influenced by the
white Greek and Roman sculptures they had seen. The reality was
that a white marble sculpture was simply a myth told by the harsh
realities of time. Originally, ancient Greek sculptures were painted
in bright colours and presented with an aesthetic that would have
made the Neo-Classicists (and continues to make some present day
people) quite uncomfortable.

Chapter 1 | 25
 This makes it clear that the foundations of Neo-Classicism were
built on misinformed judgments regarding ancient cultures.
However, the philosophers and scholars of 1700 France felt that
change was needed in their society and so they looked back to a
culture they believed to be better than their own. This combination
of looking back to the ‘ideal’ era to find the ‘ideal’ way of
communicating more edifying ideals and noble character gave birth
to what we know as Neo-Classicism. However, the most famous
works of art of the New Classical Era or Neo-Classical are also
shown as examples of the Enlightenment because they really were
doing double duty. Yet, this doesn’t mean that every painting of
the Enlightenment was a Neo-Classicist work. Neo-Classical works
were only ones that showed Greco-Roman themes and stories as
a way of relaying a narrative of Enlightenment values, while
Enlightenment works showed the values of the Enlightenment
through a many narrative and aesthetic means.
Neo-Classicism in audio:

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Neo-Classicism

26 | Chapter 1
 Jacques-Louis David was one
of the first, and now most
famous, artists to combine the
classical ideal of Neo-
Classicism with the high ideals
of the Enlightenment. Works
like Oath of the Horatii show
duty being chosen over
emotion and nobility
of Jacques-Louis David, Oath of the
character triumphing over self- Horatii, oil on canvas, 1784-85 (Louvre)
fulfillment.
This painting showcases the moment when the sons of the Horatii
family pledge honour and allegiance before engaging in a bloody
battle. In the story of the Horatii of Rome versus the Curaitii of Alba
there are much more dramatic and exciting moments than is shown
here, but David chose to depict this moment of calm logic and sense
of civic duty triumphing over emotion and self-preservation. The
short version of story goes like this:
It is a story set in early Roman history. There is a border dispute
between Alba and Rome. Rather than having a war with great cost
to both sides, this dispute was solved by a duel between three men
from Alba and three men from Rome – the finest swordsmen of each
city-state. The three brothers from the Roman Horatii family were
selected to fight the three brothers from the Alban Curiatii family.
However, Sabina (the woman in blue and gold in the painting) – a
Curiatii sister – was married to one of the Horatii brothers, while
Camilla (the woman in white) – a Horatii sister – was engaged to one
of the Curiatii boys. Either way this story was never going to have
a happy ending for the women. In David’s painting the men with
their strong silhouetting against the darkness of the background,
their straight lines, and flexed muscles show the strength of resolve
and the calm grandeur of noble sacrifice. However, the women,
depicted in curving shapes, crumpled in grief, and trying to shield
the children from the reality of death are shown as the character foil
of the weakness of emotion, self-service, and inability to sacrifice

Chapter 1 | 27
for the reality of the circumstances.
(To finish the story: The Romans won the duel but only one Horatii
brother came back. Camilla cursed her brother for the death of her
fiancé and he flew into a rage and killed her. The end.)
Jacques-Louis David’s The
Death of Socrates is often talked
about as a prophesy of the
coming French Revolution. One
where Socrates is dying for an
ideal of society that was
perceived of as a threat by
Jacques-Louis David, The Death of those in authority and this
Socrates, oil on canvas, 1787
image is an allegory of those
(Metropolitan Museum of Art)
sacrifices coming in just 2
years. However, that isn’t how it would have been seen at the time
and David could never have predicted where his country would have
gone over the course of the decade. Here Socrates, calmly the
embodiment of the eternal soul, is reminding his followers of the
immortality of the soul while his followers embody the physical side
of death with their fear. David chose to recreate this scene by
departing from the historical record of this event and creating a
scene that fit his ideals more closely. Despite that, this piece, along
with the Oath of the Horatii, is considered part of the quintessential
Neo-Classical genre.

Self-Reflection Questions

Consider the following questions:

28 | Chapter 1
 • Do you think the contemporary world that we live
in now is experiencing something like France during
the Rococo/Enlightenment transition?
• Or do you feel there is no correlation between the
societal attitudes in the 1700s in France and the
societal attitudes of today?
• Do you think that the proliferation of ‘First World
Problem Memes’ and ‘Back In The Day’ stories is a
sign of a kind of rebellion against a Rococo-esque self
indulgence in our society?
• Or do you find that the society we live in is not
relatable to the ideas of the 1700s?
• No matter which opinion you have, how would you
debate your position with someone who disagreed?

Chapter 1 - Rococo through Neo-Classicism by Megan Bylsma is licensed under a

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License,
except where otherwise noted.

Chapter 1 | 29
2. Chapter 2 - French
Revolution through to the
End of Napoleon
France
MEGAN BYLSMA

By the end of this chapter you will be able to:

• Identify art of the French Revolution by Jacques

Louis David and Pierre Paul Prud’hon
• Recognize Prud’hon’s and David’s Napoleon era
work and compare it to their Enlightenment era and
Revolution era pieces
• List the main chronological events that took place
to cause the Revolution and the important
developments during the
Revolution
• Recount basic high fashion changes in French court
fashion from the Rococo through to the Revolution
• Explain the events that allowed Napoleon to take
over the Empire
• Identify Directoire Style and Napoleon’s Empire
Style

30 | Chapter 2
Opening of chapter in audio:

One or more interactive elements has been excluded

from this version of the text. You can view them online
here: https://openeducationalberta.ca/
19thcenturyart/?p=28#audio-28-1

What is it that Chip says at the end of Disney’s animated Beauty and
the Beast?
“Are they gonna live happily ever after, Momma?”
And we have to ask, do they?
We have to ask, because the
traditional story of Beauty and
the Beast is usually set
somewhere in the mid to late
1700s, in Rococo France. Which,
as a side note, means that
Belle’s iconic, deeply shoulder-
less, canary yellow ball gown in
the animated feature just might
be a bit anachronistic
considering how fashionable
wide side cage panniers on
skirts were and how impossible
it was to create such bright and
clear yellow fabric in that era.
Side panniers were cages worn
under the clothing and
François-Hubert Drouais, Portrait of
attached to the body of the
Princess Louise Marie of France, oil on
woman on a belt at the waist canvas, 1737-1787 (Palace of Versailles,
France)
and were used to create a
wider-than-she-is-flat

Chapter 2 | 31
silhouette. Bright, clear colour only became possible with the
invention of synthetic fabric dyes later in the 1800 and even 1900s.
This painting of Princess Louise Marie by François-Hubert Drouais
may be a closer approximation of what Belle’s dress would have
looked like, complete with side panniers. The setting of Princess
Louise Marie’s portrait is fitting of Belle though – it’s a library.
Belle’s animated dress departs from fashion norms of its time in
many ways, but one of the most startling, beyond the bell-shaped
silhouette more fitting of styles to come one hundred years later in
Victorian England, is the neckline. Plunging necklines, like the one
on Princes Louise Marie’s dress, were very common, but combining
a low front with a very off the shoulder neckline and a barely there
slip of sleeve would have been bordering on unacceptably
scandalous in Rococo France. While the lowest of fronts was only
for the most adventurous dresser, and a smidge of shoulder showing
was quite flirtatious, to show the full shoulder and arm would have
been beyond acceptable standards for even the most rule-flouting
of women. Even though Rococo fashion was adaptable to an
individual’s personal tastes in many ways, the majority of dresses
had a just-past-the-elbow sleeve and the upper arm was rarely
bared. While Belle wears long gloves in the animated feature to
counteract the amount of skin shown by her bare shoulders and
arms, gloves were not common (although they did make an
occasional appearance) in Rococo France and wouldn’t have
distracted from her alarmingly unclothed appearance. With this in
mind, if you’re wondering, after looking at Princess Louise Marie’s
dress, how a woman’s, ahem, chest stayed in her clothing when the
bodice was cut so low and was only bordered by lace, well the
answer is that it usually didn’t. French fashion of the period was
greatly varied, but extremely low-cut bodices were frequent and the
accidental (but inevitable) wardrobe malfunction was often simply
part of the price of high fashion and was not considered as utterly
reputation ruining as a fully bare arm and shoulder.
But returning to Chip’s question regarding Belle’s future
happiness; approximately five to twenty years after the close of

32 | Chapter 2
 the movie, some things in France begin to change. Changes began
to creep in, even in a provincial town that used to be “a quiet
1
village, every day, like the one before.” While Belle’s ideologies and
values align fairly well with the beliefs of the philosopher’s of the
Enlightenment and she would have definitely supported them, she
had the misfortune of marrying into the aristocracy. In the events
that followed that last happy closing scene of Beauty and the Beast,
being part of the aristocracy was bad for ones health. Perhaps even
worse? Chip himself would have grown up and either have been
called up or joined voluntarily to fight as a soldier or he would have
been exiled back to England, as he and his mother were obviously
British.
What is the event that would have so disrupted the lives of Belle
and her prince?

The French Revolution

The French Revolution is a complicated series of events and it can
be easy to become bogged down in the details of what happened
first and then what happened next while not forgetting what came
in the between time. For art history the French Revolution is a
dramatic and devastating series of events. Essentially, it ran from
1789 to 1795 although some say it went right up to 1815, while others
say it went to 1799. The date range of the Revolution depends on
where you decide the Revolution ends, as everyone agrees on the
date that it started. Some sources will say it ended with Napoleon’s
first exile, for others it ended with the rise of the Bourbon
Monarchy, others posit it ended with the final exile of Napoleon

1. Howard Ashman, Belle (Los Angeles: Walt Disney Studios,

1991).
Chapter 2 | 33
 and the final democracy. Art history tends to label the end of the
Revolution with the rise of Napoleon as he ushered in his own
changes to the art and culture of France. This isn’t to say that French
politics were completely stabilized by the rise of an emperor, but
rather that the revolutionary aspect of the period gave way to a new
approach and the art and material culture of the time reflects that.
The French Revolution irrevocably changed the face of French
culture. As an agent of cultural change, the Revolution tends to
often be talked about in bright and celebratory terms. However, to
uncritically celebrate the French Revolution means to ignore the
incredible violence and loss of life the Revolution brought to France.
In some ways the French Revolution brought about some good
things. Slavery, long abolished in main-land France, was, in 1794,
2
declared illegal in the French colonies. In 1791 the new radical
government opened the Salon to all artists, including women,
3
regardless of political affiliation. The Revolution also gave birth to
the public art museum, in 1793, when revolutionary forces sought
to democratize access to art and the cultural power it holds by
removing the monarchy from the Louvre and opening the
4
government’s art holdings to the public.
Regardless of the good changes wrought by the French Revolution
and the good intentions of the revolutionaries in the early days
of the upheavals, things very quickly turned into brutal violence,
deaths, and fighting between factions in the revolutionary forces.

2. Dr. Susan Waller, "Marie-Guillemine Benoist, Portrait of

Madeleine," Smarthistory, September 26, 2018
https://smarthistory.org/benoist-portrait/.
3. Waller, "Marie-Guillemine Benoist."
4. Dr. Elizabeth Rodini, "2. Museums and politics: the
Louvre, Paris," Smarthistory, June 1, 2019,
https://smarthistory.org/museums-politic-louvre/.
34 | Chapter 2
 Next section in audio:

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from this version of the text. You can view them online
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19thcenturyart/?p=28#audio-28-2

Unrest in France was long growing, but things were brought to

a point by the end of the American Revolution. The French had
watched the American Revolution with interest, wondering if it was
possible for the ideas of the Enlightenment to create the spark
necessary to dislodge the weight of a ruling power. When the
colonists defeated their British rulers, the French found
encouragement that perhaps they too could shrug off the weight of
their rulers, at least in part. What began as bureaucratic changes
related to budgetary concerns earlier in 1789, then became full on
rebellion against the monarchy when the Estates General (an
assembly representing all three levels of society – the First Estate
representing the clergy, the Second Estate representing the
nobility, and the Third Estate representing the common class), led
by the Third Estate, due to their large size, declared themselves a

Chapter 2 | 35
National Assembly. Later in the same month, the National Assembly
wrote the first of many constitutions that created a new
government with the monarchy as a figurehead, instead of an
absolute ruler.
Jacques-Louis David’s Oath of
the Tennis Court represents the
moment, on June 20, 1789 that
the National Assembly found
themselves locked out of the
chambers they had been using,
and they subsequently
Jacques-Louis David, Oath of the gathered at a nearby tennis
Tennis Court, preparatory drawing on
court fearing that they would
paper, 1791
be attacked by the king’s
troops. Once gathered, they collectively swore to not leave the place
until they had established a constitution. David’s drawing shows all
three Estates – the clergy, the nobility, and the common class –
agreeing together in the middle of this image. Within the same year
the abolition of feudalism and the Declaration of the Rights of Man
and Citizen would be written. The oath of the tennis court was an
important moment as it was the first time the French people had
significantly stood in opposition of the king.
However, as the monarchy
resisted change the king
ordered the military to move
into the city of Paris. The king
wanted the military close in the
event that there was a political
uprising (more than what had
already happened in the
previous month) but the city of Jean-Pierre Houël, The Storming of the
Bastille, watercolour, 1789
Paris was in the middle of food
shortages due to an agricultural
crisis gripping the nation. As soldiers and Parisians began to
aggravate each other unrest grew until July 14, 1789. On that day the

36 | Chapter 2
people of Paris stormed the Bastille – the medieval fortress that
housed political prisoners and an arsenal for the military. While the
Bastille was not an important or much used prison, it was seen as a
symbol of the absolute authority of the monarchy and the wasteful
spending habits of the government. The storming of the Bastille
is usually seen as the moment that the violence of the Revolution
began.

Not surprisingly the king refused to ratify the constitution that

removed him from authority and in the same month an angry mob
descended on the palace and imprisoned the Royal Family. By
February of the next year the Catholic Church was told to remove
all of its personnel from French soil and forfeit their land and assets
in France to the new revolutionary government or risk the death of
their clergy. Later the revolutionary government passed their first
constitution, but it was a hotly debated topic and over the course of
the winter relations sour between the factions in the revolutionary
groups and the Revolutionary Wars begin in the Spring of 1792. The
three major factions of the revolutionary forces by this time were
the Jacobins, the Montagnards (or the Mountain), and the Girondins.
Of the three sects, the Girondins were the most moderate and the
Montagnards the most radical. In a general sense, the Montagnards
agreed more often with the Jacobins – who were also quite radical,
and least often with the the Girondins – who were considered
moderate (for revolutionaries). However, not all Jacobins agreed

Chapter 2 | 37
with the Mountain’s approach to things and not all Jacobins were
Montagnards (although many Montagnards had at one point
politically identified as Jacobins). While this may sound like a Dr.
Seuss riddle from our nightmares, understanding the surface of this
political landscape is necessary to be able to read the art that comes
from this time period, especially the pieces created by a Jacobin-
Montagnard artist we’ve touched on before – Jacques-Louis David.

As the year 1792 turned int 1793, the Girondins began to lose their
footing in the revolutionary government and were out voted in the
matter of what to do with the royal family. The Montagnard call
for the execution of the king came to pass at the beginning of 1793
and by the summer of that year Maximilien Robespierre, now a firm
leader of the Montagnards, took control of what was essentially the
functioning government of France by this point – the Committee of
Public Safety. By Fall of 1793 Robespierre and government started
to resort to terror, harsh sentences, and frequent executions to
squelch any dissent. Death was the sentence for anyone of a
different opinion to the Committee of Public Safety, anyone of
suspiciously aristocratic birth, or for failing to lead a military win in
a battle those not on the front thought should have been win-able.
The Reign of Terror would swallow up 17,000 souls on the guillotine,
including that of the former Queen of France, Marie Antoinette.

38 | Chapter 2
 With the people sick of the bloodshed and tired of living in fear of
a new and violent tyrant, Robespierre was arrested and convicted,
and executed on the guillotine he had sentenced so many to die
on. In the aftermath of the Reign of Terror a new constitution
is adopted and a new governing body, called the Directory, was
established. After years of little stability and an abundance of weak
governing, the Directory in turn, was dissolved (because it was
unable to do its job due to petty arguments, in-fighting, and
disagreements within its own ranks). Seeing the weakness of the
Directory as an opportunity, Napoleon returned from military
campaigns in Egypt and rose to power. With the rise of Napoleon,
France entered a new era no less tumultuous and interesting – the
era of France as an Empire.
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Jacques-Louis David –
Chapter 2 | 39
Revolutionary Artist
Jacques-Louis David was a well established artist in France by the
beginning of the Revolution. He was a popular and respected Neo-
Classicist and his art was felt to show the important aspects of the
Enlightenment. In his personal life David was a highly politically
active figure and his values aligned with those who called for the
absolute destruction of the nobility, the monarchy, and the king. He
was part of the council that had direct vote over what happened to
the king and his family, including the decision to behead the king. He
was a member of the Committee for Public Instruction (Propaganda)
and eventually became head of the Interrogation Division.
Interrogation (a term used loosely to describe interviewing people
while sometimes subjecting them to pain) was used for those who
either had information or were thought to have information and
had been brought up on charges against the government. A Jacobin
and Montagnard, Jacques-Louis David had friends in high places and
influence far beyond the reaches of the art world.
Jean-Paul Marat was a
personal friend of David and a
rabid writer for the
Montagnards. Before the
Revolution Marat was a
theorist, philosopher, and
scientist but once the
Revolution took hold of France
he became more active as a
politician and journalist.
However, by the time the Reign
of Terror began Marat had
begun to be less active in the
government due, in part, to his
Jacques-Louis David, Death of Marat,
oil on canvas, 1793 skin condition and also in part
due to the fact that his

40 | Chapter 2
vehement support of the Montagnards was not as necessary to
their political aspirations after the removal of the Girondins from
the government. Working from home in a medicinal bath for his
worsening skin, Marat’s lessening influence in the government did
not lessen his writing volume.
Jacques-Louis David, while rising in the new government,
maintained his friendship with Marat; in fact, he had visited Marat
the day before Marat’s death. In the painting, Death of Marat, David
created a tribute to his friend that doubled as an artistic propaganda
piece for the Montagnards. Marat is depicted in a pose familiar to
the Roman Catholic-raised French and the meaning of that pose
would not have been lost on French viewers. The scene? The Pietà.
A uniquely Catholic scene, it showed the twisted and peaceful body
of the crucified Christ as depicted after being removed from the
cross; whose peaceful face, shows that Christ had accepted death
as a necessary element for the salvation of others and therefore
did not fight or resist that death. David had also place Marat in
a deep contemplative space surrounded only by the darkness of
the space and bathed in the warm light of noble sacrifice. The
writing on Marat’s box-desk at the bottom of the painting means
‘To Marat – David’ and with this tribute to the Montagnard’s death
David elevated Marat to the position of a secular martyr for the
revolutionary cause.
Charlotte Corday was a Girondin whose family blamed Marat for
the September Massacre. She convinced Marat to meet with her
with the letter depicted in Marat’s hand, that said according to
David (roughly) “I am unhappy and therefore have a right to your
help.” She claimed to have information regarding a conspiracy and
was offering that information to Marat along with the names of
important Girondins. However, her true motive was she had planned
to kill him. Eager to hear her information, Marat invited her into
his room where he was soaking. After some conversation, Corday
stabbed Marat once in the chest with a knife she had hidden in her
dress. Once she had done what she had come to do, she did not flee
the scene of the murder, but waited to be arrested. Within four days

Chapter 2 | 41
she was tried and executed. Corday had murdered Marat in hope
of weakening the Montagnards and bringing an end to the Reign
of Terror but the death of Marat became a pivotal propaganda and
rallying point for the group as they gained momentum.
However, times change and
when the threat of terror and
death is no longer there
people’s opinions sway.
Someone considered a
champion and non-religious
martry for a cause after a time
can be seen as a beast and
problem-causer. Consider this
painting of the same event by
Paul-Jacques-Aimé Baudry.
Painted in the mid-1800s, by
this time Marat was seen as a
blood-thirsty monster whose
Paul-Jacques-Aimé Baudry, Charlotte
writing incited violence.
Corday, oil on canvas, 1860
Titled Charlotte Corday, it
focuses on Corday, and reduces Marat to a monstrous figure who, in
the end, fell short of the stoic ideals of the Enlightenment. In
Beaudry’s painting Marat’s figure is twisted, not into a peaceful Pietà
scene reminiscent of sculptures of the death of Christ, like David’s
piece, but instead twisted as one who fought death and resisted it.
He did not peacefully and nobly accept his fate and calling, but tried
to get away, knocking his writing table into his bath and the chair
over in his futile attempt. In Baudry’s painting the knife remains in
Marat’s chest as evidence of his violent death. In David’s it has
slipped quietly to the floor, more an artifact of a great man’s passing
than an implement of death. Here Marat’s face has formed a mask of
fear and pain; in David’s it is quiet and glows with divine light. In
David’s painting, Marat’s apartment has been transformed into a
dark and contemplative space but Baudry depicts Marat’s apartment

42 | Chapter 2
much like it probably would have been – a lived in space with the
accoutrements of a life lived within its walls.
In David’s painting the role of Charlotte Corday has been
completely ignored. Her existence has been erased except for the
consequences of her actions. The subject of David’s story is Marat
and the cause both he and David had fought so hard for. In Baudry’s
painting the focus and hero is Corday herself. Here it is the killer,
not the killed, that exhibits the calm and noble sense of spirit. Her
face relays resolve as she waits to be arrested, while her hands twist
in turmoil over the violence of her act and the judgement she knows
will come. She is a representation of duty; she is one who has done
what they knew had to be done and who is willing to deal with the
consequences of those actions. In the course of just over sixty-five
years the story of Marat had shifted to being the story of Corday, a
hero of her cause.
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Traditionally, art history texts don’t mention Baudry’s painting or

Charlotte Corday, instead they spend the time heroizing Jacques-
Louis David, Jean-Paul Marat, and the French Revolution as a whole.
Jacques-Louis David was a gifted artist and his ability to take a
scene and elevate it to quietly sublime propaganda is not to be
undermined. However, does the beautiful and skilful production
of objects alleviate a historical figure from their role in violence
and harm? As an artist, David is unparalleled during his time. As a
human-being, David may leave a lot to be desired. David’s reputation
as a skilled artist has largely overshadowed his involvement in the

Chapter 2 | 43
more bloody parts of the French Revolution and history has been
remarkably kind to David’s memory and his artistic endeavours
before, during, and after the Revolution. However, not everyone has
the privilege of having their shortcomings forgotten in the light of
their accomplishments…

Marie Antoinette
If you are asked to think about Marie Antoinette, what would come
to mind?
A sexy Marie Antoinette Halloween costume? Images of cake?
Scandalous liaisons, infidelity, and lavish parties? Powdered wigs
and French debt? A bored and spoiled princess out of touch with life
beyond her palace walls?
In the 2004 film Mean Girls the titular girls of the movie have
a book in which they write down rumours and facts about the
people they dislike. They call it the “Burn Book” and it contains all
the socially questionable decisions, snipe, and gossip of an entire
microcosm as seen through the eyes of North Shore High School’s
most powerful queen bees. It could be hoped that the concept
of writing down inflammatory things and creating reputations for
people that simply were not true or were just one representation
of a single event is something that only shows up in the fiction-
based entertainment of the early 2000s, but that would be wishful
thinking.
For most of us, Marie Antoinette lives in our popular collective
understanding as caricature of grotesque and taboo traits, rather
than as a human being that existed in the same world in which
we live. Much of what we popularly believe we know is based on
rumours that were never true but were perpetuated by a 1700s
version of a burn book – actual books and cheap sensationalized
newspapers (what we would call tabloids today). Marie Antoinette,

44 | Chapter 2
like Jacques-Louis David, was a multi-dimensional and complicated
human being. Her story is one that has been told and retold, but
much of what is told about her is a repeating of her flaws (unlike
the kindness history has shown David’s flaws) and the retelling of
the lies that were spread during her life. Her life was the result
of a cataclysmic combination of bigotry, rules of tradition, narrow-
mindedness, and spiteful back biting.
At 12 years old, Marie Antoinette was a princess in the court of the
Austrian royal family. She had been born and raised in Austria and
as she entered adulthood she was the only female left in her family
eligible to be married to the French male monarch. Her sisters had
either been handicapped by smallpox or had died from it in their
childhoods. However, there was a problem with her that the French
could not ignore.
Her teeth were not nice enough according to French court customs.
This could be fixed, the French said, if her family was willing to have
her undergo oral surgery. The Austrian royal family consented and
young Marie (then named Maria Antonia) had her mouth changed
to fit French aesthetic customs over the course of three months
without anaesthetic or antibiotics. When she was considered to
have a nice enough mouth, she was betrothed to her second cousin,
a person she had never met – the teen-aged Louis Auguste future
king of France who had been trained since birth to never trust an
Austrian.

Chapter 2 | 45
 When she was thirteen or
fourteen this portrait was made
of her, to be sent to Louis
Auguste so he would know
what his future bride looked
like. At fifteen she was married-
by-proxy to the future king of
France. Marriage-by-proxy
means that the ceremony was
performed without the groom
present except by a proxy who
could legally give the prince’s
consent to the marriage. She
travelled to France, where she
Joseph Ducreux, Archduchess Maria was relieved of all her
Antonia of Austria, the later Queen belongings, her name was
Marie Antoinette of France, pastel on
parchment, 1769
changed from Maria Antonia to
Marie Antoinette, and she
entered a royal court that was far more formal than her own and
deeply suspicious of anyone from Austria.
Over the course of the next four years, Marie Antoinette’s life was
much different than she had experienced in Austria. She had been
raised quite simply (for a monarch’s child) in Austria. Austrian royal
children were encouraged to play with commoners and were not
forced to live by the strict rules and rites that the French monarchy
had instituted as a tradition for its own children. Now in France and
grappling the with the rules and traditions of the French court, her
new life was plagued with problems ranging from political issues
(with intense scrutiny from her French peers if she involved herself
in political life while also receiving disparaging letters from her
mother for not being influential enough in political things), to her
husband’s lack of interest in her as a wife, as well as interpersonal
clashes with people such as her father-in-law’s mistress.

46 | Chapter 2
 At age nineteen, Marie
Antoinette’s father-in-law, King
Louis XV of France died. Louis
Auguste was crowned king and
became King Louis XIV and
Marie Antoinette was made the
queen of France. With the king’s
approval Marie Antoinette
began to make changes to court
life. The queen of France had
responsibilities in the court and
these frequently revolved
around fashion and court
rituals. Inspired by her own
simpler upbringing, as queen
she began to strip away away Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun, Archduchess
Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, oil
some of the more antiquated on canvas, 1778-79
court rules & to tone down the
excessiveness of court fashion. It was part of her job as queen to
spend lots of money on her looks (she was expected to always look
better than the rest of court, even while the court emulated her in
every way) and to host lavish and expensive parties. Her
unhappiness coupled with the king’s indecisiveness regarding the
handling the nation’s finances, made it easy to spend money in her
role as queen. Marie Antoinette’s spending habits would later be
used against her.
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Chapter 2 | 47
 As she continued to make
changes in the French court
fashions she eventually added
‘mother’ to her job title. With
that change she made it clear
she also meant to raise her own
children. This was scandalous
as child rearing was not an
appropriate activity for French
queens. However, the birth of
her first child also created more
issues in her life as she was
already suffering from an un-
Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, Marie diagnosed malady of the uterus
Antoinette in a Muslin Dress, oil on (possibly cancer or some other
canvas, 1783
disease) and the childbirth
nearly killed her. During her convalescence, her hair fell out and her
hairdresser was forced to cut her hair and make wigs until it grew
back. When it grew back it came in sparsely and was no longer
suitable for court hair fashion but this gave her the chance to also
tone down another facet of the court. She, by necessity, moved from
the large ‘pouf’ hairstyle seen in Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun’s portrait of
1778-79 – a style that could add up to three feet to the stature of the
wearer and could weight in the range of 20lbs depending on how
much wire caging and jewelled elements were added – to the
coiffure à l’enfant (literally ‘baby hairstyle’) seen in Vigée-Lebrun’s
portrait of her from 1783.
Also, notice the dress in the 1783 painting. The huge shift in
fashion depicted in this painting made this a big controversy picture
in its day. Viewers petitioned for it to be removed from the Salon
show it was in and considered it a completely inappropriate
representation of a queen. Marie Antoinette had slowly gotten rid
of the big panniers and whale-bone trussing for dresses and had
implemented a smooth, simple design. Part of this was possible
because of the Rococo fascination with shepherdesses and simple

48 | Chapter 2
purity and this was partly her Austrian upbringing coming out (not
that Austrian royalty had simple fashion as a commoner might view
but, it was much simpler than the French customs). So a straw hat,
low hair and a ‘simple’ dress made of cotton were scandalous in an
era when everything but nothing was scandalous.
This dress and Marie Antoinette’s massive influence changed
French fashion forever, but she may have inadvertently changed the
entire world with this dress. Some believe that this dress, made of
cotton, catapulted the cotton industry into the stratosphere, and
through a butterfly effect impacted the entrenchment of slavery
in the very recently revolutionized United States of America. For
more reading regarding the impact of Marie Antoinette’s cotton
dress see Carol London’s 2018 article at Racked.com:
https://www.racked.com/2018/1/10/16854076/marie-antoinette-
dress-slave-trade-chemise-a-la-reine
Before we move completely
away from French fashion to
discuss the reverberations of
the French Revolution in the life
of Marie Antoinette, there is a
pressing question that must be
answered.
What colour was Marie
Antoinette’s hair?
Each image of Marie
Antoinette in this section gives
a different answer. In the 21st
century, in an age with photo
filters and faded historical
After Jean-Baptiste André
photographs, it is easy to Gautier-Dagoty, Portrait of Marie
dismiss the changes in hair Antoinette, oil, circa 1775
colour and unconsciously
assign her hair a colour. Brown or grey would be the logical choice.
But at fourteen years old, would Marie Antoinette naturally have

Chapter 2 | 49
such white hair?
Seems unlikely.
In the 1700s, hair was fashionably style with a combination of hair
product (a kind of waxy pomade) and powder. The powder stuck
to the hair product and these worked double duty – on one front
it kept the hair style in place and on the other it allowed for the
hair to be coloured if the powder had been mixed with pigment. It
was not uncommon in the French court of this time for women to
sport pink, purple, grey, or brown hair due to the colour of their hair
powder. Marie Antoinette has portraits of her with each of those
colours. Obviously, white or grey was the easiest hair colour as that
was the colour an untinted powder would produce. However, Marie
Antoinette favoured purple throughout her wardrobe and purple
hair also graced her ensembles from time to time.
But what was her natural hair colour?
Unfortunately, it was a strawberry blonde. Each hair colour had a
purpose in the world of French fashion, except for one.
Red hair.
Historically red hair was the colour of hair for actresses and
prostitutes. For a French queen to have red-toned hair? Scandalous!
On days that Marie Antoinette was feeling particularly rebellious,
she would leave her hair unpowdered and in its natural colour simply
to scandalize the court. As time progressed it became apparent
that no matter what she did, it would always be a source of
consternation and offence to her French peers.
Eventually, as the revolution began to heat up, Marie Antoinette
was the target of many other scandals. In the daily tabloids she was
accused of treason, lesbianism, incest, orgies, funnelling money to
Austria, plotting, and many other crimes and misconducts. When
the royal treasury went bankrupt due to mismanagement and
indecision by the king (and no cutting of expenditures in the palace)
she was called ‘Madame Deficit’, as if the queen herself had bankrupt
the entire nation.
Soon she realized that there was nothing she could do about her
reputation – if she had a baby it was because she had an affair (in

50 | Chapter 2
fact, the paternity of all her children was questioned at one time or
another) – if she got a visit from family in Austria it was because
she was stealing money – if she took part in politics she was running
the country – if she didn’t take part in politics she wasn’t doing her
duty. When she bought a property to leave to her children who
wouldn’t inherit the throne (her younger children) she scandalized
the nation – queen’s didn’t own things, kings owned things. So then
she tried to re-brand herself as a good mother. This went against
her too though, as in France queens did not raise their children
– it was considered bad taste and the custom was that the state
raised royal children. The campaign to show people she was a good
mother was suddenly dropped when she went into mourning at
the sudden death of her youngest daughter. Around the time of
the Oath of the Tennis Court, her oldest son died of tuberculosis.
She was devastated and in mourning while the daily tabloids ran
rumours that Marie Antoinette was wishing to bathe in the blood
of the people. It was clear no one cared that the crowned prince of
France had died and later she would be accused of having raped her
son to hurry his death.
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Chapter 2 | 51
 In this pen and ink sketch,
Marie Antoinette is depicted by
Jacques-Louis David as a hag.
During the events of the first
few years of the French
Revolution she had aged
considerably. Separated from
her two remaining children,
she was accused of many things
with the one charge she found
most offensive being the charge
that she had engaged in
incestuous relationships with
her oldest, now dead, son in an
Jacques-Louis David, Widow Capet on effort to kill him in his
the Way to the Guillotine, ink on weakened stated of advanced
paper, 1793
tuberculosis. At her trial, she
was accused by her youngest
son (who had been removed from her care and placed in the charge
of a cobbler for a ‘untainted’ and retraining upbringing as a
commoner and had been coached in his story by the Committees of
Investigation and Safety led by David and Robespierre) of incest.
Before her trial she suffered many things She was stripped of
her name (again) and was renamed the Widow Capet. Her husband
was executed. Her best friend was raped, humiliated, decapitated,
quartered and her body parts paraded in the streets. Her hair turned
white nearly overnight and had then fallen out (again). Her
husband’s sister, and closest family member, was also imprisoned
awaiting execution. She suffered from terrible stomach cramps (due
to that un-diagnosed illness) that progressively got worse during
her imprisonment. Her daughter was sent to Austria as a prisoner.
And finally, the former queen of France was trundled around the city
on display in an open cart like a prize veal and then executed via the
guillotine. After her death, her son was put in prison and left there
to die.

52 | Chapter 2
Her last recorded words were to her executioner, “I beg your
pardon, sir. I didn’t mean to.”
While climbing the stairs in the purple shoes that had carried her
from the palace at the beginning of the Revolution to the
executioner’s square at the end of her life she had accidentally
stepped on his foot.
Even in her last words, Marie Antoinette’s character was questioned.
Had she apologized because she truly was a genteel woman who
naturally apologized when she tread on someone’s foot or had she
meant to manipulate the executioner into ensuring that the
guillotine was successful on its first pass, thus saving her from a
long and painful death?

Chapter 2 | 53
Pierre-Paul Prud’hon
and Other
Post-Revolutionary
Developments
Despite the fame of Jacques-
Louis David, there were other
artists in France at the time.
Younger than David but just as
gifted at creating art of the
Revolution was an artist named
Pierre-Paul Prud’hon. Prud’hon
had been trained outside of
Paris. He was an amazing
portraitist and this skill stood
him in good stead as portraits
were always in demand and
were a good source of income
during a time when there were
few patrons for more expensive Pierre-Paul Prud’hon, Portrait of
Constance Mayer, chalk on paper,
types of art. Art sales of all circa 1804
kinds had declined as the
Revolution raged on as poverty grew, but portraits were a cheaper
form of art and were popular as family mementos. Prud’hon’s work
was largely overlooked for a time as a strong ability to master
chiaroscuro was undervalued until the rise of Romanticism in the
1800s. The Neo-Classical tradition of the late 1700s valued strong
contour lines but Prud’hon’s art focused on rendering the shifting
values of light and dark across the figure. However, he was still a
sought after artist in his time.

54 | Chapter 2
 In Prud’hon’s chalk and
charcoal drawing of a female
nude it is clear to see how he
blends the rules of Neo-
Classicism with his own
approach to rendering soft
values. The contour lines of the
elbows, knees, and nose are
strong against the background
while the soft tonal shifts of the
abdomen lend a three-
dimensional rendering to this
image. By deepening the dark
values of the thigh and lower
leg of his model he allowed the
lighter areas of the piece to
emerge more strongly, giving a
Pierre-Paul Prud’hon, Female Nude, real suggestion of light, shadow,
chalk on paper, 1800
and reflected light. Neo-
Classicism tended towards a flatter style that utilized contour line
more strongly, but in this piece it is clear that Prud’hon, trained in
the Neo-Classical style, had intentions to take it beyond its
boundaries.
Robespierre came to power in 1793 and for eleven months terror
reigned down in Paris. 17,000 people were executed, including the
King and Queen. Eventually Robespierre’s cruel reign came to an
end and he and his supporters were removed from power, with
Robespierre being arrested, tried, and executed.
Alexandre de Beauharnais – the first husband of a woman named
Josephine – was tried and executed five days before Robespierre’s
execution. de Beauharnais was arrested for being suspiciously
aristocratic and not leading the troops to victory during a battle.
(Yes, actually. Those not involved in the battle felt if he had really
wanted to, he could have managed to win. But because he didn’t
win, that was seen as evidence that he was a traitor.) His wife,

Chapter 2 | 55
Josephine, usually called Rose, was also arrested but was eventually
released. This Josephine would later become the wife of a 26 year
old Napoleon Bonaparte – an political figure and officer at that time.
The Directory was established in 1795. It was a body of five
Directors who were executives of the French government. The
governing bodies of France were somewhat democratic during the
Directory, but failed within four years due to civic discontent, lack
of co-operation between political parties, extended wars-for-gain,
and financial ruin. The Directory had promised to uphold the
Constitution III but the Constitution hadn’t been written with
money and corrupt officials in mind. The impact on the arts of this
short period was the creation of Directoire Style. Directoire Style
was neoclassical fashion and interior design and its development
was mostly limited to just those two areas. The other Fine Arts
largely maintained their Neo-classical-all-the-time aesthetic.
Jacques-Louis David had been thrown in prison following the
arrest of Robespierre and had managed to be released without being
executed after a few years. But the France he was released into
was not the France of the Revolution he had left. No longer on
the wealthier side of the Revolution he painted The Intervention of
the Sabine Women, a painting he had started planning out while in
prison, and he charged admission for people to see it. This was a
scandalously undemocratic handling of art and there was much talk
about paying to see art – art was for the people. However, this piece
wasn’t created for a patron as most pieces were and David needed
money, so he devised the plan to charge admission to recoup his
costs. At this point in time the Academy had been defunct for years
so their rules regarding free-admission and democratic access to
art no longer applied.The painting also brought David to the
attention of Napoleon.
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56 | Chapter 2
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The battle depicted is a battle

between the Romans (right) and
the Sabines (left). The woman in
the middle with arms outspread
is Hersilia. She was the
daughter of the Sabine Tatius
(left) but she was also the wife
of the Roman Romulus (right).
She is depicted begging for Jacques-Louis David, The Intervention
of the Sabine Women, oil on canvas,
peace – she had been
1799
kidnapped from Sabine three
years earlier by the Romans who needed women. Eventually the
Sabines had come to avenge their women’s kidnappings, but at this
point revenge would only hurt the innocents who were related to
both – the children.
At this point in the Revolution in France the political parties were
so at war with each other this painting was seen as a cry for a peace
worth fighting for.
Napoleon had been an officer
Let’s talk about Napoleon! and lieutenant in the Army but
Was he a tall man? returned to France to stage a
coup when he heard how the
Directory was behaving and saw their weakness as a political
opportunity. Napoleon is often described as incredibly short. In fact,
there are theoretical complexes and stereotypes that are named
after Napoleon that revolve around people who are short and the
psychological impact that may have on them (these theories are

Chapter 2 | 57
 largely debated and disputed. Much like Napoleon’s actual height.)
Often, Napoleon is listed as being 5’2”. However, those were
probably French measurements which were slightly larger than
British measurements. When his French height and history was
translated into English and into British measurement, the British
kind of just left them untranslated and then ran a lot of cartoon
propaganda that advertised him as rather short.
Napoleon hated being
depicted as short, which gave
British cartoonists a very easy
5
joke to make. In the time of
unrest between the French and
British after 1803, Napoleon
was frequently featured in
satirical cartoons as being a
James Gillray, Evacuation of Malta,
short and angry man, and in the etching, 1803
two hundred years that have
6
followed that ‘joke’ has been repeated as fact. In reality, it is likely
that he was actually around 5’6” or 5’7″, which would have been
slightly above average height for men of the time. In some French
paintings he may have appeared short because he was often
depicted with an elite squad of soldiers who were all known for
being extremely tall for their day. The French and the British have a
long history of fighting between themselves and it looks like that
while Napoleon and the French may have tried their best to route

5. Tristan Hopper, “Greatest Cartooning Coup of All Time:

The Brit Who Convinced Everyone Napoleon was Short,”
National Post (Toronto, Canada) Apr 28, 2016,
https://nationalpost.com/news/world/greatest-
cartooning-coup-of-all-time-the-brit-who-convinced-
everyone-napoleon-was-short
6. Hopper.
58 | Chapter 2
the British, historically the Brits got the last laugh on Napoleon
(albeit in a bit of a petty victory)!
After Napoleon’s successful coup of the Directory, he took control
of France in 1799. When the Empire was proclaimed in 1804,
Jacques-Louis David was given the official role of court painter. In
the process of painting the scene of the crowning of the Emperor
Napoleon and Josephine, David was even visited by the Pope!
(Which is interesting for a revolutionary who was part of the group
who demanded the secularization of a nation.)

Jacques-Louis David, Coronation of Emperor Napoleon I and Coronation of

the Empress Josephine in Notre-Dame de Paris, December 2, 1804, oil on
canvas, 1805-07.

Napoleon became Emperor in 1804 – crowning himself and then

crowning Josephine. The Pope was present for this proceeding and
had originally been the one who was to crown Napoleon (before
Napoleon took the crown and crowned himself instead) which is
also very interesting considering how anti-religion the Revolution
had tried to be. Napoleon, who was eager to not be from a line of
monarchy used emblems from monarchy tombs that linked him to
the reign of Charlemagne, the favourite king of the papacy and the

Chapter 2 | 59
Merovingians, the earliest rulers of the geographical area known as
France (then Gaul). To understand just how politically crafty this
maneuver was let’s talk about the French history of bees.
The Merovingians were
considered the first kings of
France and ruled from around
400 C.E. Three hundred of
these gold and garnet bees
depicted on the right had been
found during the mid 1600s in
the tomb of Childeric I along
Bees, gold and garnet, Tomb of
with other artifacts. (Most of Childeric I, circa 430CE
which was stolen in the 1830s
and only these two bees here and few other pieces were ever found
– at the bottom of the river in the 1800s.) To the Merovingians the
bee was sacred and divine and a symbol of their power.
Interestingly, there was an argument that the symbol of the
Merovingian Bee evolved into the fleur de lys. This theory was
disputed and discredited by historians in the 1800s after Napoleon’s
reign because this argument would have given credence to the
Bourbon Monarchy’s claim of a Merovingian blood-line right to the
throne. Also, the fleur de lys, as its name suggests, was popularly
believed to represent a lily or more precisely an iris. Alternatively,
the fleur de lys could also have come from the shape of the ‘sting’
of the early Frank dynasty (aka Merovingian). A sting was a kind of
spear. Some argue that Napoleon didn’t claim the bee as his personal
symbol because of the Merovingian Dynasty but because he refused
to spend the money to redecorate the palace. He couldn’t leave
the fleur de lys covered curtains intact as the fleur de lys was the
symbol of the previous monarchy, so he had the curtains re-hung
upside down and said the symbol of overthrown royalty was now a
bee and his symbol. While this argument may have merit it seems
logical that Napoleon’s adoption of the bee was to claim the first
kings of the realm’s symbol of authority and to connect himself with

60 | Chapter 2
that tradition of rule. In many images of Napoleon his bee symbol
appears, and he had bees stitched onto his coronation robes.
Napoleon’s claimed connection to the ancient rulers of France
went deeper than simply taking some bees as a brand; he forged
a connection between his rule and power of the Vatican. The
Merovingian rulers were staunchly Roman Catholic and Napoleon
knew he needed the support of the Catholic church if his reign
over France was to have any kind of power. However, the last
Merovingian king was deposed by Pope Zachary in the mid-700s
and replaced by Pepin the Short. Pepin was the father of Charles
I, who was later known as Charles the Great, Carolus Magnus, and
Charlemagne. The list of names Charlemagne was known by didn’t
stop there. His titles also included: King of the Franks, protector
of the Papacy, ruler of western Europe, and the Father of Europe.
The sceptre Napoleon received at his coronation was after the order
of Charlemagne and the crown – which wasn’t the same crown
used by the Regime Monarchy – was made to look medieval and
called the Crown of Charlemagne (it was not the actual crown of
Charlemagne).
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By choosing to connect his power with the Merovingian and

Carolingian dynasties, Napoleon had successfully managed to link
himself with French national history and the Catholic church. The
first kings of France were historically powerful but the fact that that
dynasty had been dethroned by the Pope created a complication
with the present-day relationship Napoleon would have with the

Chapter 2 | 61
Vatican. By laying claim to the line that the Papacy had set up in
place of the Merovingians Napoleon was also using the good will
that was still felt by Rome for Charlemagne. Charlemagne was loved,
even in the 1700s, by the Catholic church for his protectorship and
the Merovingian Dynasty laid claim to the universally loved ideal of
‘firsts’. Napoleon was using his knowledge of his nation’s history to
manage some very crafty politics – even though it was harking back
to a history that was almost a thousand years old.
Yet even though he so craftily wove a narrative that combined
natural-born power and religious power and made a point of
inviting the Pope to France to officiate his coronation, Napoleon
also acted in a way that really offended the Roman Catholic Church.
At the coronation ceremony Napoleon seemed to lose patience
waiting for the Pope to give him the crown and throne and simply
took the crown and placed it on his own head, crowning himself
Emperor of France. Some say that Napoleon was making an
Enlightenment-esque statement to the Papacy by crowning himself.
Others just say he was impatient and self-important. While this may
have been a childish fit of impatience on the part of Napoleon,
it seems like someone who so patiently created such a strong
narrative regarding who he wanted to emulate as a ruler might have
been up to something much more calculated. Understanding the
France that he was about to take rule of and knowing his peers’
dedication to the Revolution, his disrespect of the Pope and
disregard for the Catholic church’s authority may have been a
strategic move to gain the trust and respect of the post-Revolution
French people. This is only speculation, however, as there are some
things that Napoleon never explained.
As Napoleon began his reign, he ushered in a new aesthetic in
the arts called Empire Style. Empire Style took all the elements of
Neo-Classical design and added Egyptian aesthetics. While the Fine
Arts didn’t feel the impact of Empire Style too directly, architecture
and interior design saw more additions of Egyptian motifs being
combined with ancient Roman imagery. Empire Style is considered
to be a late phase of Neo-Classicism.

62 | Chapter 2
 As France shifted into a new
phase of existence under
Napoleon, the Fine Arts saw a
shift as its young students
sought new themes and
inspirations. No longer roused
by the ideals of ancient Rome
and influenced by Napoleon’s
shifted gaze to the history of
France, young artists began to
look to medieval period for
material to use in their
imagery. Jean Auguste
Dominique Ingres was a gifted
student of Jacques-Louis David
and during his time as a student
Ingres painted Napoleon on his
Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, Imperial Throne. The painting
Napoleon on his Imperial Throne, oil
was not considered a smash hit
on canvas, 1806.
at the time as the paint
rendering seemed very flat (to us it just looks like an overexposed
photograph, but to the eyes of the 1800s it looked flat and washed
out) and the imagery all referred back to the Middle Ages, which
seemed like an odd choice in a Neo-Classically saturated art world.

Chapter 2 | 63
 “In Ingres painting, Napoleon
sits on an imposing, round-
backed and gilded throne, one
that is similar to those that God
sits upon in Jan van Eyck’s
Flemish masterwork, the Ghent
Altarpiece, 1430-32. It is worth
noting that, as a result of the
Napoleonic Wars, the central
panels of the Ghent Altarpiece
that include the image of God
upon a throne, were in the
Musée Napoléon (now the
Louvre) when Ingres painted
this portrait.
The armrests in Ingres’s
portrait are made from Jan van Eyck,Center Panel, Christ
pilasters that are topped with Enthroned (detail), Ghent Altarpiece
(open), oil on wood, 1430-32
carved imperial eagles and
highly polished ivory spheres. A
similarly spread-winged imperial eagle appears on the rug in the
foreground. Two cartouches can be seen on the left-hand side of
the rug. The uppermost is the scales of justice (some have
interpreted this as a symbol for the zodiac sign for Libra), and the
second is a representation of Raphael’s Madonna della Seggiola from
1513-14, an artist and painting Ingres particularly admired. One final
ancillary element should be mentioned. On the back wall over
Napoleon’s left shoulder is a partially visible heraldic shield. The
iconography for this crest, however, is not that of France, but is
instead Italy and the Papal States. This visually ties the Emperor of
the French to his position—since 1805—as the King of Italy.
It is not only the throne that speaks to rulership. He unblinkingly
faces the viewer. In addition, Napoleon is bedazzled in attire and
accoutrements of his authority. He wears a gilded laurel wreath on
his head, a sign of rule (and more broadly, victory) since classical

64 | Chapter 2
times. In his left hand Napoleon supports a rod topped with the
hand of justice, while with his right hand he grasps the sceptre
of Charlemagne. An extravagant medal from the Légion d’honneur
hangs from the Emperor’s shoulders by an intricate gold and jewel-
encrusted chain. Although not immediately visible, a jewel-
encrusted coronation sword hangs from his left hip. The reason why
the sword—one of the most recognizable symbols of rulership—can
hardly be seen is because of the extravagant nature of Napoleon’s
coronation robes. An immense ermine collar is under Napoleon’s
Légion d’honneur medal. Ermine—a kind of short-tailed
weasel—have been used for ceremonial attire for centuries and are
notable for their white winter coats that are accented with a black
tip on their tail. Thus, each black tip on Napoleon’s garments
represents a separate animal. Clearly, then, Napoleon’s ermine
collar—and the ermine lining under his gold-embroidered velvet
robes—has been made with dozens of pelts, a certain sign of
opulence. All these elements—throne, sceptres, sword, wreath,
ermine, embroidered bees, and velvet—speak to Napoleon’s position
as Emperor.
But it is not only what Napoleon wears. It is also how the emperor
sits. In painting this portrait, Ingres borrowed from other well-
known images of powerful male figures. This ‘type’ showed Zeus
seated, frontal, and with one arm raised while the other was more
at rest. The low eye level—about that of Napoleon’s knees—also
indicates that the viewer is looking up at the seated ruler, as if
kneeling before him. The sum total of this painting is not just the
coronation of Napoleon, but almost his divine apotheosis. Ingres
shows him not just as a ruler, but as omnipotent immortal. Thus,
Ingres is working in yet another rich visual tradition, and in doing
so, seems to remove Napoleon Bonaparte from the ranks of the
mortals of the earth and transforms him into a Greek or Roman god
of Mt. Olympus. Never once accused of modesty, there is no doubt
that Napoleon approved of such a comparison.”
Excerpted from an Essay by Dr. Bryan Zygmont, “Ingres, Napoleon
on His Imperial Throne,” in Khan Academy,

Chapter 2 | 65
https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/becoming-modern/
romanticism/romanticism-in-france/a/ingres-napoleon-on-his-
imperial-throne
All Khan Academy content is available for free at
www.khanacademy.org
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While students like Ingres

began introducing new and
non-revolution-related ways to
deal with subject matter, artists
like Jacques-Louis David
worked as a court painter as the
First Painter or Official Painter
for the Emperor and he began
to fade from the political (but
not art) scene. Another artist of
the Revolution who had never
involved himself in politics too
openly, Pierre-Paul Prud’hon
also found work as a painter for
Pierre-Paul Prud’hon, Portrait of the new ruler of France. One of
Empress Joséphine, oil on canvas,
his commissions was to paint a
1805-1809
large portrait of the Empress
Josephine of France. It took him four years to paint it. In fact, it took
so long that Prud’hon’s wife accused him of being in love with the
Empress and ended up flying into such a jealous rage that she was

66 | Chapter 2
institutionalized. Prud’hon eventually separated from his wife
before her death, and had one of his students, fellow artist
Constance Mayer (portrait by Prud’hon above) raise his children.
Sadness and tragedy seemed to follow Prud’hon as Mayer, who had
been a close friend and had raised his children, realized after the
death of his wife that he would not marry her and so violently
died by suicide. Unfortunately, the Empress Josephine’s marriage to
Napoleon was also unlucky. By the time her portrait by Prud’hon was
completed Josephine had been divorced by Napoleon for not being
able to produce him an heir. Because of this public repudiation,
this painting wasn’t shown at the Salon of 1810 because that would
have just been awkward. Because she isn’t portrayed as a great and
mighty Empress but rather a beautiful, calm woman, some critics
agree with Prud’hon’s wife and feel that Prud’hon may have been
in love with Rose (as she preferred to be called). Josephine was
always held in high regard by Napoleon, except for when he first
found out she was prone to having affairs (French life hadn’t really
changed all that much apparently), and just before their coronation
they nearly dissolved their marriage. Josephine found Napoleon
in bed with another woman, a woman Josephine knew, a woman
supposed to be a friend to Josephine, and Napoleon flew into a
rage at her rage and counter-threatened to divorce her for being
infertile. They smoothed things over for a while. However, by 1809,
he realized he needed a baby boy and told her that they were getting
divorced. Apparently, that was not a pretty dinner conversation as
they were both rather loud when angry. A few months later they
were divorced. Josephine, as promised by Napoleon, kept her title
as Empress of France, but her marriage to Napoleon was over. After
the marriage was official ended, Napoleon married Marie-Louise
of the Austrian royal family. Napoleon is said to have said that he
married a womb, not a wife, when he married his Austrian princess.
(He may have never said this, but it makes for a very good story.)
The fact that he chose an Austrian princess for his new wife shows
that for all its violent revolutionary ways, the culture of France may
not have changed all that much at all indeed. Another anecdote of

Chapter 2 | 67
his relationship with Josephine that my or may not be true is that
Napoleon died with Josephine’s name on his lips.
In 1811, Prud’hon was commissioned to paint the Emperor’s heir –
the child born to him from Marie-Louise. Napoleon nick-named his
son The King of Rome and Prud’hon’s painting was full of allegorical
references to this young royal’s heritage.

Pierre-Paul Prud’hon, Portrait of the King of Rome, oil on canvas, 1811

Self-Reflection Questions

Consider the following questions:

68 | Chapter 2
 • Do you think the moral & the ‘put the people first’
goals of the Revolution were successful considering
the moral & political corruption evident in post-
Revolution France?
• If those goals were not met, do you think that it was
maybe because they were not the true motivations
for the uprising?
• If they weren’t the true motives, what do you think
might have been the ‘real’ reasons behind the
violence?
• What cautionary tales do you think we, in the 21st
century, can take from the climate, actions, and
consequences of the French Revolution when we look
at our own times and attitudes?

Chapter 2 - French Revolution through to the End of Napoleon by Megan Bylsma is

licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0
International License, except where otherwise noted.

Chapter 2 | 69
3. Chapter 3 - French
Romanticism and the
Academy
France

By the end of this chapter you will be able to:

• Reconstruct a basic timeline that spans the French

Revolution, the Napoleonic eras, the Restoration, and
the emergence of Romanticism
• Explain French Romanticism’s driving philosophies
• List the key French Romantic artists and identify
and decipher their artwork
• List the hierarchy of painting genres according to
the French Academy
• Describe the power of the Academy system over
the art world

Opening section in audio:

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70 | Chapter 3
here: https://openeducationalberta.ca/
19thcenturyart/?p=48#audio-48-1

At the beginning of the movie The Godfather, Michael

Corleone (played by Al Pacino) wants nothing to do with
his family’s involvement in organized crime. When
telling a family story to his girlfriend, he concludes,
“That’s my family, Kay, That’s not me.” As the film
progresses, however, Michael’s father and older brother
are the focus of violent attacks and Michael becomes
more active in the family business until—at the end of
the film (SPOILER ALERT)—he has assumed the
leadership of the Corleone crime syndicate by killing all
of his enemies. Fictional characters—both in film and in
novels—have arcs. They change through time. The same
is true of real characters from history. They often have a
rise, but just as often there is a precipitous fall.
Napoleon Bonaparte is but one example.

Chapter 3 | 71
 Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres,
Napoleon on his Imperial
Throne, oil on canvas, 1806.

72 | Chapter 3
 A visual starting point
could be Jean-Auguste-
Dominique Ingres’s 1806
painting, Napoleon on His
Imperial Throne. In this
work, Ingres painted
Napoleon as if he were an
omnipotent ruler—rather
than a mere mortal. But
six years later, Jacques-
Louis David (Ingres’s
former teacher), painted
The Emperor Napoleon in
His Study in the Tulieries
(1812). These two
Jacques-Louis David, The
portraits—painted just six Emperor Napoleon in His Study
years apart—show a at the Tuileries, oil on canvas,
1812.
significant arc in the life
and career of Napoleon.

In David’s portrait, Napoleon’s uniform is completed

with white knee breeches and stockings, and black
shoes with gold buckles. Although he wears a military
uniform, this is hardly a military portrait. He has
discarded his officer’s sword—it rests on the chair on
the right side of the painting—and Napoleon is shown
doing the administrative work of a civic leader. He
stands between the high-backed red velvet chair on the
right and in front of the Empire-styled desk behind him.
A gilded regal lion serves as the visible leg of the desk,
and an ink-stained quill, candle-lit lamp, and various
papers can be seen atop his writing table. David has

Chapter 3 | 73
 signed and dated the portrait on a rolled up map to the
side of the table, a leather-bound volume of Plutarch (in
French: Plutarque) is beside it. Plutarch was an ancient
Roman biographer and historian, most famous in the
nineteenth century as the author of The Parallel Lives, a
text that explores the virtues and vices of Greek and
Roman rulers, men such as Alexander the Great,
Themistocles, Julius Caesar, and Cicero. The inclusion of
this book was a way to visually tie Napoleon to the great
rulers of the classical past who he so admired. And yet,
not everything is perfect within this space.

Although Napoleon stands and looks out towards the

viewer, he looks more dishevelled than not. His
hair—complete with the grey typical of a man in his
fifties—appears unkempt and tousled. In addition, his
uniform would hardly pass muster. A cuff button has
been undone, and his silken stockings and trousers
appear wrinkled from being worn for an exceptionally
long working day. This fact is alluded to by two time-
bearing details. The grandfather clock displays the time
as 4:12. And the candles of his desk lamp—one nearly
burned to its completing, another recently extinguished,
several others seemingly expired—make it clear that it is
not the late afternoon, but rather the very early
morning. Clearly, time was running short. This portrait
seems to suggest that Napoleon was working too late
and too hard at the time it was commissioned, and
indeed, Napoleon’s time as a world ruler was coming to
a climactic finale. The year the painting was
completed—1812—was a particularly calamitous one for
Napoleon, as he was in the middle of the disastrous

74 | Chapter 3
 invasion of Russia. Less than two years later, on 4 April
1814, Napoleon abdicated his throne and was exiled to
the island of Elba. David skilfully and subtly depicts
Napoleon’s transition from omnipotent ruler to fallible
commander.

Excepted and adapted from: Dr. Bryan Zygmont,

“David, The Emperor Napoleon in his Study at
the Tuileries” in Khan Academy, accessed September 14,
2020, https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/
renaissance-reformation/rococo-neoclassicism/neo-
classicism/a/david-the-emperor-napoleon-in-his-
study-at-the-tuileries
All Khan Academy content is available for free at
www.khanacademy.org

Antoine-Jean Gros section in audio:

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Chapter 3 | 75
Antoine-Jean Gros

Antoine-Jean Gros was

born in Paris to a portrait
painter. Before the
Revolution, he trained
under Jacques-Louis
David but had to flee
France for a safer
environment during the
Revolution. He move to
Genoa, Italy in the 1790s
and there met Marie
Josèphe Rose Tascher de
François Gérard, Portrait of
Antoine-Jean Gros at Age Twenty, oil La Pagerie, who would
on canvas, c. 1791. become known as
Joséphine Bonaparte.
Joséphine appreciated Gros’ work and introduced the
young painter to her new husband, Napoleon. She also
commissioned a painting of her husband by Gros which
was completed in 1796. The painting Napoleon Bonaparte
at the pont d’Arcole impressed Napoleon and eventually
led to Gros’ instalment as an official painter for the
Emperor Napoleon following the troops and painting
their endeavours. Usually considered a Romantic artist
due to the emotive nature of his paintings and their
brushier execution, Gros never embraced the ideology
of the Romantics and largely devoted himself to
presenting military events in a positive or grander light

76 | Chapter 3
than they actually occurred (which is why Napoleon
placed him in the position).

Antoine-Jean Gros, Bonaparte Visiting the Pest House in Jaffa, oil

on canvas, 1804.

Gros’ most well known painting is Napoleon Bonaparte

Visiting the Pest House in Jaffa, from 1804. In this proto-
Romantic painting, that points to the later style of
Gericault and Delacroix, Gros depicted a legendary
episode from Napoleon’s campaigns in Egypt (1798-1801).
On March 21, 1799, in a make-shift hospital in Jaffa,
Napoleon visited his troops who were stricken with the
Bubonic Plague. Gros depicted Napoleon attempting to
calm the growing panic about contagion by fearlessly
touching the sores of one of the plague victims. (At this
time it was believed that the plague was spread by
touch, so this gesture would have made Napoleon look

Chapter 3 | 77
 fearless and like a conqueror in the face of death –
unlike his subordinate soldiers who recoil from the
pestilence and smell.) Like earlier neoclassical paintings
such as David’s Death of Marat, Gros combined Christian
iconography, in this case Christ healing the sick, with a
contemporary subject. He also drew on the art of
classical antiquity, by depicting Napoleon in the same
position as the ancient Greek sculpture, the Apollo
Belvedere. In this way, he imbued Napoleon with divine
qualities while simultaneously showing him as a military
hero. But in contrast to David, Gros used warm, sensual
colours and focuses on the dead and dying who occupy
the foreground of the painting. We’ll see the same
approach later in Delacroix’s painting of Liberty Leading
the People (1830).

Napoleon was a master at using art to manipulate his

public image and used this painting to counteract the
travelling news of what had actually happened at Jaffa.
In reality, he had ordered the death of the prisoners
whom he could not afford to house or feed, and
poisoned his troops who were dying from the plague as
he retreated from the area.

Excepted and adapted from: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr.

Steven Zucker, “Baron Antoine-Jean Gros, Napoleon
Bonaparte Visiting the Pest House in Jaffa,”
in Smarthistory, November 23, 2015,
https://smarthistory.org/baron-antoine-jean-gros-
napoleon-bonaparte-visiting-the-pest-house-in-jaffa/.
All Smarthistory content is available for free at
www.smarthistory.org

78 | Chapter 3
 Gros’ painting of Napoleon at Jaffa was a wild success at the Paris
Salon because it was a brand new genre of painting. It was like a
history painting, but it showed a contemporary event. This gave
birth to a new and enormously popular genre of painting – the
contemporary history painting. This new subject matter combined
with the sensationally dramatic scene in the painting guaranteed it
was well received by the public, which worked well for Napoleon.
But the viewers at the Salon weren’t just responding to the
propagandistic subject matter and the drama of the event, they
were being sucked into a story that they couldn’t easily refuse and
the composition makes sure of that. The triangular composition of
the painting, a composition built out of the swaths of light that
sweep through the painting, moves the viewers eye from each
strategic point in the painting. The sick are in the dimly lit bottom,
but arranged in a sweeping curve meant to draw your eye across
the more well-lit ill soldiers to Napoleon and from Napoleon to
the flag of France, which was a reminder of the ‘good cause’ the
soldiers were fighting for in that foreign field. This reference to
the ‘good cause’, plus Napoleon’s Christ-like pose, gives a subtle
suggestion that these plague victims aren’t just dying of disease or
being abandoned by their leader, these plague victims are martyrs
for the cause of France (just like Marat in David’s painting from
the Revolution). It was this kind of dramatic painting style with
its embedded subtle messages that entrenched Gros as Napoleon’s
premier public relations painter – although he was obviously not
called that. He was just a painting that documented the troops.
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres section in audio:

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Chapter 3 | 79
 here: https://openeducationalberta.ca/
19thcenturyart/?p=48#audio-48-3

Jean-Auguste-Dominiqu
e Ingres

Jean-Auguste-
Dominique Ingres was an
artist of immense
importance during the
first half of the
nineteenth century. His
father, Jean-Marie-Joseph
Ingres was a decorative
artist of only minor
influence who instructed
his young son in the
Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, Self
basics of drawing by Portrait at Age Twenty-Three, oil on
allowing him to copy the canvas, 1804.
family’s extensive print
collection that included reproductions from artists such
as Boucher, Correggio, Raphael, and Rubens. In 1791, at
just 11 years of age, Ingres the Younger began his formal
artistic education at the Académie Royale de Peinture,

80 | Chapter 3
Sculpture et Architecture in Toulouse, just 35 miles from
his hometown of Montauban.

Ingres was a quick study. In 1797—at the tender age of

16 years—he won the Académie’s first prize in drawing.
Clearly destined for great things, Ingres packed his
trunks less than six months later and moved to Paris to
begin his instruction in the studio of Jacques-Louis
David, the most strident representative of the
Neoclassical style. David stressed to those he instructed
the importance of drawing and studying from the nude
model. In the years that followed, Ingres not only
benefitted from David’s instruction—and the prestige
and caché that such an honor bestowed—but also
learned from many of David’s past students who
frequented their former teacher’s studio. These artists
comprise a “who’s who” of late-eighteenth-century
French neoclassical art and include painters such as
Jean-Germain Droais, Anne-Louis Girodet, and Antoine
Jean-Gros.

Chapter 3 | 81
 Due to the financial
woes of the French
government in the first
years of the nineteenth
century, Ingres’s Prix de
Rome—which he won in
1801—was delayed until
1806. Two years later,
Ingres sent to the École

Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres,

The Valpinçon Bather, oil on
canvas, 1808

three compositions—intended to demonstrate his

artistic growth while studying at the French Academy in
Rome. Interestingly, all three of these works—The
Valpinçon Bather, the so-called Sleeper of Naples,
and Oedipus and the Sphinx—depict elements of the
female nude (to be fair, however, the sphinx is not
human). The first two, however, do not depict a story
from the classical past. Instead, nearly the entire focus
of each composition is on the female form. While Ingres
has retained the formal elements that were so much a
part of his neoclassical training—extreme linearity and a
cool, “licked’ surface” (where brushwork is nearly
invisible)—he had begun to reject neoclassical subject
matter and the idea that art should be morally
instructive. Indeed, by 1808, Ingres was beginning to
walk on both sides of the neoclassical/romantic

82 | Chapter 3
divide. In few works is a Neoclassical style fused with a
romantic subject matter more clearly than in Ingres’s
1814 painting La Grande Odalisque.

Ingres completed his time at the French Academy in

Rome in 1810. Rather than immediately return to Paris
however, he remained in the Eternal City and completed
several large-scale history paintings. In 1814 he travelled
to Naples and was employed by Caroline Murat, the
Queen of Naples (who also happened to be Napoleon
Bonaparte’s sister). She commissioned La Grande
Odalisque, a composition that was intended to be a
pendant to his earlier composition, Sleeper of Naples. At
first glance, Ingres’s subject matter is of the most
traditional sort. Certainly, the reclining female nude had
been a common subject matter for centuries. Ingres was
working within a visual tradition that included artists
such as Giorgione (Sleeping Venus, 1510), Titian (Venus of
Urbino, 1538) and Velazquez (Rokeby Venus, 1647-51). But
the titles for all three of those paintings have one word
in common: Venus. Indeed, it was common to cloak
paintings of the female nude in the disguise of classical
mythology.

Chapter 3 | 83
 Jean
Auguste
Dominiqu
e Ingres,
La Grande
Odalisque,
oil on
canvas,
1814.

Ingres refused to disguise who and what his female

figure was. She was not the Roman goddess of love and
beauty. Instead, she was an odalisque, a concubine who
lived in a harem and existed for the sexual pleasure of
the sultan. In his painting La Grande Odalisque Ingres
transports the viewer to the Orient, a far-away land for
a Parisian audience in the second decade of the
nineteenth century (in this context, “Orient” means
Near East more so than the Far East). The woman—who
wears nothing other than jewellery and a turban—lies on
a divan, her back to the viewer. She seemingly peeks
over her shoulder, as if to look at someone who has just
entered her room, a space that is luxuriously appointed
with fine damask and satin fabrics. She wears what
appears to be a ruby and pearl encrusted broach in her
hair and a gold bracelet on her right wrist. In her right
hand she holds a peacock fan, another symbol of
affluence, and another piece of metalwork—a face-down
bejewelled mirror, perhaps?—can be seen along the
lower left edge of the painting.

Along the right side of the composition we see a

84 | Chapter 3
hookah, a kind of pipe that was used for smoking
tobacco, hashish and opium. All of these Oriental
elements—fabric, turban, fan, hookah—did the same
thing for Ingres’s odalisque as Titian’s Venetian
courtesan being labelled “Venus”—that is, it provided a
distance that allowed the (male) viewer to safely gaze at
the female nude who primarily existed for his
enjoyment.

And what a nude it is. When glancing at the painting,

one can immediately see the linearity that was so
important to David in particular, and the French
neoclassical style more broadly. But when looking at the
odalisque’s body, the same viewer can also immediately
notice how far Ingres has strayed from David’s particular
style of rendering the human form—look for instance at
her elongated back and right arm. David was largely
interest in idealizing the human body, rendering it not
as it existed, but as he wished it did, in an anatomically
perfect state. David’s commitment to the idealizing the
human form can clearly be seen in his preparatory
drawings for his never completed Oath of the Tennis
Court. There can be no doubt that this is how David
taught Ingres to render the body.

Students often stray from their teacher’s instruction,

however. In La Grande Odalisque, Ingres rendered the
female body in an exaggerated, almost unbelievable way.
Much like the Mannerists centuries
earlier—Parmigianino’s Madonna of the Long Neck (c.
1535) immediately comes to mind—Ingres distorted the
female form in order to make her body more sinuous
and elegant. Her back seems to have two or three more

Chapter 3 | 85
 vertebrae than are necessary, and it is anatomically
unlikely that her lower left leg could meet with the knee
in the middle of the painting, or that her left thigh
attached to this knee could reach her hip. Clearly, this is
not the female body as it really exists. It is the female
body, perhaps, as Ingres wished it to be, at least for the
composition of this painting. And in this regard, David
and his student Ingres have attempted to achieve the
same end—idealization of the human form—though each
strove to do so in markedly different ways.

Excerpted from: Dr. Bryan Zygmont, “Between

Neoclassicism and Romanticism: Ingres, La Grande
Odalisque,” in Smarthistory, November 12, 2015,
https://smarthistory.org/between-neclassicism-and-
romanticism-ingres-la-grande-odalisque-2/.
All Smarthistory content is available for free at
www.smarthistory.org

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An aside about a compositional and theoretical device called

86 | Chapter 3
The Male Gaze

The theory of The Male Gaze

is a second wave feminist
theory and it began as a way to
examine and explain the way
women were filmed in
twentieth century films. Often,
women were framed
compositionally so that it
appeared as if the eye of the Marilyn Monroe in a Film Still from
Niagra (1953) – directed by Henry
camera was the eye of a male Hathaway
co-actor watching the woman
from an angle slightly above (because stereotypically speaking most
men were taller than most women). This filmed-with-a-downward-
angle aesthetic was also slightly filtered for the best aesthetic view,
and always in a way or at an angle or in a lighting that made the
viewer feel like they had some kind of power over the woman being
filmed. This was the theory, or part of it anyway, and the theorist
who first proposed it, Laura Mulvey, called it the Male Gaze.
(Interestingly, this downward angle aesthetic can now be seen most
frequently in the 21st century in selfies, but this is likely more an
aesthetic choice, rather than a comment on the power dynamic
between the viewer and the viewed.) Obviously, there are now many
ways to film all kinds of people, but art historians took a look at
Mulvey’s ideas and realized that historically women haven’t been
exactly in control of their image in the same way men have been in
art the art that portrays them.
Basically, the Male Gaze is a gendered way of saying a gaze that
consumes and/or objectifies and is meant to do so. This isn’t a
case of someone looking at a candid snapshot of someone and
the viewer finding them attractive and thinking “Yowza!” That’s a
different kind of gaze and is the product of the person doing to
the looking, rather than an agreement between the viewer and a
purposefully constructed image created with the purpose of being

Chapter 3 | 87
sexually available and attractive specifically to viewers who find
female bodies sexually appealing. Ingres’ La Grande Odalisque was
painted by a man for men and the subject in the painting knows
it full well – she looks back at the viewer but with eyes glazed by
some kind of exotic opiate. She is aware and her body is displayed
by the artist for your consumption and objectification but due to
her intoxication she is in no real position to protest, making her all
the more consumable. But Ingres went one step further – instead
of making the viewer mentally objectify the subject for better
consumption, he literally changed the human body to make it easier
on the eyes and more appealing than any reality.
In answer to this question,
Question: Can you easily the majority of people find that
objectify and consume the they can’t very easily consume
image of those you feel are the images of people they feel
your equals or that you find they know well, are important
important to you? to them, or are their equals.
Often consumption of an image
requires an anonymity or, in the
very least, a power structure
(real or imagined) that places
the consumed in a more
powerless position than the
one doing the consuming. In
the early 1800s it wasn’t much
Jacques-Louis David, Portrait of different. The objectification of
Madame Récamier, oil on canvas,
1800. French women, especially
known individuals of the time,
was not often indulged in. Take Jacques-Louis David’s Portrait of
Madame Récamier, whose painting was an influence on the pose of
Ingres’ La Grande Odalisque, for example. In David’s painting,
Julliette Récamier appears clothed, somewhat in possession of her
own image (based on her levelled look towards the painting’s viewer)
and she was a well known figure on the social scene in early 1800s
Parisian society. In David’s painting, the subject of the image may be

88 | Chapter 3
 idealized but she is not objectified. To do so would have caused a
stir in French circles because one doesn’t consume one’s friends,
generally speaking – that was taboo. Therefore, to make his painting
a success Ingres had to make doubly sure that it was clear the object
in his painting was not French, in fact it had to be clear she wasn’t
even European.
To best show case things that were meant to be consumed but
to indicate that it wasn’t considered culturally wrong to do so,
the creator the image engaged in what is now called Othering.
“‘Othering’ is the way members of one social group distance
themselves from, or assert themselves over, another by construing
the latter as being fundamentally different (the ‘Other’)…It is a term
that is associated with discourses of colonialism, and, in particular,
1
with the work of Edward Said.” Ultimately, it creates an ‘us’ and
‘them’ binary that allows for virtuous behaviours on the part of the
‘us’ and indulgence in taboo behaviours for the ‘them’. But who is
the ‘us’ and who is the ‘them’? In this case, the them is the “Orient”
– in this time period of the 1800s that would be anyone from the
the Near East, Northern Africa, and the eastern Mediterranean
(although the Far East could also be included) – and the ‘us’ is the
“Occident” – the north and western hemispheres.
In this particular case, Ingres created a clear indication that the
woman in his image was not ‘one of us’ and was therefore ‘one of
them’ by including visual clues to establish the woman as a foreign
“other”; which is what we now call Orientalizing. Orientalizing,
strictly speaking, is the idea of creating an image of someone who
is from the Orient but, it is actually a bit more insidious than that.
The image it creates is not a true image, it’s a fantasized image
that is built on imagination and othering – constructed in such a

1. Scott Thornbury, "O is for Othering," An A-Z of ELT,

August 14, 2012, https://scottthornbury.wordpress.com/
2012/04/08/o-is-for-othering/
Chapter 3 | 89
way that those creating and consuming the image didn’t feel bad
about it because the people in the image were ‘others’ and not
one of ‘us.’ Orientalizing creates an image made up of assumptions
and beliefs about the exotic aesthetics and non-western behaviours
of the peoples of the lands that were currently being colonized
by European countries. By creating beautiful and often sexually
charged images and written works, the creators of the Western
world strengthened stereotypes and feelings of superiority on the
part of the West.
In his eighties, Ingres painted
The Turkish Bath, and because
Ingres always held to the
position that he hated the
sensual and emotive Romantics
and he was always a faithful and
true Neoclassical artist it begs
the question:
Is The Turkish Bath very
Neoclassical (i.e. logical,
edifying, free of sensory
Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, The
Turkish Bath, oil on canvas, 1862. indulgence, and about Roman
times)? Or is it more sensual,
emotional, and ‘natural’ (i.e. Romantic)?
It seems more closely related to the sensual, emotional, and
natural. However, always keep in mind that Romantic art (with a
capital ‘R’) really has nothing to do with romantic or sexual feelings,
so this isn’t really Romantic art either. It’s just closer to Romantic
than it is to Neoclassical.
Ingres is often considered a proto-Romanticist and this is largely
due to the difficulty in labelling the art he created. It does not
neatly fit in a Neo-Classical category as his subject matter was
often so exotic and sensual. Yet, he did not agree with the ideals of
the Romantics and his work lacks the sweeping dynamic emotion
that typifies those works. At best, he can be positioned as a bridge
between the two genres, and yet it seems most likely he was simply

90 | Chapter 3
an artist who did work that pleased himself whenever he felt so
inclined.
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Academic Genre
Hierarchies
At the beginning of the Revolution the Royal Academy had been
abolished and in its place was the Arts Commune. The Arts
Commune was presided over by David, and it then became the
National Institute – which had many other disciplines under its
domain but also included the fine arts. After the exile of Napoleon,
in 1816 King Louis XVIII reinstated the Royal Academy or as it was
now called, the Académie des Beaux-Arts. This is a quick time-line
of the rise and re-invention of the art academy in France:
1793 – Royal Academy Abolished – becomes the ‘Arts Commune’
under Jacques-Louis David
1795 – National Institute adds Fine Arts to its classes
1816 – Royal Academy re-instated, now called the Académie des
Beaux-Arts
1819 – Ecole de Beaux-Arts, a division of the Académie, is the
primary place for prestigious artists to learn, teach, and show work
One of the major changes in the Academy during the early 1800s
was that those who were allowed to become members of the

Chapter 3 | 91
academy where no longer young artists, but rather older and more
established gentlemen who elected members in. It was this system
that made it so hard for new art forms to get into the Academy by
the mid 1800s. This system also created a distinct and celebrated
hierarchy of painting genres – those that were at the top of the
ranking were eligible to win their creators prizes and great prestige,
while those at the bottom of the hierarchy would be considered only
suitable for dabbling artists.
In the mid-1800s in France the hierarchy was, in most cases,
arranged as follows:
History Painting – Painting that depicted historical events were the
best of the best and often the biggest.
Portraits – Portraiture wasn’t really considered the most amazing
thing, but it was considered to be decently good because people
where the focus and everyone likes to look at pictures of themselves
or people they know.
Landscape Painting – Landscape painting was okay, but really only
if it was of historical landscapes. And only occasionally should it be
cluttered up with people. If it did have to have people make them
historical. Or peasants. But pretty peasants. Landscape painting had
been recently promoted from lower in the hierarchy during the
early to mid-1800s due to outside influences after the Revolution.
Genre Painting – Genre painting was the painting of anything not
on the list but that included humans in a rustic or moralizing way.
Often it was paintings of peasants or pseudo-peasants (what the
higher classes imagined peasants to be).
Still Life – The last thing was still life painting – which was anything
not living and arranged. Animal paintings, specifically paintings of
pets and other owned creatures, held a place on this list at certain
times – above still life. While paintings of dead animals were more
in the Still Life category, although still somewhat more exciting than
images of fruit and glass.
This list changed order at different times but History painting
always stayed on top, and the higher up on the list, the bigger the

92 | Chapter 3
piece could be, which is why French History paintings tend to be
huge.

The Restoration
The world’s fastest recap of the Restoration of France:
Basically by 1814 the French had had enough war and enough
death and they deposed Napoleon to the Island of Elba. He stayed
there until 1815, came back to France and ruled for 100 days and
then was shipped back to Elba where he later died. His autopsy said
he died of stomach cancer, but other people think he died of Arsenic
poisoning. Hard to say but that doesn’t stop people from still talking
about it. People had been trying to kill him for a very long time.
Once, when he was married to Josephine a cart-bomb had been
placed in the road in an effort to kill him and/or Josephine as his
carriage drove past. Yes. CART BOMB.
Anyway, with the Emperor disposed, Louis the XVIII – younger
brother of King Louis the XVI – who had been hiding around Europe
saying he was king of France, came back to ‘help out’. He became
a constitutional monarch who shared power with the parliament.
Louis XVIII was succeeded by his younger brother Charles X who
was eventually forced to abdicate after a three day revolution in
1830.
So after a while as Emperor Napoleon was out and the traditional
French monarchy were back in. Then Napoleon was back in, then
the he was back out, then the monarchy was back in, and then
Napoleon’s relatives came back and the monarchy was out, and
then…I think you get the picture. The era of long lasting rulers was
over for France.
Romanticism in France in audio:

Chapter 3 | 93
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Romanticism in France

In the decades following the French Revolution and

Napoleon’s final defeat at Waterloo (1815) a new
movement called Romanticism began to flourish in
France. If you read about Romanticism in general, you
will find that it was a pan-European movement that had
its roots in England in the mid-eighteenth century.
Initially associated with literature and music, it was in
part a response to the rationality of the Enlightenment
and the transformation of everyday life brought about
by the Industrial Revolution. Like most forms of
Romantic art, nineteenth-century French Romanticism
defies easy definitions. Artists explored diverse subjects
and worked in varied styles so there is no single form of
French Romanticism.

Intimacy, spirituality, colour, yearning for the infinite.

Even when Charles Baudelaire wrote about French
Romanticism in the middle of the nineteenth century, he

94 | Chapter 3
found it difficult to concretely define. Writing in his
Salon of 1846, he affirmed that “romanticism lies neither
in the subjects that an artist chooses nor in his exact
copying of truth, but in the way he feels…. Romanticism
and modern art are one and the same thing, in other
words: intimacy, spirituality, colour, yearning for the
infinite, expressed by all the means the arts possess.”

In 1810, Germaine de Staël introduced the new

Romantic movement to France when she
published Germany (De l’Allemagne). Her book explored
the concept that while Italian art might draw from its
roots in the rational, orderly Classical (ancient Greek
and Roman) heritage of the Mediterranean, the northern
European countries were quite different. She held that
her native culture of Germany—and perhaps
France—was not Classical but Gothic and therefore
privileged emotion, spirituality, and naturalness over
Classical reason. Another French writer Stendhal (Henri
Beyle) had a different take on Romanticism. Like
Baudelaire later in the century, Stendhal equated
Romanticism with modernity. In 1817 he published
his History of Painting in Italy and called for a modern
art that would reflect the “turbulent passions” of the
new century. The book influenced many younger artists
in France and was so well-known that the conservative
critic Étienne Jean Delécluze mockingly called it “the
Koran of the so-called Romantic artists.”

The first marker of a French Romantic painting may

be the facture, meaning the way the paint is handled or
laid on to the canvas. Viewed as a means of making the
presence of the artist’s thoughts and emotions

Chapter 3 | 95
 apparent, French Romantic paintings are often
characterized by loose, flowing brushstrokes and
brilliant colours in a manner that was often equated
with the painterly style of the Baroque artist Rubens. In
sculpture artists often used exaggerated, almost
operatic, poses and groupings that implied great
emotion. This approach to art, interpreted as a direct
expression of the artist’s persona—or
“genius”—reflected the French Romantic emphasis on
unregulated passions. The artists employed a widely
varied group of subjects including the natural world, the
irrational realm of instinct and emotion, the exotic
world of the “Orient” and contemporary politics.

Théodore Géricault, Raft of the

Medusa, oil on canvas, 1819.

The theme of man and

nature found its way into
Romantic art across
Europe. While often
interpreted as a political
painting, Théodore
Géricault’s
Antoine Louis Barye, Lion and
remarkable Raft of the
Serpent, bronze, 1835.
Medusa (1819) confronted
its audience with a scene of struggle against the sea. In

96 | Chapter 3
the ultimate shipwreck scene, the veneer of civilization
is stripped away as the victims fight to survive on the
open sea. Some artists, including Gericault and
Delacroix, depicted nature directly in their images of
animals. For example, the animalier (animal sculptor)
Antoine-Louis Barye brought the tension and drama of
“nature red in tooth and claw” to the exhibition floor in
Lion and Serpent (1835.)

Another interest of
Romantic artists and
writers in many parts of
Europe was the concept
that people, like animals,
were not solely rational
beings but were governed
by instinct and emotion.
Gericault explored the
condition of those with
mental illness in his
Théodore Géricault, Portrait of a carefully observed
Woman Suffering from
Obsessive Envy, also known as portraits of the insane
The Hyena of the Salpêtrière, oil such as Portait of a
on canvas, c.1819-20.
Woman Suffering from
Obsessive Envy (The Hyena), 1822. On other occasions
artists would employ literature that explored extreme
emotions and violence as the basis for their paintings, as
Delacroix did in Death of Sardanapalus (1827-28.)

Eugène Delacroix, who once wrote in his diary “I

dislike reasonable painting,” took up the English
Romantic poet Lord Byron’s play Sardanapalus as the
basis for his epic work Death of Sardanapalus (below)

Chapter 3 | 97
 depicting an Assyrian ruler presiding over the murder of
his concubines and destruction of his palace. Delacroix’s
swirling composition reflected the Romantic artists’
fascination with the “Orient,” meaning North Africa and
the Near East—a very exotic, foreign, Islamic world
ruled by untamed desires. Curiously, Delacroix
preferred to be called a Classicist and rejected the title
of Romantic artist.

Whatever he thought of
being called a Romantic
artist, Delacroix brought
his intense fervour to
political subjects as well.
Responding to the
overthrow of the Bourbon
rulers in 1830, Delacroix Eugène Delacroix, The Death of
produced Liberty Leading Sardanapalus, oil on canvas,
1827.
the People. Brilliant
colours and deep shadows punctuate the canvas as the
powerful allegorical figure of Liberty surges forward
over the hopeful and despairing figures at the barricade.

Today, French
Romanticism remains
difficult to define because
it is so diverse.
Baudelaire’s comments
from the Salon of 1846
may still apply:
Eugène Delacroix, Liberty “romanticism lies neither
Leading the People, oil on in the subjects that an
canvas, 1830.

98 | Chapter 3
 artist chooses nor in his exact copying of truth, but in
the way he feels.”

Excerpted and adapted from: Dr. Claire Black McCoy,

“Romanticism in France,” in Smarthistory, September 1,
2018, https://smarthistory.org/romanticism-in-
france/.
All Smarthistory content is available for free at
www.smarthistory.org

While French Romanticism can be difficult to limit to a specific

aesthetic or ideal and can be hard to define clearly, there are some
things that Romantic artists and Romantic pieces across Europe
shared. The approach tended to value feelings of:

• Emotion
• Faith
• Spirituality
• Individuality
• The Natural

And it tended to de-emphasize or outright de-value:

• Intellect
• Reason
• Conformity
• Cultural Constraints

Romanticism came late to France because of the upheaval of the

Revolution, so its expression doesn’t follow closely on the aesthetic
or ideological ‘rules’ that other countries explored. In later chapters
a more clear picture will emerge regarding the ideas and

Chapter 3 | 99
approaches that Romanticism valued but the foundation can be
described in the list above.

Consider the following questions:

Think about the artists, like Ingres and Gros, who grew
up in the Revolution.

• What was their response to what they had

experienced growing up in that environment? How as
their art different than that of David or even
Prud’hon?
• Do you think that there are more recent or more
ancient examples of how tumultuously violent
environments have changed the art/performance/
values of the youth who grew up in it?

Thinking about the French Romantic artists

• Considering the individual work of a single artist,

how do you feel their work exhibits some of the
foundational elements of Romanticism (keeping in
mind that Romanticism has nothing to do with
romantic love and everything to do with
overwhelming emotion and dramatic elements of
nature)?
• If Romantic works were about emotional responses
and feelings, explain what emotions you feel when
looking at some of the works by Romantic artists in
this chapter.

100 | Chapter 3
19th Century European Art History by Megan Bylsma is licensed under a Creative
Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except
where otherwise noted.

Chapter 3 | 101
4. Chapter 4 - British
Romanticism and the
Picturesque Tradition
Britain

By the end of this chapter you will be able to:

• Identify the works of Benjamin West, Henry Fuseli,

William Blake – British Romantics
• Explain the six types of painting categories and
how they generally ranked in Britain as compared to
France at the same time
• Define the Picturesque Tradition and Picturesque
Composition
• Recognize and explain the satirical works of
Thomas Rowlandson
• List and define the 7 categories of landscape
painting
• Recognize the works of J.M.W. Turner, John Martin,
and John Constable – the British Landscape
Romantics

Chapter opening in audio

102 | Chapter 4
 One or more interactive elements has been excluded
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Let’s start this chapter with something really fun. Dictionary

definitions!
If you see the word ‘Sublime’
what do you generally see the
word to mean? (All jokes about
less than perfect limes aside, I
mean.)
Oxford Lexico defines ‘sublime’
as:
“Of very great excellence or
beauty. Producing an
overwhelming sense of awe or other high emotion through being
1
vast or grand.”
Merriam-Webster defines it as:
“a: lofty, grand, or exalted in thought, expression, or manner
b: of outstanding spiritual, intellectual, or moral worth
c: tending to inspire awe usually because of elevated quality (as of
beauty, nobility, or grandeur) or transcendent excellence.
1: grand or noble in thought, expression, or manner
2: beautiful or impressive enough to arouse a feeling of admiration
2
and wonder.”

1. Oxford Lexico, (2020), s.v. "Sublime."

2. Merriam-Webster, (2020), s.v. "Sublime."
Chapter 4 | 103
 Webster’s 1828 dictionary defines it as:
“1. High in place; exalted aloft.
2. High in excellence; exalted by nature; elevated.
3. High in style or sentiment; lofty; grand.
4. Elevated by joy; as sublime with expectation.
5. Lofty of mein; elevated in manner.
SUBLI’ME, noun A grand or lofty style; a style that expresses lofty
3
conceptions.”
In Wikipedia’s entry regarding the Sublime in philosophy:
“What is “dark, uncertain, and confused” moves the imagination to
awe and a degree of horror. While the relationship of sublimity and
beauty is one of mutual exclusivity, either can provide pleasure.
Sublimity may evoke horror, but knowledge that the perception is a
4
fiction is pleasureful.”
“The sublime in literature refers to use of language and description
that excites thoughts and emotions beyond ordinary experience.
Though often associated with grandeur, the sublime may also refer
to the grotesque or other extraordinary experiences that “takes us
5
beyond ourselves.”
According to Wikipedia, Edmund Burke defined “Sublime” as
follows:
“Burke defines the sublime as “whatever is fitted in any sort to
excite the ideas of pain and danger… Whatever is in any sort
terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a
manner analogous to terror.” Burke believed that the sublime was
something that could provoke terror in the audience, for terror and
pain were the strongest of emotions. However, he also believed
there was an inherent “pleasure” in this emotion. Anything that is
great, infinite or obscure could be an object of terror and the

3. Webster's Dictionary, (1828), s.v. "Sublime."

4. Wikipedia, (July 5, 2020), s.v. "Sublime (philosophy)."
5. Wikipedia, (June 22, 2020), s.v. "Sublime (literary)."
104 | Chapter 4
 6
sublime, for there was an element of the unknown about them.”

In his book The World as Will and Representation from

1818, Arnold Schopenhauer outlined the difference
between Beauty and the Sublime as follows:

Feeling of Beauty – Light is reflected off a flower.

(Pleasure from a mere perception of an object that
cannot hurt observer).

Weakest Feeling of Sublime – Light reflected off

stones. (Pleasure from beholding objects that pose no
threat, yet themselves are devoid of life).

Weaker Feeling of Sublime – Endless desert with no

movement. (Pleasure from seeing objects that could not
sustain the life of the observer).

Sublime – Turbulent Nature. (Pleasure from

perceiving objects that threaten to hurt or destroy
observer).

Full Feeling of Sublime – Overpowering turbulent

Nature. (Pleasure from beholding very violent,
destructive objects).

Fullest Feeling of Sublime – Immensity of Universe’s

extent or duration. (Pleasure from knowledge of
observer’s nothingness and oneness with Nature).

Excerpted from: Ben Pollitt, “John Martin, The Great

Day of His Wrath,” in Smarthistory, August 9, 2015,
https://smarthistory.org/martin-the-great-day-of-his-

6. Wikipedia, (June 22, 2020), s.v. "Sublime (literary)."

Chapter 4 | 105
 wrath/.
All Smarthistory content is available for free at
www.smarthistory.org
CC: BY-NC-SA

It’s pretty clear that something that is ‘sublime’ is more than just a
really good tasting piece of pie when it comes to the Arts. The idea
of the Sublime often relates to exciting, emotional, and uplifting
vistas – like mountain scenes where unbridled nature sits in
unbending grandeur in the face of puny human existence. But it is
also the idea of something experiential. It calls to mind the reaction
in the mind and soul of the viewer as they look at something bigger
and more powerful than themselves. And in this understanding of
the all-enveloping nature of the natural scene before them the
viewer feels a kind of horror.
For the Romantic poet and artist, the idea of the Sublime often
defined what their works were meant to do. They meant to
encapsulate the veneration, awe, and prickling anxiety caused by a
human understanding of the ferocity of nature. This could also
encompass the grotesque and purposefully fearful, but often the
fear was embedded in the grandiosity of the idea and scene. For
viewers of Romantic art,
Herein lies the especially art that dealt with
entertainment value of ideas of the Sublime, the
Romantic art. beauty was a two-fold
experience; partly it was
beautiful in an aesthetic sense, and partly it was beautiful in how it
made the viewer feel. Prickling fear mixed with wonder and awe
was a delicious experience when felt in the safety of an art venue.
Much like how horror movies are an entertainment in the twenty-
first century because they cause a feeling of fear-while-still-in-
safety, so the sublime Romantic art of the nineteenth century

106 | Chapter 4
enraptured the viewer who revelled in emotional responses.
America’s Raphael – Benjamin West in audio

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19thcenturyart/?p=199#audio-199-2

America’s Raphael –
Benjamin West
Benjamin West was known in Britain as America’s Raphael, but don’t
worry, this didn’t go to his head. He only named his first born son
Raphael, but that’s probably just a coincidence. Right?
Born in the U.S, West claimed in Britain that he was largely self
taught. The story he told of his art upbringing reads more like an
origin story of epic feats of mastery than a simple artist’s training.
His story was that he taught himself everything he knew after the
American Indians taught him how to mix pigments and his mother’s
praising kiss of a childhood drawing motivated him to make more
art. Stories like this make good tales but they really build into the
idea of the artist as genius, sprung full formed from Creativity’s
head. It’s not that West’s story is likely false. It is possibly true,
but when you hear stories like that take them with a good dose
of skepticism and recognize that while heroes do exist, they often
aren’t nearly as heroic as we want them to be. Lest it seem that we
are underselling the hurdles that West’s early-American background
caused, it should definitely be highlighted that West did not present
himself as a well-schooled man. He was born in Pennsylvania and

Chapter 4 | 107
when, later in life, he was president of the British Royal Academy, he
could barely spell. But it really does beg a question: how did a young
artist who swore he had immense lack of access to European-type
education find his way into the very highest levels of British society?
Well, the answer lies in, well, lies.

As Dr. Brian Zygmont explains;

In 1760, two wealthy Philadelphian families paid for

the young Benjamin West’s passage to Italy so he could
learn from the great European artistic tradition. He was
only 21 years old. He arrived in the port of Livorno
during the middle of April and was in Rome no later than
10 July. West remained in Italy for several years and
moved to London in August of 1763. He found quick
success in England and was a founding member of the
Royal Academy of Art when it was established in 1768.
West was clearly intoxicated by the cosmopolitan
London and never returned to his native Pennsylvania.
West’s fame and importance today rest on two
important areas:

1. West as teacher
West taught two successive generations of
American artists. All of these men travelled to his
London studio and most returned to the United
States. Indeed, a list of those who searched out his
instruction comprises a “who’s who” list of early
American artists,
2. West as history painter
If his role as a teacher was the first avenue to
West’s fame, surely his history painting is the

108 | Chapter 4
 second. Of the many he completed, The Death of
General Wolfe is certainly the most celebrated.

Benjamin West, The Death of General Wolfe, oil on canvas, 1770

In this painting, West departed from conventions in

two important regards. Generally, history paintings
were reserved for narratives from the Bible or stories
from the classical past. Instead, however, West depicted
a near-contemporary event, one that occurred only
seven years before. The Death of General Wolfe depicts
an event from the Seven Years’ War (known as the
French and Indian War in the United States), the
moment when Major-General James Wolfe was mortally
wounded on the Plains of Abraham outside Quebec.

Secondly, many—including Sir Joshua Reynolds and

West’s patron, Archbishop Drummond—strongly urged
West to avoid painting Wolfe and others in modern

Chapter 4 | 109
 costume, which was thought to detract from the
timeless heroism of the event. They urged him to
instead paint the figures wearing togas. West refused,
writing, “the same truth that guides the pen of the
historian should govern the pencil [paintbrush] of the
artist.”

Yet despite West’s interest in “truth,” there is little to

be found in The Death of General Wolfe. Without doubt,
the dying General Wolfe is the focus of the composition.
West paints Wolfe lying down at the moment of his
death wearing the red uniform of a British officer. A
circle of identifiable men attend to their dying
commander. Historians know that only one—Lieutenant
Henry Browne, who holds the British flag above
Wolfe—was present at the General’s death.

Clearly, West took artistic license in creating a

dramatic composition, from the theatrical clouds to the
messenger approaching on the left side of the painting
to announce the British victory over the Marquis de
Montcalm and his French army in this decisive battle.
Previous artists, such as James Barry, painted this same
event in a more documentary, true-to-life style. In
contrast, West deliberately painted this composition as
a dramatic blockbuster.

This sense of spectacle is also enhanced by other

elements, and West was keenly interested in giving his
viewers a unique view of this North American scene.
This was partly achieved through landscape and
architecture. The St. Lawrence River appears on the
right side of the composition and the steeple represents
the cathedral in the city of Quebec. In addition to the

110 | Chapter 4
landscape, West also depicts a tattooed Native American
on the left side of the painting. Shown in what is now
the universal pose of contemplation, the Native
American firmly situates this as an event from the New
World, making the composition all the more exciting to
a largely English audience.

Perhaps most important is the way West portrayed

the painting’s protagonist as Christ-like. West was
clearly influenced by the innumerable images of the
dead Christ in Lamentation and Depositions paintings
that he would have seen during his time in Italy. This
deliberate visual association between the dying General
Wolfe and the dead Christ underscores the British
officer’s admirable qualities. If Christ was innocent,
pure, and died for a worthwhile cause—that is, the
salvation of mankind—then Wolfe too was innocent,
pure, and died for a worthwhile cause; the advancement
of the British position in North America. Indeed, West
transforms Wolfe from a simple war hero to a deified
martyr for the British cause. This message was further
enhanced by the thousands of engravings that soon
flooded the art market, both in England and abroad.

Excerpted and adapted from: Dr. Bryan Zygmont,

“Benjamin West, The Death of General Wolfe,”
in Smarthistory, August 9, 2015,
https://smarthistory.org/benjamin-wests-the-death-
of-general-wolfe/.
All Smarthistory content is available for free at
www.smarthistory.org
CC: BY-NC-SA

Chapter 4 | 111
 “Noble Savage” – emergence of a stereotype in audio

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excluded from this version of the text. You
can view them online here:
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19thcenturyart/?p=199#audio-199-3

“Noble Savage” – emergence of a stereotype

If you look up the phrase “Noble Savage” on Wikipedia,

a detail of Benjamin West’s The Death of General Wolfe
pops up. The depiction of the tattooed North American
Indian who calmly contemplates the noble sacrifice of
Wolfe’s martyrdom is a philosophical stereotype that
occurs in art frequently, but is especially popular in art
of the 1800s in Europe.

Dr. Charles Cramer and Dr. Kim Grant use movies to

explain the concept of the “noble savage”:
One of the defining concepts of primitivism is that of
the “noble savage,” an oxymoronic phrase often
attributed to the eighteenth-century French
philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, although he never
used it. Now recognized as a stereotype, the noble
savage is a stock character of literature and the arts who
may lack education, technology, and cultural

112 | Chapter 4
 refinement, but who lives according to universal natural
law and so is inherently moral and good. Many popular
books and films exemplify the concept of the noble
savage, including Tarzan, The Gods Must Be
Crazy, Dances With Wolves, and Avatar.

In Avatar, for example, the indigenous, blue-skinned

Na’vi are technologically inferior to the humans who
come to mine their Eden-like world for resources, but
they are morally superior and closer to nature. Although
the Na’vi are loosely based on Native Americans, it is
important to remember that the primitivist concept of
the noble savage is essentially mythic, not documentary.

Excerpted from: Dr. Charles Cramer and Dr. Kim

Grant, “Primitivism and Modern Art,” in Smarthistory,
March 7, 2020, accessed September 19,
2020, https://smarthistory.org/primitivism-and-
modern-art/.
All Smarthistory content is available for free at
www.smarthistory.org
CC:BY-NC-SA

Where Benjamin West’s

earlier work was very
influenced by the Neo-Classical
tradition, his later works fit
firmly within the parameters of
Romanticism. Death on the Pale
Horse is a Romantic Biblical Benjamin West, Death on the Pale
painting: it has all the stormy, Horse, oil on canvas, painted in 1796,
shown in 1817
gothick, impetuous, terrifying,
titillating elements of a Gothick

Chapter 4 | 113
 Sublime painting. And to create a fully immersive viewing
experience, it was also absolutely enormous. Almost 15 feet by 25
feet!
The story depicted is based on the vision in the Book of Revelation
in chapter 4, verse 8:
“And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him
was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto
them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with
hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.”
Now this painting is called Death on the Pale Horse, but really all
four horses of the Apocalypse are there. The White horse with the
ruler. The Red horse with War. The black horse with the balances in
his hand – Famine.
Death on the Pale Horse was a painting hated by the king of
7
England, but loved by West. The king of England found it repulsive
its chaos, while Jacques-Louis David who saw it in Paris 1802, said
8
it was a cheap replica of Peter-Paul Rubens work for the 1600s.
Because of the French Revolution Romanticism came later to France
than it did to England and therefore this Romantic style of painting
would have seemed horribly emotional compared to the Neo-
Classical work so honoured in France. The first version of this
painting by West was completed the same year as David’s Oath of
9
Horatii.
Henry Fuseli in audio

7. Allen Staley, "West's "Death on the Pale Horse"," Bulletin

of the Detroit Institute of Arts,. 58, no. 3 (1980): 141-142.
8. Staley, "West's," 142.
9. Staley, "West's," 142.
114 | Chapter 4
 One or more interactive elements has been excluded
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Henry Fuseli
In 1755 a horrendous earthquake shook Lisbon and shattered the
lives of countless people. The sheer force of this quake defied logic
and explanation; its unimaginable affects cracked the smooth
surface of [the] common-sense” of an entire era founded on
10
common sense, rationality and science. “It is arguable that the
Romantic Movement first showed itself as an expression of fear”
and this fear is extremely evident in one of the first Romantic
11
paintings – Henry Fuseli’s The Nightmare.“ Fuseli’s painting is a
perfect specimen to showcase the Romantic Movement’s themes –
specifically the themes of iconography, sexual desire, fear and the
12
irrationality in dreams. More specifically, The Nightmare reveals
Fuseli’s personal themes of desire, love’s betrayal and the mysteries
of his psyche.
It is important to note, before analyzing Fuseli’s The

10. Kenneth Clark, The Romantic Rebellion: Romantic versus

Classic Art, (London, UK: Futura Publications Limited,
1973) 45.
11. Clark, Nightmare, 45.
12. Clark, Nightmare, 45.
Chapter 4 | 115
Nightmare, that there are two versions of this painting. Both were
painted by the same artist and are titled the same thing and
contain very similar imagery. However, the second version, from
1791, contains some
iconographical significant differences from the 1781 version. To
speak of one of these versions is to also consider the other. To
speak of meaning in one painting requires comparison and
corroboration from the other.

Henry Fuseli, The Nightmare, oil on canvas, 1781

According to some critics, The Nightmare holds social and political

implications; however, Frederick Antal the author of Fuseli Studies,
considers Fuseli to not have been sufficiently politically- minded” to

116 | Chapter 4
 13
consciously convey a political message in his art.” Though it is true
that Fuseli’s image was used by many political caricaturists after its
exhibit in the 1783 Royal Academy exhibition, Fuseli was likely not
expressing a political view as much as he was exorcising private
demons and psychological obsessions.
The title is one of the first things to consider when beginning
to dissect the meaning of this work. In the 1700’s a dream that
was classified as a ‘nightmare’ was a special sort of dream that is
14
distinctly different from the catch-all meaning of the term today.
The term comes from the combining of night and the word ‘mara‘
– which was a spirit that tormented and suffocated sleepers. A
nightmare, in Fuseli’s time, was clinically defined as a type of sleep
paralysis, when the “principle symptom is someone or something
15
sitting on the chest.”
The Nightmare is a painting that depicts a dream. True to its
era, it shows both the person dreaming and the dream they are
experiencing. A woman dressed in a diaphanous white robe or night
dress lies prostrate across and almost off the bed. The room is
one that would have been considered to be conservatively
16
contemporary during the time it was painted – the Rococo era.
Through an opening in the bed-chamber curtains a horse head
appears, looking into the room with strangely globular, dead eyes.
On the woman’s mid-section sits a strange and horrible creature.
This creature, in the 1781 rendition, is a horrible ape-man that casts
the shadow of an owl. In the 1791 version, this creature has changed

13. Frederick Antal, Fuseli Studies, (London, UK: Routledge,

1956), 93.
14. Nicolas Powell, Fuseli: The Nightmare, (New York, NY:
Viking Press, 1972),49.
15. Peter Tomory, The Life and Art of Henry Fuseli, (London,
UK: Thames & Hudson, 1972), 182.
16. Powell, Fuseli, 75.
Chapter 4 | 117
 into something even more demonic – a cat-ape creature that is
clenching a pipe between his hideously grinning teeth. While these
entities are in the room with this dreaming, sleeping woman they
are not what she is seeing in her dream – they are symbols of the
17
terror and suffocating oppression which she feels.”
A viewer of The Nightmare
knows that these creatures are
not what the sleeper is seeing
because of the furniture in the
painting and the position of the
sleeping woman. The mirror, in
the 1791 version, has been
moved so that the viewer can
see that it holds no reflection.
Because it holds no images,
even though it is angled in a
way “that could reflect the
figure of the incubus squatting
on the sleeper’s stomach”, the Henry Fuseli, The Nightmare, oil on
viewer is to understand that canvas, 1791.

this creature is not present in

18
the corporeal world.” As well, the incorporation of a mirror into a
nightmare painting would reference the literary work of the English
writer, John Locke (whom Fuseli would be aware of), who stated that
those who do not remember their dreams are like looking-glasses
19
they receive a variety of images…but retains none.” The final clue
that these creatures are not being seen by the sleeper is her position

17. Powell, Fuseli, 49.

18. Powell, Fuseli, 49.
19. Powell, Fuseli, 48.
118 | Chapter 4
 across the bed. Her position is such, that even if her eyes were to
20
open she could see neither horse nor demon.”
An important part of the
painting that the viewer can not
see when viewing the 1781
version, is the unfinished
portrait of a woman that is on
the back of the canvas. This
portrait is believed to be the
portrait of Anna Landolt, with
whom Fuseli fell hopelessly in
21
love. Due to this woman’s
presence on the back of such a
violently erotic painting, it is
important to understand her
Henry Fuseli, Portrait of a Lady (on relationship with Henry Fuseli.
reverse side of The Nightmare), oil on While Fuseli had been in Zurich
canvas, c. 1781
visiting a friend, he had met his
friend’s niece – Anna. Unfortunately, for Fuseli, she was already
engaged to a merchant and it is unclear as to what extent she was
aware of Fuseli’s attraction, as he was naturally very shy and below
22
her in economic status. As well, letters that reveal his passion are
all addressed to Anna’s uncle. In one of the letters, Fuseli relates an
erotic dream that he had dreamt of Anna and himself stating that
she was now completely his and anyone who got in the way was
23
committing adultery. Fuseli had worked himself into a fever pitch
that seems to have culminated with The Nightmare. It is not a broad

20. Powell, Fuseli, 49.

21. Anne K. Metter,Mary Shelley: Her Life, Her Fiction, Her
Monsters, (New York: Routledge, 1989), 243.
22. Powell, Fuseli, 60.
23. Powell, Fuseli, 60.
Chapter 4 | 119
 jump to consider the woman in The Nightmare to be “a projection of
24
Anna Landolt.” As Nicolas Powell, author of Fuseli: The Nightmare,
relates that even if the woman on the back of the canvas is not
Anna Landolt, it is evident that “The Nightmare was inspired by
his hopeless passion for her, the painting is deeply impregnated
25
with Fuseli’s obsessive, ambivalent sexual feelings.” Because of
Fuseli’s feelings for Anna and his dreams about her, The Nightmare
is a “deliberate allusion to traditional images of Cupid and Psyche
meeting in her bedroom at night; here the welcomed god of love has
26
been transformed into a demonic incubus of erotic lust.”
Henri Fuseli part 2 in audio

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The horse, which the creature rode into the room on, is an ancient
and important symbol. A horse in a painting is “associated with
sexual energy, impetuous desire or lust,” and this is especially true
27
in Fuseli’s painting. It is an “ancient masculine symbol of sexuality”
28
that is often “associated with the devil.” A very noticeable

24. Powell, Fuseli, 60.

25. Powell, Fuseli, 60.
26. Metter, Mary Shelley, 243.
27. Jack Tresidder, The Complete Dictionary of Symbols in
Myth, Art and Literature, (London: Duncan Baird
Publishers, 2004), 242.
28. Powell, Fuseli, 56.
120 | Chapter 4
 difference between the 1781 and the 1791 paintings is colour of the
horse – in the early version it is a dark horse and in the later it is
white. The black horse is a representation of death, while the white
29
horse is “a solar symbol of light, life and spiritual illumination.”
The change in colour of the horse could be a manifestation of the
changing ideas of the Sturm und Drang (Storm and Stress) group,
with which Fuseli was associated. By the beginning of the 1780’s,
Sturm und Drang had become aware of new theories of electricity
and electromagnetic impulses from books that had been
30
published.” “The moment of Terror” that the Romantics sought
to depict had become a “violent electrical discharge, with its
31
accompanying light and smell. Thus, on a symbolic level, a horse
that was the black of death, would become white – a symbol of light.
On a less theoretical level, during a shot of lightning, even things
that had previously been a very dark colour will reflect enough of
the light to appear to be a ghastly and ghostly white colour.
It is not completely unthinkable to see the second version of the
32
painting to be painted in the light of a sheet lightning strike.
The first version of the painting is rich with colour, especially red,
but everything contains what could be perceived as the ‘correct’
sort of colour. However, the second version is almost completely
monochromatic. With the exception of the tiniest bit of pinkish
pigment in the sleeper’s skin, the entire painting is shades of grey.
This sudden shift into a monochromatic palette could be easily
understood to be due to Fuseli’s and Sturm und Drang‘s ideas of
electricity and lightning.
This reference to electricity would also refer back to the clinical
definition of a nightmare. While the nightmare was a form of sleep

29. Tresidder, Complete Dictionary, 241.

30. Tomory, Life, 125.
31. Tomory, Life, 125.
32. Tomory, Life, 125.
Chapter 4 | 121
 paralysis, the treatise on electricity had found that a paralyzed limb
could be made to move through the application of an electrical
33
shock.” Thus, a painting of a nightmare with the light of electrical
lightning would be a circular reference to the new sciences of the
time.
As mentioned before, the first version of the painting is alive with
the colour red. It is almost the only colour in the room other than
white. Fuseli’s use of this colour was not a simple stylistic choice. In
his Aphorisms on Art, from 1818, Fuseli stated that colors can have
34
stimulating or relaxing affects, much like music. Of the colour
red, in particular, Fuseli said that “scarlet or deep crimson rouses
35
[and] determines.” Symbolically, red was an “active and masculine
colour of …energy, aggression, danger…emotion, passion.. [and]
strength”; it was the colour most associated with sexuality and was
“the colour of arousal”; it is important then, to notice that the
36
woman is completely encircled by red fabric. It is the colour of
the curtains as well as the colour of the blanket that is under her.
However, it is interesting to note that while she is engulfed in red,
the only colour to actually touch her in the 1781 version is white –
the colour of purity. Fuseli’s aggressive desires, while encompassing
her, have no impact on the actual state of her pureness in his eyes.
The female sleeper is completely surrounded and overtaken by
masculine sexuality. She is encompassed by the masculine, sexual
colour red. The masculine and sexual image of the incubus sits

33. Tomory, Life, 125.

34. Henry Fuseli, "Aphorisms on Art," in Art in Theory,
1648-1815: An Anthology of Changing ldeas, eds. Charles
Harison, Paul Wood and Jason Gaiger, (Malden, MA:
Blackwell Publishing, 2000), 952.
35. Fuseli, Aphorisms, 952.
36. Tresidder, Complete Dictionary, 409.
122 | Chapter 4
 37
on her, overcoming her with his gothick allure and hideousness.
The horse is what brought the incubus to her and it also is a male
sexuality symbol. To further show masculine sexuality, the 1791
version of the painting has the incubus playing a pipe or flute, which
38
is a phallic symbol of masculine sexuality. Her passive posture
of sexual acceptance shows that she is completely overcome by
39
this overwhelming masculine presence. A circumstantial detail of
interest is the sleeper’s single adornment on her nightgown. A tiny
yellow heart is pressed against her chest. Yellow is sometimes seen
to be the traditional colour of betrayal, cowardice, and disloyalty-
could this be a reference to her ‘betraying heart’?
Fuseli’s The Nightmare is a painting that shows the desires of
its creator, reveals the betrayal of unrequited love and contains
40
the mysteries of his psyche. It shows his sexual lust and passion
for Anna Landolt and reveals his angst over the un-reciprocated
desires. It displays his sadistic/masochistic predilection of
dominant and submissive relationships – something that can also
41
be seen in his drawings. It also shows the emotional irrationality
and fear so prevalent in Romantic painting. The Nightmare was
considered to be a highly disturbing painting in its time and it
“continues to hold the modern observer.because it represents an
everyday – or every night- phenomenon in terms which are
instantly comprehensible”; it would seem that Fuseli made a raid on
42
what Jung was to call the ‘collective unconscious’.”

37. Metter, Mary Shelley, 121.

38. Powell, Fuseli, 75.
39. Metter, Mary Shelley, 121.
40. Andrew Webber, The Doppelganger: Double Visions in
German Literature, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), 240.
41. Powell, Fuseli, 64.
42. Powell, Fuseli, 64.
Chapter 4 | 123
 William Blake section audio

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William Blake

William Blake is famous today as an imaginative and

original poet, painter, engraver and mystic. But his work,
especially his poetry, was largely ignored during his own
lifetime, and took many years to gain widespread
appreciation.

The third of six children of a Soho hosier, William

Blake lived and worked in London all his life. As a boy, he
claimed to have seen ‘bright angelic wings bespangling
every bough like stars’ in a tree on Peckham Rye, one of
the earliest of many visions. In 1772, he was apprenticed
to the distinguished printmaker James Basire, who
extended his intellectual and artistic education. Three
years of drawing murals and monuments in Westminster
Abbey fed a fascination with history and medieval art.

124 | Chapter 4
 In 1782, he married Catherine Boucher, the steadfast
companion and manager of his affairs for the whole of
his checkered, childless life. He taught Catherine to read
and write, as well as how to make engravings. Much in
demand as an engraver, he experimented with
combining poetry and image in a printing process he
invented himself in 1789. Among the spectacular works
of art this produced were ‘The Marriage of Heaven and
Hell’, ‘Visions of the Daughters of Albion’, ‘Jerusalem’, and
‘Songs of Innocence and Experience’.

Excerpted from: “William Blake,” in LumenLearning:

English Literature II, accessed September 19, 2020,
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/atd-bhcc-
englishlit/chapter/biography-william-blake/
Lumen Learning material is shared via the Creative
Commons Attribution 4.0 License (CC: BY 4.0)

Chapter 4 | 125
William Blake, The Ancient of Days,
Relief and white-line etching with
color printing and hand coloring, 1794

126 | Chapter 4
 Blake experimented with
relief etching, a method he used
to produce most of his books,
paintings, pamphlets and
poems. The process is also
referred to as illuminated
printing, and the finished
products as illuminated books
or prints. Illuminated printing
involved writing the text of the
poems on copper plates with
pens and brushes, using an
acid-resistant medium.
Illustrations could appear
alongside words in the manner
of earlier illuminated
manuscripts. He then etched William Blake, Songs of Innocence and
the plates in acid to dissolve the of Experience Shewing the Two
Contrary States of the Human Soul
untreated copper and leave the title page, Relief etching with hand
design standing in relief (hence coloring, 1826.
the name).
This is a reversal of the usual method of etching, where the lines
of the design are exposed to the acid, and the plate printed by
the intaglio method. Relief etching was intended as a means for
producing his illuminated books more quickly than via intaglio. The
pages printed from Blake’s plates were hand-coloured in
watercolours and stitched together to form a volume. Blake used
illuminated printing for most of his well-known works, including
Songs of Innocence and of Experience, The Book of Thel, The Marriage
43
of Heaven and Hell and Jerusalem.

43. J. Viscomi, Blake and the Idea of the Book, (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1993), n.p.; M. Phillips,
Chapter 4 | 127
 Excepted and adapted from: Wikipedia, September 19, 2020, s.v.
“William Blake.”
Wikipedia material is shared via a Creative Commons Attribution-
ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License CC: BY SA license
British Landscape Painting in audio

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British Landscape
Painting
British Landscape painting has its roots in land ownership. Before
the era of democratized literacy, new land owners would
commission painters to paint their land – the painting would then
be kept as a land deed. Sometimes the land owner and his family
would be included in the painting foreground, but these paintings
were always about the reproduction of the land owner’s boundaries
(not unlike aerial photos of farmland in the twentieth century).
When military endeavours came to Canada, landscape painters –
both in the French and British troops – were part of the military
and many high ranking officers were highly trained in landscape

William Blake: The Creation of the Songs, (London: The

British Library, 2000), n.p.
128 | Chapter 4
sketching. Part of this was that old tradition of ownership via
reproduction, but also there was the more practical need for record
of terrain to help with map making.
Eventually landscape
painting in Britain was no
longer a tool – it was
considered an art form and it
was a perfect vehicle for
Romanticism and the Sublime.
But bear in mind that the old
idea that ‘what you see you
John Robert Cozens, Lake Albano,
watercolour, c. 1777. own’ was (and is) quite
prominent in the British
perspective of the world and no matter how dramatic a Romantic
Landscape may have been, that cultural aspect was often present in
some way.
Watercolour made for the perfect medium for painting on the
spot. Watercolour painting rose to prominence in the 1700’s. The
best academies, particularly the British Woolwich Military Academy,
placed great emphasis on introducing field officers to drawing and
painting, a vital talent when planning attacks or sieges. These men,
invariably from the upper classes, took this skill into their civilian
lives and the idea of keeping a personal sketching or painting journal
became part of the expected accomplishments of a classical
education.

The Grande Tour

Landscape painting was a

major part of the traditional
Grand Tour of the coming-of-
age middle and upper class
after the 16th century. This
Winsor & Newton ad published on The
tour, through Western Europe Photographic Journal, 1914

Chapter 4 | 129
was one of the final moments of training of a young person before
they entered full adulthood. Throughout the journey, there were
scheduled stops to enjoy the scenery and paint small travel journal
paintings of the landscape. Young men on the Grand Tour were
frequently accompanied by a drawing master. Watercolours were
ideal for these travellers. They were highly portable, quick drying,
and a kit needed only some paints and a few brushes. However, the
colours had to be ground and mixed at each artist’s studio. The
popularity of the medium created a demand for good materials.
Winsor-Newton, still in business today, began to produce colours
for both the government’s academies and for private individuals.
Early in the 1700s the scheduled stops during the Grand Tour were
all about documenting the ruins and city-scapes, but later in the
1700s and into the 1800s British travellers wanted to paint the
landscape around them – generally in watercolour or ink – and use
them as a ‘photo album’ of their trip.
John Robert Cozens was a British landscape painter who achieved
fame and deeply influenced future generations of British landscape
painters. In 2003, his watercolour and pencil work of Lake Albana
(shown above) sold for over 2.4 million pounds, the highest price a
watercolour painting has even sold for. His work, usually showing
vistas of Italy and Roman ruins, does not quite reach the Romantic
and Sublime heights of the artists who would come after him, but
he was part of establishing a strong and vibrant landscape tradition
in Britain at the turn of the 1700s into the 1800s.
Popular stops and destinations during the Grand Tour (depending
on one’s personal tastes and financial standings) was a trip to Rome
via Paris but, as the French Revolution progressed it became more
and more impossible for people in Britain to travel down to Italy
without going a very long way or travelling through dangerous (and
forbidden) territory in France. As a result, they began to travel
throughout the British Isles, doing a pared down, domestic version
of the Grand Tour. This democratized the travel and the art created
a bit, because it was much less expensive to travel so close to
home. It also meant that the later watercolours were of home but

130 | Chapter 4
with a southern European-looking flair. (It was good old England,
but it looked like Italy.) To do this, artists employed a compositional
scheme called “The Picturesque”.
The Picturesque in audio

One or more interactive elements has been excluded

from this version of the text. You can view them online
here: https://openeducationalberta.ca/
19thcenturyart/?p=199#audio-199-8

The Picturesque

It was late in the 1700s that

Rev. William Gilpin used the
term ‘Picturesque’ to describe a
kind of painting – previously
the word had meant ‘like a
picture’ but in Gilpin’s usage it
had a prescribed and particular
meaning. For Gilpin, the picturesque fell somewhere between
beautiful and sublime, and both texture and composition were
important in a “correctly picturesque” scene. According to his
prescription, the texture of the scene should be rough, intricate,
varied, or broken, and without obvious straight lines. The
composition could work as a unified whole, incorporating several
elements: a dark foreground with untamed growth and rocks or a
front screen or side screens of trees or bushes or other foliage
element, a brighter middle distance usually consisting of some kind
of body of water but not always, and at least one further, less
distinctly depicted distance. A ruin of some kind would add interest,
but was not necessary. A low viewpoint, which tended to emphasize

Chapter 4 | 131
the Sublime, was always preferable to a perspective from a high
vantage point (although this rule was open to interpretation).The
rules generally meant:

• the foreground should be

rocky and unkempt, and if
not, then at least darkened.
• the sides should have trees
framing, possibly a screen
of trees creeping into the
foreground.
• the mid-ground should be bright, with water if possible.
Maybe some ruins or possibly some calm animals or people –
never working hard, mostly in leisure. If working then working
picturesquely.
• the background should contain aerial perspective of hills or
mountains.
• All should be unkempt and untouched looking – the wild and
foreboding wilderness or the quaint forgotten past. Never
manicured, never contrived.

Which sounds like a strict set of rules that would have fallen out of
fashion, right? Yet, all these landscape photos follow many of the
rules of the Picturesque. While it is true that not every landscape
photo or painting in existence follows a Picturesque composition,
many of the landscapes that, even in the twenty-first century, are
considered the most ‘beautiful’ follow Rev. Gilpin’s suggestions.
This is a passage from a book,
printed in Britain in 1827 by a
woman named Jane Webb
Loudon, a friend of John “Mad”
Martin who we’ll get to later, set
in the far flung future (2126)
where women of the royal
court wear trousers and things

132 | Chapter 4
 are run by steam (yes, this is sort of a steampunk book – although
not so much about the steam as about galvanized mummies) called
The Mummy! A Tale of the Twenty-Second Century. Which isn’t the
sort of book you’d expect to have much in common with the
picturesque tradition, and yet…

“The windows of the library opened to the ground, and

looked out upon a fine terrace, shaded by a verandah,
supported by trelliswork, round which, twined roses
mingled with vines. Below, stretched a smiling valley,
beautifully wooded, and watered by a majestic river winding
slowly along; now lost amidst the spreading foliage of the
trees that hung over its banks, and the shining forth again
in the light as a lake of liquid silver. Beyond, rose hills
majestically towering to the skies, their clear outline now
distinctly marked by the setting sun, as it slowly sank behind
them, shedding its glowing tints of purple and gold upon
their heathy sides; whilst some of its brilliant rays even
penetrated through the leafy shade of the veranda, and
44
danced like summer lightning…”

Sound like something you’ve seen recently?

44. Jane Webb Loudon, The Mummy! A Tale of the Twenty-

Second Century, (Project Gutenberg, 1827), n.p.
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/56426/56426-h/
56426-h.htm[
Chapter 4 | 133
 Maybe the photos, the
description in an old
steampunk book, and some old
paintings don’t convince you
that the Picturesque is still a
well-loved and culturally
relevant compositional device.
Robert S. Duncanson, Scottish
Landscape, oil on canvas, 1871 Perhaps you feel that these
examples have been hand-
picked (they were). But consider, if you will, what a child draws when
given the opportunity. Children will draw what they experience and
what they are familiar with, so the compositions they will create by
default are heavily influenced by the culture and environment they
grow up in.
The Picturesque part 2 in audio

One or more interactive elements has been excluded

from this version of the text. You can view them online
here: https://openeducationalberta.ca/
19thcenturyart/?p=199#audio-199-9

When I was a child, this was a

the kind of drawing I would
draw when I wasn’t sure what
to draw next (this is assuming I
wasn’t ritualistically drawing all
my family over and over like
they were in peril of forgetting
their children or sibling and
also in the unlikely event that I had grown tired of drawing brides in
fancy dresses). I grew up with the Rocky Mountains just on the edge
of the horizon so my attempts at grand vistas always included them.

134 | Chapter 4
However, children who grow up without mountains as part of their
environment tend to not include mountains and will instead include
rolling hills, or some other device to denote the horizon, but
utilizing elements of the Picturesque appears to be common. It
seems that many children in Canada, when drawing the landscape,
will default to using Picturesque compositional devices. Is this
because the Picturesque is an instinctual way to communicate the
land? No, not at all. It is largely because of Canada’s connection to
British traditions. Every free photo calendar from a grocery store or
bank will have at least a few Picturesque landscape photos. So many
inspiring computer wallpapers, nearly all the ‘good’ vacation photos,
and a variety of moving Canada tourism commercials in Canada
use this composition. As a former British colony some cultural
communication devices don’t die when legal ties are cut.
Canada has a tradition of using the land as a way to bind the
country together. Landscape painting was used as a way to seem
to legally claim the lands that had been taken in breach of British
law. Landscape painting was used as a way to call the diverse and
widespread settlers of the country together. Landscape painting
was used as a way to advertise the region’s riches of natural
resources and alluring adventures. The Group of Seven were a
group of seven settler artists (plus Tom Thompson) with the
purpose of creating Canadian art. This ‘new’ Canadian art had to be:

• “Autochthonic” – Native. Born

from the Land itself. Words like
“Indigenous” and “Native” were
words used to describe this
new national art,
• Must be free of outside,
European influences,
• First Nations must never
appear (nor can French-
Tom Thomson, The Jack Pine, oil on Canadians), and as a result
canvas, 1916-17
• The group travelled by box car,

Chapter 4 | 135
 although they were all more or less financially stable, on the
newly completed CPR railway across Canada as a service to the
45
government – ‘documenting’ the ‘wilderness.’

Over a hundred years after Rev. Gilpin codified the rules of the
Picturesque, on an entirely different continent, those same rules
were being applied over and over to make highly marketable art and
to strengthen cultural heritage.

Hierarchy of Painting Genres in Britain

Remember how painting genres were dealt with in a hierarchical

order in France? It wasn’t much different in England – History
painting was still at the top, Still Life at the bottom, Landscape and
Portrait and Genre in the middle, but before this sudden interest in
nature and the British Landscape, the lowly landscape painting was
only slightly better than the painting of somebody’s dog.

• Painting Hierarchy
• Historical Painting
• Portrait
• Genre
• Landscape
• Animal
• Still Life

45. Dr. Leslie Dawn, "The Group of Seven and Tom

Thompson", (lecture, ARTH 3151: Canadian Art History,
Lethbridge, AB, 2006).
136 | Chapter 4
 John Constable section audio

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19thcenturyart/?p=199#audio-199-10

John Constable
John
Constable,
The
Haywain, oil
on canvas,
1821

Constable was born in East Bergholt, Suffolk and was largely self-
taught. As a result, he developed slowly as an artist. While most
landscapists of the day travelled extensively in search of picturesque
or sublime scenery, Constable never left England. He had many
children and his wife died; he had financial troubles and stayed close

Chapter 4 | 137
to home to take care of his family. By 1800 he was a student at
the Royal Academy schools but only began exhibiting in 1802 at the
Royal Academy in London. His paintings were not well respected
in Britain, even as Romantic Landscape painting was becoming
popular. But later at the Paris Salon (where his British Landscape
won the gold medal). He later influenced the Barbizon School, the
French Romantic movement, and the Impressionists.

Watch a video that analyzes Constable’s The Haywain

here:
https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=PVmczLwlU00&feature=youtu.be

Studying the English painter John Constable is helpful

in understanding the changing meaning of nature
during the industrial revolution. He is, in fact, largely
responsible for reviving the importance of landscape
painting in the 19th century. A key event, when it is
remembered that landscape would become the primary
subject of the Impressionists later in the century.

Landscape had had a brief moment of glory amongst

the Dutch masters of the 17th century. Ruisdael and
others had devoted large canvases to the depiction of
the low countries. But in the 18th century hierarchy of
subject matter, landscape was nearly the lowest type of
painting. Only the still-life was considered less
important. This would change in the first decades of the
19th century when Constable began to depict his
father’s farm on oversized six-foot long canvases. These
“six-footers” as they are called, challenged the status
quo. Here landscape was presented on the scale of
history painting.

138 | Chapter 4
 Why would Constable take such a bold step, and
perhaps more to the point, why were his canvases
celebrated (and they were, by no less important a figure
than Eugène Delacroix, when Constable’s The Hay
Wain was exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1824)?

The Hay Wain does include an element of genre (the

depiction of a common scene), that is the farm hand
taking his horse and wagon (or wain) across the stream.
But this action is minor and seems to offer the viewer
the barest of pretenses for what is virtually a pure
landscape. Unlike the later Impressionists, Constable’s
large polished canvases were painted in his studio.
He did, however, sketch outside, directly before his
subject. This was necessary for Constable as he sought a
high degree of accuracy in many specifics. For instance,
the wagon and tack (harness, etc.) are all clearly and
specifically depicted, The trees are identifiable by
species, and Constable was the first artist we know of
who studied meteorology so that the clouds and the
atmospheric conditions that he rendered were
scientifically precise.

Constable was clearly the product of the Age of

Enlightenment and its increasing confidence in science.
But Constable was also deeply influenced by the social
and economic impact of the industrial revolution.

Prior to the 19th century, even the largest European

cities counted their populations only in the hundreds of
thousands. These were mere towns by today’s
standards. But this would change rapidly. The world’s
economies had always been based largely on agriculture.
Farming was a labour intensive enterprise and the result

Chapter 4 | 139
 was that the vast majority of the population lived in
rural communities. The industrial revolution would
reverse this ancient pattern of population distribution.
Industrial efficiencies meant widespread unemployment
in the country and the great migration to the cities
began. The cities of London, Manchester, Paris, and New
York doubled and doubled again in the 19th century.
Imagine the stresses on a modern day New York if we
had even a modest increase in population and the
stresses of the 19th century become clear.

Industrialization remade virtually every aspect of

society. Based on the political, technological and
scientific advances of the Age of Enlightenment, blessed
with a bountiful supply of the inexpensive albeit filthy
fuel, coal, and advances in metallurgy and steam power,
the northwestern nations of Europe invented the world
that we now know in the West. Urban culture,
expectations of leisure, and middle class affluence in
general all resulted from these changes. But the
transition was brutal for the poor. Housing was
miserable, unventilated and often dangerously hot in the
summer. Unclean water spread disease rapidly and
there was minimal health care. Corruption was high, pay
was low and hours inhumane.

What effect did these changes have on the ways in

which the countryside was understood? Can these
changes be linked to Constable’s attention to the
countryside? Some art historians have suggested that
Constable was indeed responding to such shifts. As the
cities and their problems grew, the urban elite, those
that had grown rich from an industrial economy, began

140 | Chapter 4
 to look to the countryside not as a place so wretched
with poverty that thousands were fleeing for an
uncertain future in the city, but rather as an idealized
vision.

The rural landscape became a lost Eden, a place of

one’s childhood, where the good air and water, the open
spaces and hard and honest work of farm labour created
a moral open space that contrasted sharply with the
perceived evils of modern urban life. Constable’s art
then functions as an expression of the increasing
importance of rural life, at least from the perspective of
the wealthy urban elite for whom these canvases were
intended. The Hay Wain is a celebration of a simpler
time, a precious and moral place lost to the city dweller.

Excerpted and adapted from: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr.

Steven Zucker, “Constable and the English landscape,” in
Smarthistory, August 9, 2015, https://smarthistory.org/
constable-and-the-english-landscape/.
All Smarthistory content is available for free at
www.smarthistory.org
CC:BY-NC-SA

Joseph Mallord William Turner in audio

One or more interactive elements has been excluded

from this version of the text. You can view them online
here: https://openeducationalberta.ca/
19thcenturyart/?p=199#audio-199-11

Chapter 4 | 141
Joseph Mallord William
Turner

J. M. W. Turner, Christchurch, Oxford, watercolour on paper, c. 1794.

James Mallord William Turner was a child prodigy who had no idea
he would develop into one of the premier Romantic Landscape
painters of his time. At age 14 he was accepted into the Royal
Academy by Sir Joshua Reynolds and by age 16 or 17 he was creating
watercolour pieces like the one above. By the age of 21 he was
exhibiting oil paintings, starting with Fisherman at Sea, with the
Academy.

142 | Chapter 4
 Turner was financially
independent, although not due
to family money as he was born
into a staunchly lower-middle
class family, and as an
established artist he travelled
extensively every year.
Basically, he was the opposite of
Joseph Mallord William Turner, Constable, who was one year
Fishermen at Sea, oil on canvas, 1796.
his junior. He was also very
popular with the Academy
because of his technical abilities and his ability to innovate. As with
most who rise to fame based on innovation, his good name in the
mainstream art world didn’t last forever. Starting out as highly
talented artist meant that he also became a bit of an egotist and
pushed his artistic innovations further than made his fellow
Academy members (and the critics) comfortable. However, during
his earlier years he found a name for himself as a painter of
Seascapes. He also found good fortune in painting real-world events
– contemporary history paintings of the sea.

Ambiguity was on Turner’s mind when he began work

on his painting, whose full title is The Fighting Temeraire
tugged to her last berth to be broken up, 1838. He was
familiar with the namesake ship, HMS Temeraire, as
were all Britons of the day. Temeraire was the hero of
the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, where Napoleon’s forces
were defeated, and which secured British naval
dominance for the next century.

By the late 1830s, however, Temeraire was no longer

relevant. After retiring from service in 1812 she was

Chapter 4 | 143
 converted into a hulk, a ship that can float but not
actually sail. She spent time as a prison ship, housing
ship, and storage depot before she was finally
decommissioned in 1838 and sent up the River Thames
to a shipyard in London to be broken into scrap
materials. That trip on the Thames was witnessed by
Turner, who used it as inspiration for his famous
painting.

J. M. W. Turner, The Fighting Temeraire, oil on canvas, 1849

For many Britons, Temeraire was a powerful reminder

of their nation’s long history of military success and a
living connection to the heroes of the Napoleonic Wars.
Its disassembly signaled the end of an historical era.
Turner celebrates Temeraire’s heroic past, and he also
depicts a technological change which had already begun

144 | Chapter 4
to affect modern-day life in a more profound way than
any battle.

Rather than placing Temeraire in the middle of his

canvas, Turner paints the warship near the left edge of
the canvas. He uses shades of white, grey, and brown for
the boat, making it look almost like a ghost ship. The
mighty warship is being pulled along by a tiny black
tugboat, whose steam engine is more than strong
enough to control its larger counterpart. Turner
transforms the scene into an allegory about how the
new steam power of the Industrial Revolution quickly
replaced history and tradition.

Believe it or not, tugboats were so new that there

wasn’t even a word for what the little ship was doing to
Temeraire. According to the Oxford English Dictionary,
Turner’s title for his painting is the first ever recorded
use of the word “tugged” to describe a steamship pulling
another boat.

In addition to the inventive title, Turner included in

the exhibition catalog the following lines of text, which
he modified from a poem by Thomas Campbell’s “Ye
Mariners of England”:

This was literally true:

The flag which braved Temeraire flies a white
the battle and the flag instead of the British
breeze flag, indicating it has
No long owns her been sold by the military
to a private company.
Furthermore, the poem acknowledges that the ship now

Chapter 4 | 145
 has a different function. Temeraire used to be a warship,
but no more.

In 1838 Temeraire was towed approximately 55 miles

from its coastal dock to a London shipyard, and untold
numbers of Britons would have witnessed the ship’s
final journey. However, the Temeraire they saw only
lightly resembled the mighty warship depicted by
Turner. In reality her masts had already been removed,
as had all other ornamentation and everything else of
value on the ship’s exterior and interior. Only her barren
shell was tugged to London.

Turner’s painting doesn’t show the reality of the

event. He instead chose to depict Temeraire as she
would have looked in the prime of her service, with all of
its masts and rigging. This creates a dramatic
juxtaposition between the warship and the tiny, black
tugboat which controls its movements.

In fact there would have been two steamships moving

Temeraire, but Turner exercised his artistic creativity to
capture the emotional impact of the sight.
Contemporary viewers recognized that The Fighting
Temeraire depicts an ideal image of the ship, rather than
reality.

Strong contrast is also visible in the way Turner

applied paint to the various portions of his canvas.
Temeraire is highly detailed. If you were to stand inches
away from the painting, you would clearly see minuscule
things like individual windows, hanging ropes, and
decorative designs on the exterior of the ship. However,
if you looked over to the sun and clouds you would see a

146 | Chapter 4
heavy accumulation of paint clumped on the canvas,
giving it a sense of chaos and spontaneity.

J. M. W. Turner part 2 in audio

One or more interactive elements has been

excluded from this version of the text. You
can view them online here:
https://openeducationalberta.ca/
19thcenturyart/?p=199#audio-199-12

Many works by Turner

in this period of his life,
like Slave Ship (Slavers
Throwing Overboard the
Dead and Dying, Typhoon
Coming On) and Rain
Steam and Speed – The
J. M. W. Turner, Rain, Steam
Great Western
and Speed – The Great Western
Railway, oil on canvas, 1844. Railway (left), use the
same effect, but The
Fighting Temeraire stands out because of the
naturalistic portrayal of the ship compared to the rest of
the work.

Turner thought The Fighting Temeraire was one of his

more important works. He never sold it, instead keeping
it in his studio along with many of his other canvases.
When he died in 1851 he bequeathed it and the rest of
the paintings he owned to the nation. It quickly became

Chapter 4 | 147
 seen as an image of Britain’s relationship to
industrialization. Steam power has proved itself to be
much stronger and more efficient than old technology,
but that efficiency came with the cost of centuries of
proud tradition.

Beyond its national importance, The Fighting

Temeraire is also a personal reflection by the artist on
his own career. Turner was 64 when he painted it. He’d
been exhibiting at the Royal Academy of Arts since he
was 15, and became a member at age 24, later taking a
position as Professor of Painting. However, the year
before he painted The Fighting Temeraire Turner
resigned his professorship, and largely lived in secrecy
and seclusion.

Although Turner remained one of the most famous

artists in England until his death, by the late 1830s he
may have thought he was being superseded by younger
artists working in drastically different styles. He may
have become nostalgic for the country he grew up in,
compared to the one in which he then lived. Rain,
Steam, and Speed – The Great Western Railway would
reflect a similar interest in the changing British
landscape several years later, focusing on the dynamic
nature of technology. The Fighting Temeraire presents a
mournful vision of what technology had replaced, for
better or for worse.

Excerpted from: Dr. Abram Fox, “J. M. W. Turner, The

Fighting Temeraire,” in Smarthistory, August 9, 2015,
accessed September 20,
2020, https://smarthistory.org/turner-the-fighting-

148 | Chapter 4
 temeraire/.
All Smarthistory content is available for free at
www.smarthistory.org
CC:BY-NC-SA

By 1840, Turner’s innovations,

which were not universally
accepted as good workmanship
by all, collided with the British
Empire’s historical connections
to slavery. Dredging up that
shameful history, since slavery
was now illegal in England, and
combining it with Turner’s
frenzied, brush-y style created
an art-world scandal. And Edwin Henry Landseer, Laying Down
the Law, oil on canvas, 1840.
scandal and derision is not
something Turner was used to. The young man who used to
purposely delay finishing his paintings so he could put the finishing
touches on them while they were being hung at a show (so he could
hear the compliments and gather attention) was not in a position
that was prepared for the newspapers ran biting, negative reviews
about his work.

It would be unfair to judge the mainstream art world without

establishing what they were expecting at the show. This piece, by
Sir Edwin Landseer was the painting that took best in show in
1840 and it was the kind of lighthearted satire that viewers enjoyed.
The dogs represent their various owners (or personalities) of the
judicial system of London and while it may have been a slight jab at
individuals in the legal profession, it was in no way a judgement of
British culture as a whole. Unlike, Turner’s Slave Ship…

Chapter 4 | 149
J. M. W. Turner, The Slave Ship: Slavers throwing overboard the Dead and
Dying — Typhoon Coming On, oil on canvas, 1840.

Throwing slaves overboard when a storm was coming was a

common insurance fraud perpetrated by slave runners. Like other
commodities and goods, slaves were insured against loss and
damage by those that transported them. However, if they died of
natural causes (like illness) during the journey, the insurance did not
pay out. Therefore, it was common for slavers to see a storm coming
and then throw overboard anyone who was ill, dying, or deceased
and then claim them as lost at sea due to the storm. While this
practice was no longer in practice by British ships (as slave running
was now illegal), this was part of their cultural history. Lest viewers
felt unprovoked by this image or were at a loss for its subject, Turner
included an excerpt of an unfinished poem that he had written in
1812 titled Fallacies of Hope.
“Aloft all hands, strike the top-masts and belay;
You angry setting sun and fierce-edged clouds

150 | Chapter 4
 Declare the Typhoon’s coming.
Before it sweeps your decks, throw overboard
The dead and dying- ne’er heed their chains
Hope, Hope, fallacious Hope!
46
Where is thy market now?”
Ultimately, Turner was determined, as a British Romantic painter,
to make landscape equal to history painting and raise its standing
in the Academy. In his earlier works he incorporated elements of
composition and atmosphere like those of the famous 17th and 18th
century landscape painter Claude Lorrain. He added meaning and
narrative in his landscapes. Yet, the logical progression of his
innovative painting techniques and fascination with depicting light
was for him to be drawn to the sublime power of nature.
John “Mad” Martin in audio

One or more interactive elements has been excluded

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here: https://openeducationalberta.ca/
19thcenturyart/?p=199#audio-199-13

John “Mad” Martin

There’s a story that to paint Rain Steam and Speed – The Great
Western Railway Turner hung his head out of a train car window
during a rainstorm to experience the speed. It’s highly likely that
that story is more legend than fact, considering that during this time

46. A. J. Finberg, "The Life of J.M.W. Turner," (R.A., 1961), 474.

Chapter 4 | 151
period it was quite common for most carriages in trains to have
windows with no glass, so it wouldn’t really matter if your head was
out the window or not you’d still be getting wet. But Turner had a
contemporary that definitely did something like that.
John ‘Mad’ Martin
John Martin, always an inventor and engineer with a sense of
adventure, stood on the front-end footplate of a train that was
doing a test run to prove that trains could go faster than horses
and achieve speeds of faster than 50 MPH (about 80 KPH). Born
a few years after Constable and Turner (about eight years their
junior), Martin is normally considered a Victorian painter with
entertainment-level use of the Romantic Sublime. He, like Fuesli and
West, painted huge paintings and lived off the sales of the print
copies of those paintings. His paintings really were usually of epic
proportions: think sizes of six feet by ten feet at any given time.
Martin’s nick name as John “Mad” Martin really didn’t have a lot to
do with him or his mental state. It wasn’t really John who was mad,
but his younger brother Jonathan (yes, a John and a Jonathan in the
same family. Their parents were not all that inventive when it came
to names, apparently). Jonathan suffered a few mental breakdowns
and tried to burn down a church because the organ
buzzed…although to tell the whole story, Jonathan had an ongoing
dispute with that particular church’s minister regarding doctrinal
understandings and after many letters and notes, Jonathan hid in
the choir loft, removed all the bibles from the building, and set fire
to the hymnals. Those kind of actions are easy to poke fun of once
history has moved on, and make for amusing jokes at Jonathan’s
expense but Jonathan is a classic example of a manic depressive
or bi-polar arsonist. Unfortunately, for his brother John, Jonathan’s
last public outburst would deplete John’s funds and set the artist on
a path of financial ruin for a time. (Between the legal fees for his
brother’s trial and the repeated lack of success with his engineering
inventions – the pursuit he loved the most – Martin’s finances
became quite strained at one point.)
Martin is one of these strange artists that don’t follow the rules

152 | Chapter 4
of fine art as we know them. Usually, we think that artists are
poor and unknown during their life and famous after death. Martin
was the opposite. Famous and sought-out during his life, his work
epitomized the Sublime. However, after his death the Sublime fell
so far out of fashion that it became a source of ridicule and now he
is largely forgotten by art history.
Sadak in Search of the Waters
of Oblivion from 1812 was
shown at the Academy. Martin
painted the painting in a month
and got really worried when he
overheard the framer/hangers
trying to figure out which end
was up. However, despite his
early concern, it went over well
and sold at that very show.
Sadak was a fictional
character from a pseudo-
Orientalist story (completely
made up by James Ridley and
published in 1764) about a man
John Martin, Sadak in Search of the sent on an impossible journey
Waters of Oblivion, oil on canvas, 1812
by a cruel Sultan to obtain the
Waters of Oblivion, which make the drinker forget everything they
knew. The Sultan wants to use this water on Sadak’s extremely
beautiful wife so he can make her forget Sadak and seduce her for
himself. (He feels it’s a win/win situation really. If Sadak dies on the
perilous journey or if he obtains the water, either way the Sultan will
still be able to obtain Sadak’s wife.) However, Sadak goes through his
journey with trouble after trouble – this depiction of him here
showing him just before he reaches the waters – and brings the
water back. In the inevitable twist, the Sultan somehow ends up the
victim of the water and Sadak becomes Sultan himself. (This story
seems corny now, but the story was so popular at the time that it
was made into a play and into an opera as well.)

Chapter 4 | 153
 The Last Judgement in audio

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19thcenturyart/?p=199#audio-199-14

The Last Judgement

The three works that follow were meant to be seen as a triptych (a

grouping of three paintings hung in a row) and they were his last
paintings, finished two years before his death in 1854. Collectively
they’re called The Last Judgement, but they have individual names as
well. He started these paintings in 1849 or so, but it took him until
1852 to finish them.

John Martin, The Last Judgement, oil on canvas, 1852

154 | Chapter 4
The centre piece of the triptych is the first painting. The Last
Judgement (the title of this single painting and the triptych as a
whole) is an event related in the book of Revelations. During this
event everyone on earth is judged by God and the Book of Life,
shown on Christ’s lap in the centre background of the first painting,
is searched for their name while the four and twenty elders watch
from either side. If, during their lifetime on Earth, the individuals
being judged have been found to believe that the death and
resurrection of Christ was the sacrifice needed to redeem the debt
and repair the separation from God caused by the wickedness that is
innately in their being, their name will be found in the Lamb’s Book
of Life.
Martin’s first painting in his depiction of this even shows he had
distinct thoughts of who would and wouldn’t be found in the Lamb’s
Book of Life, and included portraits of people he felt would
definitely be there. Scholars are still identifying portraits of people
from the left side of the painting – those who were welcome in the
heavenly city in the mid-ground on the left.
However, if an individual’s name was not found in the Book of
Life because they did not believe that Christ’s sacrifice was either
enough, or real in any way, they would be damned and cast into
the Lake of Fire. Those souls are portrayed on the right side of the
painting and here you also find Martin’s personal thoughts on who
would not be found in the Book. Interestingly, he didn’t think much
of the Pope – fully believing that it wasn’t religion that would get
people’s names into the Book but rather their personal beliefs. In
the background there are trains falling off the abyss, labelled with
the names a few of the major cities of Europe. (Elements of Martin’s
post-apocalyptic judgement scenes have been recreated in many
movies in the twentieth and twenty-first century due to their
sublime use of epic emotion and horrifying symbolism.)

Chapter 4 | 155
John Martin, The Great Day of His Wrath, oil on canvas, 1952

A continuation of the right side of the first painting, The Great Day
of His Wrath shows the fate of those that did not find their names
written in the Book of Life. Here Martin is illustrating another part
of the same story in Revelation when the Sixth Seal is opened.

“…when he had opened the sixth seal, and lo, there was a
great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of
hair, and the moon became as blood;
And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth…
And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together;
and every mountain and island were moved out of their
places.
And the kings of the earth, and the great men and the rich
men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every
bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and
in the rocks of the mountains;
And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us
from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the

156 | Chapter 4
 wrath of the Lamb:
For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able
47
to stand?”

As you can see, he illustrated that cataclysmic destruction very

well. Entire cities of people falling into the abyss, the mountains
crumbling, and the sublime pyroclastic sky complete with the
lightning that can be caused by intense volcanic activity. Very much
in the sublime tradition but with all the stops, guards, and safeties
removed.
But the Sublime horror and apocalyptic terror in his depiction of
the damned melts away into Picturesque calm in a depiction of the
redeemed in the final painting of the triptych, The Plains of Heaven.

John Martin, The Plains of Heaven, oil on canvas, 1852

The last picture of the triptych was meant to be hung on the left
side, showing the plains of Heaven. Some say what Martin painted

47. Revelations 6: 12-17 KJV

Chapter 4 | 157
here was related to his memory of his childhood in Allendale, as
well as based on sketched by Turner, and also related to some of his
own earlier, personal landscape sketches. Regardless of its aesthetic
influences, it also follows very closely what the book of Revelation
relates.
The river flows into the painting from the right, clear as crystal,
and issuing from the throne of God that is depicted in the middle
piece of the triptych. It pools in the centre – the Water of Life. The
shrubby tree in the foreground would be the Tree of Life bears a
variety of fruit and flowers. In the story of Adam and Eve in the
Garden of Eden, the ground was cursed because of their sin and
forever laboured to produce life, but here there is no curse on the
land. Everything is clean, pure and growing well. In Heaven there no
night, so notice the source of light in this painting is coming from
the painting beside it- glowing from the Throne of God.
About a year after these paintings were finished Martin had a
massive stroke and died a year later. However, during that time
these paintings went on a colossal tour and it’s said that over eight
million people saw these during that tour.
The drama felt in Martin’s The Great Day of His Wrath, is partly the
reason his work fell out of fashion after his death. It was considered
too theatrical and too emotional to be respected, as a new age of
Realism was ushered in.

Consider the following:

For your own notes, create a time-line of the following

events that have been covered and/or occurred during the
time covered in chapters 1 through 4:

• French Revolution

158 | Chapter 4
 • American Revolution
• Empire Style
• Neo-Classicism
• Bourbon Restoration Period
• French Romanticism
• Napoleonic Era
• Georgian Period
• Industrial Revolution
• Rococo
• British Romanticism
• Victorian Period

Reflect, in your own notes and for your own learning, on

the following:

• Landscape painting in Britain has a long history –

from relaying ownership, to depicting perfection, to
narrating stories, to changing how the landscape (in
paintings and in life) was thought about.
Considering your own experiences, do you think the
landscape has as much importance or influence now?

19th Century European Art History by Megan Bylsma is licensed under a Creative
Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except
where otherwise noted.

Chapter 4 | 159
5. Chapter 5 - Romanticism
in Spain and Germany
Spain & Germany

By the end of this chapter you will be able to:

• Identify the works of Francisco Goya

• Explain Goya’s general philosophical and/or
political motivations for his work
• Outline the basic beliefs of the German Nazarenes
and explain how they relate to Germanic
Romanticism
• Explain the importance of Philipp Otto Runge’s
relationship to landscape painting & colour theory
• Define the art term Rückenfigur and who invented
the compositional device

Audio recording of chapter opening:

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here: https://openeducationalberta.ca/
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160 | Chapter 5
Audio recording of the full chapter can be found here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cFfnJ5-Iy-
kXdGezJSf9TCwpqV9caI4N/view?usp=sharing

A Home Invasion is when people come into a home to steal property,

but also have the intent to damage the property and/or perpetrate
violence against the home occupants. In many cases the home
invader breaks into the dwelling through force, but sometimes they
can gain access through false pretenses and therefore can, initially,
be there by the invitation and welcome of the home owner.
But what is it called when the home invaders have the intent to
steal, not just items from inside the property, but they intend to
steal the property itself from the rightful dwellers?
This is the case with Napoleon and Spain.
Napoleon was in a scuffle with Portugal and asked his ally, the King
of Spain, if he could gain access to Portugal by moving his military
through Spain. The King of Spain agreed and Napoleon used the
pretext of bulking up military presence in Portugal and giving aid
to the Spanish army as an ally to take control of the Spanish throne
and put his brother – Joseph-Napoléon Bonaparte – on the throne.
The royal family of Spain, much like the royal family of Portugal,
quietly vacated the premises in the face of Napoleon’s force and
King Joseph I took the throne.
Napoleon felt that there were those in the Spanish royal court
who were a little too anti-French and too pro-British for his
comfort; so to ensure Spanish support in his planned maneuvers
against Portugal (Britain’s ally) and Britain, he took control of Spain.
What may have seemed to Napoleon back in France as one part
liberation of the Spanish people from their tired monarchy and
three parts a guaranteed political union between Spain and France
against Britain was not necessarily how the people of Spain saw it.
The removal of the royal family caused unexpected uprisings among
the people because as much as the monarchy was tired and corrupt

Chapter 5 | 161
and generally just not the best, they were beloved by their subjects
in the kind of way that saw the citizens of Spain not welcoming the
French troops and rule.

Francisco Goya, The Second of May 1808 or The Charge of the Mamelukes, oil
on canvas, 1814

On May 2nd, 1808 the people of Madrid rose up and resisted the
elite French Imperial Guard – depicted in Francisco Goya’s painting
as the historical enemy of the Spanish people, the Moors. The
citizens of Madrid had gathered to protest the change in
government and the removal of their royal family and the French
Imperial Guard were ordered to disperse an angry, rioting, crowd
by charging the people. Instead of running the people stood their
ground and fought back and bloody skirmish resulted.
And that was the beginning of the Dos de Mayos uprisings.
The results, besides a long and gruesome war that created a brand
new kind of warfare and caused death and suffering to innumerable

162 | Chapter 5
people, where law changes. Such as: anyone who was found with a
weapon would be punished by death. We will see the result of that
ruling in a little while.
Audio recording of Francisco Goya segment:

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19thcenturyart/?p=234#audio-234-2

Francisco Goya
In Spain, there was one major job for artists – court painter –
many of the famous painters from Spain in art history were court
painters and this is, in part, because art and the art world in Spain
was different than anywhere else in Europe. This can be traced to
the impact of the Spanish Inquisition on Spanish life and culture.
I always thought that the Spanish Inquisition was a thing of the
medieval days and Edgar Allan Poe spine-tinglers. (Incidentally,
Poe’s Inquisition-inspired The Pit and the Pendulum is set in the
same time period as we are about to discuss, but be warned – it’s
terrifying.) And while the Spanish Inquisition was most active during
the 1300 and 1400s they definitely saw a resurgence of power after
Napoleon’s reign in Spain. Interestingly, the Spanish Inquisition – or
Holy Office as it was called officially – took issue with those who
fought against the Napoleonic claim to the throne. Even though
the Holy Office was abolished under Napoleon (remember the mind
games with the Catholic Church at Napoleon’s coronation?). It is
possible that as the Inquisition was losing power under the

Chapter 5 | 163
monarchy in Spain and saw Napoleon as an opportunity; by the
late 1700s the Holy Office was simply a censorship body and only
prosecuted the rich who were deemed ‘not Roman Catholic enough.’
The Holy Office would also have been terrified of the ideals of
the Enlightenment that had been creeping into Spain, despite their
best efforts to censor. It is logical that they could have thought
that Napoleon – a good Catholic emperor – would reinstitute their
waning power. He didn’t. They were disbanded and only brought
together again once the Bourbon monarchy had been re-
established. (And then disbanded completely and forever after that
monarchy failed).

Francisco Goya, La Maja Vestida (The

Clothed Maja) and La Maja Desnuda
(The Nude Maja), oil on canvas,
1797-1805

164 | Chapter 5
 Now, I say all that to talk
about Francisco Goya. In 1815
Goya was brought before the
Inquisition to answer for this
set of paintings – which they
had confiscated. The artistic
nude was considered
unacceptable to the Church
before the Peninsular Wars, so
after they were over Goya had
to answer for this picture –
specifically the one the right.
He was asked repeatedly who
his model was; not so much
because the act of modeling
Francisco Goya, The Black Duchess nude was more punishable than
(Portrait of the Duchess of Alba), oil on the act of painting a nude, but
canvas, 1797
because of who the model was
suspected to be. There was a
saying late in the Inquisition, “Only the rich burn,” meaning that the
Holy Office would only target and fully prosecute those who had
property and possessions that could be forfeited to the Roman
Catholic Church. It was rumoured that the model was the Duchess
of Alba – and if it was, she was rich and would be a source of good
money if they could confiscate her holdings on account of un-
moral, heretical behaviour. In this painting of Duchess of Alba,
called The Black Duchess is pointing to an inscription in the sand
that says Only Goya – which may be a reference to a bit of a crush
she had on Goya (and maybe Goya on her) after the death of her
husband. However, it may also simply be a device to refer to his
signature, as the other painting in the Duchess series, The White
Duchess, also shows her pointing to his signature.
But back to the Maja paintings. The first one took three years
to paint, the second took five. They were returned, after being
confiscated, to the San Fernando Academy of Fine Arts in the late

Chapter 5 | 165
1830s. One hundred years later, in the 1930s, Spain issued stamps
with Goya’s Majas on them. This was the first time a nude woman
was on a stamp and the U.S. Mail system didn’t really know what to
do with that. The U.S. postal system refused to accept any incoming
mail with the nude stamp (the clothed edition was fine) and
returned to Spain all the mail with the Maja Desnuda on it.
While Goya was never actually put on trial for this painting and
there isn’t any record that he ever said who the model was or why he
painted the picture, being called before the Inquisition caused him
to lose the practical applications of his position as court painter. He
kept his salary and his title, but was forced to move to the country.
He bought Quinta del Sordo (the house of the deaf man) – called
such because the previous owner had suffered an illness that had
left him deaf. However, Goya was also in a state of decreasing health
and bouts with an undiagnosed illness had left him with vertigo,
tinnitus and deafness, so the name of his new house seemed to be a
fitting choice.
All the paintings he did after he moved to Quinta del Sordo in 1913
were either for himself or for his friends, however while he had been
in the court of the King of Spain he had created a number of works
that are still well known today.

166 | Chapter 5
Francisco Goya, The Family of Charles IV, oil on canvas, 1800-01

This painting of the royal

family inserts the artist into the
painting in the background on
the left, and it is just as
confusing as Velazquez’s Las
Meninas from the 1600s that
influenced it. In Valzquez’s
painting, it shows the scene as
if the painter is painting the
viewer who is standing with
their back to the king and
queen (which was a punishable
offence – standing with one’s Diego Velázquez, Las Meninas, oil on
back to the monarchy). In both canvas, 1656

Chapter 5 | 167
paintings it is a strange vantage point for the viewer because of
the presence of the artist. Goya idolized Velazquez and perfected
Velazquez’s strange viewer placements.
Even just taking a quick look at the painting of the family of King
Charles IV, it is plain to see that Goya didn’t sanitize or idealize
the looks of the royal family. Huge birthmark here, bulging eyes
there. And strangely enough while some of these figure are firmly
cemented in the portrait, some, like the two princes on the left,
seem like they are pasted overtop. Obviously, it wasn’t that Goya
couldn’t control his lighting and this was a mistake, Goya was
making stylistic choices.
Also. Notice the fifth figure in from the left – the woman looking
away from the viewer. This was not a comment on the intelligence
or beauty of that member of the royal family, but rather an artistic
choice common in royal portraits at the time. The prince –
Fernando VII – was not betrothed when the painting was painted.
So, it was asked that Goya would paint in his future wife and the
tradition was that the face would be obscured because, obviously,
he would have a wife eventually, they just didn’t know what face
she’d have.
Look at the King and Queen in the center. They are not idealized
in the Rococo fashion, but ‘realistic’ or honest – as the case may be.
Some say that Goya was poking fun at the royal family and they were
too stupid to realize, but others think this was a calculated move
on the royal family’s part – by showing their riches and their faults
they were showing they were honest and open and self-aware. Not
hiding in frippery. Although, of course they weren’t actually being
completely honest or open or self-aware. The king was terribly
manipulated by his wife who slept with the Prime Minister and the
crowned prince bossed the king around, too. But that probably was
more honesty than they wanted to share with the public…
And Goya wasn’t unkind for the sake of being unkind. Some of the
people in this painting look just fine. Not idealized in the Rococo
way, but quite unblemished. The grouping of the three on the right
is the duke of Parma – Don Luis de Parma, his wife, and baby Carlos

168 | Chapter 5
Luis, the future Duke of Parma and they are painted quite pleasantly.
One last thing to looks for: notice how the head floating behind the
king looks so much like the king? That’s his brother.
Audio recording of Los Caprichos segment:

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19thcenturyart/?p=234#audio-234-3

Often this painting is considered a kind of satire or mockery of

the royal family. But this projects a different cultural lens on things
than was a reality in Spain. Because of the Spanish Inquisition there
wasn’t a lot of room for satire or humour in art; anything too
offensive would have drawn the attention of the Holy Office. As
well, the Spanish people were not French – they did not dispose of
their king after decades of publicly making fun of the royal family
and satirizing their roles, personalities, or looks. In Spain there was
obviously laughter and fun, but it did not frequently appear in art
of the court, directed at the court. And on the occasion that satire
did appear, if it was not carefully executed, it caused the artist to be
called before the Holy Office. Goya’s Los Caprichos series did both.

Chapter 5 | 169
Francisco Goya, The Sleep of Reason
Produces Monsters from Los
Caprichos, print, 1799

170 | Chapter 5
The Los Caprichos series, as
the title suggests was one of
invention and fantasy.
Goya’s use of the term is a
nod to the followers of this
tradition: Botticelli and
Dürer and the later Tiepolo
and Piranesi. It denoted the
promotion of the artist’s
imagination over reality;
invention over mere
representation. However,
Goya uses this trope in a
very new way. Where
previous caprices had been
fantastic and escapist,
Goya’s Los Caprichos were
different, as David Rosand
points out: “Goya turned the
inventive powers of the
artist back upon his
audience with indicting
moral force. Pressing the
limits of poetic license, he
effectively annulled the
contract between artist and
society that had sustained
the development of the
capriccio.”. Whereas today
many people are perfectly
happy to believe or accept
that art can exist for art’s
sake, arguably, Goya
believed that art should
ultimately make a

Chapter 5 | 171
 The front plate of
Goya’s Los Caprichos
Francisco Goya, Now They’re Sitting series was The Sleep of
Pretty from Los Caprichos, 1797-1799
Reason Produces
Monsters. In this print a man sleeps, apparently
peacefully, even as bats and owls threaten from all sides
and a lynx lays quiet, but wide-eyed and alert. Another
creature sits at the center of the composition, staring
not at the sleeping figure, but at us. Goya forces the
viewer to become an active participant in the
image––the monsters of his dreams even threaten us.

On 6 February 1799, Francisco Goya put an

advertisement in the Diario de Madrid. “A Collection of
Prints of Capricious Subjects,” he tells the reader,
“Invented and Etched by Don Francisco Goya,” is
available through subscription. We know this series of
eighty prints as Los Caprichos (caprices, or follies).

Los Caprichos was a significant departure from the

subjects that had occupied Goya up to that
point––tapestry cartoons for the Spanish royal

172 | Chapter 5
residences, portraits of monarchs and aristocrats, and a
few commissions for church ceilings and altars.

Many of the prints in the Caprichos series express

disdain for the pre-Enlightenment practices still popular
in Spain at the end of the Eighteenth century (a
powerful clergy, arranged marriages, superstition, etc.).
Goya uses the series to critique contemporary Spanish
society. As he explained in the advertisement, he chose
subjects “from the multitude of follies and blunders
common in every civil society, as well as from the vulgar
prejudices and lies authorized by custom, ignorance or
interest, those that he has thought most suitable matter
for ridicule.”

The Caprichos was Goya’s most biting critique to date,

and would eventually be censored. Of the eighty
aquatints, number 43, “The Sleep of Reason Produces
Monsters,” can essentially be seen as Goya’s manifesto
and it should be noted that many observers believe he
intended it as a self-portrait.

In the image, an artist, asleep at his drawing table, is

besieged by creatures associated in Spanish folk
tradition with mystery and evil. The title of the print,
emblazoned on the front of the desk, is often read as a
proclamation of Goya’s adherence to the values of the
Enlightenment—without Reason, evil and corruption
prevail.

However, Goya wrote a caption for the print that

complicates its message, “Imagination abandoned by
reason produces impossible monsters; united with her,
she is the mother of the arts and source of their

Chapter 5 | 173
 wonders.” To make things even more complicated, his
inscription meant to accompany the entire Los
Caprichos etching series reads, “The artist dreaming. His
only purpose is to banish harmful, vulgar beliefs and to
perpetuate in this work of caprices the solid testimony
of truth”.

In other words, Goya believed that imagination should

never be completely renounced in favor of the strictly
rational. For Goya, art is the child of reason in
combination with imagination.

Audio recording of the beginnings of romanticism in

Spain:

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can view them online here:
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The beginnings of Romanticism in Spain

With this print, Goya is revealed as a transitional

figure between the end of the Enlightenment and the
emergence of Romanticism. The artist had spent the
early part of his career working in the court of King
Carlos III who adhered to many of the principles of the
Enlightenment that were then spreading across

174 | Chapter 5
Europe––social reform, the advancement of knowledge
and science, and the creation of secular states. In Spain,
Carlos reduced the power of the clergy and established
strong support for the arts and sciences.

However, by the time Goya published the Caprichos,

the promise of the Enlightenment had dimmed. Carlos
III was dead and his less respected brother assumed the
throne. Even in France, the political revolution inspired
by the Enlightenment had devolved into violence during
an episode known as the Reign of Terror. Soon after,
Napoleon became Emperor of France.

Goya’s caption for “The Sleep of Reason,” warns that

we should not be governed by reason alone—an idea
central to Romanticism’s reaction against Enlightenment
doctrine. Romantic artists and writers valued nature
which was closely associated with emotion and
imagination in opposition to the rationalism of
Enlightenment philosophy. But “The Sleep of Reason”
also anticipates the dark and haunting art Goya later
created in reaction to the atrocities he witnessed—and
carried out by the standard-bearers of the
Enlightenment—the Napoleonic Guard.

Goya brilliantly exploited the atmospheric quality of

aquatint to create this fantastical image. This printing
process creates the grainy, dream-like tonality visible in
the background of “The Sleep of Reason.”

Although the aquatint process was invented in 17th

century by the Dutch printmaker, Jan van de Velde,
many consider the Caprichos to be the first prints to
fully exploit this process.

Chapter 5 | 175
 Aquatint is a variation of etching. Like etching, it uses
a metal plate (often copper or zinc) that is covered with
a waxy, acid-resistant resin. The artist draws an image
directly into the resin with a needle so that the wax is
removed exposing the metal plate below. When the
scratch drawing is complete, the plate is submerged in
an acid bath. The acid eats into the metal where lines
have been etched. When the acid has bitten deeply
enough, the plate is removed, rinsed and heated so that
the remaining resin can be wiped away.

Aquatint requires an additional process, the artist

sprinkles layers of powdery resin on the surface of the
plate, heats it to harden the powder and dips it in an
acid bath.

The acid eats around the resin powder creating a rich

and varied surface. Ink is then pressed into the pits and
linear recesses created by the acid and the flat surface
of the plate is once again wiped clean. Finally, a piece of
paper is pressed firmly against the inked plate and then
pulled away, resulting in the finished image.

Excerpted and adapted from: Sarah C. Schaefer,

“Francisco Goya, The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters,”
in Smarthistory, August 9, 2015,
https://smarthistory.org/goya-the-sleep-of-reason-
produces-monsters/.
All Smarthistory content is available for free
at www.smarthistory.org
CC: BY-NC-SA

The Los Caprichos series was quickly recalled by Goya after it had
been published and it was the reason for his first visit to the

176 | Chapter 5
Inquisition’s interrogation.

Francisco Goya, The Third of May 1808, oil on canvas, 1814

Audio recording of May 2, 1808 segment:

One or more interactive elements has been

excluded from this version of the text. You
can view them online here:

Chapter 5 | 177
 https://openeducationalberta.ca/
19thcenturyart/?p=234#audio-234-5

On May 2, 1808, hundreds of Spaniards rebelled. On

May 3, these Spanish freedom fighters were rounded up
and massacred by the French for crimes as serious as
attacking the French Imperial Guard and for crimes as
petty as having a weapon in their possession. Their
blood literally ran through the streets of Madrid. Even
though Goya had shown French sympathies in the past,
the slaughter of his countrymen and the horrors of war
made a profound impression on the artist. He
commemorated both days of this gruesome uprising in
paintings. Although Goya’s Second of May, 1808 (at the
beginning of this chapter) is a tour de force of twisting
bodies and charging horses reminiscent of Leonardo’s
Battle of Anghiari, his The Third of May, 1808 in Madrid is
acclaimed as one of the great paintings of all time, and
has even been called the world’s first modern painting.

We see row of French soldiers aiming their guns at a

Spanish man, who stretches out his arms in submission
both to the men and to his fate. A country hill behind
him takes the place of an executioner’s wall. A pile of
dead bodies lies at his feet, streaming blood. To his
other side, a line of Spanish rebels stretches endlessly
into the landscape. They cover their eyes to avoid
watching the death that they know awaits them. The

178 | Chapter 5
city and civilization is far behind them. Even a monk,
bowed in prayer, will soon be among the dead.

Goya’s painting has been lauded for its brilliant

transformation of Christian iconography and its
poignant portrayal of man’s inhumanity to man. The
central figure of the painting, who is clearly a poor
laborer, takes the place of the crucified Christ; he is
sacrificing himself for the good of his nation. The
lantern that sits between him and the firing squad is the
only source of light in the painting, and dazzlingly
illuminates his body, bathing him in what can be
perceived as spiritual light. His expressive face, which
shows an emotion of anguish that is more sad than
terrified, echoes Christ’s prayer on the cross, “Forgive
them Father, they know not what they do.” Close
inspection of the victim’s right hand also shows
stigmata, referencing the marks made on Christ’s body
during the Crucifixion.

The man’s pose not only equates him with Christ, but
also acts as an assertion of his humanity. The French
soldiers, by contrast, become mechanical or insect-like.
They merge into one faceless, many-legged creature
incapable of feeling human emotion. Nothing is going to
stop them from murdering this man. The deep recession
into space seems to imply that this type of brutality will
never end.

This depiction of warfare was a drastic departure

from convention. In 18th century art, battle and death
was represented as a bloodless affair with little
emotional impact. Even the great French Romanticists
were more concerned with producing a beautiful canvas

Chapter 5 | 179
 in the tradition of history paintings, showing the hero in
the heroic act, than with creating emotional impact.
Goya’s painting, by contrast, presents us with an anti-
hero, imbued with true pathos that had not been seen
since, perhaps, the ancient Roman sculpture of The
Dying Gaul. Goya’s central figure is not perishing
heroically in battle, but rather being killed on the side of
the road like an animal. Both the landscape and the
dress of the men are nondescript, making the painting
timeless. This is certainly why the work remains
emotionally charged today.

Adapted and excerpted from: Christine Zappella,

“Francisco Goya, The Third of May, 1808,”
in Smarthistory, August 9, 2015, accessed October 2,
2020, https://smarthistory.org/goya-third-of-
may-1808/.
All Smarthistory content is available for free
at www.smarthistory.org
CC: BY-NC-SA

180 | Chapter 5
Francisco Goya, For a Clasp Knife from the Disasters of War, etching,
1810-1820

Audio Recording of The Disasters of War segment:

One or more interactive elements has been excluded

from this version of the text. You can view them online
here: https://openeducationalberta.ca/
19thcenturyart/?p=234#audio-234-6

The Disasters of War Series, 1810-1820. 82 plates.

Content warning: disturbing imagery and themes of violence and

death
Goya never said why he created the Disasters of War, but it is

Chapter 5 | 181
generally accepted that he made them to protest the Peninsular War
and other uprisings during that time period. The only thing that is
known that he said about these was his original title – which wasn’t
the Disasters of War (or Horrors of War as it is sometimes called).
It was, translated: Fatal consequences of Spain’s bloody war with
Bonaparte, and other emphatic caprices – which may show that
he considered them another chapter of his Caprichos series. The
series shows the brutal things that humans can do to other humans,
but they are not accompanied with much (or any) written artists
statement of intent.
In the piece above, For a Clasp Knife a clergyman is shown tied
to a pole by his neck and on his chest is pinned the account of his
crime – possession of a knife. The knife is strung around his neck
and is a common clasp knife. However, it was illegal for citizens to
possess weapons and what was likely use to cut food and pull slivers,
was now considered a weapon of war and the repercussions were
horrible.

Francisco Goya created the aquatint series The

Disasters of War from 1810 to 1820. The eighty-two
images add up to a visual indictment of and protest
against the French occupation of Spain by Napoleon
Bonaparte. The French Emperor had seized control of
the country in 1807 after he tricked the king of Spain,
Charles IV, into allowing Napoleon’s troops to pass its
border, under the pretext of helping Charles invade
Portugal. He did not. Instead, he usurped the throne and
installed his brother, Joseph Bonaparte, as ruler of
Spain. Soon, a bloody uprising occurred, in which
countless Spaniards were slaughtered in Spain’s cities
and countryside. Although Spain eventually expelled the

182 | Chapter 5
French in 1814 following the Peninsular War (1807-1814),
the military conflict was a long and gruesome ordeal for
both nations. Throughout the entire time, Goya worked
as a court artist for Joseph Bonaparte, though he would
later deny any involvement with the French “intruder
king.”

Francisco Goya, There is Nothing to Be Done from the Disasters

of War, drypoint etching, 1810-1820

The first group of prints, to which There is Nothing to

Be Done belongs, shows the sobering consequences of
conflict between French troops and Spanish civilians.
The second group, of which Cartloads for the Cemetery
is part, documents the effects of a famine that hit Spain
in 1811-1812, at the end of French rule. The final set of

Chapter 5 | 183
 pictures depicts the disappointment and demoralization
of the Spanish rebels, who, after finally defeating the
French, found that their reinstated monarchy would not
accept any political reforms. Although they had expelled
Bonaparte, the throne of Spain was still occupied by a
tyrant. And this time, they had fought to put him there.

Francisco Goya, Cartloads for the Cemetery from the Disasters of

War, drypoint etching, 1810-1820

184 | Chapter 5
Francisco Goya, This is Worse from the Disasters of War,
drypoint etching, 1810-1820

Although There’s Nothing to Be Done may have

crystallized the theme of The Disasters of War, it is not
the most gruesome. This honor may belong to the print
Esto es peor (This is Worse), which captures the real-life
massacre of Spanish civilians by the French army in
1808. In the macabre image, Goya copied a famous
Hellenistic Greek fragment, the Belvedere Torso, to
create the body of the dead victim. Like the ancient
fragment, he is armless, but this is because the French
have mutilated his body, which is impaled on a tree. As
in There is Nothing to be Done, the corpse face stares out
at the viewer, who must confront his own culpability in
allowing the massacre to take place. There is Nothing to
be Done, can also be compared to the plate No se puede

Chapter 5 | 185
 mirar (One cannot look), in which the same faceless line
of executioners points their weapons at a group of
women and men, who are about to die.

Francisco Goya, One Can’t Look from the Disasters of War,

drypoint etching, 1810-1820

The Disasters of War were Goya’s second series, made

after his earlier Los Caprichos. This set of images was
also a critique of the contemporary world in Spain that
caused most people to live in poverty and forced them
to act immorally just to survive. Goya condemned all
levels of society, from prostitutes to clergy. But
The Disasters of War was not the last time that Goya
would take on the subject of the horrors of the
Peninsular War. In 1814, after completing The Disasters
of War, Goya created his masterpiece The Third of May,
1808 which portrays the ramifications of the initial

186 | Chapter 5
uprising of Spanish against the French, right after
Napoleon’s takeover. Sometimes called “The first
modern painting,” its resemblance to There is Nothing to
Be Done is undeniable. In this painting, a Christ-like
figure stands in front of a firing squad, waiting to die.
This line of soldiers is nearly identical to the murderers
in the aquatint. In The Third of May, 1808 the number of
assassins and victims is countless, indicating, once
again, that “there is nothing to be done.” Although it is
impossible to say whether the print or the painting
came first, the repetition of the imagery is evidence that
this theme—the inexorable cruelty of one group of
people towards another—was a preoccupation of the
artist, whose imagery would only become darker as he
became older.

Goya’s Disasters of War series was not printed until

thirty-five years after the artist’s death, when it was
finally safe for the artist’s political views to be known.
The images remain shocking today, and even influenced
the novel of famous American author Ernest
Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls, a book about the
violence and inhumanity in the Spanish Civil War
(1936-1939). Hemingway shared Goya’s belief, expressed
in The Disasters of War, that war, even if justified, brings
out the inhumane in man, and causes us to act like
beasts. And for both artists, the consumer, who
examines the dismembered corpses of the aquatints or
reads the gruesome descriptions of murder but does
nothing to stop the assassin, is complicit in the violence
with the murderer.

Audio recording of The Artist’s Process segment:

Chapter 5 | 187
 One or more interactive elements has been
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can view them online here:
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The Artist’s Process

Goya created his Disasters of War series by using the

techniques of etching and drypoint. Goya was able to
use this technique to create nuanced shades of light and
dark that capture the powerful emotional intensity of
the horrific scenes in the Disasters of War.

The first step was to etch the plate. This was done by
covering a copper plate with wax and then scratching
lines into the wax with a stylus (a sharp needle-like
implement), which thus exposed the metal. The plate
was then placed in an acid bath. The acid bit into the
metal where it was exposed (the rest of the plate was
protected by the wax). Next the acid was washed from
the plate and the plate was heated so the wax softened
and could be wiped away. The plate then had soft, even,
recessed lines etched by the acid where Goya had
drawn into the wax.

The next step, drypoint, created lines by a different

method. Here Goya scratched directly into the surface

188 | Chapter 5
of the plate with a stylus. This resulted in a less even line
since each scratch left a small ragged ridge on either
side of the line. These minute ridges catch the ink and
create a soft distinctive line when printed. However,
because these ridges are delicate and are crushed by
repeatedly being run through a press, the earliest prints
in a series are generally more highly valued.

Finally, the artist inked the plate and wiped away any
excess so that ink remained only in the areas where the
acid bit into the metal plate or where the stylus had
scratched the surface. The plate and moist paper were
then placed atop one another and run through a press.
The paper, now a print, drew the ink from the metal, and
became a mirror of the plate.

Adapted and excerpted from: Christine Zappella,

“Francisco Goya, And there’s nothing to be done from The
Disasters of War,” in Smarthistory, August 9, 2015,
https://smarthistory.org/goya-and-theres-nothing-to-
be-done-from-the-disasters-of-war/.
All Smarthistory content is available for free
at www.smarthistory.org
CC: BY-NC-SA

Chapter 5 | 189
 The last group of paintings
that have been attributed to
Goya are called the Black
Paintings. Found on the walls of
his home, they were gruesome
and dark in technique and
theme.
Francisco Goya, Two Old Men Eating
Soup, wall mural moved to canvas, The reasons for these
1819-1823 paintings were never explained
by Goya. (I think by now you
can see that he wasn’t the biggest talker.) He didn’t often explain his
art – probably partly because of the era he lived in. It’s likely that
artists didn’t want to write down something that could then be used
as evidence of sedition or treason.
The Black Paintings were painted directly on the plaster of his
house and were later removed from the wall and mounted on canvas
for their move to the museum that purchased them (this happened
many years after Goya’s death. The paintings depict wildly
disturbing scenes that were never meant to be seen by strangers.
They represent Goya’s own thoughts and statements for himself and
all were titled after his death (if he gave them titles, they have been
lost with him) and therefore the titles do not faithfully represent
what Goya meant to communicate with the works.
While Saturn Devouring His Son may be the most popularly
known piece from Goya’s Black Paintings, his painting The Dog –
depiction of what is commonly thought to be a drowning dog – has
had the biggest impact on artists who followed after him because
of his use of colour gradients and implied themes (but mostly the
colour gradients).

190 | Chapter 5
Francisco Goya, Saturn Devouring His
Son, wall mural moved to canvas,
1819-1823

Chapter 5 | 191
 There is, of course, a major
debate regarding Goya’s Black
Paintings. Most scholars firmly
Francisco Goya, The Dog from the
believe that Goya’s son and Black Paintings, wall mural moved to
grandson told the truth and canvas, 1819-1823
that the famous artist painted
these paintings while living at Quinta del Sordo. But there are some
who feel this may be one of the art world’s most successful con jobs.
The problem with the Black Paintings is this: there is actually no
evidence that Goya painted them.
So first the lack of evidence: no visitor ever mentioned them. Ever.
And when you think about living in the early 1800s and giving Goya
a visit and that painting of Saturn is hanging around as you sip your
coffee and talk about the weather, you’d probably mention them
to someone after you left the Goya residence. Probably. (I mean, I
would. Hey, I wasn’t even in the Goya house and I’m telling out about
them!)
Then there’s the reputed character of Goya’s offspring: the sad fact
is that his son was the kind of businessman that would have sold his

192 | Chapter 5
 1
own mother and that his grandson was a down-on-his-luck type.
Then there is the work of art historian Juan José Junquera. While
his work is disputed by other Goya scholars, Junquera lays the
groundwork of a convincing argument. Junquera claims that
according to land deeds at the time of purchase Quintas del Sordo
2
was a single story home when Goya bought it. He also found that
there was no permit for an expansion to add a second floor until
3
after Goya’s death. These home repair and renovation facts don’t
seem all that interesting until we realize half of the paintings were
4
found on the second floor walls.
These findings make some people think that the paintings were
painted by his son and sold either by his son or by his grandson for
the money his famous name would give.
When asked if museums would remove the Black Paintings or re-
attribute the work in face of the evidence Junquera discovered,
museum curators said they would not because paintings like The
Dog had been too influential to artists in the 1900s to be changed

1. Arthur Lubow, "The Secret of the Black Paintings," The

New York Times Magazine, July 27, 2003,
https://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/27/magazine/the-
secret-of-the-black-paintings.html
2. Lubow, "The Secret," https://www.nytimes.com/2003/
07/27/magazine/the-secret-of-the-black-
paintings.html
3. Lubow, "The Secret," https://www.nytimes.com/2003/
07/27/magazine/the-secret-of-the-black-
paintings.html
4. Lubow, "The Secret," https://www.nytimes.com/2003/
07/27/magazine/the-secret-of-the-black-
paintings.html
Chapter 5 | 193
 5
in their standing. And while it might seem a bit like the museum
curators are playing a little more freely with the facts than one
would expect, this is not an uncommon stance in museum culture.
There are many famous pieces of art that are seen by contemporary
viewers in ways that were never meant by the artist.
Rembrandt’s The Nightwatch was neither called “The Nightwatch”
nor was it a night scene when the artist first completed it, but years
of grime darkened the painting and the scene became recognized as
a night view of military maneuvers. When it was suggested that the
piece be cleaned (which it finally was in 2019), many suggested it be
left as it was as the darkened state was how it was recognized.
For some art is not firmly rooted in the realm of facts and truth, but
rather in aesthetics and perceptions.
But returning to the Black Paintings. Are these the cleverest
forgeries ever? Or are they really Goya’s work? Lots of people say
they know one way or the other, but what stands is that they are
exceptional paintings that have influenced the path of modern art.

Audio recording of German Romanticism segment:

One or more interactive elements has been excluded

from this version of the text. You can view them online
here: https://openeducationalberta.ca/
19thcenturyart/?p=234#audio-234-8

5. Lubow, "The Secret," https://www.nytimes.com/2003/

07/27/magazine/the-secret-of-the-black-
paintings.html
194 | Chapter 5
German Romanticism

Compared to English Romanticism, German

Romanticism developed relatively late, and, in the early
years, coincided with Weimar Classicism (1772–1805). In
contrast to the seriousness of English Romanticism, the
German variety of Romanticism notably valued wit,
humor, and beauty.

Romanticism was also inspired by the German Sturm

und Drang movement (Storm and Stress), which prized
intuition and emotion over Enlightenment rationalism.
This proto-romantic movement was centered on
literature and music, but also influenced the visual arts.
The movement emphasized individual subjectivity.
Extremes of emotion were given free expression in
reaction to the perceived constraints of rationalism
imposed by the Enlightenment and associated aesthetic
movements.

Sturm und Drang in the visual arts can be witnessed

in paintings of storms and shipwrecks showing the
terror and irrational destruction wrought by nature.
These pre-romantic works were fashionable in Germany
from the 1760s on through the 1780s, illustrating a public
audience for emotionally charged artwork. Additionally,
disturbing visions and portrayals of nightmares were
gaining an audience in Germany as evidenced by
Goethe’s possession and admiration of paintings by
Fuseli, which were said to be capable of “giving the
viewer a good fright.”

Chapter 5 | 195
 The early German Romantics strove to create a new
synthesis of art, philosophy, and science, largely by
viewing the Middle Ages as a simpler period of
integrated culture, however, the German romantics
became aware of the tenuousness of the cultural unity
they sought. Late-stage German Romanticism
emphasized the tension between the daily world and the
irrational and supernatural projections of creative
genius. Key painters in the German Romantic tradition
include Joseph Anton Koch, Adrian Ludwig Richter, Otto
Reinhold Jacobi, and Philipp Otto Runge among others.

Excerpted and Adapted from: Curation and

Revision. Provided by: Boundless.com.
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-
arthistory/chapter/neoclassicism-and-romanticism/
License: CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike

196 | Chapter 5
Philipp Otto
Runge

Philipp Otto Runge, The Hülsenbeck Children, oil on canvas,

1805-06

Philipp Otto Runge was of a mystical, deeply Christian

turn of mind, and in his artistic work he tried to express
notions of the harmony of the universe through
symbolism of colour, form, and numbers. He considered

Chapter 5 | 197
 blue, yellow, and red to be symbolic of the Christian
trinity and equated blue with God and the night, red
with morning, evening, and Jesus, and yellow with the
Holy Spirit.

As with some other

romantic artists, Runge
was interested
in Gesamtkunstwerk, or
total art work, which was
an attempt to fuse all
forms of art. He planned
such a work surrounding
a series of
four paintings called The
Times of the Day,
designed to be seen in a
Philipp Otto Runge, Der Morgen
(Morning), oil on canvas, 1808 special building, and
viewed to the
accompaniment of music and his own poetry. The four
paintings were to be installed in a Gothic chapel
accompanied by music and poetry, which Runge hoped
6
would be a nucleus for a new religion.

In 1803 Runge had large-format engravings made of

6. Robert Hughes,. Nothing if Not Critical : Selected Essays

on Art and Artists, (New York: A.A. Knopf) 114.; German
Masters of the Nineteenth Century: Paintings and
Drawings from the Federal Republic of Germany, (New
York: Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1981) 190.
198 | Chapter 5
the drawings of the Times of the Day series that became
commercially successful and a set of which he
presented to his friend, the writer Johann Wolfgang von
Goethe. He painted two versions of Morning but the
others did not advance beyond drawings, due to Runge’s
death. Morning was the start of a new type of landscape,
one of religion and emotion. It is also considered to be
his greatest work.

Runge’s interest in color was the natural result of his

work as a painter and of having an enquiring mind.
Among his accepted tenets was that “as is known, there
are only three colors, yellow, red, and blue” (said in a
letter to Goethe in 1806). His goal was to establish the
complete world of colors resulting from mixture of the
three, among themselves and together with white and
black. In the same lengthy letter, Runge discussed in
some detail his views on color order and included a
sketch of a mixture circle, with the three primary colors
forming an equilateral triangle and, together with their
pair-wise mixtures, a hexagon.

Chapter 5 | 199
 He arrived at the
concept of the color
sphere sometime in 1807,
as indicated in his letter
to Goethe in November of
that year, by expanding
the hue circle into a
sphere, with white and
black forming the two
opposing poles. A color
mixture solid of a double- Philipp Otto Runge, Farbenkugel
or Colour Sphere, 1810
triangular pyramid had
been proposed by Tobias
Mayer in 1758, a fact known to Runge. His expansion of
that solid into a sphere appears to have had an idealistic
basis rather than one of logical necessity. With his disk
color mixture experiments of 1807, he hoped to provide
scientific support for the sphere form. Encouraged by
Goethe and other friends, he wrote in 1808 a manuscript
describing the color sphere, published in Hamburg early
in 1810. In addition to a description of the color sphere,
it contains an illustrated essay on rules of color
harmony and one on color in nature written by Runge’s
friend Henrik Steffens. An included hand-colored plate
shows two different views of the surface of the sphere
as well as horizontal and vertical slices showing the
organization of its interior.

Runge’s premature death limited the impact of this

work. Goethe, who had read the manuscript before
publication, mentioned it in his Farbenlehre of 1810 as
“successfully concluding this kind of effort.” It was soon

200 | Chapter 5
overshadowed by Michel Eugène Chevreul’s
hemispherical system of 1839. A spherical color order
system was patented in 1900 by Albert Henry Munsell,
soon replaced with an irregular form of the solid.

Excerpted and adapted from: Wikipedia.com,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philipp_Otto_Runge

Audio Recording of The Nazarene Movement segment:

One or more interactive elements has been

excluded from this version of the text. You
can view them online here:
https://openeducationalberta.ca/
19thcenturyart/?p=234#audio-234-9

The Nazarene
Movement
The epithet Nazarene was adopted by a group of early
19th-century German Romantic painters who aimed to
revive spirituality in art. The name Nazarene came from

Chapter 5 | 201
 a term of derision used against them for their
affectation of a biblical manner of clothing and hair
style, but those in the group didn’t really mind.

In 1809, six students at the Vienna Academy formed

an artistic cooperative in Vienna called the Brotherhood
of St. Luke or Lukasbund, following a common name for
medieval guilds of painters. In 1810 four of them, Johann
Friedrich Overbeck, Franz Pforr, Ludwig Vogel and
Johann Konrad Hottinger moved to Rome, where they
occupied the abandoned monastery of San Isidoro. The
were later joined by other German-speaking artists with
the same interests.

The principal motivation of the Nazarenes was a

reaction against Neoclassicism and the routine art
education of the academy system. They hoped to return
to art which embodied spiritual values, and sought
inspiration in artists of the late Middle Ages and
early Renaissance, rejecting what they saw as the
superficial virtuosity of later art.

In Rome the group lived a semi-monastic existence, as

a way of re-creating the nature of the medieval artist’s
workshop. Religious subjects dominated their output,
and two major commissions allowed them to attempt a
revival of the medieval art of fresco painting. Two fresco
series were completed in Rome for the Casa Bartholdy
and the Casino Massimo, and gained international
attention for the work of the “Nazarenes”. However, by
1830 all except Overbeck had returned to Germany and
the group had disbanded. Many Nazarenes became
influential teachers in German art academies.

202 | Chapter 5
 Excerpted and adapted from: Wikipedia.com,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazarene_movement

Johann Friedrich Overbeck

While as a young artist Johan Friedrich Overbeck

clearly accrued some of the polished technical aspects
of the neoclassic painters he trained under at the
Academy in Vienna, he was alienated by lack of religious
spirituality in the themes chosen by his masters.
Overbeck wrote to a friend that he had fallen among a
vulgar set, that every noble thought was suppressed
within the academy and that losing all faith in humanity,
he had turned inward to his faith for inspiration.

In Overbeck’s view, the nature of earlier European art

had been corrupted throughout contemporary Europe,
starting centuries before the French Revolution, and the
process of discarding its Christian orientation was
proceeding further now. He sought to express Christian
art before the corrupting influence of the late
Renaissance, casting aside his contemporary influences,
and taking as a guide early Italian Renaissance painters,
up to and including Raphael. Together with other
disaffected young artists at the academy he started a
group named the Guild of St Luke, dedicated to
exploring his alternative vision for art. After four years,
the differences between his group and others in the
academy had grown so irreconcilable, that Overbeck
(and his followers) were expelled from his own guild.

Chapter 5 | 203
 He then left Germany
for Rome, where he
arrived in 1810, carrying
his half-finished canvas of
Christ’s Entry into
Jerusalem (which was
destroyed much later
Johann Friedrich Overbeck, during Allied bombing
Christ’s Entry into Jerusalem,
reproduction of destroyed during World War II).
painting, 1824 Rome became, for fifty-
nine years, the centre of
his labor. He was joined by a company of like-minded
artists who jointly housed in the old Franciscan convent
of San Isidoro, and became known among friends and
enemies by the descriptive epithet of Nazarenes. Their
precept was hard and honest work and holy living; they
eschewed the antique as pagan, the Renaissance as
false, and built up a severe revival on simple nature and
on the serious art of artist who came just before the
Renaissance. The characteristics of the style thus
educed were nobility of idea, precision and even
hardness of outline, scholastic composition, with the
addition of light, shade and colour, not for allurement,
but chiefly for perspicuity and completion of motive.
Overbeck in 1813 joined the Roman Catholic Church, and
thereby he believed that his art received Christian
baptism.
Excerpted and adapted from: Wikipedia.com,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Johann_Friedrich_Overbeck

204 | Chapter 5
Johann Friedrich Overbeck, Portrait of
Franz Pforr, oil on canvas, 1810

Chapter 5 | 205
 Overbeck painted his
idealized portrait of Franz
Pforr in Rome in 1810. It is
one of the most important
Nazarene works and was
intended to show his friend
in a state of complete
happiness. Overbeck created
this work in response to a
dream of Pforr’s, in which
the latter saw him self as a
history painter in a room
lined with old masters,
entranced by the presence of
a beautiful woman. In
Overbeck’s painting Pforr,
finely dressed in old
German costume, sits in the
arch of a Gothic window. Audio recording of
Like a Madonna, his “wife” Caspar David Friedrich
is reading in the Bible as she segment:
kneels, holding her
handwork. The back ground
of an old German town and One or more
an Italian coast line evokes
the Nazarene ideal of the
inseparable bond uniting
German and Italian art.7

7. Google Arts & Culture,

https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/
portrait-of-the-painter-franz-pforr-friedrich-overbeck
/PwHOJJbUWjvFVw?hl=en, accessed October 3, 2020
206 | Chapter 5
 interactive elements has been excluded
from this version of the text. You can view them
online here: https://openeducationalberta.ca/
19thcenturyart/?p=234#audio-234-10

Caspar David
Friedrich

Chapter 5 | 207
 Caspar David Friedrich, Wandered Above the Sea of Fog, oil on
canvas, 1818

It seems strange now but for a while the art world

turned its back on the German painter Caspar David
Friedrich. His art didn’t look like that of the famous
artists from France who were being heralded as the
Fathers of Modern Art – the Impressionists. Their work

208 | Chapter 5
 was brushy, captured the impression of a moment, and
ran riot with colour. Friedrich’s work in comparison was
considered too meticulous, too precise, too finely
detailed to warrant serious critical attention in the
decades that followed. But in reality, while the
Impressionist’s fame had an impact on the popularity of
Friedrich’s work in the mid-twentieth century it is most
likely that being labelled the ideological harbinger of
Nazi philosophy is the thing that created a dramatic de-
8
popularization of his work. He had the misfortune, in
the 1930s and 1940s, to have his art appropriated by the
Third Reich and Hitler’s regime and to be declared as
one of Hitler’s favorite artists. What this does to the
popularity of an artist’s work, even after the death of the
artist, is something akin to taking a rock and dropping it
off a cliff.

8. Alina Cohen, "Unraveling the Mysteries behind Caspar

David Friedrich’s “Wanderer”," Artsy.net, August 6, 2018,
https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-
unraveling-mysteries-caspar-david-friedrichs-wanderer
Chapter 5 | 209
 Caspar David Friedrich, Monk by the Sea, oil on canvas, 1810

Over the last few decades though the tide of opinion

has turned, after Friedrich was thrust back into the art
historical lime light by a fanciful book, published in the
1970s, that traced the lineage of art influence from the
9
Romantics to the New York Abstract Expressionists.
Now it is generally accepted that both in his technical
brilliance and theoretically in his views of what the
purpose of art should be, Friedrich was as radical as
they come. But if proof were ever needed again of his
credentials as one of the great forerunners of modern
art, then The Monk by the Sea would have to be it.

9. Cohen, "Unraveling," https://www.artsy.net/article/

artsy-editorial-unraveling-mysteries-caspar-david-
friedrichs-wanderer
210 | Chapter 5
 Exhibited in the Academy in Berlin in 1810 along with
its companion piece Abbey in the Oak Forest, it depicts a
monk standing on the shore looking out to sea. The
location has been identified as Rügen, an island off the
north-east coast of Germany, a site he frequently
painted.

The monk is positioned a little over a third of the way

into the painting from the left, to a ratio of around 1:1.6.
The same ratio can be found frequently in Western art
and is known variously as the golden ratio, rule or
section. Aside from this nod to tradition however there
is little else about this painting that can be described as
conventional.

Caspar David Friedrich, The Abbey in the Oakwood, oil on

canvas, 1810

The horizon line is unusually low and stretches

uninterrupted from one end of the canvas to the other.

Chapter 5 | 211
 The dark blue sea is flecked with white suggesting the
threat of a storm. Above it in that turbulent middle
section blue-grey clouds gather giving way in the
highest part to a clearer, calmer blue. The transition
from one to the other is achieved subtly through a
technique called scumbling in which one colour is
applied in thin layers on top of another to create an ill-
defined, hazy effect.

The composition could not be further from typical

German landscape paintings of the time. These
generally followed the principles of a style imported
from England known as the picturesque which tended
to employ well-established perspectival techniques
designed to draw the viewer into the picture; devices
such as trees situated in the foreground or rivers
winding their course, snake- like, into the distance.
Friedrich however deliberately shunned such tricks.
Such willfully unconventional decisions in a painting of
this size provoked consternation among contemporary
viewers, as his friend Heinrich von Kleist famously
wrote: “Since it has, in its uniformity and boundlessness,
no foreground but the frame, it is as if one’s eyelids had
been cut off.”

There is some debate as to who that strange figure,

curved like a question mark, actually is. Some think it
Friedrich himself, others the poet and theologian
Gotthard Ludwig Kosegarten who served as a pastor on
Rügen and was known to give sermons on the shore.
Kosegarten’s writings certainly influenced the painting.
Von Kleist, for example, refers to its “Kosegarten effect”.

212 | Chapter 5
According to this pastor-poet nature, like the Bible, is a
book through which God reveals Himself.

Similarly, stripping it of any literal Christian

symbolism, Friedrich instead concentrates on the power
of the natural climate and so charges the landscape with
a divine authority, one which seems to all but subsume
the figure of the monk. With nothing but land, sea and
sky to measure him by, his physical presence is
rendered fragile and hauntingly ambiguous.

Originally the figure was looking to the right. His feet

still point in that direction. Friedrich altered this at
some point, having him look out to sea. The technique of
positioning a figure with their back towards the viewer
is often found in Friedrich’s art; the German word for it
is the rückenfigur.

Monk by the Sea, the first instance of it in his work, is

somewhat atypical in that the monk being so small and
situated so low on the horizon does not ‘oversee’ the
landscape the way Friedrich’s ruckënfiguren generally
do, like in his Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog.

The rückenfigur technique is much more complex and

intellectually challenging than those found in the
picturesque. Acting as a visual cue, the figure draws us
into the painting, prompting us, challenging us even, to
follow its example and simply look. And so we do. Yet its
presence also obscures our line of vision and rather
than enhancing the view in the end disrupts it. In this
sense, the ruckënfigur while reminding us of the infinite
beauty of the world also points to our inability to

Chapter 5 | 213
 experience it fully, a contradiction that we often find
expressed in German Romantic art and literature.

Napoleon’s army was occupying Prussia when the

painting was completed and art historians have naturally
looked to read the painting and its companion, which
depicts of a funeral procession in a ruined abbey, as a
comment on the French occupation. It would have been
dangerous to be openly critical of Napoleon’s forces so
the paintings’ political messages are subtly coded.

Both paintings – Monk by the Sea and Abbey in the

Oakwood – were purchased by the young Crown Prince,
Frederick William, whose mother, Queen Louise, had
died a few months earlier at the age of 34. An extremely
popular figure, she had pleaded with Napoleon after his
victory to treat the Prussian people fairly. Her death
surely would have been fresh in people’s minds when
they saw the paintings, a tragic loss which was very
much associated with the country’s own defeat to the
French.

The presence of death is certainly felt in The Monk by

the Sea, though in the monk’s resolute figure we also
find a source of spiritual strength, defiance even,
standing, like that gothic abbey and those German oaks
in its partner piece, as much perhaps a symbol of the
resolve of the nation against the foreign military rule, as
of the individual faced with his mortality.

Like the British painter John Constable, Friedrich

drew on the natural world around him, often returning
to the same area again and again. Unlike the English
painter’s more scientific or naturalist approach, though,

214 | Chapter 5
 Friedrich condensed the image so as to communicate an
exact emotion. As he put it, “a painter should paint not
only what he sees before him, but also what he sees
within himself.” It is this inward reaching project, using
color and form to reveal emotional truths, that singles
him out as one of the greatest and most innovative
painters of his age: a true Romantic.

Adapted and excerpted from: Ben Pollitt, “Caspar

David Friedrich, Monk by the Sea,” in Smarthistory,
August 9, 2015, https://smarthistory.org/friedrich-
monk-by-the-sea/.
All Smarthistory content is available for free
at www.smarthistory.org
CC: BY-NC-SA

Consider the following:

• Goya wrote that the artist’s “…only purpose is to

banish harmful, vulgar beliefs and to perpetuate…the
solid testimony of truth.” Do you feel this is true or
do you feel there are other goals artists should have?
Why do you feel that way?
• Ruckënfigur is a landscape compositional device
and the text explains how it obscures while
simultaneously enhancing the scene. Looking at
Friedrich’s use of ruckënfigur as well as other image

Chapter 5 | 215
 you find that have this device, how does it make you
feel? Do you feel invited into the piece? Why do you
appreciate it (if you appreciate it) in some images, but
don’t appreciate (if you don’t appreciate it) in others?

19th Century European Art History by Megan Bylsma is licensed under a Creative
Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except
where otherwise noted.

216 | Chapter 5
6. Chapter 6 - French Realism
France
MEGAN BYLSMA

By the end of this chapter you will be able to:

• Explain the concept of Realism

• List Realism’s principle schools and artists
(Barbizon, Daumier, Courbet, Bonheur,
Millet, etc.)
• Identify the work of Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot
• Discuss Landscape painting in France in the
mid-1800s
• Identify the works and philosophy of Honoré
Daumier
• Identify the works of Gustave Courbet

Audio recording of chapter opening:

One or more interactive elements has been excluded

from this version of the text. You can view them online
here: https://openeducationalberta.ca/
19thcenturyart/?p=251#audio-251-1

Chapter 6 | 217
Audio recording of the full chapter can be found here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/
1SrFaITPpraZrRTnVWNtJo2ObOT5g5DBt/view?usp=sharing

Remember how before Disney’s remake of The Lion King came out
in 2019, so many people were saying it was a ‘live action’ remake?
It was a pretty common statement and because of the realism in
the movie trailers and the film stills, a lot of people didn’t question
the phrase. But they should have, because was The Lion King filmed
with real lions and hyenas and warthogs? Of course not. Therefore,
it really wasn’t a ‘live action’ film – it was a film that was meant to
look like real animals created through a variety of computer, CGI,
and Artificial Intelligence animation. No live animals were used in
the film, which means that while it was meant to look like it was
real (although it may have spent more time in the Uncanny Valley
than at Pride Rock in that regard) it wasn’t reality. It, like its 1994
traditionally animated predecessor, was simply the creation of the
filmmakers (with a little extra help from AI this time around).
Art History also had its
troubles with reality falsely so
called. Consider this painting
by Eugene Delacroix – Women
of Algiers in Their
Apartment from 1834:
Delacroix told everyone who
would listen when they came to
see it at the 1834 Paris Salon Eugene Delacroix, Women of Algiers in
that it was a depiction of Their Apartment, oil on canvas, 1834
reality; that he had gone into a
harem during his trip to Algeria and had painted this based on the
sketches he had created while there. The Salon attendees were
enthralled by this vision of the real experiences of those in the
Orient and his painting was a real favorite. A painter who would later

218 | Chapter 6
 turn the art of painting on its head, Paul Cezanne, was intoxicated
by the intense colours, while other viewers were enraptured by the
1
exotic theme and intimate scene. To have all their Orientalising
desires fulfilled and proven true by this documentation of a harem
was like finding treasure. The image of non-European women –
sexually passive, indolent, un-industriously passing the time rather
than working or reading or otherwise filling their day with activity
– is how those in the Occident (Europe) viewed those in the Orient
(Asia, India and Africa) and to have it laid out in such a beautiful
composition was highly satisfying. It was like being told that French
culture and society was the positive to the North African negative.
And everyone likes it when their secret suspicions of superiority
seem to proven to be correct. Obviously, it could be argued, this
showed reality because it confirmed their biases.
However, just like The Lion King from 2019 wasn’t actually real,
even though people said it was and it looked like it was, so
Delacroix’s painting isn’t Realism, even though people might say it is
and it looks like it might be. First, there is the issue with Delacroix’s
story. He said he was given permission to enter an Algerian man’s
private harem. The term ‘harem,’ although highly sexualized and
used to express both sexuality and a kind of ownership-like
dominance in Western culture, was in reality quite simply a word
to denote a place set aside for the women of an Islamic household.
Usually only women were in that part of the house, and if men were
allowed it would have only been male members of that household. In
Islamic architecture the entry-ways and windows were frequently

1. Michael Prodger, "Damnation, Dante and Decadence:

Why Eugene Delacroix is Making a Hero's Return," The
Guardian, 5 February 2016,
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/
feb/05/damned-souls-decadence-eugene-delacroix-
hero.
Chapter 6 | 219
designed to maximize light and air-flow but block out prying eyes,
as the act of looking could be considered intrusive, ill-advised, or
even malicious. It would have been considered quite improper for
a man, who was not related to the women in Delacroix’s painting,
to see these women in such an intimate setting and state of dress.
Because Islamic culture has such strongly held beliefs about seeing
and being seen it casts doubt on Delacroix’s story that he was given
permission by the man of the house to enter the women’s quarters
to sketch them. It is unlikely that his story is entirely true, but
his fellow Salon-goers back in Paris didn’t know that and saw his
painting as a reality.
Which brings us to the question of what is Realism? Listening to
Delacroix’s story, one might be tempted to say his painting of these
Algerian women is Realism. It looks like its true and the artist said
it was real. And one might be tempted to say that The Lion King is
Realism too. But both of those temptations would lead you down the
wrong path.
Realism, with a capital ‘R’, is something very specific. Just like
Romanticism with a capital ‘R’ is something very specific. A painting
that is a Realist painting might not look ‘real’ to the photo-trained
eyes of a 21st century viewer – it might look like a painting and
therefore be labelled something else. (And, while we’re on the topic
– a painting that looks like it could be a photograph might seem to
be something that could be called Realism (because it looks ‘real’)
but that’s not capital-‘R’-Realism; that’s just a painting aesthetic
that recreates what a camera can do.) But Realism wasn’t about
recreated reality on a canvas with the only goal for things to look
like a replica of the original objects. Realism-with-a-capital-‘R’ was
about capturing reality of existence. Realism paintings look like
paintings, but they don’t Romanticize their subject – making them
more dramatic and emotionally impactful than they really are.
Realism looked to faithfully reproduce the subject as a piece of a
larger social picture.
Audio recording of Realism segment (con’t):

220 | Chapter 6
 One or more interactive elements has been excluded
from this version of the text. You can view them online
here: https://openeducationalberta.ca/
19thcenturyart/?p=251#audio-251-2

Whereas Romanticism was about emotion, Realism was about

logic. Consider the sitcom The Big Bang Theory – two characters,
for much of the show’s run, live in the same apartment. One is
logical and makes decisions based on eliminating as much emotion
as possible. The other is emotional and makes decisions based less
on logic and more on how he feels about things. Sheldon, the logical
one, tends to react to Leonard, the emotional one, and in many ways
Leonard serves as the impetus for Sheldon’s growth and interaction
with new ideas or concepts beyond his narrower focus of interest.
In many ways this could be a crude illustration of the relationship
between Romanticism and Realism. Whereas Romanticism was an
emotional reaction to the non-reality based logic and duty of the
Neo-Classical (not unlike Leonard’s emotional response to his
analytical mother), once Romanticism gained momentum the
emotional indulgence of the genre was seen as too decadent or
self-serving for some artists. In reaction to the emotional play of
Romanticism that seemed to increasingly turn inward, the Realists
rejected the inward gaze and made a declaration to depict the
reality of life without the dynamic and manipulative use of emotion.

Chapter 6 | 221
The Realists believed it was their duty to mirror the world back to
the viewer and to not allow the viewer to hide in an exotic and
escapist fantasy. The Realists were not interested in diving into
metaphors of the Classical Era to express grandiose philosophies
of noble simplicity and calm grandeur. Nor were they interested
in theatrics and self-satisfaction. The Realists wanted viewers to
be presented with a social reality that they could not ignore. They
wanted to smack the public in the face with the plight and existence
of others. However, these two art movements were roommates,
so to speak, in the same house at the same time, and were the
opposites needed to balance the whole; they occurred at the same
time in France and reacted to each other in the Salons. It could
be argued that Leonard, from The Big Bang Theory, could have
functioned relatively fine and would have lived a fairly full and
normal life without Sheldon; however, the same might not be so
successfully argued regarding Sheldon in the absence of Leonard.
The aggravation of Leonard’s perpetually emotional existence
aggravated Sheldon enough to create impetus for change, however
reluctantly, especially in the beginning. Thus it was with
Romanticism and Realism – Romanticism existed before Realism
and could have continued to flourish without Realism, but Realism
was aggravated into development by the emotional and dramatic
existence of Romanticism, eventually eclipsing it’s emotional
counterpart in popularity and evolution.

There is a genre of painting that can sometimes be mistaken

for Realism, mostly because its artists always say their work show
reality but really its not Realism because then it would be have

222 | Chapter 6
been rejected from the very institution that created it because it
believed the present moment was not heroic enough to demand
valued attention. The genre is Academic Painting and it’s a genre
that is rarely talked about too in depth in art history texts. At least,
if it is talked about it, they don’t mention its as Academic
because…Academic painting and its privileged artists just isn’t
where it’s at these days. Art History tends to tell the story of the
spunky, if not at least slightly dysfunctional, underdogs of art. But
in telling these stories it often makes them big and showy and
attention grabbing by virtue of their conflict-driven storylines.
Academic Art has less conflict, at least on the surface. The Academic
artists’ fight weren’t against mainstream art culture, so their
conflicts seem petty and individualistic by comparison. And the
artists of the Academy didn’t seem to function on the outskirts
of societal norm so at first glance they were not plagued by the
same foibles as the anti-establishment artists of the day. I say at
first glance, because almost anyone, upon closer inspection, shows
sign of dysfunction and drama. But don’t let the present-day silence
around the Academic art of the 1800s fool you – they were the big
dogs of their time.
An Academic painter who would swear he only painted historical
reality – in fact he said accuracy was of the highest importance to
him – was Paul Delaroche. Closer scrutiny of Delaroche shows two
things: fact maybe wasn’t as important to him as he may have stated
and he had his own secrets.
Let’s start with the secrets (that probably weren’t so secret). “Paul
Delaroche” was not the name Delaroche was born with. His original
name was Hippolyte De La Roche. If you have recently read or
watched Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream or if you are up
on your Greek mythology you may recognize the name Hippolyte,
also called Hippolyta. She features in Greek myth as the Queen
of the Amazons, and also made her way to the big screen in 2017
in Wonder Woman. Hippolyte, while a female name in Greek myth
and in the DC Comics universe, was an acceptable male name in
France at this time and Hippolyte De La Roche shared the moniker,

Chapter 6 | 223
at least partially, with his father. However, Hippolyte De La Roche
didn’t seem to like it all that much and changed his name to the
diminutive ‘Paul’. He also changed the arrangement of his last name
from De La Roche to Delaroche. Which may or may not have been a
good idea, because de la roche means ‘The Rock’ in French.
Paul “The Rock” Delaroche, became an Academic painter fairly early
in his artistic career, exhibiting his historical paintings in the yearly
Salon and eventually scoring a coveted life-time membership in the
Academy. He felt that accuracy was his highest calling and prided
himself on researching details of fashion and environment for his
paintings. However, the critical eye of history has come to see that
Delaroche took artistic liberties in ways that have no excuse if the
artist is sworn to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
truth, so help them.
Audio recording of Delaroche segment (con’t):

One or more interactive elements has been excluded

from this version of the text. You can view them online
here: https://openeducationalberta.ca/
19thcenturyart/?p=251#audio-251-3

One of his most cited

examples of artistic liberty
winning out over honest
representation is in his
painting, The Execution of Lady
Jane Grey. Decisions were made
in this painting that created a
more dramatic feeling, and
here, as in many of his other
Paul Delaroche, The Execution of Lady works, he was guilty of basing
Jane Grey, oil on canvas, 1834
his paintings on superstitions

224 | Chapter 6
and urban legends, rather than careful research into the truth. In
this execution scene a young, blindfolded woman in a kind of
dungeon interior space and on a platform is being guided to an
execution block. It is important to know that this is a painting
depicting the beheading of Lady Jane Grey. But what is the story
really? We may know Lady Grey as a flavour variation of Earl Grey
tea, but Lady Grey was actually a real person. She was a English
noblewoman and was put to death for treason in the 1500s. She is
also known as the Nine Day Queen of England. She was the cousin
of the fifteen year old king of England, King Edward VI. As the
young king lay dying, he declared Lady Jane Grey his successor and
new Queen of England because he knew his half-sisters Mary and
Elizabeth were scheming for the throne. One, a Roman Catholic,
wanted the throne to take the now Protestant country back for
the Catholic faith and both were illegitimate children of Edward
VI’s father. Edward knew that Lady Jane Grey, a year older than
himself, was considered to be one of the best educated women in
the country, was a devoted Protestant, and was a woman who lead
his country in a way he would appreciate. Lady Grey was declared
de facto queen. But the sisters kept their scheming up and Mary
used popular opinion to help her secure her desires. With the
popular voice seeming to side with Mary, the Council decided to
crown Mary and arrested Jane for treason. First her husband, and
then she was executed. She was barely 17.
Looking at the painting, we might ask, “Where’s the lie?” In this
case, as is often the way, its the details that reveal the truth of
things. While the French traditionally used raised platforms to stage
executions of noblepersons, especially during and after the French
Revolution, the British did not – they used the bare grass of the
Tower Green outside the Tower of London. As well, the French
would perform beheadings in indoor spaces like dungeons, but the
British tended to do it outside and in the open (obviously, as they
preferred that specific grassy space for executions). However, there
may be some truth to the depiction of Lady Jane Grey groping with
her hand for the block and being guided by another – this event is

Chapter 6 | 225
said to have occurred after she blindfolded herself and then cried
out in a panic unable to find the block. However, even with its
truthful elements this historical painting is not a depiction of reality.
It is the retelling of a historical story. Realism never shows history
as it was believed to have happen; Realism depicted the present
moment as it was observed to be.

The Royal Academy supported the age-old belief that

art should be instructive, morally uplifting, refined,
inspired by the classical tradition, a good reflection of
the national culture, and, above all, about beauty.

But trying to keep young nineteenth-century artists’

eyes on the past became an issue!

The world was changing rapidly and some artists

wanted their work to be about their contemporary
environment—about themselves and their own
perceptions of life. In short, they believed that the
modern era deserved to have a modern art.

The Modern Era begins with the Industrial Revolution

in the late eighteenth century. Clothing, food, heat, light
and sanitation are a few of the basic areas that
“modernized” the nineteenth century. Transportation
was faster, getting things done got easier, shopping in
the new department stores became an adventure, and
people developed a sense of “leisure time”—thus the
entertainment businesses grew.

In Paris, the city was transformed from a medieval

warren of streets to a grand urban center with wide
boulevards, parks, shopping districts and multi-class
dwellings (so that the division of class might be from

226 | Chapter 6
 floor to floor—the rich on the lower floors and the poor
on the upper floors in one building—instead by
neighborhood).

Therefore, modern life was about social mixing, social

mobility, frequent journeys from the city to the country
and back, and a generally faster pace which has
accelerated ever since.

How could paintings and sculptures about classical

gods and biblical stories relate to a population
enchanted with this progress?

In the middle of the nineteenth century, the young

artists decided that it couldn’t and shouldn’t. In 1863 the
poet and art critic Charles Baudelaire published an
essay entitled “The Painter of Modern Life,” which
declared that the artist must be of his/her own time.

Excerpted and adapted from: Dr. Beth Gersh-Nesic, “A

beginner’s guide to Realism,” in Smarthistory, August 9,
2015, https://smarthistory.org/a-beginners-guide-to-
realism/.
All Smarthistory content is available for free
at www.smarthistory.org
CC: BY-NC-SA

By the early 1800s, the Academy was fully re-established as the

center of the mainstream art world in France. However, they began
to recognize that their obsessive focus on Neo-Classicism to the
exclusion of all new art genres was starting to damage their
reputation as the purveyors and trainers of the best and most
innovative artists and so they began to shake things up a bit. But
keep in mind they were an institution built on now-hallowed

Chapter 6 | 227
traditions, so their shake up was subtle. Basically, landscape
painting was moved up the hierarchy and a special category in the
yearly art show was created specifically for landscape pieces. This
might have been a radical move, if it wasn’t for the fact that the
Academy had done this to shore up interest in the Neo-Classical
style. The new category was the paysage historique (historic
landscape) and made landscapes eligible for consideration in
the Prix de Rome awards – awards given to the artist of the best
painting in a genre category in the show. The prize came, complete
with a gold medal, with a paid stay in Rome at the French Academy
there. As the most prestigious award the Academy could give out,
the creation of the paysage historique category created a new
competition field and young artists flocked to the Louvre to look at
the Dutch and Flemish landscapes (the Dutch and Flemish had been
into landscape centuries before the Parisian art scene gave them
any serious thought) and to learn about this previously undervalued
genre of painting. It also meant that viewers flocked to the Salon
to view the newly created landscapes. By 1835 landscape paintings
made up over a quarter of the art displayed at the Salon. Suddenly
landscapes were cool and everybody was talking about them.
Historical Landscapes as an Academy genre paved the way for
interesting developments in the art world. As landscape paintings
took the Salon walls by storm (pun intended), the focus on including
historical elements remained necessary. But as artists began to
become more and more skilled at rendering the landscape in
pleasing ways, and became more and more influenced by the Dutch,
Flemish, and British landscape artists, the paysage historique began
to slowly give way to another kind of landscape – a landscape of
the present without much, or any, historical significance. Neo-
Classicism may have been the the clinging goal for the Academy to
change its mind about landscape painting, but it may have been a
final nail in the coffin of the aging art style.
Audio recording of Corot part 1 segment:

228 | Chapter 6
 One or more interactive elements has been excluded
from this version of the text. You can view them online
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19thcenturyart/?p=251#audio-251-4

Jean-Baptiste-Camille
Corot
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot was a quiet young man who didn’t
seem to excel at much of anything. Apprenticed to a draper after his
schooling came to an end, he was bored and hated the business end
of the job. But to please his father he continued in the job until he
was ready to seek permission to pursue art as a career. Receiving
that permission and a small yearly allowance, the artist, now in his
mid-twenties, set up a studio and began to paint landscapes.

During the period when Corot acquired the means to

devote himself to art, landscape painting was on the
upswing and generally divided into two camps:
one―historical landscape by Neoclassicists in Southern
Europe representing idealized views of real and fancied
sites peopled with ancient, mythological, and biblical
figures; and two―realistic landscape, more common in
Northern Europe, which was largely faithful to actual

Chapter 6 | 229
 topography, architecture, and flora, and which often
showed figures of peasants. In both approaches,
landscape artists would typically begin with outdoor
sketching and preliminary painting, with finishing work
done indoors. Highly influential upon French landscape
artists in the early 19th century was the work of
Englishmen John Constable and J. M. W. Turner, who
reinforced the trend in favor of Realism and away from
2
Neoclassicism.

For a short period between 1821 and 1822, Corot

studied with Achille Etna Michallon, a landscape painter
of Corot’s age who was a protégé of the painter Jacques-
Louis David and who was already a well-respected
teacher. Michallon had a great influence on Corot’s
career. Corot’s drawing lessons included tracing
lithographs, copying three-dimensional forms, and
making landscape sketches and paintings outdoors,
especially in the forests of Fontainebleau, the seaports
along Normandy, and the villages west of Paris such as
3
Ville-d’Avray (where his parents had a country house).
Michallon also exposed him to the principles of the
French Neoclassic tradition, as espoused in the famous
treatise of theorist Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes, and
exemplified in the works of French Neoclassicists
Claude Lorrain and Nicolas Poussin, whose major aim

2. Gary Tinterow, Michael Pantazzi, and Vincent Pomarède,

Corot, (New York: Abrams, 1996), 12.
3. Tinterow, Corot, 35.
230 | Chapter 6
 was the representation of ideal Beauty in nature, linked
with events in ancient times.

Though this school was declining in public popularity,

it still held sway in the Salon, the foremost art exhibition
in France attended by thousands at each event. Corot
later stated, “I made my first landscape from
nature…under the eye of this painter, whose only advice
was to render with the greatest scrupulousness
everything I saw before me. The lesson worked; since
4
then I have always treasured precision.” After
Michallon’s early death in 1822, Corot studied with
Michallon’s teacher, Jean-Victor Bertin, among the best
known Neoclassic landscape painters in France, who
had Corot draw copies of lithographs of botanical
subjects to learn precise organic forms. Though holding
Neoclassicists in the highest regard, Corot did not limit
his training to their tradition of allegory set in imagined
nature. His notebooks reveal precise renderings of tree
trunks, rocks, and plants which show the influence of
Northern realism. Throughout his career, Corot
demonstrated an inclination to apply both traditions in
5
his work, sometimes combining the two.

With his parents’ support, Corot followed the well-

established pattern of French painters who went to Italy
to study the masters of the Italian Renaissance and to
draw the crumbling monuments of Roman antiquity. A

4. Tinterow, Corot, 14
5. Tinterow, Corot, 15
Chapter 6 | 231
 condition by his parents before leaving was that he paint
a self-portrait for them, his first. Corot’s stay in Italy
from 1825 to 1828 was a highly formative and productive
one, during which he completed over 200 drawings and
6
150 paintings. He worked and traveled with several
young French painters also studying abroad who
painted together and socialized at night in the cafes,
critiquing each other and gossiping. Corot learned little
from the Renaissance masters (though later he cited
Leonardo da Vinci as his favorite painter) and spent
most of his time around Rome and in the Italian
7
countryside. The Farnese Gardens with its splendid
views of the ancient ruins was a frequent destination,
8
and he painted it at three different times of the day.
The training was particularly valuable in gaining an
understanding of the challenges of both the mid-range
and panoramic perspective, and in effectively placing
9
man-made structures in a natural setting. He also
learned how to give buildings and rocks the effect of
volume and solidity with proper light and shadow, while
using a smooth and thin technique. Furthermore,
placing suitable figures in a secular setting was a
necessity of good landscape painting, to add human

6. Peter Galassi, Corot in Italy, (New Have: Yale University

Press, 199), 11.
7. Tinterow, Corot, 41
8. Tinterow, Corot, 42
9. Tinterow, Corot, 23-24
232 | Chapter 6
 context and scale, and it was even more important in
allegorical landscapes. To that end Corot worked on
10
figure studies in native garb as well as nude. During
winter, he spent time in a studio but returned to work
11
outside as quickly as weather permitted. The intense
light of Italy posed considerable challenges, “This sun
gives off a light that makes me despair. It makes me feel
12
the utter powerlessness of my palette.” He learned to
master the light and to paint the stones and sky in
subtle and dramatic variation.

During his two return trips to Italy, he visited

Northern Italy, Venice, and again the Roman
countryside. In 1835, Corot created a sensation at the
Salon with his biblical painting Agar dans le
desert (Hagar in the Wilderness), which depicted Hagar,
Sarah’s handmaiden, and the child Ishmael, dying of
thirst in the desert until saved by an angel. The
13
background was likely derived from an Italian study.
This time, Corot’s unanticipated bold, fresh statement of
the Neoclassical ideal succeeded with the critics by
demonstrating “the harmony between the setting and
the passion or suffering that the painter chooses to
14
depict in it.”

10. Tinterow, Corot, 57

11. Tinterow, Corot, 22
12. Tinterow, Corot, 20
13. Tinterow, Corot, 156
14. Tinterow, Corot, 156
Chapter 6 | 233
 Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Hagar in the Wilderness, oil on
canvas, 1835

Historians have divided Corot’s work into periods, but

the points of division are often vague, as he often
completed a picture years after he began it. In his early
period, he painted traditionally and “tight”—with minute
exactness, clear outlines, thin brush work, and with
absolute definition of objects throughout, with a
15
monochromatic underpainting or ébauche. After he
reached his 50th year, his methods changed to focus on

15. Sarah Herring, "Six Paintings by Corot: Methods,

Materials and Sources," National Gallery Technical
Bulletin 3, (2009): 86.
234 | Chapter 6
 breadth of tone and an approach to poetic power
conveyed with thicker application of paint; and about 20
years later, from about 1865 onwards, his manner of
painting became more lyrical, affected with a more
impressionistic touch. In part, this evolution in
expression can be seen as marking the transition from
the plein-air paintings of his youth, shot through with
warm natural light, to the studio-created landscapes of
his late maturity, enveloped in uniform tones of silver. In
his final 10 years he became the “Père (Father) Corot” of
Parisian artistic circles, where he was regarded with
personal affection, and acknowledged as one of the five
or six greatest landscape painters the world had seen,
along with Meindert Hobbema, Claude Lorrain, J.M.W.
Turner and John Constable. In his long and productive
16
life, he painted over 3,000 paintings.

Audio recording of Corot part 2 segment:

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can view them online here:
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19thcenturyart/?p=251#audio-251-5

Though often credited as a precursor of Impressionist

16. Tinterow, Corot, 257

Chapter 6 | 235
 movement art practices, Corot approached his
landscapes more traditionally than is usually believed.
Compared to the Impressionists who came later, Corot’s
palette is restrained, dominated with browns and blacks
(“forbidden colors” among the Impressionists), along
with dark and silvery green. Though appearing at times
to be rapid and spontaneous, usually his strokes were
controlled and careful, and his compositions well-
thought out and generally rendered as simply and
concisely as possible, heightening the poetic effect of
the imagery. As he stated, “I noticed that everything that
was done correctly on the first attempt was more true,
17
and the forms more beautiful.”

Excerpted and adapted from: Wikipedia, (October 6

2020), s.v. “Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Baptiste-
Camille_Corot

Corot was neither a Realist nor a Neo-Classicist. Having trained in

Italy and learned to paint en plein air (in the open air) his landscapes
looked more real than other French landscape artists’ works had.
He was a painter who had a fraught relationship with the Academy
due to his love of the landscape. He is sometimes said to be the
link between Realism and Impressionism but using Corot as the link
between the two is not completely true. He was never a Realist –
one who wanted to capture the heroism of his own time; he just
wanted to paint landscapes. His focus on landscape painting and

17. Vincent Pomaréde, Le ABCdaire de Corot et le Passage

Français, (Paris: Flammarion, 1996), 33
236 | Chapter 6
his generous spirit with his students pushed landscape painting
forward, even as the Academy attempted to hold it back. His later
works, influenced by the camera, by practice, and by the good
sales of a brushier style, were very silver-y and influenced the next
two generations of artists. He used to get into arguments with a
young artist named Claude Monet, who also loved the landscape,
about the colour to prime one’s canvas. Corot had stopped using
the Academy’s traditional dark brownish red grounding and had
begun to paint his canvas a silvery grey before he applied his gentle
colours. Claude Monet swore by the new synthetic pigment zinc
white as a brighter and more effect ground for a colourful painting.
The outcome of this argument came years later, when seeing how
his own canvases quickly faded to the midtones but Monet’s stayed
bright and powerful, he said, “Monet was right.” Of course, as is the
way with rivaling friends, he never told Monet so. Besides, Corot
never wanted to paint brightly coloured paintings, he just wanted to
paint the land.

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Souvenir de Mortefontaine, oil on canvas, 1864

Chapter 6 | 237
Audio recording of Barbizon School segment:

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19thcenturyart/?p=251#audio-251-6

The Barbizon School

Calling something a ‘school’ makes it seem like there was an
institutionalized and codified training program in a single place.
But in the case of the Barbizon School, the word ‘school’ is more
in keeping with a paradigm or ‘school of thought’. Barbizon was
a small town on the edge of the forest and as landscape painting
grew in public popularity and as intermittent plagues broke out in
the cities and because new train tracks made travel around France
easier, people flocked to small towns like Barbizon to enjoy the
landscape. Barbizon is located on the edge of what had previously
been the king’s private hunting forest – Fontainebleau – and its
unique weather made it a place of dense growth and beautiful
scenery. As early as the 1820s artists began to journey to Barbizon
to paint the landscape, some moving there permanently as living
conditions in Paris worsened. Those who became known as the
Barbizon School were most active from around 1830-1870, but saw
the most interaction during the Revolution of 1848 – when they left
Paris for safety, and then during the cholera outbreak in Paris right
after the Revolution of 1848. The artists who frequented Barbizon
became known as artists of the Barbizon School, and this is why
Corot is sometimes lumped in with the artists of the Barbizon

238 | Chapter 6
School. He went there occasionally too and was friends with many
of the artist we’re about to discuss. But keep in mind, this is not
what they would have called themselves. To themselves they were
just a loosely grouped bunch of artists who were interested in
investigating the same thing – the landscape and the reality of
existence.
So what makes a Barbizon landscape different from, say, the
Caspar David Friedrich paintings in the previous chapter?
Barbizon paintings don’t have ruins. They aren’t picturesque
(strictly speaking). They show quiet corners of rustic France. Not
far-flung places in Italy. Or place that look like Italy. Eventually they
would also come to be known for their portrayal of simple people
living simple lives in the simple landscape. But for the most part, the
Barbizon School was all about the landscape.
All landscape all the time.

Chapter 6 | 239
Théodore Rousseau

Théodore Rousseau, Barbizon Landscape, oil on canvas, circa 1850

Théodore Rousseau was the loudest voice for the call to artists to
the outdoors. Some say the forest possessed him. He eventually
purchased property in Barbizon and lived there in the later part of
his life – but at first he just visited. He and his wife moved into the
cottage he purchased in Barbizon and there he lived for most of
the rest of his life between trips to Paris for art sales and shows
and one disastrous trip to the Alps. Rousseau met with many artists
who came to Barbizon and helped them find good painting spots
in the woods, taught them how to paint trees, and had in-depth
discussions with them about the importance of painting the land.
But despite his reputation as a devout landscape painter, he had a
serious run of bad luck later in his life. His wife became severely
mentally ill and required serious care. His father became destitute

240 | Chapter 6
and relied on his son for monetary aid. While he and his wife were
away from home in search of medical treatment for her mental
illness, a young friend of the family who had been staying with them
caused his own death in their cottage. Then, during that trip to the
Alps, Rousseau caught pneumonia and the consequent weakening of
his lungs plagued him the rest of his life. When he returned home
he suffered insomnia and the lack of sleep weakened him. Possibly
in response to being rejected (yet again) from receiving awards for
his work, Rousseau had an undiagnosed but much debated attack
of health and became paralyzed. Although he recovered he then
suffered a relapse later that year and died, leaving his ill wife in the
care of his fellow painter and friend Jean-François Millet.
Melancholy is the over arching theme in his painting, although he
sought to paint the landscape as it was.

Théodore Rousseau, Exit of the Forest of Fontainbleau – Setting Sun, oil on

canvas, circa 1850

All his landscapes were rejected from the Academy until after the
1848 Revolution – but under the monarchy? Nothin’. So he quit

Chapter 6 | 241
trying. The lack of publicity at the Salon actually worked to his
advantage – he became a legend.
Audio recording of Millet segment:

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19thcenturyart/?p=251#audio-251-7

Jean-François Millet

Jean-François Millet is one of the “founders” of the

Barbizon School in rural France. (Although, as a
“founder” he was simply one of the artists who spent
time in Barbizon and was friends with the other artists
there.) Millet is noted for his scenes of peasant farmers
and can be categorized as part of the Realism art
movement.

One of the most well known of Millet’s paintings is The

Gleaners. While Millet was walking the fields around
Barbizon, one theme returned to his pencil and brush
for seven years—gleaning—the centuries-old right of
poor women and children to remove the bits of grain
left in the fields following the harvest. He found the
theme an eternal one, linked to stories from the Old

242 | Chapter 6
Testament. In 1857, he submitted the painting The
Gleaners to the Salon to an unenthusiastic, even hostile,
public.

Jean-François Millet, The Gleaners, oil on canvas, 1857

One of his most controversial, this painting by Millet

depicts gleaners collecting grain in the fields near his
home. The depiction of the realities of the lower class
was considered shocking to the public at the time, even
as Realism gained momentum with many artists.

Excerpted and Adapted from: Curation and Revision.

Provided by: Boundless.com.
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-
arthistory/chapter/realism/
License: CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike

Chapter 6 | 243
 Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker provide analysis
and historical perspective on Jean-François Millet’s The
Gleaners.

One or more interactive elements has been

excluded from this version of the text. You
can view them online here:
https://openeducationalberta.ca/
19thcenturyart/?p=251#oembed-1

Retrieved from: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker,

“Jean-François Millet, L’Angélus,” in Smarthistory,
November 27, 2015, accessed October 13,
2020, https://smarthistory.org/jean-francois-millet-
langelus/.
All Smarthistory content is available for free
at www.smarthistory.org
CC: BY-NC-SA

244 | Chapter 6
Millet painted The Sower a year
after he moved with his wife to
Barbizon. They had moved to
escape the cholera epidemics in
Paris following the 1848
Revolution and had purchased a
tiny cottage at Barbizon. (They
lived in that tiny cottage with
their nine children.) The Sower
is indicative of his early style –
loose, rough, and blunt. His
work, even when it became
more refined, always showed a
very unpolished reality. Not a Jean-François Millet, The Sower, oil on
canvas, 1850
cruel reality, like other artists
would, but reality as it existed without any romanticizing of the
subject or hiding the plight of the modern peasant in narrative.
This painting has influenced many of the painters in the late
nineteenth and twentieth century. Van Gogh especially loved it and
did his own version of it.
In The Gleaners, some people see beauty, some see the need for
social reform, others see the pain in the bodies of the women’s
posture.
All of which was the point. Millet didn’t create his work to show
pretty pictures of indolent peasants living a pretty peasant life.
Millet was not a “cottagecore aesthetic” artist (obviously, since that
term is a strictly 21st century thing, but the concept does need to be
stated). His work depicted the poorest of the poor – scraping up the
leftovers after the crews have harvested and taken away the bulk.
For the women in The Gleaners, if they don’t gather the scraps their
families will starve.

Chapter 6 | 245
 The Angelus was originally
titled Prayer for the Potato Crop
but the American that
commissioned never picked it
up, so Millet added the steeple
and changed the name to The
Angelus – which are the first
word of the The Angelus prayer
– said by Catholics during the
Jean-François Millet, The Angelus, oil Angelus bell (6pm usually, but it
on canvas, 1857-59
can be other times too). The
prayer was an evolution of the traditional three Hail Marys said at
the 6pm bell. The prayer begins in Latin with Angelus Domini
nuntiavit Mariæ – which means the “The Angel told Mary” and is
said to remember the Annunciation.
The thing about this painting is that during his lifetime it was
simply a good example of his style, but after Millet’s death the value
of it went up so dramatically that it caused an uproar.
Even stranger, Salvador Dali, the Surrealist artist who rose to fame
at the end of the 1800s and beginning of the 1900s, eccentric man
that he was, always felt there was something traumatic about this
painting. He felt this so strongly that eventually he used his artistic
clout to get the painting x-rayed. He was sure there was something
horrible under the paint and that they were not praying over a
basket of potatoes, but rather the corpse of a child. (He also said this
painting was about sexual repression. But Dali also thought women
were secretly praying mantises and that the pose of the praying
woman in the painting was evidence of that so it really can’t be put
to too many people’s blame if they didn’t take him seriously about
the painting needing to be x-rayed right away. He was prone to
wildly unusual perspectives about things.)
Here’s the kicker though, as strange as Dali might have been –
when they did the x-ray they found that the potato basket was
a recent addition. Originally there had been a square/rectangular

246 | Chapter 6
thing between the couple! Some thought perhaps Dali was correct
and it was a baby’s coffin, others felt maybe not so much.
So that is one of the unexplained things regarding this painting.
And one of the many unexplained things about Salvador Dali…

Jean-François Millet, Dandelions, pastel on paper, 1867-68

Audio recording of Bonheur segment:

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Chapter 6 | 247
Rosa Bonheur
Rosa Bonheur is often lumped in with the Barbizon School artists,
but this is simply because she doesn’t fit with the Parisian artists of
her time. She unapologetically painted the reality of animals without
romanticizing them or loading her paintings with narrative. But she
was not a Barbizon painter in any way.

Rosa Bonheur, Ploughing in the Nivernais, oil on canvas, 1849

Rosa Bonheur is an interesting figure in art history and an harbinger

of changes happening in Parisian society. Raised in an unusual
family, Bonheur was educated and given the same opportunities as
her male siblings. Her father supported the idea that women could
do anything they wanted and should be given the tools to be able
to do so. As a child she was unruly and active with little patience
for most activities that required sitting still. Subsequently she had
a hard time learning to read. Her mother encouraged her to learn
by asking her to draw an animal for every letter of the alphabet
and Bonheur later said that this was when she began to learn how
to draw animals. She could sit still and draw for hours. Later, she
was sent to school with her brothers but was expelled a number of

248 | Chapter 6
times. Then she was apprenticed to a seamstress; which for obvious
reasons didn’t go so well. Eventually she had a painter take her on
as a pupil and she discovered her great passion in creating art at the
age of twelve.
This photo is of Rosa Bonheur
Woman sits on a bench in a
from later in the 1800s. Notice
garden wearing a smock and
her choice of clothing. In the
trousers while holding a hat
Photograph of Rosa Bonheur circa 1800s it was relatively
1880-1890 in her garden at By unorthodox for women to wear
trousers. In fact, a woman
needed a special license to wear things that were considered to be
men’s clothing, like trousers, or they could be accused or arrested
for cross-dressing (which was a punishable offense in Paris at this
time). Bonheur argued that for her work painting, sketching and
observing at stockyards and horse fairs and cattle sales, she couldn’t
be dragged down in the mud by petticoats, skirts, and bustles. Those
types of clothing could create dangerous situations in the event that
she needed to move quickly and freely out of the way of an
uncontrolled animal. Often the history books make it sound like
Bonheur broke the law and created a big scandal with her clothing,
but in reality it was simply a matter of applying to the Parisian police
for a permit which she was granted. And while her clothing choices
would have definitely turned heads in Paris, it is not likely that they
’caused an uproar.’
However, if you look at her photograph again, you will see that
she is wearing trousers in a garden – not at a livestock exhibition.
Bonheur wore what she wanted, when she wanted to wear it.
Obviously, she was a spit-fire throughout her life and while
biographical elements of an artist’s life are often not important to
relay when discussing their art, in the case of Bonheur a discussion
about her private life is in order because of the road she would pave
for later female artists.

Chapter 6 | 249
 Women were often only reluctantly educated as
artists in Bonheur’s day, and by becoming such a
successful artist she helped to open doors to the women
18
artists that followed her.

Bonheur can be viewed as a “New Woman” of the 19th

century – her choice of dress only part of that. In her
romantic life, she never explicitly stated that she was a
lesbian but she is accepted to have been a lesbian; she
lived with her first partner, Nathalie Micas, for over 40
years until Micas’ death, and later began a relationship
19
with the American painter Anna Elizabeth Klumpke.
In a world where gender expression was policed, Rosa
Bonheur broke boundaries by deciding to wear pants,
20
shirts and ties. She did not do this because she
wanted to be a man, though she occasionally referred to
herself as a grandson or brother when talking about her
family; rather, Bonheur identified with the power and

18. Theodore Stanton, Reminiscences of Rosa Bonheur, (n.p.:

A. Melrose, 1910), 64.
19. Mary Blume, Mary, "The Rise and Fall of Rosa Bonheur,"
The New York Times, October 4, 1997,
https://www.nytimes.com/1997/10/04/style/IHT-the-
rise-and-fall-of-rosa-bonheur.html
20. Albert Boime, "The Case of Rosa Bonheur: Why Should a
Woman Want to be More Like a Man?" Art History 4, no.
4 (1981): 384–409. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8365.1981.tb00733.x
250 | Chapter 6
 21
freedom reserved for men. Wearing men’s clothing
gave Bonheur a sense of identity in that it allowed her to
openly show that she refused to conform to societies’
construction of the gender binary. It also broadcast her
sexuality at a time where the lesbian stereotype
consisted of women who cut their hair short, wore
pants, and chain-smoked. Rosa Bonheur did all three.
Bonheur, while taking pleasure in activities usually
reserved for men (such as hunting and smoking), viewed
her womanhood as something far superior to anything a
man could offer or experience. She viewed men as
stupid and mentioned that the only males she had time
22
or attention for were the bulls she painted.

Having chosen to never become an adjunct or

appendage to a man in terms of painting, she decided
that she would lean on herself and her female partners
instead. Her partners focussed on the home life while
she took on the role of breadwinner by focusing on her
painting. Bonheur’s legacy paved the way for other
lesbian artists who didn’t favour the life society had laid
23
out for them.

21. Gretchen Van Slyke, "Gynocentric Matrimony: The

fin‐de‐siécle Alliance of Rosa Bonheur and Anna
Klumpke," Nineteenth-Century Contexts 20, no. 4 (1999):
489–502. doi:10.1080/08905499908583461
22. Boime, The Case of Rosa, 384-409
23. Laurel Lampela, "Daring to Be Different: A Look at Three
Chapter 6 | 251
 Along with other realist painters of the 19th century,
for much of the 20th century Bonheur fell from fashion,
and in 1978 a critic described Ploughing in the Nivernais
as “entirely forgotten and rarely dragged out from
oblivion”; however, that same year it was part of a series
of paintings sent to China by the French government for
an exhibition titled “The French Landscape and Peasant,
24
1820–1905”. Since then her reputation has revived and
interest in the art and life of this gifted artist grows each
year.

Excerpted and adapted from: Wikipedia, (September

19 2020), s.v. “Rosa Bonheur.” https://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/Rosa_Bonheur

Even without taking her personal life into consideration, she was
considered a very odd painter. Most artists, especially female artists,
paid attention to the people (especially the Realists) or the
landscape. Very few focused on animals in such a realistic way.
Unromantically. There’s no double meaning in her painting The
Ploughing in the Nivernais. There’s no lion attacking a horse as a
metaphor for the monarchy causing violence to the people here.
There’s no meaning imbued on these oxen. They’re just really
realistic oxen doing a really realistic job. There are people in this

Lesbian Artists," Art Education 54, no. 2 (2001): 45–54.

doi:10.2307/3193946
24. Xenia Muratova, "Current and Forthcoming Exhibitions:
Paris and China," The Burlington Magazine. 120, no. 901
(1978): 257–60.
252 | Chapter 6
painting, but they are really, really not the point. Even their
rendering is different than the animals – the humans are painted in
a way that makes them look like paintings, whereas the oxen look
incredibly real and important.
It’s for this reason that Bonheur is considered a Realist. She
painted the present day reality as it existed. However, she doesn’t
really fit with the Realists because she’s not actively seeking to
portray the everyday hero or the contemporary strength of the day.
She is simply painting animals as they are.
Rosa
Bonheur, The
Horse Fair,
oil on
canvas,
1852-55

The horses in The Horse Fair are pretty nearly lifesize. Which makes
for a kind of an overwhelming experience when you see it. Each
horse is just a little smaller than reality – which means the canvas
is HUGE. It was paintings like this that made her get the license to
wear pants.
This painting, and those like it, was also her rebellious spirit
regarding societal norms showing through. Major thinkers of the
day figured that the weaker sex, women, – so susceptible to hysteria
– couldn’t possibly be capable of the bravura (technical skill) or
creative genius necessary for them to compete with men in any
circuit, never mind art. She kind of had a bone to pick with that
concept.
But mostly she just really liked painting animals and I don’t think
she really cared all that much what people thought about her.
Audio recording of Courbet part 1 segment:

Chapter 6 | 253
 One or more interactive elements has been excluded
from this version of the text. You can view them online
here: https://openeducationalberta.ca/
19thcenturyart/?p=251#audio-251-9

Gustave Courbet – The

First Realist
Gustave
Courbet, Self
Portrait (The
Desperate
Man), oil on
canvas,
1843-45

Gustave Courbet was the first real Realist. We know this because
he’s the one who literally wrote the Manifesto of Realism and
created the guidelines for the movement.
His story follows an unusual arc, in that he started out wealthy,

254 | Chapter 6
handsome, and well liked but died poor and notorious. He was
egotistical and cantankerous, but he had a vision for art.
Not that you would have known that he was going to be the artist
to set the art-world on its ear. His early paintings sort of wander
around in regards to subject matter. Wandering through ideas that
are landscape based, then beauty based, then genre based. But
nothing distinct seems to develop at first. But then, alongside all
the scandalously raunchy nudes and suffering self portraits he was
painting, he began to paint things like this:

Gustave Courbet, The Stone Breakers, oil on canvas (copy), 1849

And eventually he began saying things like this:

Chapter 6 | 255
 “I am fifty years old and I
have always lived in freedom.
Let me end my life as a free
man. When I am dead, they
must be able to say of me,
Which means we need to talk
‘That one never belonged to
any church, to any institution,
about Socialism because he is
to any academy, and above all
tied to that political position
to any regime except the
(not movement).
regime of liberty’.” 25
During Courbet’s time
“Socialism” was a social
consciousness regarding the poor. The realization that those in the
lower classes lived a different experience than those in the higher
classes. The idea that those who were in the lower classes didn’t
have access to as much opportunity as others might have. At this
point it was a realization of difference, but eventually it would grow
to an understanding that something could be done by the better off
to change the situation of others, and eventually it became a
movement that suggested that the better off should do things for the
less fortunate. However, even then “Socialism” as it was understood
then, was not as it is understood now.
Socialism as a movement and more along the lines of how it might
be framed today:
– Wasn’t formally invented until the 1860s, and
– Didn’t become a real political force until after WWI
In Courbet’s The Stone Breakers, he is making a real commentary
on the lives of the unfortunate – the crushing existence of the

25. Gustave Courbet, Letters of Gustave Courbet, translated

by Petra Ten-Doesschate Chu, (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1992).
256 | Chapter 6
lowest classes of French society. “As one begins, in this class, so one
ends,” is his statement.

If we look closely at Courbet’s painting

The Stonebreakers of 1849 (painted only one year after
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote their influential
pamphlet, The Communist Manifesto) the artist’s
concern for the plight of the poor is evident. Here, two
figures labor to break and remove stone from a road
that is being built. In our age of powerful jackhammers
and bulldozers, such work is reserved as punishment for
chain-gangs.

Unlike Millet, who, in paintings like The Gleaners, was

known for depicting hard-working, but somewhat
idealized peasants, Courbet depicts figures who wear
ripped and tattered clothing. And unlike the aerial
perspective Millet used in The Gleaners to bring our eye
deep into the French countryside during the
harvest, the two stone breakers in Courbet’s painting
are set against a low hill of the sort common in the rural
French town of Ornans, where the artist had been raised
and continued to spend a much of his time. The hill
reaches to the top of the canvas everywhere but the
upper right corner, where a tiny patch of bright blue sky
appears. The effect is to isolate these laborers, and to
suggest that they are physically and economically
trapped. In Millet’s painting, the gleaners’ rounded backs
echo one another, creating a composition that feels
unified, where Courbet’s figures seem disjointed. Millet’s
painting, for all its sympathy for these poor figures,

Chapter 6 | 257
 could still be read as “art” by viewers at an exhibition in
Paris.

Courbet wanted to show what is “real,” and so he has

depicted a man that seems too old and a boy that seems
still too young for such back-breaking labor. This is not
meant to be heroic: it is meant to be an accurate
account of the abuse and deprivation that was a
common feature of mid-century French rural life. And
as with so many great works of art, there is a close
affiliation between the narrative and the formal choices
made by the painter, meaning elements such as
brushwork, composition, line, and color.

Like the stones themselves, Courbet’s brushwork is

rough—more so than might be expected during the mid-
nineteenth century. This suggests that the way the artist
painted his canvas was in part a conscious rejection of
the highly polished, refined Neoclassicist style that still
dominated French art in 1848.

Perhaps most characteristic of Courbet’s style is his

refusal to focus on the parts of the image that would
usually receive the most attention. Traditionally, an
artist would spend the most time on the hands, faces,
and foregrounds. Not Courbet. If you look carefully, you
will notice that he attempts to be even-handed,
attending to faces and rock equally. In these ways, The
Stonebreakers seems to lack the basics of art (things like
a composition that selects and organizes, aerial
perspective and finish) and as a result, it feels more
“real.”

258 | Chapter 6
 Excepted and adapted from: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr.
Steven Zucker, “Gustave Courbet, The Stonebreakers,”
in Smarthistory, August 9, 2015,
https://smarthistory.org/courbet-the-stonebreakers/.
All Smarthistory content is available for free
at www.smarthistory.org
CC: BY-NC-SA

Which isn’t to say with all of

his good will toward the poor,
that he stopped painting
absolutely scandalous nudes
and completely devoted himself
to social change. On more than
one occasion he created stirs
with his nude paintings. One of
which used the girlfriend of
Gustave Courbet, Portrait of Jo (La fellow artist and friend James
belle Irlandaise), oil on canvas, 1865-66
Abbott MacNeil Whistler as a
model. Whistler’s girlfriend, Jo, (depicted in Courbet’s Portrait of Jo
(La belle Irlandaise) was Courbet’s model for a while. And Whistler
was Courbet’s close friend until a particularly pornographic painting
– one that was scandalous enough to cause people to file police
reports once it was exhibited – was painted by Courbet while
Whistler’s girlfriend was his main model. That was when Whistler,
who had been very close with Courbet, suddenly went back to
London to stay and never spoke to Courbet again.
Awkward.
And that wasn’t even his most scandalous piece ever. His most
scandalous nude was one the public never even knew about. It was
a private commission (for the same man who had commissioned

Chapter 6 | 259
Ingres’ Turkish Bath from chapter 3) that didn’t see public exhibition
until the 1980s – over one hundred years after its completion!
For reasons that may never be fully explained, Courbet managed
to have some influential and controversial paintings included in the
Academy’s Salon of 1850-51; his Stone Breakers and Burial at Ornans
were both included.

Gustave Courbet, Burial at Ornans, oil on canvas, 1849-50

Audio recording of Burial at Ornans segment:

One or more interactive elements has been

excluded from this version of the text. You
can view them online here:
https://openeducationalberta.ca/
19thcenturyart/?p=251#audio-251-10

260 | Chapter 6
 Burial at Ornans is one of Courbet’s most important
works. It records the funeral of his grand uncle which he
26
attended in September of 1848. People who attended
the funeral were the models for the painting. Previously,
models had been used as actors in historical narratives,
but in Burial at Ornans Courbet said he “painted the
very people who had been present at the interment, all
the townspeople”. The result is a realistic presentation
of them, and of life in Ornans.

The vast painting—it measures 10 by 22 feet (3.0 by 6.7

meters) — drew both praise and fierce denunciations
from critics and the public, in part because it upset
convention by depicting a prosaic ritual on a scale
which would previously have been reserved for a
religious or royal subject.

According to art historian Sarah Faunce, “In Paris

the Burial was judged as a work that had thrust itself
into the grand tradition of history painting, like an
upstart in dirty boots crashing a genteel party, and in
terms of that tradition it was of course found
27
wanting.” The painting lacks the sentimental rhetoric
that was expected in a genre work: Courbet’s mourners
make no theatrical gestures of grief, and their faces

26. Sara Faunce and Linda Nochlin, Courbet Reconsidered,

(Brooklyn, NY: Brooklyn Museum, 1988), 79.
27. Faunce and Nochlin, Courbet, 4.
Chapter 6 | 261
 seemed more caricatured than ennobled. The critics
28
accused Courbet of a deliberate pursuit of ugliness.

Eventually, the public grew more interested in the

new Realist approach, and the lavish, decadent fantasy
of Romanticism lost popularity. Courbet well
understood the importance of the painting, and said of
it, “The Burial at Ornans was in reality the burial of
Romanticism.”

Courbet became a celebrity, and was spoken of as a

29
genius, a “terrible socialist” and a “savage”. He actively
encouraged the public’s perception of him as an
unschooled peasant, while his ambition, his bold
pronouncements to journalists, and his insistence on
depicting his own life in his art gave him a reputation for
30
unbridled vanity.

Excerpted and adapted from: Wikipedia, (October 6,

2020), s.v. “Gustave Courbet.” https://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/Gustave_Courbet

One of the reasons Courbet’s Burial at Ornans was met with such
derision in Paris, is because of political unrest in the country.
Ornans was not in Paris, and it depicted a crowd of non-Parisian
French peasants. The way voting worked in France at this time
had just been changed, giving more voting sway to the provinces
than they had previously had. Life outside of Paris and its districts

28. Faunce and Nochlin, Courbet, 4.

29. Faunce and Nochlin, Courbet, 8.
30. Faunce and Nochlin, Courbet, 8-9.
262 | Chapter 6
was nothing like life in Paris and its districts and Parisians feared
that those outside the city would be convinced to vote for parties
that did not have the best interests at heart. (The best interests
of Parisians at heart, of course.) Specifically the Parisians feared
that the new voting system could give power to those who would
reinstate the monarchy. Burial at Ornans reminded the people of
Paris that their future was no longer completely in their own hands,
but in the hands of the provincial people they declared to be ‘ugly’.
(As it turned out, the Parisian fear of the voting power of the rest of
the country was well-founded with the rise of Louis Napoleon and
his questionable tactics to gain voters in the provinces.)
As is clear, Courbet managed to create a spectacle at every
opportunity. So why should the International Art Exhibition of 1855
be an exception? It was at this Exhibition (or because of this
Exhibition?) that Courbet became the name most associated with
Realism. What’s the story? Well hold onto your hats!
The International Art Exhibition of 1855 was a huge undertaking and
in an effort to portray France as the best in the world, the exhibition
planners had things figured out. They carefully orchestrated a show
with retrospectives of Delacroix, Ingres and Vernet – some of the
biggest names in French art in the 1800s that far. Other artists were
invited to join the show by submitting work to the jury.
Courbet, like most other Parisian artists, jumped at the chance,
but he made few interesting choices. First interesting choice: he
submitted fourteen paintings! No one but the deceased artists in
the showcased retrospectives would have that many on display.
As could have been predicted, a few of his fourteen pieces were
selected but not his incredibly huge painting like The Artists’ Studio
and Burial at Ornans. Second interesting choice: he decided to
get huffy about the rejection of so many of his works. Pitching a
Jim-Carrey-in-the-Grinch level fit at being excluded from an event
he made sure he would be excluded from, he created a plan to
retaliate. Third interesting choice: To retaliate and prove the deep
abuses he had suffered at the hands of the jury, he built his own
pavilion on the actual exhibition grounds off the Champs-Elysées

Chapter 6 | 263
next to the official exhibition. This required that he dip deeply
into his personal funds and utilize favours among his friends and
allies. Fourth interesting choice: he charged admission. To charge
admission to an event might not seem like that big of a deal to
a North American in the 21st century, but to the French in the
1800s this was almost offensive. Art had been democratized during
the Revolution and art was seen as the peoples’ possession. To
charge the people to see their own art was robbery! Once people
paid their admission to see his exhibition of forty paintings, he
presented them with copies of his Realism Manifesto and catalogue.
The Realism Manifesto was the introduction to his catalogue and
echoed the political manifestos of the age. In it he said:

The title of Realist was thrust upon me just as the title of

Romantic was imposed upon the men of 1830. Titles have
never given a true idea of things: if it were otherwise, the
works would be unnecessary.
Without expanding on the greater or lesser accuracy of a
name which nobody, I should hope, can really be expected to
understand, I will limit myself to a few words of elucidation
in order to cut short the misunderstandings.
I have studied the art of the ancients and the art of the
moderns, avoiding any preconceived system and without
prejudice. I no longer wanted to imitate the one than to copy
the other; nor, furthermore, was it my intention to attain
the trivial goal of “art for art’s sake”. No! I simply wanted
to draw forth, from a complete acquaintance with tradition,
the reasoned and independent consciousness of my own
individuality.
To know in order to do, that was my idea. To be in a position
to translate the customs, the ideas, the appearance of my
time, according to my own estimation; to be not only a

264 | Chapter 6
 painter, but a man as well; in short, to create living art – this
31
is my goal. (Gustave Courbet, 1855)

Audio recording of The Artist’s Studio segment:

One or more interactive elements has been excluded

from this version of the text. You can view them online
here: https://openeducationalberta.ca/
19thcenturyart/?p=251#audio-251-11

The result of these four choices was not an exhibition that could be
called a success on any front. It was pretty much a laughing stock
to the public and a complete financial failure. While it did endear
Courbet to the other Avant-Garde artists and established him as an
inspiration to the next generation of artists, it did prove, in some
small way that an individual artist with enough spunk and guts could
compete with even the grandeur of King Louis Napoleon’s seven
years of reign! Which leads us one of the pieces of art he featured
in his Realism Pavilion: a painting that contrasted seven years of his
life (1848 to 1855) with the seven years of Louis Napoleon’s reign.

31. Exhibition and sale of forty paintings and four drawings

by Gustave Courbet, Paris 1855, Courbet speaks, Musée
d'Orsay, http://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/collections/
courbet-dossier/courbet-speaks.html
Chapter 6 | 265
 That painting was The Artist’s Studio: A Real Allegory
Summing Up Seven Years of My Life as an Artist.

Gustave Courbet, The Artist’s Studio: A Real Allegory Summing

Up Seven Years of My Life as an Artist, oil on canvas, 1855

The title of Courbet’s painting contains a

contradiction: the words “real” and “allegory” have
opposing meanings. In Courbet’s earlier work, “real”
could be seen as a rejection of the heroic and ideal in
favor of the actual. Courbet’s “real” might also be a
coarse and unpleasant truth, tied to economic injustice.
The “real” might also point to shifting notions of
morality.

In contrast, an “allegory” is a story or an idea

expressed with symbols. Is it possible that Courbet is
using his title to alert the viewer to contradictions and
double meanings in the image? Look, for instance, at the
dim paintings that hangs on the rear wall of his Paris

266 | Chapter 6
studio. These large landscapes seem to form a
continuous horizon line from panel to panel. They
dissolve enough so that we are not sure if they are
paintings, or if they are perhaps windows that frame the
landscape beyond. Is it “real” or is it a representation?
Courbet seems to muddy the distinction and allow for
both possibilities.

The artist is immediately recognizable in the center of

the canvas. His head is cocked back and his absurd
beard is thrust forward at the same haughty angle seen
in Bonjour Monsieur Courbet. But here he is assessing
and just possibly admiring the landscape that he is in
the process of painting. The central composition is a
trinity of figures (four, if you count the cat).

Chapter 6 | 267
 To Courbet’s right stands a nude model. Note that her
dress is strewn at her feet. There is nothing exceptional
here; after all, this is an artist’s studio, and models are
often nude. However, Courbet does not look in her
direction, as he would if she were actually posing for
him. He doesn’t need to. He is, after all, painting an
unpopulated landscape. Oddly, the direction of the gaze
is reversed. The model directs her attention to align
with Courbet’s, not vice-versa. She gazes at the
landscape he paints. In the realm of the “real,” she
functions as the model, but as “allegory,” she may be
truth or liberty according to the political readings of
some scholars and she may be the muse of ancient
Greek myth, a symbol of Courbet’s inspiration.

The boy to the left of the artist is also a reference. The

smallest of the three central figures, he looks up
(literally) to Courbet’s creation with admiration. The boy
is unsullied by the illusions of adulthood—he sees the
truth of the world—and he represented an important
goal for Courbet—to un-learn the lessons of the art
academy. The sophistication of urban industrial life, he
believed, distanced artists from the truth of nature.
Above all, Courbet sought to return to the pure, direct
sight of a child. The cat, by the way, is often read as a
reference to independence or liberty.

The entire, rather crowded canvas, is divided into two

large groups of people. In the group on the left, we see
fairly rough types described. They are a cast of stock

268 | Chapter 6
characters: a woodsman, the village idiot, a Jew, and
others. There are several other allusions, such as the
inclusion of the current ruler of France, Louis-
Napoléon, but let’s focus on the larger theme at hand.
Here then, are the country folk whom Courbet faces.

On the opposite side of the canvas are, in contrast, a

far more handsome and well-dressed party. Gathered at
the right lower corner of the painting are Courbet’s
wealthy private collectors and his urbane friends. At the
canvas’s extreme right sits Charles Baudelaire, the
influential poet who was a close friend of the painter.

Giotto, The Last Judgement on the west wall, fresco, circa 1305

Chapter 6 | 269
 Is this composition familiar? Courbet is engaged in
the act of painting, or as we might say, he is creating a
landscape. Could the reference be to God the creator?
The composition seems directly related to the
traditional composition of the New Testament story, the
Last Judgment. Think of Giotto’s Last Judgment fresco
on the back wall of the Arena Chapel in Padua (1305-06),
or Michelanglo’s Last Judgment painted on the altar wall
of the Sistine Chapel (1534-42). In those paintings, the
blessed (those that were on their way to heaven) were
on the right side of Christ (our left), and the damned
(those on their way to Hell) were shown on Christ’s left
(our right).

Courbet has placed himself in the position of creator.

But does he want us to use a capital “C”? What then of
the model/muse? In the place of the blessed on the left
are the country folk, a reference to the morality of
nature? On the right side in place of the damned are the
urban sophisticates—the notion of the corruption of the
city. And in the bottom right corner, where
Michelangelo placed Satan himself, we find, amusingly,
Courbet’s close friend, the poet Baudelaire, author
of The Flowers of Evil.

Finally, note the crucified figure partly hidden behind

the easel. Indeed, Courbet referred to himself as a kind
of martyr (such paintings as Self-portrait as Wounded
Man). He created these satirical portrayals of himself as

270 | Chapter 6
 a martyred saint perhaps because of his metaphorical
“suffering” at the hands of the French art critics.

One or more interactive elements has been

excluded from this version of the text. You
can view them online here:
https://openeducationalberta.ca/
19thcenturyart/?p=251#oembed-2

Excerpted and adapted from: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr.

Steven Zucker, “Gustave Courbet, The Painter’s Studio: A
Real Allegory Summing Up Seven Years of My Life as an
Artist,” in Smarthistory, August 9, 2015,
https://smarthistory.org/courbet-the-artists-studio/.
All Smarthistory content is available for free
at www.smarthistory.org
CC: BY-NC-SA

Audio recording of Daumier segment:

One or more interactive elements has been excluded

from this version of the text. You can view them online

Chapter 6 | 271
 here: https://openeducationalberta.ca/
19thcenturyart/?p=251#audio-251-12

Honoré Daumier
Charles Baudelaire was a French philosopher. He challenged artists
to paint the ordinary aspects of contemporary life and to find in
them some grand and epic quality.
He said, “There are such things as modern beauty and modern
heroism!”
Courbet’s big modern works were an answer to the challenge
Baudelaire had put out in 1846 for large, heroic, modern life
depictions but, out of all the artists he knew, loved, and supported,
Baudelaire considered Honoré Daumier one of the most important
figures of modern art.

272 | Chapter 6
 Daumier made a living some
of the time, especially earlier in
his career as a satirical
cartoonist. With biting wit and
castigating charm, he
frequented the pages of the
newspaper Le Charivari and La
Caricature with political
cartoons commenting on the
politics of the day. With Les
Poires (French for pear, but also
French slang for idiot), Daumier
makes some pointed comments
about King Louis-Philippe (a
Bourbon King of the July
Monarchy) as his portrait
gradually turns into a pear.
Honoré Daumier, Les Poires, drawing Everybody who read the
printed in the newspaper La caricature in the Le Charivari
Caricature, 1831
or La Caricature understood
exactly what it meant and it wouldn’t have made the king or his
supporters too happy. The director of La Caricature, Charles
Philipon felt the cartoon was a success. He stated: “What I had
foreseen happened. The people, seized by a mocking image, an
image simple in design and very simple in form, began to imitate this
image wherever they found a way to charcoal, smear, to scratch a
pear. Pears soon covered all the walls of Paris and spread over all
32
sections of the walls of France.”
Apparently, Daumier had quite a bit to say about the Bourbon king
Louis-Phillipe.
Daumier’s Gargantua, also published in La Caricature landed both

32. Wikipedia, (April 27, 2020,) s.v. "Les Poires",

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Poires
Chapter 6 | 273
Daumier and Philipon in prison and caused a ban on every
publication in which it was printed.
Gargantua was a medieval
character in French Literature,
but here he’s been given the
pear-shaped face of King
Louis-Phillipe and has been
placed on a nineteenth century
toilet chair. He devours gold
from the poor and expels paper
documents – the inscriptions Honoré Daumier, Gargantua, drawing
printed in the newspaper La
say that they are letters of
Caricature, 1931
nomination and appointment to
special individuals and court honors. But this isn’t an illustration of
taxes being used to help everyone, they were taxes being taken from
the poorest and then used to fatten the already fat wallets of the
rich.
After six months in prison and banning of the publication it was
printed in, Daumier knew the risks associated with directly
satirizing the king. He also recognized that censorship laws in
France were about to get tough.

274 | Chapter 6
Honoré Daumier, Rue Transnonain, lithographic print, 1834

Everyone in Paris knew what had happened in the

apartment building. It was on the corner of two
streets—rue Transnonain and rue de Montmorency. On
the night of April 13, 1834, soldiers of the civil guard
entered the building going from apartment to
apartment. Workers in the neighborhood had protested
against the repression of a silk workers’ revolt in the
city of Lyon. The soldiers then entered the apartment
building in response to shots fired from the top floor
during the protest. Years later, survivors recalled
hearing pounding on the apartment doors as the

Chapter 6 | 275
 soldiers made their way in shooting, bayonetting, and
clubbing the hapless residents.

Monsieur Thierry was killed while still in his

bedclothes, Monsieur Guettard and Monsieur Robichet
met the same fate. A recipient of the French Legion of
Honor, Monsieur Bon was killed while trying to hide
under a table. They killed Monsieur Daubigny, a
paralyzed man, in his bed and left his wife and child for
dead. Monsieur Bréfort was killed as soon as he opened
his door and Monsieur Hue and his four-year old child
met the same fate. The conservative papers talked of a
nest of assassins firing on soldiers, the more liberal
papers offered detailed accounts of the victims.

Parisians had lived with political repression enforced

by the police and civil guard for years and street battles
were nothing new. The Revolution of 1830, inspiration
for Delacroix’s painting Liberty Leading the People, had
overthrown the repressive monarchy that followed
Napoleon’s rule. The new ruler, Louis-Philippe called
himself the King of the French and was supposed to be
more liberal. Instead, he clamped down on public
dissent and the press much like his predecessors. Those
who wanted the freedoms promised by the French
Revolution of 1789 attempted another rebellion in June
1832. The writer, Victor Hugo, memorialized that
insurrection which left over 100 dead on the streets of
central Paris, in his book Les Miserables. Somehow, what
happened on rue Transnonain was different.

Today, such an event would still be covered by

newspapers, but also on social media and on cell phone

276 | Chapter 6
cameras, but in 1834 it fell to Paris’s renowned
printmaker, Honoré Daumier, to show the Parisians just
what had happened. But how? How do you show a
massacre? And what would be the risk of publishing a
print that challenged the government so directly?

Honoré Daumier came to Paris as a child when his

father, a glazier and frame maker, moved his family to
pursue his literary ambitions. The family was never
well-off and Daumier worked from the age of twelve for
booksellers and as an errand boy for a law firm to help
support them. A friend of the family, the antiquarian and
archeologist Alexandre Lenoir, gave young Daumier
informal drawing lessons because the family could not
afford any formal training for the gifted young artist.

Daumier continued to draw and study on his own,

visiting the Louvre to draw sculpture and the Académie
Suisse, an inexpensive studio without an instructor,
where he could draw from the nude. Although he
became a widely respected artist in Paris, Daumier
never stepped away from his working-class origins, and
perhaps this gave him the immense empathy found in
his portrayal of those who perished on rue Transnonain.

The print is a lithograph—it used limestone and oil-

based inks to create light and shadow similar to drawing
or painting. Daumier experimented with this technique
as a young teenager and later held a job working for a
printmaker. By 1834, he had established himself as a
caricaturist and political cartoonist, working for the
publisher Charles Philipon by creating lithographs for
his satirical, illustrated journals La Caricature and, after

Chapter 6 | 277
 1835, Le Charivari. Over his career, Daumier published
well over 3,000 lithographs.

Among these many lithographs, Rue

Transnonain stands alone for its brutal tone and
unflinching commentary on what had only recently
occurred. Daumier brings together a group of four
bodies in one space, and extreme areas of light and
darkness, to give the viewer one image that summed up
the violence of that night.

Audio recording of Rue Transnonain part 2 segment:

One or more interactive elements has been

excluded from this version of the text. You
can view them online here:
https://openeducationalberta.ca/
19thcenturyart/?p=251#audio-251-13

A dead man in his bloody nightshirt, just roused out of

the rumpled bed, lies prone across the composition with
his body resting atop a bludgeoned child. The child’s
head and chubby hands just emerge from beneath the
man. Perhaps these bodies, foreshortened and moving
toward the viewer, allude to Monsieur Hue and his child.
To the left of the man and the child, an older man’s head
enters the scene from the edge of the paper, in front of
a toppled chair. These bodies, lit with a dramatic light,
complement the darker portion of the composition on
the other side of the sheet where a woman’s dead body

278 | Chapter 6
moves away from the viewer into the darkness at the
back of the apartment. Dark marks, likely smears of
blood, litter the floor. The print is not a documentary
image but one designed to evoke the brutality of the
event in the starkest terms. There is no action or drama
here; instead, Daumier leaves the viewer with only the
stillness and silence of death.

In the years surrounding the publication of Rue

Transnonain, journalists, publishers, and printmakers
could face criminal charges, fines, and even
imprisonment for their publications. In 1831, Daumier
had created a print titled Gargantua depicting Louis-
Philippe, the King of the French, as a corpulent blob
with an oversized conveyor belt tongue consuming
money provided by the laborers of France (Gargantua is
also the name of a giant in a series of novels written in
the 16th century by Rabelais). For this work, Daumier
and his publisher Philipon were charged, tried, and
sentenced to six months in prison. As he began work on
the print, Rue Transnonain, Daumier understood the
risk he was taking.

Daumier created Rue Transnonain for the print

subscription, L’Association Mensuelle Lithographique and
published it in August 1834. Founded by Philipon, while
he was serving time in prison for the publication
of Gargantua, L’Association Mensuelle distributed
caricatures to subscribers on a monthly basis and the
funds raised supported freedom of the press and helped
to pay off Philipon’s government fines.

Rue Transnonain was the last lithograph published in

Chapter 6 | 279
 that series. Although government censors had approved
the print, when it was exhibited in the window of a print
seller, the police took note and quickly attempted to
track down as many copies as they could. The police
also confiscated the lithographic stone so that no more
prints could be made. The remaining original prints of
Daumier’s Rue Transnonain are among the most valued
of Daumier’s works. After they published Rue
Transnonain, Daumier and Philipon avoided prosecution
but the ultimate cost was high. The government passed
a new law restricting freedom of the press and
proscribed political caricature. As a result, Daumier
changed his subject matter, turning his eye away from
direct political critique and toward social commentary.

Excepted and Adapted from: Dr. Claire Black McCoy,

“Daumier, Rue Transnonain,” in Smarthistory, October 8,
2020, https://smarthistory.org/daumier-rue-
transnonain/.
All Smarthistory content is available for free
at www.smarthistory.org
CC: BY-NC-SA

280 | Chapter 6
 When the July Monarchy
came to an end during the 1848
revolutions, you would think
Daumier would have been
ecstatic, but he quickly realize
that the Louis Napoleon –
elected leader of the
government – was up to no
good.

The Revolution of 1848

again brought a few brief
years of press freedom
and political caricature. Honoré Daumier, The Day in Review:
To be signalized among Ratapoil and his Staff, Viva
l’Empereur!, drawing printed in La
Daumier’s work of this Charivari, 1851
period is the creation of
Ratapoil, the Bonapartist agent. Ratapoil is the
personification of the agent-provocateur, the bully boy, a
section leader of the Society of December 10, President
Louis Bonaparte’s private army of adventurers and lumpen-
proletariat – a seventy-year anticipation of Benito
Mussolini’s first fasci. It was the Society of December 10 that
Bonaparte shipped ahead when he toured France so they
could impersonate the masses at each railroad station,
shout, “Vive l’Empereur!“ and beat up any opponents.
Daumier shows Ratapoil as a sinister, seedy, middle-aged but
wiry adventurer, with an imperial beard and mustache,
carrying a half-concealed club up his sleeve. This figure
incarnated all of Daumier’s hate and contempt for Napoleon

Chapter 6 | 281
 the Little, by whom, to his credit, he had never been taken in
33
as had such men of the left as Proudhon and Victor Hugo.

Images like Daumier’s cartoons point to how Louis Napoleon got

into power in the first place – elected by the peasant majority and
by manipulating the crowds.
But when Louis Napoleon declared the Second Empire, Daumier
had to retreat to less direct commentary and just comment about
society at large.

Honoré Daumier, The Third Class Carriage, oil on canvas, 1963-65

33. George Lavan, "Daumier – Political Artist," International

Socialist Review 19, no. 4 (1958):133-137.
282 | Chapter 6
 Daumier’s The Third Class Carriage represents early
railroad travelers seated in a carriage. In this painting,
Daumier did not choose to represent the wealthy
bourgeois traveling in first class, but the poorer people
in the third class, in order to denounce the misery that
reigned in a large part of French society at that time. For
the artist, it is the reflection of a reality that some
preferred to hide.

This representation of reality is disturbing, not so

much by what is shown, the characters, the clothes,
these miserable children, as by the force of the glances.
The dark eyes of the woman with the basket, in the
foreground, fixing the viewer of the work, seem terribly
accusing and reflect the deep disarray that inhabits
these poor people, in their lives of suffering and misery.
In the foreground we also have a woman with her child
and a young boy. In the background we can see other
people also living in suffering misery.

Excerpted and adapted from: Wikipedia, (June 28,

2019), s.v. “Le Wagon de troisième classe.”
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Le_Wagon_de_troisddi%C3%A8me_classe

Chapter 6 | 283
 Daumier continued to paint
everyday people in everyday
situations, while bringing
attention to the plight of the
poor. Consider, for example,
this depiction of a
washerwoman. Washerwomen
were usually the lowest of the
lower class in Parisian society.
Women who had found
themselves cast out of society –
usually single mothers who
became pregnant through
prostitution – and they took in
the laundry of the other classes
to make the little money they
Honoré Daumier, The Laundress, oil
on panel, circa 1863 could. Laundry washing was
not easy work in the 1800s.
Clothes were made of heavy and durable natural fibres and needed
to be taken to the river to be beaten and wrung, which was heavy
and labour-intensive work. Then the heavy, wet clothes needed to
be hauled back to the apartment of the washerwoman where they
were hung in her living quarters until they were dry enough to press
and return to their owners. This meant that these laundry ladies
lived in humid and dank conditions, while completing manual labour
of the harshest category. Daumier painted washerwomen more
than once during his career, but consider how this very real woman
– a shadow who flitted through the streets of Paris – is not at all like
this woman, the star of the 1863 Salon:

284 | Chapter 6
 Alexandre Cabanel’s The
Birth of Venus made a real
splash at the Salon of 1863.
Immediately purchased for the
private collection of Napoleon
III, it was the center of
attention. The woman
was Alexandre Cabanel, The Birth of Venus,
considered to be the best that oil on canvas, 1863
French Art could supply and
she proved a long tradition of the French nude. Of course, she was a
Venus, and therefore her function was to goad the viewer into
contemplation of the abstract and philosophical ideas of beauty. As
a Venus, she was not an attractive and seductive nude, but rather a
complicated and high-education symbol of higher thought.
(Except…)
Obviously, Daumier and Cabanel approached art in very different
ways. Cabanel’s work evokes the mythic and the escapist, while
Daumier’s work forces the viewer to address class differences – if
not to incite them to action to at least acknowledge the plight of the
poor and disadvantaged.
Audio recording of Manet segment:

One or more interactive elements has been excluded

from this version of the text. You can view them online
here: https://openeducationalberta.ca/
19thcenturyart/?p=251#audio-251-14

Chapter 6 | 285
Édouard Manet
Manet, whose name is so similar to that of his friend Claude Monet,
can be differentiated by the fact that he came first. The older and
more experienced artist – his last name containing an ‘A’ – can be
differentiated from his younger friend’s name Monet – containing
a later letter in the alphabet, ‘O’. If one remembers that ‘A’ comes
before ‘O’, the names of Manet and Monet can be kept straight.
However, while these two artists were friends, one look at their
art makes it clear that they are not similar artists in any regard.
Édouard Manet may now be sometimes called a Pre-Impressionist
but while he was friends with the young, rising Impressionists, he
never identified with the Impressionist name. Manet believed his
fight was against the Academy and he always said he needed to fight
on the Academy’s own battleground – the Salon. For this reason he
never exhibited with his Impressionist friends, even though he was
invited to do so. Manet wanted to be an Academy painter and did
not agree with the Academy’s judgement that he was never going to
be of the mind or mettle that the Academy should have. He wanted
to change the Academy from the inside, and help it shake off its old-
fashioned and self-indulgent standards. He agreed with Baudelaire’s
call to embrace the age they lived in and portray life as it is lived.
He was a contemporary of Courbet and agreed with what he was
trying to do as well. Manet was unaccepted by the Academy mostly
because of his ‘color patch’ painting technique – almost completely
flat paintings with very little transition between colors – as well as
his flat out refusal to indulge in historical narrative or allegory. This
rendered his paintings scandalous and confusing because of the lack
of historical stories or allegorical value.

286 | Chapter 6
 The Absinthe Drinker by
Manet was rejected from the
Salon, even though Delacroix
liked it, because of its patchy
colour, it’s visible brush strokes,
and the awkward anatomy used
in the painting. But most of all it
was rejected because it took the
honour of the full-length
portrait and bestowed it on a
man who was the lowest of the
low – a drinker of absinthe.
Alone and inebriated, and just
in case you didn’t figure it out
from his bleary gaze the bottle
reinforces the man’s state.
Drinkers of absinthe were
inveterate substance abuse
Édouard Manet, The Absinthe Drinker,
sufferers. Having run through
oil on canvas, circa 1859
other self-harming vices,
absinthe drinkers, by the harsh nature of their intoxicant of choice,
were soon to die from the ravages of their poison. For Manet to
paint an absinthe drinker with a full length portrait, it was akin to
creating a photo-shoot for a 21st century street person with a long
history of substance abuse. Not a common practice and not a
subject that viewers of art wanted to be reminded of.

Chapter 6 | 287
Édouard Manet, Luncheon on the Grass (Le déjeuner sur l’herbe), oil on
canvas, 1863

Luncheon on the Grass was exhibited in the same year as

Cabanel’s Birth of Venus, but this painting was not received with
the admiration that Cabanel’s was. Here, the woman was considered
ugly and flat – a naked French woman, unflattered and unidealized.
This woman is looking at the viewer, fully aware of her state of
(un)dress and in full control of it. This woman, in charge of her own
sexuality, is not a nude. She is naked. The viewers at the Salon des
Refuses (the Exhibition of Refused Art) were aghast. Her nakedness
combined with modern dress of the clothed men, was met with
scandalized scorn.

288 | Chapter 6
 Raimondi after Raphael, Judgement of
Paris, engraving, 1515

Manet was actually

practicing an age-old Academy
device – taking the
compositions of very old and
famous paintings and bringing
them forward to the present
time with modern dress and
new painting techniques. In this
case, he was taking the concept
Titian, The Pastoral Concert, oil on
canvas, circa 1509 of the Muses in Titan’s The
Pastoral Concert of the early
1500s and combining it with compositional elements from a print of
Raphael’s The Judgement of Paris from the same time period.
Manet was tackling Baudelaire’s advice to portray his own era
while paying homage to the old Masters. While the Academy would
have been very aware of what he was doing, they didn’t like it,
so the simply didn’t ‘get’ it. They felt that his paintings were not
beautiful, but were simply regular French people re-enacting old
paintings and they found it distasteful. (It’s a good thing the French
Academy members of the mid-1850s aren’t around to see the 21st
century’s pandemic obsession of recreating old paintings with only
the hoarded supplies that a person has on hand and then taking
a photograph! If Manet’s recreation of old paintings with modern
people was unsavoury, they’d find toilet-paper tube fashion and
cats-in-place-of-babies to be downright insulting.)

Chapter 6 | 289
Édouard Manet, Olympia, oil on canvas, 1863

Manet’s complaint—”They are raining insults upon

me!” to his friend Charles Baudelaire pointed to the
overwhelming negative response his
painting Olympia received from critics in 1865.
Baudelaire (an art critic and poet) had advocated for an
art that could capture the “gait, glance, and gesture” of
modern life, and, although Manet’s painting had perhaps
done just that, its debut at the salon only served to
bewilder and scandalize the Parisian public.

Olympia features a nude woman reclining upon a

chaise lounge, with a small black cat at her feet, and a
black female servant behind her brandishing a bouquet
of flowers. It struck viewers—who flocked to see the

290 | Chapter 6
 painting—as a great insult to the academic tradition.
And of course it was. One could say that the artist had
thrown down a gauntlet. The subject was
modern—maybe too modern, since it failed to properly
elevate the woman’s nakedness to the lofty ideals of
nudity found in art of antiquity —she was no goddess or
mythological figure. As the art historian Eunice Lipton
described it, Manet had “robbed,” the art historical
34
genre of nudes of “their mythic scaffolding…”
Nineteenth-century French salon painting (sometimes
also called academic painting—the art advocated by the
Royal Academy) was supposed to perpetually return to
the classical past to retrieve and reinvent its forms and
ideals, making them relevant for the present moment. In
using a contemporary subject (and not Venus), Manet
mocked that tradition and, moreover, dared to suggest
that the classical past held no relevance for the modern
industrial present.

As if to underscore his
rejection of the past,
Manet used as his source
a well-known painting in
the collection of the
Louvre—Venus of Urbino,
a 1538 painting by the
Titian, Venus of Urbino, oil on
canvas, 1538 Venetian Renaissance
artist Titian —and he then

34. Eunice Lipton, “Manet: A Radicalized Female Imagery,”

Artforum (March, 1975)
Chapter 6 | 291
 stripped it of meaning. To an eye trained in the classical
style, Olympia was clearly no respectful homage to
Titian’s masterpiece; the artist offered instead an
impoverished copy. In place of the seamlessly contoured
voluptuous figure of Venus, set within a richly
atmospheric and imaginary world, Olympia was flatly
painted, poorly contoured, lacked depth, and seemed to
inhabit the seamy, contemporary world of Parisian
prostitution.

Why, critics asked, was the figure so flat and washed

out, the background so dark? Why had the artist
abandoned the centuries-old practice of leading the eye
towards an imagined vanishing point that would
establish the fiction of a believable space for the figures
to inhabit? For Manet’s artistic contemporaries,
however, the loose, fluid brushwork and the seeming
rapidity of execution were much more than a hoax. In
one stroke, the artist had dissolved classical illusionism
and re-invented painting as something that spoke to its
own condition of being a painted representation.

Audio recording of Olympia part 2 segment:

One or more interactive elements has been

excluded from this version of the text. You
can view them online here:
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19thcenturyart/?p=251#audio-251-15

292 | Chapter 6
 It was for this reason Manet is often referred to as the
father of Impressionism. The Impressionists, who
formed as a group around 1871, took on the mantle of
Manet’s rebel status (going so far as to arrange their
own exhibitions instead of submitting to the Salon
juries), and they pushed his expressive brushwork to the
point where everything dissolved into the shimmering
movement of light and formlessness. The 20th century
art critic Clement Greenberg would later declare
Manet’s paintings to be the first truly modernist
works because of the “frankness with which they
declared the flat surfaces on which they were
35
painted.”

Manet had an immediate predecessor in the Realist

paintings of Gustave Courbet, who had himself
scandalized the Salons during the 1840s and ‘50s with
roughly worked images of the rural French countryside
and its inhabitants. In rejecting a tightly controlled
application of paint and seamless illusionism—what the
Impressionists called the “licked surfaces” of the
paintings of the French Academy—Manet also drew
inspiration from Spanish artists Velasquez and Goya, as
well as 17th century Dutch painters like Frans Hals,
whose loosely executed portraits seem as equally frank

35. Clement Greenberg, “Modernist Painting,” in The

Collected Essays and Criticism, Volume 4: Modernism
with a Vengeance, 1957-1969 (University of Chicago
Press, 1995), p. 86.
Chapter 6 | 293
 about the medium as Manet’s some 200 years later. But
Manet’s modernity is not just a function of how he
painted, but also what he painted. His paintings were
pictures of modernity, of the often-marginalized figures
that existed on the outskirts of bourgeois normalcy.
Many viewers believed the woman at the center
of Olympia to be an actual prostitute, coldly staring at
them while receiving a gift of flowers from an assumed
client, who hovers just out of sight (Manet here puns on
the way French prostitutes often borrowed names
of classical goddesses). The model for the painting was
actually a salon painter in her own right, a certain
Victorine Meurent, who appears again in Manet’s The
Railway (1873) and Auguste Renoir’s Moulin de la
Galette (1876).

Manet had created an artistic revolution: a

contemporary subject depicted in a modern manner. It
is hard from a present-day perspective to see what all
the fuss was about. Nevertheless, the painting elicited
much unease and it is important to remember—in the
absence of the profusion of media imagery that exists
today—that painting and sculpture in nineteenth-
century France served to consolidate identity on both a
national and individual level. And here is where
the Olympia’s subversive role resides. Manet chose not
to mollify anxiety about this new modern world of
which Paris had become a symbol. For those anxious
about class status (many had recently moved to Paris
from the countryside), the naked woman
in Olympia coldly stared back at the new
urban bourgeoisie looking to art to solidify their own

294 | Chapter 6
 sense of identity. Aside from the reference to
prostitution—itself a dangerous sign of the emerging
margins in the modern city—the painting’s inclusion of a
black woman tapped into the French colonialist mindset
while providing a stark contrast for the whiteness of
Olympia. The black woman also served as a powerful
emblem of “primitive” sexuality, one of many fictions
that aimed to justify colonial views of non-Western
societies.

If Manet rejected an established approach to painting

that valued the timeless and eternal, Olympia served to
further embody, for his scandalized viewers, a sense of
the modern world as one brimming with uncertainty
and newness. Olympia occupies a pivotal moment in art
history. Situated on the threshold of the shift from the
classical tradition to an industrialized modernity, it is a
perfect metaphor of an irretrievably disappearing past
and an as yet unknowable future.

Consider the following:

Realism grew out of a need to express the contemporary

era and to discuss the circumstances of the overlooked and
silent classes. Eventually this began to take the form of
journalism.
Do you feel that this is still a relevant way to effect change?

Chapter 6 | 295
 Do you think it has become too commonplace or
predictable? What could be done differently to
communicate, in a visual or non-visual way, situations that
cry out for change?

Chapter 6 - French Realism by Megan Bylsma is licensed under a Creative Commons

Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where
otherwise noted.

296 | Chapter 6
7. Chapter 7 - Victorian
England and the
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
Britain

By the end of this chapter you should be able to:

• Explain the tenets of female beauty as described by

mainstream Victorian society
• Describe Victorian society’s obsession with
narrative art
• Recount the basic plot points of the ‘Fallen Woman’
motif common in Victorian art and literature
• List the main artists of the Pre-Raphaelite
Brotherhood
• Explain how the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was
started and why
• Identify the works of Whistler and explain
Whistler’s art making motivations

Audio recording of chapter opening:

Chapter 7 | 297
 One or more interactive elements has been excluded
from this version of the text. You can view them online
here: https://openeducationalberta.ca/
19thcenturyart/?p=269#audio-269-1

Audio recording of the full chapter can be found here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/
1_s7c4KYNBAtD5KpPshm8SNK2iFAnWyU4/view?usp=sharing

298 | Chapter 7
 Do you know the muffin
man,
The muffin man, the muffin
man.
Do you know the muffin
man,
Who lives on Drury Lane?

Oh Yes, I know the muffin

man,
The muffin man, the muffin
man,
Yes, I know the muffin man,
Who lives on Drury Lane.1

1. I. Opie and P. Opie, The Singing Game (Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 1985), 379–82.
Chapter 7 | 299
 The interrogation scene
between Lord Farquaad and
Gingy in Shrek might make you
feel a little differently about
how Gingy’s life has been going
so far in Duloc if you have seen
Gustave Doré’s Orange Court,
Drury Lane print from 1872.
While a Muffin Man is likely
to have have travelled
throughout the city selling his
wares, the fact that Gingy
knows where the Muffin Man
lives (and SPOILER ALERT:
much later it is revealed that
the Muffin Man is Gingy’s
creator), it could mean that
Gingy lives or has lived nearby.
In the realm of reality in 1870s
London, England – Drury Lane
was a place of destitute
poverty.
Of Orange Court on Drury
Lane, the artist said:

“On our way to the City on

the tide of Labor we light
Gustave Doré, Orange Court Drury upon places in which the day
Lane, engraving, 1872
is never aired: only the high
points of which the sun ever hits. Rents spread with rags,
swarming with the children of mothers forever greasing the
walls with their shoulders; where there is an angry
hopelessness and carelessness painted upon the face of
every man and woman, and the oaths are loud, and the crime
is continuous; and the few who do work with something like

300 | Chapter 7
 system are the ne’erdo-weels of the great army. As the sun
rises the court swarms at once: for here there are no
ablutions to perform, no toilets to make-neither brush nor
comb delays the outpouring of babes and sucklings from the
cellars and garrets. And yet in the midst of such a scene
as this we cannot miss touches of human goodness, and
of honorable instinct making a tooth-and-nail fight against
adverse circumstances. Some country wenches, who have
been east into London – Irish girls mostly – hasten out of
the horrors of the common lodging-house to market, where
they buy their flowers for the day’s huckstering in the City.
They are to be seen selling roses and camellias, along the
2
curb by the Bank, to dapper clerks.”
Victorian England was a nation of extremes. Extreme
poverty and extreme wealth. Extreme ugliness and extreme
beauty. The reign of Queen Victoria was long and in many
ways her reign was a time of stability for the nation. The
ideas that swept artists up in a fevered outpouring of art
production were not always the things that the general
public felt inclined to embrace as readily. While ideas of
Realism and the heroism of the everyday citizen were
interesting, the British soul longed for story-telling and

2. Gustave Doré and Blanchard Jerrold, “London: A

Pilgrimage,” Harper's Weekly (London) Nov 9, 1872.
https://books.google.ca/
books?id=CsoIN5hjA_cC&pg=PA886&dq=%22On+our+wa
y+to+the+City+on+the+tide+of+Labor%22&hl=en&sa=X&
ved=2ahUKEwjC64CX4bTsAhXHpZ4KHRcIDfgQ6AEwAHo
ECAEQAg#v=onepage&q=%22On%20our%20way%20to
%20the%20City%20on%20the%20tide%20of%20Labor
%22&f=false
Chapter 7 | 301
 narrative. Social change was a nice idea, but what about the
soul-crushing stories that were available to be bought and
sold as entertainment? The ability to create social-change
with art was probably a good idea, but what about sweet
paintings of mothers and children? Victorian art (and
perhaps its culture as a whole) had a bit of an issue –
vacillating from moralizing calls to better living to sweeping
escapist fantasy. In the 21st century, mainstream Victorian
art is frequently skipped over in art history – except to
talk about its one band of bad boy artists who bucked the
establishment – and a few select Academic artists. To the
contemporary tastes of today, Victorian mainstream art was
too sweet and syrupy to be palatable. It’s somewhat ironic
that the most famous Victorian artists in the 21st century are
the artists who were not deeply sought after during their
time.

Lawrence Alma-Tadema, A Reading From Homer, oil on canvas, 1885

Audio recording of A Reading from Homer segment:

302 | Chapter 7
 One or more interactive elements has been
excluded from this version of the text. You
can view them online here:
https://openeducationalberta.ca/
19thcenturyart/?p=269#audio-269-2

The title is A Reading from Homer. And yet, we see no

indications of anyone reading (either to themselves
privately or aloud to others). In fact, the storyteller at
right, crowned in a wreath of laurel leaves and
gesticulating with his left arm, is decidedly looking away
from the scroll that unfurls on his lap. Moreover, this
painting does not even illustrate a specific scene from
Homer’s Iliad or Odyssey.

Despite the title, then, Alma-Tadema’s painting

showcases the oral transmission of culture across the
ages. Unlike the Victorian (male) elite, who spent long
hours studying ancient Latin and Greek texts in
pedantic exercises at grammar schools and at university,
Alma-Tadema favored a vision of the ancient world that
was anything but dry. His paintings were accessible to
those outside academia and thus more democratic in
their appeal. In A Reading from Homer, the marble bench
even seems to curve towards the viewer’s space, as if
offering us an invitation to participate in this gathering.

In fact, at the Royal Academy exhibition of 1885, art

critic Claude Phillips perceived the populist element of

Chapter 7 | 303
 this painting, although he interpreted it negatively.
While acknowledging that the painting demonstrates
Alma-Tadema’s “usual mastery . . . of light, color,
texture, and drawing,” Phillips nonetheless disapproved
of the figures themselves: “The facial types, though they
have an air of realistic truth, are of a low order, and not
3
such as should have been selected for such a subject.”
Here Phillips draws upon the contemporary pseudo-
scientific discourse of phrenology and physiognomy,
which argued that an individual’s character was legible
through the shape of the head and facial features. For
Phillips, the supposedly “low” nature of the figures’ faces
was corroborated by their lethargic attitudes, and he
preferred paintings with classical themes that elevated
the viewer by featuring noble people doing noble deeds.
By Victorian standards the people in the painting were
not beautiful, and Victorian culture equated physical
beauty with goodness of character. Therefore, these less
than beautiful people where exhibiting their lower
characters with their indolent poses and slow responses
in ways that only the unlovely could.

Alma-Tadema’s vision of antiquity was decidedly

different than that. He was a key figure in the mid- to
late-Victorian Classical Revival. We can think back to the
Neo-classical movement of a century before. A product
of the Enlightenment, Neoclassical art favored the
cerebral over the sensual and themes that promoted

3. Claude Phillips, “The Royal Academy,” The Academy 679

(9 May 1885), p.336.
304 | Chapter 7
reason, civic virtue, and heroism. Think of Jacques-Louis
David’s Oath of the Horatii (1784), which shows three
brothers who vow to go to war and sacrifice their lives
for Rome. By contrast, in A Reading from Homer, Alma-
Tadema shows a group of languorous figures enjoying
the sensory delights of a warm Mediterranean day by
the sea, withdrawing into private worlds of reverie
rather than being urged into collective, public action.

Here Alma-Tadema’s classicism also engages with the

mid-Victorian Aesthetic movement (which emphasized
the aesthetic qualities of art over the narrative), and A
Reading from Homer resembles Albert Moore’s A
Musician of c.1867. The lyres in both Moore and Alma-
Tadema’s paintings underscore the Aesthetes’ “musical”
approach to painting, encouraging the viewer to look at
painting in terms of harmonies, rhythms, and contrasts
rather than offering any specific narrative moment or
moral meaning. In A Reading from Homer, the viewer
can appreciate a series of visual contrasts that offer a
pleasing sense of balance and harmony: the angular
geometries of the marble architecture at left, which
transforms into the sweeping curve of the bench at
right; the figures resting in cool shadow against the
bright, glowing marble and sun-lit water; the palette of
whites, blues, and browns punctuated by the loud
accents of the red tambourine and fuschia roses.

Alma-Tadema delighted in the day-to-day materiality

of the past. In A Reading from Homer we can see the skill
with which he depicted the translucency of the marble,
tinged blue by the light from the sky and water; the soft

Chapter 7 | 305
 fur tunic worn by the reclining man; and the lyre with all
strings carefully delineated.

Alma-Tadema’s attention to artifacts and architecture

represents an archaeological approach. The second half
of the nineteenth century was a great age of
archaeological study and excavation, with discoveries
being made in Mediterranean and Near Eastern sites
such as Knossos, Mycenae, and even the famed Homeric
city of Troy. Alma-Tadema himself regularly visited
Pompeii, the Museo Nazionale in Naples, the Vatican
Museum, and Rome for archaeological inspiration; at
home in London he also had a great resource in the
British Museum.

Because of Alma-Tadema’s pleasure in depicting the

material objects and structures of the past, critics have
sometimes been unkind in their view of him. Critic and
curator Roger Fry, who helped introduce Post-
Impressionism to Britain, denounced Alma-Tadema as
representing “an extreme instance of the commercial
4
materialism of our civilization.” This view was further
cemented by the fact that his art was collected by the
wealthy capitalists of his day. A Reading from Homer was
purchased by American financier Henry Marquand, then
President of the Metropolitan Museum, to go in the
music room of his New York mansion.

4. Roger Fry Reader, “The Case of the Late Sir Lawrence

Alma-Tadema, O.M.” (reprinted from The Nation, 18
January 1913, 666-67) p.149.
306 | Chapter 7
 A Reading from Homer offered visitors to Marquand’s
home a sort of mirror for their own behavior. Like the
figures in the painting, these Gilded Age elite would
gather in the music room to listen to a performance or
recital. They would also witness Alma-Tadema’s artistic
performance by proxy, in the form of this painting.
Inscribed on the seat beneath the storyteller is Alma-
Tadema’s signature, suggesting the artist’s identification
with this figure. Like the Homeric storyteller, Alma-
Tadema captivates his audience through his artistic
performance, bringing visions of the ancient world to
life.

Excepted and Adapted from: Dr. Chloe Portugeis, “Sir

Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Listening to Homer,”
in Smarthistory, August 9, 2015,
https://smarthistory.org/alma-tadema-listening-to-
homer/.
All Smarthistory content is available for free
at www.smarthistory.org
CC: BY-NC-SA

Audio recording of the Fallen Woman trope segment:

One or more interactive elements has been excluded

from this version of the text. You can view them online
here: https://openeducationalberta.ca/
19thcenturyart/?p=269#audio-269-3

Beauty and the so-called character truths it revealed were an

Chapter 7 | 307
important part of Victorian culture. This was deepened, in part,
by the demographic ratios in the Victorian population. In Victorian
England, due to wars and pandemics, the male to female ratio was
one man to every ten women. This meant for every single woman
who got married, nine others were left single. This might seem like
a small matter in the 21st century, but in Victorian England this was
a major cause for concern.
See, in England at this time a woman had to marry. Not because
women were forbidden from remaining single, but because society
was structured so that women needed to be married in order to
access to the ability to care and provide for themselves. Life was
divided into two overlapping spheres – the Public Sphere, realm of
the male, and the Private Sphere, realm of the female. Only in the
creation of a family home did the two spheres overlap. Therefore a
woman without access to an overlapping Public Sphere would suffer
destitution, ill-repute, and dead-ends in most efforts to access the
goods and services of the Public Sphere. Thus, Victorian women
needed to marry. Their only other option was to remain in their
parent’s home under the care of her father. However, the
Industrialization of Britain during this period had changed the
economic culture and many families in the lower and middle class
were unable to care for adult children. Women who were unable
to find a husband were often forced to care for themselves. Some
were able to find work in the factories of the Industrial Revolution
and scrapped together a mean existence. However, as hundreds of
thousands flocked to the cities in search of work the factories had
more prospective employees than work to give and thousands of
women found it necessary to make a living via the world’s oldest
profession – prostitution. Yet, a prostitute in Victorian society was
as invisible and as worthless as a French Laundress and thus the
cycle of poverty persisted.
The rate of unwed mothers in a society that shut out the ‘shamed’
woman, create a voracious art market for stories of the ‘Femme
Fatale’ and the ‘Fallen Woman’. The femme fatale was, as she always
is, beautiful and dangerous. A woman of ambition who lies about her

308 | Chapter 7
unseemly past and racks up societal taboos like Rachel Green racks
up her credit card in Friends. The ‘Fallen Woman’ was the story of
the failed femme fatale – the woman whose mistakes find her out
and she is left with…nothing but shame.

Richard Redgrave, The Outcast, oil on canvas, 1851

The melodramatic moral work by Richard Redgrave –

The Outcast – depicts a stern patriarch of inflexible
puritanical morality casting out a fallen woman and her
illegitimate baby – probably his daughter and grandchild
– from his “respectable” house. Despite the snow visible
on the ground outside, the paterfamilias stands by an
open door, gesturing angrily for her to depart. Another
young woman – probably another daughter – kneels,
begging him to relent, while another weeps behind. The

Chapter 7 | 309
 mother of the family comforts a weeping son, while a
fourth daughter looks on in confusion. An incriminating
letter lies on the floor, and a biblical painting – probably
Abraham casting out Hagar and Ishmael, but possibly
Christ and the woman taken in adultery – hangs on the
wall. The device of the incriminating letter was used to
better effect in a similar context by Augustus Egg in his
1858 triptych Past and Present.

The painting is ambiguous: it could be meant as a

warning to other women to avoid a similar fate, or could
be intended to evoke sympathy for the plight of the
young mother abandoned by her family.

Excerpted and adapted from: Wikipedia, (August 17,

2020), s.v. “The Outcast (Redgrave painting).”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
The_Outcast_(Redgrave_painting)

310 | Chapter 7
Augustus Egg, Past and Present, No. 1 – Misfortune, oil on canvas, 1858

But not just unwed mothers could be included in the ‘Fallen Woman’
narrative. In Augustus Egg’s triptych Past and Present he portrays
the story of a mother who is found out in an affair and falls from
her comfortable married position into utter destitution. The first
piece, meant to be hung in between the other two pieces in the
series, represented the Past, while the pieces on either side were
two perspectives of the same moment in the Present.
Around this time the courts had just changed the divorce process,
which made it more accessible to the middle classes – this may have
been a discussion regarding the problems with easier divorces. It
may have been a commentary on immorality. Or it may have been a
judgement on promiscuous women who became wives.
The paintings were not individually titled when they were
exhibited in the Royal Academy show of 1858 as they are now –

Chapter 7 | 311
 Misfortune, Prayer, and Despair but they were accompanied with
this fictional excerpt from a journal:

August the 4th – Have just heard that B— has been dead
more than a fortnight, so his poor children have now lost
both parents. I hear she was seen on Friday last near the
Strand, evidently without a place to lay her head. What a fall
5
hers has been!

In Past and Present, No. 1 – Misfortune, the mother lays in a pleading

swoon on the floor having realized her husband had an
incriminating letter clasped in his hand. He sits thunderstruck his
face glazed and despondent, showing that their difference have
become irreconcilable. The portrait of the other man is under his
foot. The apple has been cut – one piece staying on the table, the
other by her foot. The children jump at the commotion between
their parents as their house of cards falls down. In the mirror the
door is open and the bag and umbrella sit by the door.

5. Annabelle Rutherford, "A Dramatic Reading of Augustus

Leopold Egg’s Untitled Triptych," Tate Papers, no. 7
(2007). https://www.tate.org.uk/research/publications/
tate-papers/07/a-dramatic-reading-of-augustus-
leopold-egg-untitled-triptych
312 | Chapter 7
 Augustus Egg, Past and Present, No. 2 – Prayer, oil on canvas, 1858

According to John Ruskin, in the story being presented by Egg’s

paintings, five years have passed since the fateful day that the
6
mother left the home. The children are older now and the older
one’s black mourning clothes and the younger one’s crying shows
that the father has died and they are alone in the world. Looking out
the window as they pray for their wayward and estranged mother
they look at the waxing moon.

6. Rutherford, "Dramatic", https://www.tate.org.uk/

research/publications/tate-papers/07/a-dramatic-
reading-of-augustus-leopold-egg-untitled-triptych
Chapter 7 | 313
Augustus Egg, Past and Present, No. 3 – Despair, oil on canvas, 1858

In the third painting of the triptych, the mother stares at the same
moon with the same cloud that her daughters are looking at at the
same moment. The naked legs of a baby stick out from her rags,
causing the viewer to speculate if the baby is already dead or if it
will survive. She sleeps under the bridge by the Strand. The posters
on the walls are advertisements for two plays that feature destroyed
marriages and an ad for a pleasure cruise to France.
Audio recording of Beauty Standards segment:

One or more interactive elements has been excluded

from this version of the text. You can view them online

314 | Chapter 7
 here: https://openeducationalberta.ca/
19thcenturyart/?p=269#audio-269-4

This triptych and The Outcast are paintings of “Fallen Women” –

a huge theme in Victorian arts – poetry and literature explored it
the most but the fine arts did as well. With the massive number of
prostitutes and questionably careered women in London, it is not
strange that there would have been an interest in the fallen woman.
There were lots.
Which is an interesting thing because England at this time was in
the middle of a moral revolution of sorts. You’ll see with the works
of William Holman-Hunt, that morality was a big deal in Victorian
England. But, it wasn’t like the Neo-Classical French call to morality
– which was all about the many over the few and a single sacrifice
for the greater good, etc. That was a very Roman Catholic, collective
approach. The English moral revolution was very much in the
domain of the individual for the sake of the individual, although
society would benefit, the reason for morality wasn’t the betterment
of the many, but the saving of the one – which was a very Protestant,
individualistic approach.
With these moralizing reminders everywhere and the real threat
of destitution behind every mistake, women were very conscious
of the very real need to find a husband. One of the ways to win a
husband was with beauty and grace and this needed to happen very
early in the ‘coming out’ of a young woman.

Coming Out: The phrase meant something different back

then. Girls too young for courtship were referred to as “in
the schoolroom”; to “come out to society” meant to enter the
marriage market. Often these girls were presented to the
Queen at St. James — the Victorian equivalent of a Senior
Prom spotlight dance. The girls had to make the most of

Chapter 7 | 315
 their first season. After two or three “failed seasons” — no
7
engagement — they could be considered an old maid.

This is also where the saying ‘Three times a bridesmaid, never a

bride’ has some of its roots- you know, apart from the Medieval
superstitions about bridesmaids absorbing the demons and bad luck
from the happy couple. If a bridesmaid had been in a wedding three
times – which would probably mean three wedding seasons
(spring/summer) – dressed in her best – and still hadn’t caught the
eye of any bachelors, she was doomed to be an old maid. To provide
for herself becoming a school teacher, or governess, was a suitable
occupation for an old maid of middle class education and social
standing.

7. Emma Jameson, "Some Fun Facts about Victorian

England," Official Site of Emma Jameson, New York
Times Best Selling Author, January 21, 2012,
https://emmajamesondotcom.wordpress.com/
category/facts-victorian/
316 | Chapter 7
 In a society that values looks
as an indicator of goodness, it
makes sense that cosmetics
were taboo. In other eras
makeup would have been the
way to perfect one’s looks to
meet the criteria of society, but
‘proper’ British women didn’t
wear makeup – or makeup that
showed anyway. It was felt that
wearing makeup or overly
structured undergarments was
akin to lying about who and
what you were. According to
beauty standards of the time
James Tissot, On the Thames, oil on the ideal complexion was called
canvas, 1882 “the lily and the rose” – white,
translucent skin with pale rose
tint fading into the cheeks. To achieve this coveted complexion
many home-made beauty treatments and questionable tinctures
were used frequently. And beauty ads definitely targeted the fear of
old-maid-dom with ads that stated:
“How frequently we find that a slight blemish on the face, otherwise
divinely beautiful, has occasioned a sad and solitary life of celibacy,
8
unloved, unblessed, and ultimately unwept and unremembered.”
Basically, those who didn’t have the most naturally derived good-
looks were destined to die forever alone.
Every culture had ideals of beauty that changed from time to
time – like France’s over the top Rococo fashions. Anyone with

8. Mark Sandy, The Persistence of Beauty: Victorians to

Moderns, (Abingdon-on-Thames, England: Routledge,
2015), 38.
Chapter 7 | 317
enough money, head gear, and makeup could be beautiful in Rococo
France. This was so well known, even during the Rococo period
that many jokes were made about French women as disguisers and
dissemblers. So, sixty years later in England it was almost
impossible to scam the system. Bone structure, hair colour and body
shape were tantamount and faking it (with the exception of minor
to moderate body modifications with foundational wear) was a sign
of deep character-flaws and scandal.
Entire books existed as to explain what was, and was not beautiful
– the “Laws” of Beauty. Alexander Walker’s book Beauty: Illustrated
Chiefly by an Analysis and Classification of Beauty in Women did
its best to present itself as a scientific manual regarding the most
important aspects of female beauty. But keep in mind that all these
rules and laws of good looks were deeply supported by the cultural
belief that can be summed up with a simple equation:
BEAUTIFUL = GOOD
UGLY = EVIL
Which is why ‘faking it’ with makeup or overly structured
clothing was considered scandalous and the same as lying and
cheating. Because how you looked conveyed everything about you
and to lie about how you looked was lying about who you were.
Facial bone structure was considered of the MOST importance – a
strong chin, or a thin & long face, or pronounced eyebrow line
could undo a woman’s marriage chances (or so they said. Because
were ‘ugly’ women finding love and getting married in Victorian
society? For sure. For all the so-called science in their approach,
the science of beauty frequently forgot the subjective nature of
attraction.) Chins were especially considered markers of daily
character. Walker stated in his book,

Of the chin, it should be observed that it is a distinctive

character of the human species, and is not found in any
other animal. When well formed, it is full, united, and
generally without a dimple; and it passes gently and almost
insensibly into the neighboring parts. In woman especially,

318 | Chapter 7
 the chin ought to be finely rounded; for when projecting, it
expresses, owing to its connexion with muscular action and
power, a firmness and a determination which we do not wish
to discover in her character. In woman, the countenance is
more rounded, as well as more abundantly furnished with
that cellular and, fatty tissue which fills all the chasms,
effaces, all the angles, and unites all the parts by the gentlest
transitions. At the same time, the muscles are feebler, more
mobile, resigned for a shorter time to the same contraction,
and as inconstant as the emotions and passions which their
9
rapid play expresses.

So basically, the beautiful woman was inconstant, emotional, and

not one to jut out her chin in defiance too frequently.
Audio recording of Beauty Standards (con’t) segment:

One or more interactive elements has been excluded

from this version of the text. You can view them online
here: https://openeducationalberta.ca/
19thcenturyart/?p=269#audio-269-5

Hair colour was also important. Blonde was considered the ideal
hair color; lady’s magazines of the time declared blondes were the

9. Alexander Walker, Beauty: Illustrated Chiefly by an

Analysis and Classification of Beauty in Women, (New
York : J. & H.G. Langley, 1840), 246-247.
Chapter 7 | 319
 10
only true beauties. Other colours could be nice or handsome, but
only blondes were worth talking about.
This lady here, in George
Goodwin Kilburne’s painting,
would be considered nearly
ideal. The chin isn’t really there
as it gently fades into the neck,
the face is a long oval, the eyes
rounded and china blue. Her
hair is blond and slightly curly –
George Goodwin Kilburne, Penning a
slightly curly is important here.
Letter, oil on canvas, n.d.
Too curly and she seems wild
and unrulable, but slightly curly gives the idea of yielding and gentle,
with no severity. The hands are small, the arms taper, the neck is
not thick or short, and her chest is defined but not overwhelming.
Lacking pointy or jutting features of any kind, this lady’s only flaw
may be that her nose is too straight and strong, giving her too much
a Classical profile. However, her blond hair, round blue eyes, and
cupid’s bow lips come very close to the stereotypical standard of
Victorian beauty.
Another canon of Victorian
beauty, one not as beautiful as
the blonde canon but still a
lovely lady, was the auburn
haired beauty. Auburn hair, to
any readers of Anne of Green
Gables, may seem to be a very
red-headed type colour, but in
this era it was a brown hair James Tissot, Young Lady in a Boat, oil
on canvas, 1870

10. Jameson, "Fun Facts,"

https://emmajamesondotcom.wordpress.com/
category/facts-victorian/
320 | Chapter 7
colour that glowed with reddish warmth (rather than simply being
a dark red). The auburn haired woman was considered almost
beautiful by Victorian standards. She needed an ample chest –
though that was never quite nearly enough to counteract her
misfortune of not being blonde. She should have a tapered waist, but
a good corset could help with that. And as with the blonde standard
she should have small hands, tiny feet (not seen in James Tissot’s
painting), and tapering arms. In Tissot’s Young Lady in a Boat, his
model has a gentle chin and rounded oval face. Here, compared to
Kilburne’s painting, the eyes are more almond – she’s simply not as
beautiful. Her character would be considered in keeping with her
eye and hair – possibly a little on the saucy side, but still upstanding.
The auburn haired woman could be handsome.
The last kind of woman in
Victorian society was the dark
haired woman.
They could never be beautiful.
But if her skin was lily enough
and her neck long enough, her
bosom ample enough, her waist
thin enough, her hands small
enough, her disposition gentle
enough, she could be
considered ‘Striking’.
The dark haired woman
required a gentle nature and
pale complexion to be
Frank Dicksee, Portrait of Elsa, oil on
canvas, n.d. considered attractive. The
auburn haired woman needed a
quick wit. The blonde woman could be effortlessly beautiful. Of
course, all of these beauty standards hung on more than just hair
colour – bone structure, skin tone, and other things were part of the
equation.
But there is a hair colour that isn’t on this list.
The Red Headed Woman. Even just calling someone a ‘Red Headed

Chapter 7 | 321
Woman’ was like calling someone a bad name – it was a social call-
out that either meant you were a mean-spirited cat or the woman
you were speaking out about was your worst enemy. It was a Mean
Girls ostracizing call-to-arms.
But, you might say after a Google search, Red Headed Women
show up in a lot of Victorian art!
This is partially true. Red Heads were featured in a lot of art created
during the Victorian era, but they are not, strictly speaking, featured
in Victorian art. There was a sub-culture of art that rebelled against
the beauty standards of the Victorian and created art that
celebrated what the mainstream deemed ugly. In the paintings of
these artists you will find sharp chins and elbows, bony bodies,
hooked noses, wild hair, and red locks streaming untamed around
the thin, long bodies of the women painted. These rebels began with
a small group of painters in London who went by a (not so secret)
name:

The Pre-Raphaelite
Brotherhood

During a visit to the Royal Academy exhibition of 1848,

the young artist and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti was
drawn to a painting entitled The Eve of Saint Agnes by
William Holman Hunt. As a subject taken from the
poetry of John Keats was a rarity at the time, Rossetti
sought out Hunt, and the two quickly became friends.
Hunt then introduced Rossetti to his friend John Everett

322 | Chapter 7
Millais, and the rest, as they say, is history. The trio went
on to form the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, a group
determined to reform the artistic establishment of
Victorian England.

The name “Pre-

Raphaelite Brotherhood”
(PRB) hints at the vaguely
medieval subject matter
for which the group is
known. The young artists
appreciated the simplicity
William Homan Hunt, The flight
of Madeline and Porphyro of line and large flat areas
during the drunkenness of brilliant color found in
attending the revelry (The Eve of
St. Agnes), oil on panel, 1847 and the early Italian painters
1857 before Raphael, as well as
in 15th century Flemish
art. These were not qualities favored by the more
academic approach taught at the Royal Academy during
the mid 19th century, which stressed the strong light
and dark shading of the Old Masters. Another source of
inspiration for the young artists was the writing of art
critic John Ruskin, particularly the famous passage
from Modern Painters telling artists “to go to nature in
all singleness of heart . . . rejecting nothing, selecting
nothing and scorning nothing.” This combination of
influences contributed to the group’s extreme attention
to detail, and the development of the wet white ground
technique that produced the brilliant color for which
they are known. The artists even became some of the
first to complete sections of their canvases outdoors in

Chapter 7 | 323
 an effort to capture the minute detail of every leaf and
blade of grass.

It was decided that seven was the appropriate number

for a rebellious group and four others were added to
form the initial Brotherhood. The selection of additional
members has long mystified art historians. James
Collinson, a painter, seems to have been added due to
his short-lived engagement to Rossetti’s sister Christina
rather than his sympathy with the cause. Another
member, Thomas Woolner, was a sculptor rather than a
painter. The final two members, William Michael
Rossetti and Frederic George Stephens, both of whom
went on to become art critics, were not practicing
artists. However, other young artists such as Walter
Howell Deverell and Charles Collins embraced the ideals
of the PRB even though they were never formally
elected as members.

Audio recording of Pre-

Raphaelites segment:

One or more
interactive
elements has been John Everett Millais, Isabella, oil
excluded from this on canvas, 1849
version of the text. You
can view them online here:

324 | Chapter 7
 https://openeducationalberta.ca/
19thcenturyart/?p=269#audio-269-6

The Pre-Raphaelites decided to make their debut by

sending a group of paintings, all bearing the initials
“PRB”, to the Royal Academy in 1849. However, Rossetti,
who was nervous about the reception of his painting
The Girlhood of Mary Virgin, changed his mind and
instead sent his painting to the earlier Free Exhibition
(meaning there was no jury as there was at the Royal
Academy). At the Royal Academy, Hunt exhibited Rienzi,
the Last of the Tribunes, a scene from an historical novel
of the same name by Edward Bulwer-Lytton. Millais
exhibited Isabella, another subject from Keats, created
with such attention to detail that one can actually see
the beheading scene on the plate nearest the edge of
the table, which echoes the ultimate fate of the young
lover Lorenzo in the story. In both paintings, the
accurately designed medieval costumes, bright colors
and attention to detail produced criticism that the
paintings mimicked a “mediaeval illumination of the
chronicle or the romance” (Athenaeum, 2 June 1849, p.
575). Interestingly, no mention was made of the
mysterious “PRB” inscription on the bench leg. In 1850,
however, the reaction to the PRB was very different. By
this time, many people knew about the existence of the
supposedly secret society, in part because the group
had published many of their ideas in a short-lived

Chapter 7 | 325
 literary magazine entitled The Germ. Rossetti’s Ecce
Ancilla Domini appeared at the Free Exhibition along
with a painting by his friend Deverell entitled Twelfth
Night. At the Royal Academy, Hunt’s A Converted British
Family Sheltering a Christian Priest from the Persecution
of the Druids and Millais’s Christ in the House of his
Parents, famously abused by Charles Dickens, received
the brunt of the criticism. In the aftermath of the
humiliating reception of their work, Collinson resigned
from the group and Rossetti decided never again to
exhibit publicly. Undeterred, Millais and Hunt again
continued to exhibit paintings demonstrating the
beautiful colors and detail orientation of the mature
style of the PRB. The Royal Academy of 1851 included
Hunt’s Valentine Rescuing Sylvia, and three pictures by
Millais, Mariana, The Woodman’s Daughter, and The
Return of the Dove to the Ark as well as Convent
Thoughts by Millais’s friend Charles Collins. Although
many were still dubious about the new style, the critic
John Ruskin came to the rescue of the group, publishing
two letters in The Times newspaper in which he praised
the relationship of the PRB to early Italian art. Although
Ruskin was suspicious of what he termed the group’s
“Catholic tendencies,” he liked the attention to detail
and the color of the PRB paintings. Ruskin’s praise
helped catapult the young artists to a new level. The
Brotherhood, however, was slowly dissolving. Woolner
emigrated to Australia in 1852. Hunt decided in January
1854 to visit the Holy Land in order to better paint
religious pictures. And, in an event Rossetti described as
the formal end of the PRB, Millais was elected as an

326 | Chapter 7
Associate of the Royal Academy in 1853, joining the art
establishment he had fought hard to change. Despite
the fact that the Brotherhood lasted only a few short
years, its impact was immense. Millais and Hunt both
went on to establish important places for themselves in
the Victorian art world. Millais was to go on to become
an extremely popular artist, selling his art works for vast
sums of money, and ultimately being elected as the
President of the Royal Academy. Hunt, who perhaps
stayed most true to the Pre-Raphaelite aesthetic,
became a well-known artist and wrote many articles
and books on the formation of the Brotherhood. Rossetti
became a mentor to a group of younger artists including
Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris, founder of the
Arts and Crafts Movement. Rossetti’s paintings of
beautiful women also helped inaugurate the new
Aesthetic Movement, or the taste for Art for Art’s Sake,
in the later Victorian era. To a contemporary audience,
the Pre-Raphaelites may appear less than modern.
However, in their own time the Pre-Raphaelite
Brotherhood accomplished something revolutionary.
They were one of the first groups to value painting out-
of-doors for its “truth to nature,” and their concept of
banding together to take on the art establishment
helped to pave the way for later groups. The distinctive
elements of their paintings, such as the extreme
attention to detail, the brilliant colors and the beautiful
rendition of literary subjects set them apart from other
Victorian painters.Excerpted and Adapted from: Dr.
Rebecca Jeffrey Easby, “A beginner’s guide to the Pre-
Raphaelites,” in Smarthistory, August 9, 2015,
https://smarthistory.org/a-beginners-guide-to-the-

Chapter 7 | 327
 pre-raphaelites/.
All Smarthistory content is available for free
at www.smarthistory.org
CC: BY-NC-SA

John Everett Millais

John Everett Millais, Christ in the House of His Parents, oil on canvas,
1849-50

328 | Chapter 7
 When it appeared at the Royal Academy annual
exhibition of 1850 Christ in the House of his Parents must
have seemed a serious departure from standard
religious imagery. Painted by the young John Everett
Millais, a member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
(PRB), Christ in the House of his Parents focuses on the
ideal of truth to nature that was to become the hallmark
of the Brotherhood.

The picture centers on the young Christ whose hand

has been injured, being cared for by the Virgin, his
mother. Christ’s wound, a perforation in his palm,
foreshadows his ultimate end on the cross. A young St.
John the Baptist carefully brings a bowl of water to clean
the wound, symbolic of John the Baptist’s future role in
the baptism of Christ. Joseph, St Anne (the Virgin’s
mother) and a carpenter’s assistant also react to Christ’s
accident. At a time when most religious paintings of the
Holy Family were calm and tranquil groupings, this
active event in the young life of the Savior must have
seemed extremely radical.

The same can be said for Millais’ handling of the

figures and the setting in the painting. Mary’s wrinkled
brow and the less than clean feet of some of the figures
are certainly not idealized. According to the principles
of the P.R.B., the attention to detail is incredible. Each
individual wood shaving on the floor is exquisitely
painted, and the rough-hewn table is more functional
than beautiful. The tools of the carpenters trade are
evident hanging on the wall behind, while stacks of

Chapter 7 | 329
 wood line the walls. The setting is a place of work, not a
sacred spot.

William Michael Rossetti recorded in The P.R.B.

Journal that Millais started to work on the subject in
November 1849 and began the actual painting at the end
of December. We know from Rossetti and the
reminiscences of fellow Brotherhood member William
Holman Hunt that Millais worked on location in a
carpenter’s shop on Oxford Street, catching cold while
working there in January. Millais’ son tells us that his
father purchased sheep heads from a butcher to use as
models for the sheep in the upper left of the canvas. He
did not show the finished canvas to his friends until
April of 1850.

Audio recording of Millais segment:

One or more interactive elements has been

excluded from this version of the text. You
can view them online here:
https://openeducationalberta.ca/
19thcenturyart/?p=269#audio-269-7

Although Millais’ exhibit at the Royal Academy in 1849,

Isabella, had been well received, the critics
blasted Christ in the House of his Parents. The most
infamous review, however, was the one by Charles
Dickens that appeared in his magazine Household
Words in June 1850. In it he described Christ as:

330 | Chapter 7
 a hideous, wry-necked, blubbering, red-haired
boy in a nightgown, who appears to have
received a poke playing in an adjacent gutter,
and to be holding it up for the contemplation of
a kneeling woman, so horrible in her ugliness
that (supposing it were possible for any human
creature to exist for a moment with that
dislocated throat) she would stand out from the
rest of the company as a monster in the vilest
cabaret in France or in the lowest gin-shop in
England.

The commentary in The Times was equally

unfavorable, stating that Millais’ “attempt to associate
the Holy Family with the meanest details of a carpenter’s
shop, with no conceivable omission of misery, of dirt, of
even disease, all finished with loathsome minuteness, is
disgusting.” The painting proved to be so controversial
that Queen Victoria asked that it be removed from the
exhibition and brought to her so she could examine it.

The attacks on Millais’ painting were undoubtedly

unsettling for the young artist. Millais had been born in
1829 on the island of Jersey, but his parents eventually
moved to London to benefit their son’s artistic
education. When Millais began at the Royal Academy
school in 1840 he had the distinction of being the
youngest person ever to have been admitted.

At the Royal Academy, Millais became friendly with

the young William Holman Hunt, who in turn introduced
Millais to Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and the idea for the
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was born. The young artists

Chapter 7 | 331
 exhibited their first set of paintings in 1849, all of which
were well received, but the paintings shown in 1850
were universally criticized, although none with as much
fervor as Christ in the House of his Parents.

Millais’ Christ in the House of his Parents is a

remarkable religious painting for its time. It presents
the Holy Family in a realistic manner, emphasizing the
small details that bring the tableau to life. It is a scene
we can easily imagine happening, but it is still laced with
the symbolism expected of a Christian subject. It is
Millais’ marriage of these two ideas that makes Christ in
the House of his Parents such a compelling image, and at
the same time, made it so reprehensible to Millais’
contemporaries.

Excerpted from: Dr. Rebecca Jeffrey Easby, “Sir John

Everett Millais, Christ in the House of His Parents,”
in Smarthistory, August 9, 2015,
https://smarthistory.org/millais-christ-in-the-house-
of-his-parents/.
All Smarthistory content is available for free
at www.smarthistory.org
CC: BY-NC-SA

332 | Chapter 7
 Rising up to stretch
after a long session of
embroidery,
Millais’ Mariana is the
epitome of the Victorian
idea of a medieval
woman. Set in a vaguely
Gothic interior with
pointed arches and
stained glass windows,
the painting has an air of
John Everett Millais, Mariana, oil on
mahogany wood, 1851 mystery and melancholy
that is typical in Victorian
depictions of the Middle Ages. The 1830s-50s saw an
interest in the Middle Ages which appeared to offer an
alternative to the problems of industrial capitalism of
the Victorian era.

Also typical of the time, is the emphasis on the

isolated female figure. The dark colors and straining
posture of the woman lead us to wonder about her
story, and the Victorian painter always has a story to
tell.

Mariana is an illustration to Tennyson’s poem, lines

from which were included in the catalog when the
painting was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1851:

She only said, ‘My life is dreary,

He cometh not,’ she said:
She said, “I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!’

Chapter 7 | 333
 The inspiration for the poem was taken from the
character of Mariana in Shakespeare’s play Measure for
Measure, who was locked in a moated grange (an estate
with a moat around it) for years after her dowry was lost
at sea in a storm, causing her to be rejected by her lover
Angelo. However, the happily ever after ending found in
Shakespeare’s play is not even hinted at in either
Tennyson’s poem or the painting by Millais. Instead the
young woman is totally enclosed and isolated by her
surroundings, with even the garden visible outside the
window bordered by a high brick wall. The visual
imagery, with the dying leaves that are strewn
throughout the composition, does not seem to suggest a
happy ending for Millais’ heroine.

As is typical with the Pre-Raphaelites, Millais’ painting

shows his mastery of the minute detail. The viewer can
almost reach out and touch the softness of her velvet
dress, and the jewels in her belt glitter against the dark
blue fabric. The beautiful stained glass windows
depicting an Annunciation scene were adapted from the
windows in the Chapel of Merton College, Oxford. Even
the smallest details such as the small mouse that runs
across the floor and the light of the lamp by the prie
dieu in the corner are painted with the same attention
to truth to nature found in the more prominent
elements of the painting.

Mariana was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1851.

Although Millais and his fellow Pre-Raphaelite artists
were not well received by the critics, the attacks were
not as savage as Millais had endured the previous year
over his Christ in the House of his Parents. In fact, the

334 | Chapter 7
young but influential critic John Ruskin was persuaded
to send two letters to The Times praising the new style
for its skill in drawing, intense color and truthfulness to
nature. This was a turning point, both for the future of
the Pre-Raphaelites and for Millais, whose future
association with Ruskin was to be so eventful.

In Mariana, Millais has created both an essay in Pre-

Raphaelite execution and an evocative literary female
portrait. The viewer feels the release of her aching
muscles as she leans backward, however we are also
palpably aware of her isolation. It is a work that is at
once vibrant and colorful, but also cold and forbidding.

Excerpted from: Dr. Rebecca Jeffrey Easby, “Sir John

Everett Millais, Mariana,” in Smarthistory, August 9,
2015, accessed October 15,
2020, https://smarthistory.org/millais-mariana/.
All Smarthistory content is available for free
at www.smarthistory.org
CC: BY-NC-SA

Chapter 7 | 335
John Everett Millais, Ophelia, oil on canvas, 1851-52

Audio recording of Ophelia segment:

One or more interactive elements has been

excluded from this version of the text. You
can view them online here:
https://openeducationalberta.ca/
19thcenturyart/?p=269#audio-269-8

Ophelia is considered to be one of the

great masterpieces of the Pre-Raphaelite style.

336 | Chapter 7
Combining his interest in Shakespearean subjects with
intense attention to natural detail, Millais created a
powerful and memorable image. His selection of the
moment in the play Hamlet when Ophelia, driven mad
by Hamlet’s murder of her father, drowns herself was
very unusual for the time. However, it allowed Millais to
show off both his technical skill and artistic vision.

The figure of Ophelia floats in the water, her mid

section slowly beginning to sink. Clothed in an antique
dress that the artist purchased specially for the painting,
the viewer can clearly see the weight of the fabric as it
floats, but also helps to pull her down. Her hands are in
the pose of submission, accepting of her fate.

She is surrounded by a variety of summer flowers and

other botanicals, some of which were explicitly
described in Shakespeare’s text, while others are
included for their symbolic meaning. For example, the
ring of violets around Ophelia’s neck is a symbol of
faithfulness, but can also refer to chastity and death.

Painted outdoors near Ewell in Surrey, Millais began

the background of the painting in July of 1851. He
reported that he got up everyday at 6 am, began work at
8, and did not return to his lodgings until 7 in the
evening. He also recounted the problems of working
outdoors in letters to his friend Mrs. Combe, later
published in the biography of Millais by his son J.G.
Millais.

“I sit tailor-fashion under an umbrella

throwing a shadow scarcely larger than a
halfpenny for eleven hours, with a child’s mug

Chapter 7 | 337
 within reach to satisfy my thirst from the
running stream beside me. I am threatened with
a notice to appear before a magistrate for
trespassing in a field and destroying the hay.”

His problems did not end when he returned to his

studio in mid-October to paint the figure of Ophelia. His
model was Elizabeth Siddal who the Pre-Raphaelite
artists met through their friend Walter Howell Deverell,
who had been impressed by her appearance and asked
her to model for him.

When she met the Pre-Raphaelites Siddal was

working in a hat shop, but she later became a painter
and poet in her own right. She also become the wife and
muse of Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Millais had Siddal
floating in a bath of warm water kept hot with lamps
under the tub. However, one day the lamps went out
without being noticed by the engrossed Millais. Siddal
caught cold, and her father threatened legal action for
damages until Millais agreed to pay the doctor’s bills.
(And the other PRB artists may have threatened to beat
him up, or maybe they actually did. There’s a lot of
folklore around this.)

Ophelia proved to be a more successful painting for

Millais than some of his earlier works, such as Christ in
the House of his Parents. It had already been purchased
when it was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1852.
Critical opinion, under the influence of John Ruskin, was
also beginning to swing in the direction of the PRB (the
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood). The following year, Millais

338 | Chapter 7
was elected to be an Associate of the Royal Academy, an
event that Rossetti considered to be the end of the Pre-
Raphaelite Brotherhood.

The execution of Ophelia shows the Pre-Raphaelite

style at its best. Each reed swaying in the water, every
leaf and flower are the product of direct and exacting
observation of nature. As we watch the drowning
woman slowly sink into the murky water, we experience
the tinge of melancholy so common in Victorian art. It is
in his ability to combine the ideals of the Pre-
Raphaelites with Victorian sensibilities that Millais
excels. His depiction of Ophelia is as unforgettable as
the character herself.

Excerpted and Adapted from: Dr. Rebecca Jeffrey

Easby, “Sir John Everett Millais, Ophelia,”
in Smarthistory, August 9, 2015,
https://smarthistory.org/millais-ophelia/.
All Smarthistory content is available for free
at www.smarthistory.org
CC: BY-NC-SA

Chapter 7 | 339
William Holman Hunt

From William
Shakespeare’s Measure for
Measure, Act III, scene 1 (a
room in a prison):

ISABELLA What
says my brother?
CLAUDIO Death is a
fearful thing.
ISABELLA And
shamed life a
hateful.
CLAUDIO Ay, but to
die, and go we know William Holman Hunt, Claudio and
not where; Isabella, oil on panel, 1850

To lie in cold
obstruction and to rot;
This sensible warm motion to become
A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit
To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside
In thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice;
To be imprison’d in the viewless winds,
And blown with restless violence round about
The pendent world; or to be worse than worst
Of those that lawless and incertain thought
Imagine howling: ’tis too horrible!
The weariest and most loathed worldly life

340 | Chapter 7
 That age, ache, penury and imprisonment
Can lay on nature is a paradise
To what we fear of death.
ISABELLA Alas, alas!

William Holman Hunt’s Claudio and Isabella illustrates

not only the Pre-Raphaelite fascination with William
Shakespeare, but also the artist’s particular attraction to
subjects dealing with issues of morality. Taken from the
play Measure for Measure, which tells the story of
Claudio, who has been sentenced to death by Lord
Angelo (the temporary ruler of Vienna) for impregnating
his fiancée.

Claudio’s sister Isabella, a nun, goes to Angelo to plead

for clemency for her brother and is shocked that he
suggests that she trade sex for her brother’s life. Of
course, she refuses, and Claudio initially agrees with her
decision, but later changes his mind. Hunt depicts the
moment when the imprisoned Claudio suggests that
Isabella sacrifice her virginity to gain his freedom.

It was the type of subject that appealed to Hunt, who

liked themes to do with questions of guilt and sinful
behavior, such as his well known painting The
Awakening Conscience (1853).

Claudio’s face, which is partly in shadow, looks down

and away from his sister. His slouching posture, the rich
texture of his dark, yet colorful clothes and pointed
medieval-looking shoes are a sharp contrast to the stark
white of the nun’s habit, her upright posture and
unwavering gaze. Sunlight from the prison window

Chapter 7 | 341
 lights Isabella’s face and permits a glimpse of apple
blossoms and a church in the distance.

Audio recording of Pre-Raphealite Brotherhood (con’t)

segement:

One or more interactive elements has been

excluded from this version of the text. You
can view them online here:
https://openeducationalberta.ca/
19thcenturyart/?p=269#audio-269-9

The interior of the scene was painted at Lollard Prison

at Lambeth Palace, and the crumbling masonry around
the windows and the rusty metal of the shackle that
bind Claudio’s leg detail the less than desirable
conditions.

Hunt also painted the lute hanging in the window

while at the prison. The lute with its red string is
symbolic of lust, but the fact that it is placed in the
sunshine rather than the gloom of the cell lessens the
negative impact. The petals of apple blossom scattered
on Claudio’s cloak on the floor, although not added until
1879, are intended to show that Claudio is willing to
compromise his sister to save himself.

Claudio and Isabella was begun in 1850 after Hunt

received a small advance from the painter Augustus Egg
(who although he belonged to the art group The Clique,
who were the sworn enemies of the Pre-Raphaelite

342 | Chapter 7
Brotherhood, was friends with Hunt). Poor reviews of
the Pre-Raphaelite paintings at the Royal Academy of
1850 had created financial difficulties for Hunt. He
continued to work on the painting for the next several
years, finally exhibiting the picture at the Royal
Academy of 1853.

The painting appeared with a quotation from the play

carved into the frame, a devise Hunt was to explore in
many of his paintings, as a way of reinforcing his
message. The short notation “Claudio: Death is a fearful
thing. Isabella: And shamed life a hateful,” serves not
only to point to the exact moment in the play, but also
as a reminder of the underlying moral dilemma of the
subject. The ability to bring to life these moments of
ambiguity was one of Hunt’s greatest achievements.

Excerpted and adapted from: Dr. Rebecca Jeffrey

Easby, “William Holman Hunt, Claudio and Isabella,”
in Smarthistory, August 9, 2015,
https://smarthistory.org/hunt-claudio-and-isabella/.
All Smarthistory content is available for free
at www.smarthistory.org
CC: BY-NC-SA

Chapter 7 | 343
William Homan Hunt, The Awakening Conscience, oil on canvas, 1953

344 | Chapter 7
 William Holman Hunt’s painting, The Awakening
Conscience, addresses the common Victorian narrative
of the fallen woman. Trapped in a newly decorated
interior, Hunt’s heroine at first appears to be a
stereotype of the age, a young unmarried woman
engaged in an illicit liaison with her lover. This is made
clear by the fact that she is partially undressed in the
presence of a clothed man and has rings on every finger
except her wedding ring finger.

However, Hunt offers a new twist on this story. The

young woman springs up from her lover’s lap. She is
reminded of her country roots by the music the man
plays (the sheet music to Thomas Moore’s Oft in the
Stilly Night sits on the piano), causing her to have an
awakening prick of conscience.

The symbolism of the picture makes her situation as a

kept woman clear—the enclosed interior, the cat playing
with a bird under the chair, and the man’s one discarded
glove on the floor all speak to the precarious position
the woman has found herself in. However, as she stands
up, a ray of light illuminates her from behind, almost like
a halo, offering the viewer hope that she may yet find
the strength to redeem herself.

The theme of the fallen woman was popular in

Victorian art, echoing the prevalence of prostitution in
Victorian society. Hunt’s redemptive message is unusual
when compared to other examples of this theme. For
example, Richard Redgrave’s The Outcast (1851), which
shows a young unwed mother and her baby being cast
out into the snow by her disgraced father, while the rest

Chapter 7 | 345
 of her family pleads for mercy. Countless other
paintings of the period emphasize the perils of stepping
outside the bounds of acceptable morality with the
typical conclusion to the story being that the woman is
ostracized, and inevitably, suffers a premature death. By
contrast, Hunt offers the viewer the hope that the young
woman in his painting is truly repentant and can
ultimately reclaim her life.

The Awakening Conscience is one of the few Pre-

Raphaelite paintings to deal with a subject from
contemporary life, but it still retains the truth to nature
and attention to detail common to the style. The texture
of the carpet, the reflection in the mirror behind the girl
and the carvings of the furniture all speak to to Hunt’s
unwavering belief that the artist should recreate the
scene as closely as possible, and paint from direct
observation. To do that, he hired a room in the
neighborhood of St. John’s Wood. The picture was first
exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1854, and
unfortunately for Hunt, met with a mixed reception.
While Ruskin praised the attention to detail, many
critics disliked the subject of the painting and ignored
the more positive spiritual message.

For Hunt, the moral of the story was an important

element in any of his subjects. He was a deeply religious
man and committed to the principles of the Pre-
Raphaelite Brotherhood and John Ruskin. In fact, shortly
after this painting was completed, Hunt embarked on a
journey to the Holy Land, convinced that in order to
paint religious subjects, he had to go to the actual
source for inspiration. The fact that a trip to the Holy

346 | Chapter 7
Land was a difficult, expensive and dangerous journey at
the time was immaterial to him.

The Awakening Conscience is an unconventional

approach to a common subject. Hunt’s work reflects the
ideal of Christian charity espoused in theory by many
Victorians, but not exactly put into practice when
dealing with the issue of the fallen woman. While others
emphasized the consequences of one’s actions as a way
of discouraging inappropriate behavior, Hunt
maintained that the truly repentant can change their
lives.

One or more interactive elements has been

excluded from this version of the text. You
can view them online here:
https://openeducationalberta.ca/
19thcenturyart/?p=269#oembed-1

Excerpted and Adapted from: Dr. Rebecca Jeffrey

Easby, “William Holman Hunt, The Awakening
Conscience,” in Smarthistory, August 9, 2015,
https://smarthistory.org/hunt-the-awakening-
conscience/.
All Smarthistory content is available for free
at www.smarthistory.org
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Chapter 7 | 347
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Audio recording of Rossetti segment:

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348 | Chapter 7
 Just one bite. Surely
that can’t hurt. Or can it?
It took less than one bite
to destroy the
mythological goddess
Proserpine’s life. This
tragic maiden was
gathering flowers when
she was abducted by
Pluto, carried off to his
underground palace in
Hades – the land of the
dead, and forced to marry
him. Distraught, her
mother Ceres pleaded for
her return. The god
Jupiter agreed, on
condition that Proserpine
had not tasted any of the
fruits of Hades. But she
had—a single
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Proserpine, oil pomegranate seed—and
on canvas, 1875
as punishment she was
destined to remain
captive for six months of each year for the rest of her
life in her bleak underground prison.

The English painter and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti

produced at least eight paintings of Proserpine trapped
in her subterranean world, the fatal pomegranate in her
hand. He also wrote a sonnet to accompany the

Chapter 7 | 349
 painting, which is inscribed in Italian on the painting
itself and in English on the frame, cited below. This is
the seventh version of the painting. It was produced for
the wealthy ship-owner and art collector Frederick
Leyland from Liverpool and is now in the Tate
collection, London. The original idea was to paint Eve
holding the forbidden apple, a scene from Genesis; and
in fact the two stories are almost directly comparable.
Eve and Proserpine both represent females banished for
their sin of tasting a forbidden fruit. Their yielding to
temptation has often been seen as a sign of feminine
weakness or lack of restraint.

At first glance the painting appears still,

subdued—muted like the colour scheme. Proserpine is
motionless, absorbed in thought, and the only sign of
movement is the wisp of smoke furling from the incense
burner, the attribute of the goddess. But look closely,
and the painting appears to bristle with a tortuous,
pent-up energy. It is full of peculiar twists and turns.
Take Proserpine’s neck: it bulges unnaturally at the back,
and looks as though it is slowly being screwed or
twisted like rubber. Her hands too are set in an awkward
grip. Try mimicking this yourself—it is difficult to hold
this pose for long. This is a painting of almost tortured
stillness: a body under strain.

This underlying unease is also apparent in the lines

and creases of Proserpine’s dress. Notice how it does
not form natural-looking folds. Instead it looks like the
fabric is covered in clinging, creeping ridges that seem
to slowly wind their way around the goddess, ensnaring
and rooting her to the spot. These ridges could be

350 | Chapter 7
compared to the tendril of ivy in the background, which
appears to sprout directly from her head. Ivy is a plant
with dark connotations—an invasive vine, it has a
tendency to grip, cover and choke other plant-life. It is
often associated with death, and is a common feature in
graveyards. Rossetti wrote that the ivy in this painting
symbolises ‘clinging memory.’ But what are these
memories that cling so tightly?

As many have pointed out, this painting of Proserpine

strikes a chord with Rossetti’s personal life. The writer
Theodore Watts-Dunton, Rossetti’s close friend, wrote
that “the public… Has determined to find in all Rossetti’s
work the traces of a morbid melancholy… Because
Proserpine’s expression is sad, it is assumed that the
artist must have been suffering from a painful degree of
mental depression while producing it.” Rossetti had, in
fact, suffered a nervous breakdown just two years
before he produced this painting. He suffered from
acute paranoia, and was becoming increasingly reliant
on alcohol and chloral for relief. There are doubtless
many reasons for this, one of which was the death—or
perhaps suicide—of his wife Lizzie Siddal in 1862, of a
laudanum overdose. Rossetti and Lizzie’s relationship
had been fraught and unstable. He was haunted by
memories of her for the rest of his life.

But the plot thickens. When he painted Proserpine,

Rossetti was entangled in a complicated love triangle.
He was completely infatuated with the model for this
painting, Jane Morris, easily recognizable by her thick
raven hair, striking features and slender, elongated
figure—though here they have been molded into the

Chapter 7 | 351
 typical Rossettian type. Rossetti called her a “stunner.”
The problem was that this stunner happened to be the
wife of his good friend William Morris. When this was
painted, the three were living together at Kelmscott
Manor (Oxfordshire). Morris appeared either to tolerate
or ignore the intimacy that cleaved Rossetti and his
beloved Jane together. Many have noted the similarity
between Proserpine and Jane’s personal predicaments:
both were young women trapped in unhappy marriages,
longing for freedom. But perhaps it is also a meditation
on Rossetti’s own situation. Unable to contain his
feelings for Jane, he had given in to temptation and for
this was destined to live part of his life in secrecy and
withdrawal. Rossetti himself had tasted the fatal fruit
and was living with the consequences.

In this painting, a clear

correspondence is set up
between Proserpine’s
improbably large lips and
the pomegranate in her
hand. While the rest of
the painting has been
completed in cool,
sometimes murky
colors—Rossetti called it a
“study of greys” —the lips
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Bocca
Baciata (Lips That Have Been and pomegranate are
Kissed), oil on panel, 1859 vivid and intense, painted
in warm orange and red
tones. It is significant that these features—the mouth
and the fruit—have strong associations with the

352 | Chapter 7
pleasures of taste. It is as though Rossetti is presenting
both as objects ripe for consumption, tempting the
viewer to take a taste. This is not as improbable as it
first sounds: one of Rossetti’s earlier paintings, Bocca
Baciata, which also shows a single female figure with a
fruit (an apple in this case) was considered capable of
stirring an erotic, physical response in viewers. The
artist Arthur Hughes, a contemporary of Rossetti’s, said
that the owner of this painting would probably try to
‘kiss the dear thing’s lips away.’ In fact, the title of the
painting itself translates as “the mouth that has been
kissed.”

Audio recording of Rossetti (con’t) segment:

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This sensual, carnal side of Rossetti’s work caused

controversy during his lifetime—for a Victorian artist, he
was venturing into dangerous territory. Even today
some find his sexualized vision of feminine beauty
difficult to stomach. Rossetti argued however that work
was not just a study of the sensual in life. He insisted
that his art was an attempt to synthesize the sensual
and the spiritual. His fried Theodore Watts-Dunton

Chapter 7 | 353
 defended this in an article “The Truth about Rossetti.”
To Rossetti he wrote, “the human body, like everything
in nature, was rich in symbol… To him the mouth really
represented the sensuous part of the face no less
certainly than the eyes represented the spiritualized
part.” adding that if the lips of Rossetti’s women appear
overly full and sensual, this is always counter-balanced
by the spiritual depth invested in their eyes. It is true
that in this painting there does appear to be a haunting
melancholy in Proserpine’s eyes, but whether Rossetti
fully achieves this synthesis of the sensual with the
spiritual is still up for debate.

Afar away the light that brings cold cheer

Unto this wall, – one instant and no more
Admitted at my distant palace-door.
Afar the flowers of Enna from this drear
Dire fruit, which, tasted once, must thrall me
here.
Afar those skies from this Tartarean grey
That chills me: and afar, how far away,
The nights that shall be from the days that were.
Afar from mine own self I seem, and wing
Strange ways in thought, and listen for a sign:
And still some heart unto some soul doth pine,
(Whose sounds mine inner sense is fain to bring,
Continually together murmuring,) –
“Woe’s me for thee, unhappy Proserpine!”
—Dante Gabriel Rossetti, “Proserpina (For a
Picture)”(1880)

Adapted from:

354 | Chapter 7
 Stephanie Roberts, “Dante Gabriel
Rossetti, Proserpine,” in Smarthistory, August 9, 2015,
accessed October 14, 2020, https://smarthistory.org/
rossetti-proserpine/.
All Smarthistory content is available for free
at www.smarthistory.org
CC: BY-NC-SA

Beata Beatrix is one of many portraits of beautiful

women painted by Dante Gabriel Rossetti in the last two
decades of his life. During this time, Rossetti created
many pictures of his favorite models luxuriously dressed
in Renaissance-looking costumes and jewelry, often
without the story or content associated with his earlier
paintings, such as Ecce Ancilla Domini. Beata Beatrix is
unique, however, due to the intensely personal
symbolism and atmospheric quality of the sitter and her
surroundings.

Chapter 7 | 355
 Beata Beatrix is a
portrait of Rossetti’s wife
Elizabeth Siddal, an
important model in the
early years of the Pre-
Raphaelite Brotherhood.
Siddal was working in a
hat shop when she met
the artist Walter Howell
Deverell. Hiring her as a
model for a painting he
was working on he was Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Beata
taken with her lovely face Beatrix, oil on canvas, 1864-1870
and beautiful red hair.
Deverell invited all his friends to come and see his new
“stunner.” Others in the Brotherhood were also
enthusiastic, and Siddal became a favorite model in
many now famous early Pre-Raphaelite paintings,
including Millais’s Ophelia.

Rossetti and Siddal soon became a couple, spending

the next decade in a tempestuous relationship. It was
during this period that Siddal developed into an artist in
her own right. By the time of their marriage in 1860,
however, Siddal was in ill health and had to be carried to
church. After a miscarriage, Siddal became depressed
and, at some point, addicted to laudanum.

In February 1862 Rossetti returned home from a

dinner to find his wife dead. Although her death was
declared accidental by the coroner, Rossetti was
distraught, and in a grand romantic gesture, placed his
only copy of some recently written poems in Siddal’s

356 | Chapter 7
coffin, nestled in her red hair. Several years later,
however, Rossetti had her body exhumed and his poems
retrieved by his friend and agent, Charles Howell, who
reported that Siddal’s hair was still beautiful and red and
had continued growing until it filled the coffin. (Would it
ruin the tragic romance of this story to interject with
the fact that he wanted those poems so he could give
them to his new lover – the wife of another man – Janey
Morris? Yeah. Okay, we’ll move on then.)

Beata Beatrix is filled with symbolism. Rossetti

identified with the Italian poet Dante Alighieri and the
title is reminiscent of Dante’s account of his own love,
Beatrice. Behind Siddal are the figures of Dante and
Love, with the Florentine landmark the Ponte Vecchio in
the distance. The figure of Siddal, which was done from
sketches completed before her death, looks towards
heaven with her eyes closed. The cardinal, a messenger
of death, swoops in and drops a poppy, symbolic of
Siddal’s laudanum addiction, into her upturned hands.
The fuzzy, atmospheric quality of the painting creates a
dream-like intensity about the subject, and differs
greatly from the crisp details found in many of Rossetti’s
other famous pictures of beautiful women from this
period, such as Monna Vanna.

After the death of his wife, Rossetti’s own health

began to decline. He experienced depression, became
addicted to drugs and alcohol, and in 1872 suffered a
mental breakdown. He also became increasingly
paranoid and even destroyed a section of the
manuscript journal kept by his brother William Michael
Rossetti during the early days of the Pre-Raphaelite

Chapter 7 | 357
 Brotherhood. The missing section included the period
when Elizabeth Siddal was first introduced to the
members of the Brotherhood.

In her final appearance as a model for the Pre-

Raphaelites, Siddal is immortalized as a tragic and
romantic heroine. The soft dream-like setting and tragic
beauty of the central figure give Beata Beatrix an
otherworldly quality, evoking an air of melancholy and
loss that everyone can relate to, and making it,
justifiably, one of Rossetti’s most famous pictures.

Excerpted and Adapted from: Dr. Rebecca Jeffrey

Easby, “Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Beata Beatrix,”
in Smarthistory, March 31, 2016, accessed October 14,
2020, https://smarthistory.org/rossetti-beata-beatrix/.

All Smarthistory content is available for free

at www.smarthistory.org
CC: BY-NC-SA

John William
Waterhouse

Audio recording of Waterhouse segment:

358 | Chapter 7
 One or more interactive elements has been
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can view them online here:
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In many ways, Waterhouse’s The Lady of Shalott,

painted in 1888, transports viewers back forty years—to
1848, when the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (PRB) was
formed. Indeed, one commenter from Art
Journal noted, “The type he [Waterhouse] chose for the
spell-controlled lady, her action, and the garments in
which he has arrayed her, bring his work into kinship
with that of the “Pre-Raphaelites” of the middle of the
century.” The subject of a vulnerable young red-haired
woman in white gown, adrift in a riverine setting, is
reminiscent of John Everett Millais’s Ophelia of 1852.
Millais, one of the founding members of the PRB, had a
much-acclaimed retrospective at London’s Grosvenor
Gallery in 1886, which Waterhouse attended.

Waterhouse’s chosen subject, the Lady of Shalott,

comes from Lord Alfred Tennyson’s Arthurian poem of
the same name (he actually wrote two versions, one in
1833, the other in 1842). Tennyson was a favorite among
the Pre-Raphaelites. In the poems, the Lady of Shalott
lives isolated in a castle upon a river that flows to
Camelot. Because of a curse, she is fated to spend her

Chapter 7 | 359
 days weaving images of the world onto her loom, but on
pain of death, she is forbidden from looking out her
window. Instead, she has to look at images of the
outside world as reflected in a mirror. One day she sees
a reflection of the knight Lancelot and is instantly
smitten, so she breaks her prohibition and looks directly
at him through the window. Desiring to meet him, she
leaves her castle and rides a boat down to Camelot. The
horrible conditions of the curse set in, and she dies
before reaching the shore.

John William Waterhouse, The Lady of Shalott, oil on canvas,

1888

The Lady of Shalott was a prominent subject in the

Pre-Raphaelite repertoire, the most notable example
being William Holman Hunt’s illustration for an edition

360 | Chapter 7
of Tennyson’s works published in 1857 by Moxon, which
the artist reworked into a painting in the 1880s.
Whereas Hunt highlights the moment of transgression,
right after the Lady looks at Lancelot through the
window, Waterhouse shows her on the boat to Camelot,
her death foreshadowed by the lone candle that remains
lit on the prow.

Nonetheless, as the Art Journal commenter went on to

observe, there is a significant difference between
Waterhouse’s work and that of the original PRB,
specifically, in the technique: “[T]he almost
impressionary delicacy of the rendering of willows
weeds, and water is such as claims harmony with French
work rather than what was so intensely English.” The
early works of the PRB showed an extreme attention to
detail, reflecting John Ruskin’s principle of “truth to
nature,” which advocated a faithful transcription of
landscapes and objects. But Waterhouse’s technique is
notably looser, revealing his experimentation with
French Impressionism. Impressionism offered a
different conception of “truth to nature,” one that was
based more in optical truth, that is, how an object or
scene appears to the eye in a fleeting moment, given the
time of day and atmospheric conditions.

We can see the difference if we compare the reeds of

Millais’s Ophelia with that of Waterhouse’s The Lady of
Shalott, positioned in analogous parts of the
composition. Whereas Millais’s reeds maintain their
physical integrity and rich detail when viewed up close,
Waterhouse’s reeds lose some of their convincing
illusionism and dissolve into obvious brushstrokes (even

Chapter 7 | 361
 more apparent when you see the paintings in person!).
The Lady’s tapestry, which drapes over the boat, seems
to further highlight the difference between Waterhouse
and the PRB. Whereas the early PRB were inspired by
the bright jewel tones and minute details of medieval
illustrated manuscripts and tapestries, Waterhouse took
his inspiration from the en plein air (open air) methods
of the Impressionists, replacing jewel tones for the
atmospheric silvers and greens of a cool English day.
Like the Lady herself, Waterhouse turns away from an
art of the cloistered life and towards an art that engages
with optical effects.

Although the original PRB openly declared their

allegiance to continental “Old Masters” such as Jan Van
Eyck and the early Raphael, by the end of the nineteenth
century Pre-Raphaelitism was cast as a specifically
English phenomenon. As such, it was regularly pitted
against the Impressionist trend, which solidified into a
movement in Britain with the founding of the New
English Art Club (NEAC) in 1886. Many figures in the art
world were worried about the “Frenchification” of
British artists. Marion Spielmann, editor of the Magazine
of Art, noted with consternation at the Royal Academy
exhibition of 1888: “that they [younger painters] are
most of them imbued with the French spirit . . . is a fact
that the Royal Academy cannot afford to overlook.” He
then addresses the Council: “the future of the English
‘School’ is in their hands, and upon them devolves the
responsibility of moulding it to the proper form.”

Spielmann also noted the “French flatness” of

Waterhouse’s The Lady of Shalott. However, the

362 | Chapter 7
 painting’s debts to early Pre-Raphaelitism and that most
“English” of poets, Tennyson, remained undeniable. The
setting, moreover, suggested a thoroughly English
landscape, evoking not only the Surrey of
Millais’s Ophelia, but also bearing resemblance to the
sort of marshy, reedy scenery that could be seen in
Peter Henry Emerson’s photographs of English
landscapes, as in this image, “Ricking the Reed,” from his
album, Life and Landscape on the Norfolk Broads (1886).
Despite initial remarks as to the “Frenchness” of its
technique, The Lady of Shalott was ultimately accepted
by the establishment as an “English” painting, and was
acquired by Henry Tate for his museum of national art,
where it still enjoys pride of place today as one of their
most popular works.

Adapted from: Dr. Chloe Portugeis, “John William

Waterhouse, The Lady of Shalott,” in Smarthistory,
August 9, 2015, https://smarthistory.org/waterhouse-
the-lady-of-shalott/.
All Smarthistory content is available for free
at www.smarthistory.org
CC: BY-NC-SA

The Aesthetic
Movement
Audio recording of The Aesthetic Movement segment:

Chapter 7 | 363
 One or more interactive elements has been excluded
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here: https://openeducationalberta.ca/
19thcenturyart/?p=269#audio-269-13

Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Monna Vanna, oil on canvas, 1866

364 | Chapter 7
 The Aesthetic Movement, also known as “art for art’s
sake,” permeated British culture during the latter part of
the 19th century, as well as spreading to other countries
such as the United States. Based on the idea that beauty
was the most important element in life, writers, artists
and designers sought to create works that were admired
simply for their beauty rather than any narrative or
moral function. This was, of course, a slap in the face to
the tradition of art, which held that art needed to teach
a lesson or provide a morally uplifting message. The
movement blossomed into a cult devoted to the creation
of beauty in all avenues of life from art and literature, to
home decorating, to fashion, and embracing a new
simplicity of style.In literature, aestheticism was
championed by Oscar Wilde and the poet Algernon
Swinburne. Skepticism about their ideas can be seen in
the vast amount of satirical material related to the two
authors that appeared during the time. Gilbert and
Sullivan, masters of the comic operetta, unfavorably
critiqued aesthetic sensibilities in Patience (1881). The
magazine Punch was filled with cartoons depicting
languishing young men and swooning maidens wearing
aesthetic clothing. One of the most famous of these, The
Six-Mark Tea-Pot by George Du Maurier published in
1880, was supposedly based on a comment made by
Wilde. In it, a young couple dressed in the height of
aesthetic fashion and standing in an interior filled with
items popularized by the Aesthetes—an Asian screen,
peacock feathers, and oriental blue and white
porcelain—comically vow to “live up” to their latest
acquisition.In the visual arts, the concept of art for art’s

Chapter 7 | 365
 sake was widely influential. Many of the later paintings
of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, such as Monna Vanna (above),
are simply portraits of beautiful women that are
pleasing to the eye, rather than related to some literary
story as in earlier Pre-Raphaelite paintings.

A similar approach can

be seen in much of the
work of Sir Edward
Burne-Jones, whose The
Golden Stairs (1880)
captures the aesthetic
mood in its presentation
of a long line of beautiful
women walking down a
staircase, devoid of any
specific narrative
content. The designer
William Morris, another
disciple of Rossetti,
created beautiful designs
for household textiles,
wallpaper, and furniture
to surround his clients
Whistler James Symphony in
White no 1 (The White Girl), oil with beauty.
on canvas, 1862
Most famous of the
aesthetic artists was the American James Abbott McNeill
Whistler. His early painting Symphony in White #1: The
White Girl caused a sensation when it was exhibited
after being rejected from both the Salon in Paris (the
official annual exhibition) and the annual exhibition at
the Royal Academy in London. The simplistic

366 | Chapter 7
representation of a woman in a white dress, standing in
front of a white curtain was too unique for Victorian
audiences, who tried desperately to connect the
painting to some literary source—a connection Whistler
himself always denied. The artist went on to create a
series of paintings, the titles of which generally have
some musical connection, which were simply intended
to create a sense of mood and beauty. The most
infamous of these, Nocturne in Black and Gold: The
Falling Rocket (1875), appeared in an exhibition at
London’s Grovesnor Gallery, a venue for avant garde art,
in 1877 and provoked the famous accusation from the
critic John Ruskin that the artist was “flinging a pot of
paint in the public’s face.”

The ensuing libel trial

between Whistler and
Ruskin in 1878 was really a
referendum on the
question of whether or
not art required more
substance than just
beauty. Finding in favor of
Whistler, the jury upheld
the basic principles of the
Aesthetic Movement, but
ultimately caused the
James Abbott McNeill Whistler,
artist’s bankruptcy by
Nocturn in Black and Gold: The
awarding him only one Falling Rocket, oil on panel, 1875
farthing in damages.
In The Gentle Art of Making Enemies, a collection of
essays published in 1890, Whistler himself pointed out

Chapter 7 | 367
 the biggest problem for the aesthetic artist was that
“the vast majority of English folk cannot and will not
consider a picture as a picture, apart from any story
which it may be supposed to tell.”

The Aesthetic Movement provided a challenge to the

Victorian public when it declared that art was divorced
from any moral or narrative content. In an era when art
was supposed to tell a story, the idea that a simple
expression of mood or something merely beautiful to
look at could be considered a work of art was a radical
idea. However, in its assertion that a work of art can be
divorced from narrative, the ideas of the Aesthetic
Movement are an important stepping-stone in the road
towards Modern Art.

Excerpted from: Dr. Rebecca Jeffrey Easby, “The

Aesthetic Movement,” in Smarthistory, June 3, 2016,
https://smarthistory.org/the-aesthetic-movement/.

All Smarthistory content is available for free

at www.smarthistory.org
CC: BY-NC-SA

James Abbott McNeill

Whistler
Audio recording of Whistler segment:

368 | Chapter 7
 One or more interactive elements has been excluded
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19thcenturyart/?p=269#audio-269-14

Whistler was about so much more than just his

mother.

The woman in white stands facing us, her long hair

loose, framing her face. Her expression is blank, her
surroundings indistinct; posed before some sort of
pallid curtain, she appears almost as an immobile prop
on a stage.

Symphony in White, No. 1: The White Girl epitomizes

James Abbott McNeill Whistler’s departure from the
established norms of the era, and was perhaps his most
reviled work. When he submitted it to the 1863 Paris
Salon, the jury rejected the painting and the artist
instead showed The White Girl at Napoleon III’s
exhibition of snubbed artwork, the Salon des Refusés.
Though it certainly defied many time-honored artistic
conventions and earned much derision from critics, The
White Girl does show some echoes of older standards.
After all, its creator had studied under Marc-Charles
Gabriel Gleyre in Paris, learning to paint in the academic
manner – thus it is unsurprising that in the
representation of his mistress, Joanna Hiffernan,
Whistler opts for the customary full-scale society

Chapter 7 | 369
 portrait format, and reproduces her features in a
seemingly realistic and honest fashion.

The ways in which Whistler follows his own rules,

however, far outnumber the few examples of accord,
and they include the painting’s flattened and abstracted
forms, distorted perspective, limited color palette, and
penchant for decorative patterning. Though an intimate
portrait, The White Girl is contrived and reveals no
overarching mood or the personality of its sitter. While
many of Whistler’s stylistic innovations are unique to
the artist, he associated himself with other artists –
such as Édouard Manet and Gustave Courbet, who also
defied the traditions of academicism. The influence of
Théophile Gautier is also apparent; in the 1830s, Gautier
stated that art need not contain any moral message or
describe any narrative, as art making is an end in and of
itself – Whistler accepted this credo, “art for art’s sake,”
wholeheartedly. In this light, The White Girl is less a
faithful portrait painting and more an experimentation
in color, pattern, and texture.

Whistler produced many portraits of similar format in

the next decades, and continued to fine-tune his style
and technique. In paintings such as Harmony in Gray
and Green: Cecily Alexander (1872-74) and Arrangement
in Flesh Color and Black: Portrait of Théodore
Duret (1883), the artist exercised his need to balance the
realist components of a picture with its more abstract
needs, cherry-picking elements from the real world and
reorganizing them in controlled, harmonious ways.
Often these images feature a subdued palette, a lack of
depth, unresolved backdrops, and irrational props that

370 | Chapter 7
serve only as accents. His figures typically stand upon
an unthinkably flat floor, appearing almost to hover like
specters. As for Whistler’s signature, it evolved to take
the form of a butterfly, applied to the surface in the
manner of a mere decorative element.

Despite the controversy stirred when he entered the

scene, Whistler won many wealthy and prestigious
patrons over his career, and his portraits stand as
testaments to growing interest in the radical new avant-
garde approach to painting.

Adapted from: Meg Floryan, “Whistler, Symphony in

White, No. 1: The White Girl,” in Smarthistory, August 9,
2015, https://smarthistory.org/whistler-symphony-in-
white/.
All Smarthistory content is available for free
at www.smarthistory.org
CC: BY-NC-SA

One might say that for some artworks, seeing beyond

the artist’s intention to form a more indefinite, personal
interpretation is, ironically, the creator’s ultimate
objective after all. Much like Alice stepping tentatively
through the two-dimensional plane of the looking glass
into the possibilities beyond, the viewer is invited to
deduce his own meaning, to form his own associations,
thus essentially taking part in the creative process itself.
While ambiguity is standard in the conceptual

Chapter 7 | 371
 contemporary pieces of today, what mattered most in
early American art was what could be read on the
surface: narrative clarity, illusionistic detail, realism, and
straightforward moral instruction. When did things
change? Perhaps, it seems, around the time avant-garde
artists began to pursue abstraction, flirt with
modernism, and challenge the aesthetic standards of
the past.

Consider Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling

Rocket of 1875. In the mass of shadowy dark hues, vague
wandering figures, and splashes of brilliant color,
museum-goers might construe myriad meanings from
the same scene: perhaps sparks from a blazing campfire,
flickering Japanese lanterns, or visions of far-off
galaxies mystically appearing on a clear summer night.
Indeed, while the Massachusetts-born artist James
Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) was inspired by a
specific event (a fireworks display over London’s
Cremorne Gardens) the intangibility, both in appearance
and theme, of the oil on panel was deliberate. The
questions it conjures, the emotions it evokes, may differ
from one viewer to another, and frankly, that’s the point.

The Falling Rocket resonates with many 21st-century

beholders, yet when it was first exhibited at a London
gallery in 1877, detractors deemed the painting too
slapdash, incomprehensible, even insulting. Art critic
John Ruskin dismissed Whistler’s effort as “flinging a pot
of paint in the public’s face,” as in his opinion it
contained no social value. In response, Whistler –
cheeky man that he was – sued Ruskin for libel, and

372 | Chapter 7
though he won the case in court, he was awarded only a
farthing in damages. During the highly publicized trial,
the artist defended his series of atmospheric
“nocturnes” as artistic arrangements whose worth lay
not in any imitative aspects but in their basis in
transcendent ideals of harmony and beauty.

Whistler saw his paintings as musical compositions

illustrated visually, and delineated this idea is his famed
“Ten O’Clock” lecture of 1885:

Nature contains the elements, in colour and

form, of all pictures, as the keyboard contains
the notes of all music. But the artist is born to
pick and choose… that the result may be
beautiful – as the musician gathers his notes,
and forms his chords, until he brings forth from
chaos glorious harmony.

Audio recording of Whistler (con’t) segment:

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can view them online here:
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19thcenturyart/?p=269#audio-269-15

Many of his titles incorporate allusions to music:

“nocturnes,” “symphonies,” “arrangements,” and
“harmonies.” The immaterial, the spiritual – these

Chapter 7 | 373
 principles are subtly interwoven throughout Whistler’s
oeuvre, and he preached his ideas on the new religion of
art throughout his career. Even Whistler’s famous
portrait of his mother isn’t really about his mother at all
but about compositions and combinations. Whistler’s
Mother: Arrangement in Black and Grey No. 1 uses his
mom like a prop, not unlike the girl in his Symphony in
White.

James Abbot McNeill Whistler, Whistler’s Mother: Arrangement

in Black and Grey No. 1, oil on canvas, 1871

Adapted from: Meg Floryan, “Whistler, Nocturne in

Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket,” in Smarthistory,
August 9, 2015, https://smarthistory.org/whistler-

374 | Chapter 7
 nocturne-in-black-and-gold-the-falling-rocket/.
All Smarthistory content is available for free
at www.smarthistory.org
CC: BY-NC-SA

John Singer Sargent

John Singer Sargent, El Jaleo, oil on canvas, 1882

Chapter 7 | 375
 El Jaleo is housed within the quirky Isabella Stewart
Gardner Museum, a Gilded Age art collection that serves
as a window into the eponymous collector’s life and
unique aesthetic taste. In order to view the painting, you
must pass by the sunlit faux-Venetian courtyard and
into the shadows of the first floor’s Spanish Cloister.
Here El Jaleo hangs at the end of a long hallway, its
immense size (over 7 by 11½ feet) almost fully covering
the far wall of a dark niche. Its mildly claustrophobic and
somewhat out-of-the-way physical location lends the
striking oil on canvas one of the most intimate settings
for a work of art on display in an American museum.

The scene portrayed is a dynamic one: a group of

musicians provides the rhythm for a lone flamenco
dancer who performs for an audience of clapping
listeners. It is a snapshot of a specific point in time: the
apex of the dance, a moment rife with energy and
sensual drama. The footlights cast haunting silhouettes
on the rear wall; the raw passion of the dance is
palpable. The stark contrasts between murky shadow
and dazzling illumination allow the painting to visually
pop – a phrase that is often used in describing art but
rarely so aptly. Due to the loose, frothy brushstrokes,
there isn’t the sense of a true illusionary space, yet the
light (and hence the vitality) of the scene seems to
emanate outward from within the work, as though El
Jaleo commands a life of its own.

El Jaleo’s precocious artist, John Singer Sargent,

painted the artwork in 1882 at the young age of 26. Both
the painting and its creator are evocative of the times,

376 | Chapter 7
reflective of the nineteenth-century American
fascination with, and inherent dependence upon,
foreign cultures for both technical training and artistic
inspiration.

Though labeled an American artist, Sargent was

actually born in Florence to a Philadelphia family and
traveled throughout his youth and career. In the late
1800s this type of background became the rule rather
than the exception, with expatriate Americans taking
advantage of the more accessible education
opportunities abroad. Beyond the official state écoles
(schools), private Parisian ateliers (studios) led by
renowned artists offered instruction to admitted
American students; Sargent studied under one such
teacher, Charles Émile Auguste Durand, aka Carolus-
Duran. The competitive annual salons (exhibitions) were
another draw for foreign-born artists and these venues
could win a painting great critical acclaim, as did the
Paris Salon of 1882 for El Jaleo.

Excerpted from: Meg Floryan, “John Singer Sargent, El

Jaleo,” in Smarthistory, August 9, 2015,
https://smarthistory.org/sargent-el-jaleo/.
All Smarthistory content is available for free
at www.smarthistory.org
CC: BY-NC-SA

Madame X is perhaps Sargent’s most infamous

Chapter 7 | 377
 painting. When it debuted at the Paris Salon of 1884,
critics lashed out at the artist for what they deemed a
scandalous, immoral image. While the title omitted the
sitter’s name, the public immediately recognized her as
the notorious Parisian beauty Virginie Gautreau. The
gown’s plunging neckline was considered too
provocative for the times, and its right strap – which
originally was shown to have slipped off the shoulder –
ultimately led to Sargent repainting it in its proper
position to appease outraged viewers and Gautreau’s
own family.

Madame X mixes the

Gilded Age penchant for
portraying status and
wealth in portraiture with
a daring seductive
aesthetic. For all that it
shocked onlookers,
however, much of its
details were based in
older classical traditions:
Madame Gautreau’s
hairstyle is based on one
of ancient Greece, and
she wears a diamond
crescent that is the
symbol of the huntress
Diana.
John Singer Sargent, Madame X
John Singer Sargent (Madame Pierre Gautreau), oil
intended the portrait to on canvas,1884

378 | Chapter 7
establish his reputation, and despite the notoriety it
attracted, the work did succeed: Madame X advertized
his ability to paint his sitters in the most flattering and
fashionable manner possible, and led to a healthy career
in Britain and great esteem in America from the late
1880s onward. Though he was born oversees, traveled
worldwide, and spent much of his life abroad, Sargent’s
career truly matured in his family’s native land, and he
always considered himself an American artist. He toiled
for nearly three decades on a mural commission for the
Boston Public Library, he frequently painted fellow
American expatriates, and in 1906 he was appointed full
academician of the National Academy of Design in New
York.

In 1916 the Metropolitan Museum of Art

bought Madame X, which Sargent considered “the best
thing I have done.” The painting—which debuted to
severe disparagement but is today treasured as a
masterpiece beloved in the history of Western art—is
but one example of an artwork that gradually evolved
from epitomizing the condemned to the celebrated.
Much of a work’s initial reception is based upon society’s
tastes, standards of etiquette, and values of the era, and
as these attitudes shift over the decades, the public may
begin to look at older paintings with new eyes.
Sargent’s Madame X is perhaps a more dramatic
example of this trend, yet it poses intriguing questions
about what really defines an artwork’s popularity,
legacy, and fame.

Excerpted and Adapted from: Meg Floryan, “John

Singer Sargent, Madame X (Madame Pierre Gautreau),”

Chapter 7 | 379
 in Smarthistory, August 9, 2015,
https://smarthistory.org/sargent-madame-x-madame-
pierre-gautreau/.
All Smarthistory content is available for free
at www.smarthistory.org
CC: BY-NC-SA

380 | Chapter 7
John Singer Sargent, Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose, oil on canvas,
1885

Audio recording of Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose segment:

One or more interactive elements has been

excluded from this version of the text. You

Chapter 7 | 381
 can view them online here:
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19thcenturyart/?p=269#audio-269-16

Shepherds tell me have you seen,

Have you seen my Flora pass this way?
A wreath around her head, around her head she wore,
Carnation, lily, lily, rose,…

The chorus of a popular song by composer Joseph

Mazzinghi was the inspiration for the title of John Singer
Sargent’s painting Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose. In Sargent’s
hands, however, the pastoral images of the song have
been banished, replaced by an evocative twilight scene
of children, flowers, and Chinese lanterns. The muted
light and colors, unusual angles, and the lack of
narrative content combine to create a beautifully
rendered moment, capturing the fleeting atmosphere of
dusk and the innocence of childhood.

Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose was painted in the English

village of Broadway. The artist had moved to London
after leaving France due to the scandal caused by his
painting Madame X, which was exhibited at the Paris
Salon in 1884. Sargent’s striking female portrait was the
subject of enormous controversy due to the plunging
neckline of her dress and the fact that originally one
strap had been hanging off her shoulder (this was later
repainted firmly in its correct place). Although the sitter,

382 | Chapter 7
Virginie Gautreau, a fellow expatriate American who had
married a French banker, was not explicitly identified,
audiences recognized the likeness as well as her habit of
using lavender dusting powder. Rumors of Gautreau’s
infidelities were rampant, so the risqué portrait added
fuel to the fire, for both artist and sitter.

For several years after his move to England, Sargent

spent his summers in Broadway, a picturesque village in
the Cotswolds, which was also the site of a thriving
artist’s colony in the late 19th century. Both English and
American artists and writers congregated there, and
Sargent joined an expatriate community including such
notables as Frank Millet, Edwin Austin Abbey and the
writer Henry James. According to James in an article
published in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine in 1889,
“Broadway and much of the land about it are in short
the perfection of the old English rural tradition,” and
here Sargent found both acceptance and inspiration for
his work.

Sargent got the idea for the painting in August of 1885

after seeing a group of children among flowers and
Chinese lanterns hung among trees in the village of
Pangbourne in Berkshire. He spent more than a year
trying to bring his vision to fruition. In letters, he
pointed out that he was hindered from completing the
painting in September because it was the end of the
flowering season. Taking no chances, when he returned
to Broadway to finish the painting in the summer of
1886, he had a friend grow lilies in pots to extend his
available time for working on the painting.

In addition to the problem of maintaining blossoms,

Chapter 7 | 383
 Sargent was plagued by other issues. His original intent
for the composition was to use one younger child, but
he was eventually forced to select little girls who were a
bit older and able to pose as required. White dresses for
the girls were specially designed. Most importantly, the
painting was completed “en plein air” to get the correct
effect of light, but given the fleeting nature of light at
dusk, he could only paint for a few minutes each day.

However, the effort that went into Carnation, Lily,

Lily, Rose proved worthwhile. The painting was well
received by both audiences and critics when it was
exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1887 and was
immediately purchased for the British nation by the
Chantrey Bequest, a fund established by sculptor Sir
Francis Chantrey to acquire works of art made in
England. The subtle effects of light illuminating the
faces of the little girls, the subtly sketchy brushwork,
the unusual angle looking down at the children (taken
from the influence of Japanese prints), and the attention
to capturing the momentary changes of twilight all
speak to Sargent’s modernity.

Sargent’s painting is a combination of several radical

ideas found in the art of the end of the 19th century.
Like Impressionism, it captures a distinct moment. In an
instant, the children could move, or the light change
and the spell would be broken. It is worth pointing out
that Sargent was friends with Claude Monet and had in
fact been invited to exhibit with the Impressionist
group, an honor he declined. The picture is also firmly
associated with the Aesthetic Movement, with its
insistence on beautiful subjects and a lack of narrative

384 | Chapter 7
 content. Like the song that inspired its title, the painting
reminds the viewer of a simpler time, creating a quietly
beautiful snapshot of a bygone era.

Excerpted and Adapted from: Dr. Rebecca Jeffrey

Easby, “John Singer Sargent, Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose,”
in Smarthistory, September 15, 2020,
https://smarthistory.org/john-singer-sargent-
carnation-lily-lily-rose/.
All Smarthistory content is available for free
at www.smarthistory.org
CC: BY-NC-SA

Consider the following:

• Thinking specifically about Victorian beauty

standards for women, do you feel that 21st century
society has a similar approach to categorizing what is
and is not beautiful? Why or why not?
• Victorian England equated looks with character.
Does the 21st century equate body mass with
character? Is the 21st century approach more, less, or
equally correct as the Victorian approach and why?
• If the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood were looking to
explore and celebrate the female forms that were not
considered beautiful by Victorian society in a
beautiful way, what celebrities, musicians, actors, etc.

Chapter 7 | 385
 of the 21st century are doing the same thing and how
are they doing it?

386 | Chapter 7
8. Chapter 7 - John Singer
Sargent
The Impact of Madame X (Virginie Amelie
Gautreau)
LAILEY NEWTON

Audio recording of chapter available here:

One or more interactive elements has been excluded

from this version of the text. You can view them online
here: https://openeducationalberta.ca/
19thcenturyart/?p=662#audio-662-1

Sepia photograph, interior, many curtains and draperies over doors

and windows. A man in a suit with a small beard and mustache
stands in front of a large painting of a woman (the infamous
Madame X portrait), while working on a smaller canvas to the side
of it
John Singer Sargent in his Paris studio circa 1885

As an outsider, an American born artist living within France, the

critics and viewers of the Salon were always going to treat John

Chapter 7 - John Singer Sargent | 387

 1
Singer Sargent’s works a little differently than his native peers.
With the pressure of being an outsider, Sargent would have wanted
to really make an impact in order to kickstart his professional
practice. However, one of his early works, The Portrait of Madame X
(Virginie Amelie Gautreau), shown at the Paris Salon of 1884 created
quite a stir which nearly ended his career; prompting his movement
to England where he later became the most prominent portrait
2
painter for his time. The Salon during the late 19th century was
known for rejecting modern artists and restricting the works shown
3
to ‘Salon Genres’: history, landscape, and portraiture. While
Sergeant’s work is by all means a portrait, it completely subverts the
Salon’s norms in the way it presents its subject matter of a sexual
4
woman with esteem and fearlessness. There was no othering or
sexualization, rather just showing Virginie Amelie Gautreau as she
really was. For this, John Singer Sargent revolutionized female
portraiture by rejecting the Paris Salon’s ideals of historical and
modest values, instead embracing modernity, French high fashion,
and gave Madame X the respect she deserves while still displaying
her as a sexually liberated individual.

1. Ian Chilvers, Art, The Visual Definitive Guide: 19th

Century, End of the Century, John Singer Sargent. New
York: DK Publishing, 2018. 393.
2. H. Barbara Weinberg, “John Singer Sargent (1856–1925).”
In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The
Metropolitan Museum of Art. October
2004.http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/sarg/
hd_sarg.htm
3. Jonathan Jones, “Madame XXX.” The Guardian. The
Guardian. February 1, 2006.
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2006/feb/01/3.
4. Jonathan Jones, “Madame XXX,” The Guardian.
388 | Chapter 7 - John Singer Sargent
 Madame X, actually named
Virginie Amelie Gautreau (often
referred as Madame Pierre
Gautreau) was a professional
beauty, and was known by many
in the higher class social circles
of France for her bold
5
unconventional beauty.
Dorothy Moss writes:

“She carefully
constructed her image
and was known for
pushing boundaries of the
aristocratic social code to
the limits. A woman with a Photograph of Virginie Amélie Avegno
Gautreau, circa 1878
theatrical flair, she used
excessive rice powder makeup on her delicate blueish skin
to dramatize her appearance, amplifying her painted
6
eyebrows, henna-coloured hair, and deep red lips.”

Her status and appearance made her the perfect person for Sargent

5. Metropolitan Museum, “John Singer Sargent | Madame X

(Madame Pierre Gautreau) | American | the Metropolitan
Museum of Art.” 2020. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
2020. https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/
search/12127.
6. Dorothy Moss, “John Singer Sargent, ‘Madame X’ and
‘Baby Millbank.’” The Burlington Magazine 143, no. 1178
(2001): 270. http://www.jstor.org/stable/889125.
Chapter 7 - John Singer Sargent | 389
 to approach as a model in an attempt to get his career off the
7
ground.
Someone as bold as her
would surely make his portrait
stand out among the many
others displayed at the Paris
Salon. Working tirelessly
Sargent placed Gautreau in a
great multitude of poses, took
many photographs, did
preparatory sketches,
watercolour studies and oil
studies; all in order to best as
possible capture her likeness in
8
his final work. However to
Sargent’s frustration he found
that Gautreau was incredibly
John Singer Sargent, Figure study of
Mme Gautreau, c 1884, watercolour difficult to capture due to her
and graphite ever changing skin tone and
complexion. Every day the
application of her lavender rice make-up powdered skin and dyed
eyebrows would change ever so slightly but still enough for Sargent
9
to notice. It took nearly one full year to complete his painting of
Virginie Amelie Gautreau. Gautreau found the work stunning, fully
believing that Sargent had created the next greatest masterpiece to
10
be shown at the Paris Salon.

7. Metropolitan Museum. “John Singer Sargent | Madame

X”. 2020. https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/
search/12127.
8. Dorothy Moss, “John Singer Sargent, ‘Madame X’. 271.
9. Dorothy Moss, “John Singer Sargent, ‘Madame X’. 271.
10. Jonathan Jones, “Madame XXX.” 2006.
390 | Chapter 7 - John Singer Sargent
 Standing at 7.7 ft (2.35 m) the
Portrait of Madame X is eye-
11
catching and difficult to miss.
The contrast of her almost
white pale violet powdered skin
in her deep black satin and silk
dress demands your full
attention. The dress and
accessories she is wearing are
that of modern French high
12
fashion. She stands open
towards the viewer, with her
shoulders erect and spread
wide. Her “left hip [is]
provocatively tilted” as she
addresses the audience with an
13
air of self-confidence.
Leaning her right hand on a
delicate claw foot table that
mirrors her curved figure she
seems to be pushing her frontal John Singer Sargent, Study of Mme
stance forwards even more Gautreau, c. 1884, oil on canvas
14
so. Her face however is in

11. Metropolitan Museum, “John Singer Sargent | Madame

X”.
12. Jonathan Jones, “Madame XXX.” 2006.
13. Susan Sidlauskas, “Painting Skin: John Singer Sargent’s
‘Madame X.’” American Art 15, no. 3 (2001): 10.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/3109402.
14. Susan Sidlauskas, “Painting Skin: John Singer Sargent’s
‘Madame X.” 10.
Chapter 7 - John Singer Sargent | 391
 profile, revealing her sharp angular chin and nose, making her
beauty bold yet mysterious. The strap on her right was unfixed to
her shoulder and fell downwards, something Sargent would later
cover up in an attempt to make the artwork more tame for his
15
audience.
The reaction from the public
at the Paris Salon of 1884 must
have come as a shock to both
John Singer Sargent and
Virginie Amelie Gautreau as the
portrait received heavy
criticism due to its
16
“provocatively erotic” nature.
This reaction in part comes as
no surprise to those other than
Sargent and Gautreau as the
Portrait of Madame X was just
breaking too many of the
unspoken rules of the Paris
Salon at the time. This is a
French society woman painted
‘provocatively’, there is no
othering or Orientalism to ease
the guilty conscience of those
lusting after her expression of
17
John Singer Sargent, Portrait of sexuality. On that note, she
Madame X, 1882-1884, oil on canvas
was deliberately expressing
herself through her sexuality

15. Metropolitan Museum, “John Singer Sargent | Madame

X”.
16. H. Barbara Weinberg, “John Singer Sargent (1856–1925).”
17. Jonathan Jones, “Madame XXX.” 2006.
392 | Chapter 7 - John Singer Sargent
 and beauty, which was unacceptable in the first place. As well as this
she is painted in high fashion, in a tight fitting and bust revealing
satin dress during a period that still heavily valued traditionalism
18
and modesty in their art. This portrait was too ahead of its time.
Sargent found this criticism disheartening stating: “I suppose it is
19
the best thing I have done”. Even with his attempts to repaint
the strap back onto Gautreau’s shoulder he still faced backlash. He
decided instead to store the painting in his personal study until
it would eventually be sold to the Metropolitan Museum; his only
request was that Virginie Amelie Gautreau’s identity be protected,
20
thus renaming the work the Portrait of Madame X.

18. Jonathan Jones, “Madame XXX.” 2006.

19. Metropolitan Museum, “John Singer Sargent | Madame
X.”
20. Metropolitan Museum, “John Singer Sargent | Madame
X.”
Chapter 7 - John Singer Sargent | 393
 All of this ridicule however was
not in vain, as John Singer Sargent’s
work created a ripple effect that
began to revolutionize the depiction
of sexually liberated women in
portraiture with time. As soon as
seven years later Virginie Amelie
Gautreau was painted in a similar
style of dress by Gustave Courtois
displaying far more skin than
21
Sargent’s counterpart. The strap of
Gautreau’s shoulder even hangs
much lower than the Portrait of
Madame X’s originally did. However,
surprisingly the portrait by Courtois
22
was received well by the public.
Virginie Amelie Gautreau was even
Gustave Courtois, Madame
painted by Antonio de La Gándara Gautreau, 1891
and displayed her upper back
23
uncovered which was very risqué. Slowly the images of women at
the Paris Salon, but also the greater art world, began allowing the

21. USEUM.org, “Madame Gautreau - Gustave-Claude-

Etienne Courtois.” USEUM. 2021. https://useum.org/
artwork/Madame-Gautreau-Gustave-Claude-Etienne-
Courtois-1891.
22. USEUM.org, “Madame Gautreau - Gustave-Claude-
Etienne Courtois.”
23. USEUM.org, “Madame Gautreau - Antonio de La
Gandara.” USEUM. 2011. https://useum.org/artwork/
Madame-Pierre-Gautreau-Antonio-de-La-Gandara.
394 | Chapter 7 - John Singer Sargent
depiction of women as respected peoples, rather than objects to be
hidden modestly away.

Antonio de La Gándara, Madame Pierre Gautreau, 1898, oil on

canvas

Chapter 7 - John Singer Sargent | 395

 Bibliography
Chilvers, Ian. Art, The Visual Definitive Guide: 19th Century, End of
the Century, John Singer Sargent. New York: DK Publishing, 2018.
Davies Penelope J. E. Walter B. Denny, et al. Janson’s History of
Art: The Western Tradition: The Age of Positivism: Realism,
Impressionism, and the Pre-Raphaelites, 1848—1885, Realism in
France. 1, 8th ed. Saddle River, NJ Pearson Education, 2010. 393.
Johnsingersargent.org. “Sargent, The Complete Works”. Accessed
September 16, 2021. https://www.johnsingersargent.org/
Jones, Jonathan. “Madame XXX.” The Guardian. The Guardian.
February 1, 2006. https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2006/
feb/01/3.
Metropolitan Museum. “John Singer Sargent | Madame X (Madame
Pierre Gautreau) | American | the Metropolitan Museum of Art.”
2020. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 2020.
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/12127.
Moss, Dorothy. “John Singer Sargent, ‘Madame X’ and ‘Baby
Millbank.’” The Burlington Magazine 143, no. 1178 (2001): 268–275.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/889125.
Mount, Charles Merrill. “The Works of John Singer Sargent in
Washington.” Records of the Columbia Historical Society,
Washington, D.C. 49 (1973): 443–492. http://www.jstor.org/
stable/40067752.
Sidlauskas, Susan. “Painting Skin: John Singer Sargent’s ‘Madame X.’”
American Art 15, no. 3 (2001): 9–33. http://www.jstor.org/stable/
3109402.
USEUM.org “Madame Gautreau – Antonio de La Gandara.” USEUM.
2011. https://useum.org/artwork/Madame-Pierre-Gautreau-
Antonio-de-La-Gandara.
USEUM.org “Madame Gautreau – Gustave-Claude-Etienne
Courtois.” USEUM. 2021. https://useum.org/artwork/Madame-
Gautreau-Gustave-Claude-Etienne-Courtois-1891.
Weinberg, H. Barbara. “John Singer Sargent (1856–1925).” In
Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan

396 | Chapter 7 - John Singer Sargent

 Museum of Art. October 2004. http://www.metmuseum.org/
toah/hd/sarg/hd_sarg.htm

Chapter 7 - John Singer Sargent by Lailey Newton is licensed under a Creative

Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

Chapter 7 - John Singer Sargent | 397

9. Chapter 9 - Japonisme

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from this version of the text. You can view them online
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Asian Art Museum, “Looking east: how Japan inspired Monet, Van
Gogh and other Western artists,” in Smarthistory, January 31, 2016,
https://smarthistory.org/looking-east-how-japan-inspired-
monet-van-gogh-and-other-western-artists/.
All Smarthistory content is available for free
at www.smarthistory.org
CC: BY-NC-SA

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398 | Chapter 9 - Japonisme

James McNeil Whistler, Caprice in
Purple and Gold: The Golden Screen,
oil on wood, 1864

James McNeill
Whistler’s Caprice in
Purple and Gold is an
early example of
Japonisme, a term coined
by the French art critic
Philippe Burty in 1872. It
refers to the fashion for
Japanese art in the West
and the Japanese
influence on Western art
and design following the
opening of formerly
Utagawa Hiroshige, Osumi isolated Japan to world
Sakurajima, from Famous Views of
Sixty-odd Provinces, woodblock print, trade in 1853. In
1856 Whistler’s painting, a
European woman sits on
the floor wearing richly embroidered silks like those of a
Japanese courtesan while she studies a set of woodblock
prints by the Japanese artist Hiroshige. Decorative

Chapter 9 - Japonisme | 399

 objects from both Japan and China surround her,
including a large gold Japanese folding screen.

The late-nineteenth century Western fascination with

Japanese art directly followed earlier European fashions
for Chinese and Middle Eastern decorative arts, known
respectively as Chinoiserie and Turquerie. The art
dealer Siegfried Bing was one of the earliest importers
of Japanese decorative arts in Paris. He sold them in his
shop La Porte Chinoise, as well as promoting them in his
lavish magazine Le Japon Artistique, published from
1888-1891. Bing was also a major supporter of Art
Nouveau, a fin-de-siècle (end of century) decorative
style greatly influenced by Japonisme.

Edouard Manet, Emile Zola, oil

on canvas, 1868

400 | Chapter 9 - Japonisme

 Works by prominent
artists associated with
Impressionism and Post-
Impressionism bear
witness to the late 19th-
century fashion for
Japanese art and
decorative objects. In
Manet’s portrait of Emile
Zola the novelist and art
critic sits at his
overflowing desk.
Immediately noticeable
among the artworks
surrounding him are a
Claude Monet, La Japonaise, oil
on canvas, 1876 Japanese woodblock print
of a wrestler and a
Japanese gold screen. Monet portrayed his wife Camille
dressed in a Japanese kimono surrounded by Japanese
fans, and his water garden at Giverny was inspired by
Japanese gardens depicted in prints and included a
Japanese-style wooden bridge. In addition to painting
copies of several Japanese woodblock prints, such as
Bridge in the Rain (After Hiroshige), Vincent van
Gogh depicted them in the background of several
portraits.

Chapter 9 - Japonisme | 401

 Japonisme coincided
with modern art’s radical
upending of the Western
artistic tradition and had
significant effects on
Western painting and
printmaking. In this
regard, Japanese art
affected modern art in
Claude Monet, Water Lilies and
Japanese Bridge, oil on canvas,
much the same way that
1899 encounters with African
and Oceanic art and
artifacts did a few
decades later. Many
late-19th century modern
artists not only admired
and collected Japanese
prints, they derived and
adopted both
compositional and
stylistic approaches from
them.

Japanese woodblock
Vincent van Gogh, Bridge in the prints called ukiyo-e, or
Rain (After Hiroshige), oil on
“pictures of the floating
canvas, 1889
world,” were a cheap
popular art form in Japan during the Edo
Period (1615-1868). They were associated with urban
entertainment districts (the so-called floating world) in
Japan and typically portrayed famous actors,
courtesans, and wrestlers, as well as landscape views of

402 | Chapter 9 - Japonisme

well-known sites. Ukiyo-e prints first appeared in
Europe as packaging material used to protect valuable
imported porcelain objects, but they attracted the
interest of European artists and art collectors and were
soon imported for their own sake.

Left: James McNeill Whistler, Nocturne: Blue and Gold – Old

Battersea Bridge, oil on canvas, 1872-5 Right: Utagawa Hiroshige,
Bamboo Yards, Kyobashi Bridge from One Hundred Views of Edo,
woodblock print, 1857,

In addition to depicting Japanese decorative objects,

Whistler used both subjects and compositional
strategies derived from Hiroshige’s prints of notable
views in Japan. One of his most innovative and well-
known paintings, Nocturne in Blue and Gold: Battersea
Bridge, echoes Hiroshige’s Kyobashi Bridge in both its
nighttime subject and the abruptly cropped view of the
bridge in the foreground. The large areas of flat colors

Chapter 9 - Japonisme | 403

 typical of Japanese woodblock prints may also have
influenced Whistler’s simplified forms and reduced
color range.

Left: Mary Cassatt, The Letter, drypoint and aquatint on paper,

1890-91 Right: Kitagawa Utamaro, Seyama of the Matsubaya,
Kamuro Iroka and Kukari, from Six Jewel Rivers, woodblock
print, 1793

The Impressionists were also interested in Japanese

prints. After visiting an 1890 exhibition of ukiyo-e prints
in Paris, Mary Cassatt employed similar decorative
patterns, flattened spaces and simplified figures in a
series of color etchings that includes The Letter.
Cassatt’s favored subjects, women in domestic interiors
playing with children or grooming themselves, were
common in ukiyo-e prints, a fact that undoubtedly
contributed to her interest in them.

404 | Chapter 9 - Japonisme

Left: Edgar Degas, The Tub, pastel on card, 1886 Right: Utagawa
Kunisada I, Chrysanthemum from Contest of Modern Flowers,
woodblock print, c. 1820

Cassatt’s friend Edgar Degas used Japanese

compositional devices to depict women bathing. In The
Tub a woman sponging her neck is shown from an
elevated vantage point that emphasizes the flat shapes
and patterns created by her body and the surrounding
objects. The curve of the tub is continued in the
woman’s back, while the vertical of her left arm parallels
the edge of the shelf on the right side of the painting.
Thus, although Degas uses traditional chiaroscuro
shading to define three-dimensional forms, abstract
pattern and surface design dominate the image,
flattening the space and rendering it ambiguous.

Like Degas’ The Tub,

Kunisada’s Chrysanthemum shows a bathing woman
surrounded by ordinary household objects — note the
water heater and scrub brush in the upper right corner.
Although the viewing angle is not as high as that in

Chapter 9 - Japonisme | 405

 Degas’ work, we see the woman from above, and
Kunisada uses the space and objects surrounding her to
construct a visual frame for the figure rather than
clearly defining an interior space. The repetition of
colors and simplified shapes creates a strong surface
pattern, as does the lack of chiaroscuro shading.

Among the Post-

Impressionists, van Gogh
was especially passionate
about Japanese art and
traditions, although his
understanding of
Japanese culture was
limited and often more
personal fantasy than
based on real knowledge.
He amassed a collection
Vincent van Gogh, Portrait of of hundreds of Japanese
Père Tanguy, oil on canvas, 1887 prints, and they
influenced the
development of his style, notably his vivid colors,
simplified planar forms, and use of decorative surface
patterns. In 1888 he wrote his brother Theo, “All my
work is based to some extent on Japanese art . . .”

Audio recording of Japonisme (con’t) segment:

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406 | Chapter 9 - Japonisme

 excluded from this version of the text. You
can view them online here:
https://openeducationalberta.ca/
19thcenturyart/?p=333#audio-333-2

Gauguin borrowed
directly from Japanese art
early in his eclectic and
wide-ranging embrace of
non-Western cultures
and art forms. The bright
colors and flat forms of
his cloisonnist Paul Gauguin, Vision after the
paintings were greatly Sermon (or Jacob Wrestling with
the Angel), oil on canvas, 1888
indebted to Japanese
prints. In Vision after the
Sermon Gauguin used two specific Japanese sources.
The figures of Jacob and the angel in the upper right are
derived from Hokusai’s prints of sumo wrestlers, while
the overall composition with its flat red ground and
abruptly arcing tree branch echoes Hiroshige’s
woodblock print of a blossoming plum tree, a print van
Gogh also copied.

Chapter 9 - Japonisme | 407

 Left:
Katsushik
a Hokusai,
Hokusai
Manga,
woodblock
print, 1817;
Right:
Utagawa
Hiroshige,
Plum
Garden at
Kameido,
woodblock
print, 1857

Like many artists associated with Art Nouveau, Henri

de Toulouse-Lautrec was greatly affected by Japanese
art and design. His posters, such as the one for a café-
concert club called Divan Japonais, show the strong
influence of Japanese prints of Kabuki actors in their flat
forms, powerful contour design, and dramatic use of
black shapes. Unlike the paintings we have looked at
thus far in this essay, Toulouse-Lautrec’s posters served
a similar role to that of the Japanese woodblock prints;
they were a cheap, mass-produced form of publicity for
the entertainment industry.

408 | Chapter 9 - Japonisme

Left: Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Divan Japonais, color
lithograph,1892-3; Right: Toshusai Sharaku, Kabuki Actor Otani
Oniji, woodblock print, 1794

The Nabis, a group of French Post-Impressionist

artists affiliated with both Pont-Aven and Symbolism,
were great admirers of Japanese art. They were
dedicated to the decorative arts and closely associated
with Siegfried Bing’s gallery Maison de l’Art Nouveau. In
addition to creating paintings, they designed many
decorative objects including folding screens and stained
glass windows.

Chapter 9 - Japonisme | 409

 Pierre
Bonnard,
Women in
the
Garden,
distemper
on canvas,
1891

Pierre Bonnard, the most Japanese-influenced of the

group, painted a set of four narrow vertical panels,
initially intended to be part of a Japanese-style folding
screen, showing women in stylized garden settings. The
subject as well as the detailed patterns and flat
decorative forms were directly inspired by Japanese
prints and painted screens. His later paper lithograph
screen, Nannies’ Promenade, is even more noticeably
influenced by Japanese design in its diagonal
composition and its use of a restricted color range and
patterned silhouettes on an expanse of white paper.

410 | Chapter 9 - Japonisme

 Pierre
Bonnard,
Nannies’
Promenad
e, Frieze of
Carriages,
color
lithograph
, 1899

Japanese art had significant effects on both Western

decorative arts and the evolution of new artistic styles
associated with Modern art. The distinctive qualities of
Japanese art — decorative use of color, surface
patterning, and asymmetrical compositions — offered
striking new approaches to modern artists developing
alternatives to the Western tradition of naturalistic
representation.
Excerpted and adapted from: Dr. Charles Cramer and
Dr. Kim Grant, “Japonisme,” in Smarthistory, June 14,
2020, https://smarthistory.org/japonisme/.
All Smarthistory content is available for free
at www.smarthistory.org
CC: BY-NC-SA

Chapter 9 - Japonisme | 411

19th Century European Art History by Megan Bylsma is licensed under a Creative
Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except
where otherwise noted.

412 | Chapter 9 - Japonisme

10. Chapter 9 - Impressionism
The Communication of a Moment’s Impression
ANNIKA BLAIR

Audio recording of chapter opening segment:

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Audio recording of the full chapter can be found here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gW8vn-Su3zBTe-
JhkxZuqG92oA7DjUFD/view?usp=sharing

A small group of artists and their approach to art revolutionized

the art world. This group of individuals were later named the
Impressionists after the divergent art they presented in their own
exhibit. In the eyes of the art Academy in France, these artists
were unlikely people to start an art movement. The artist’s work
hadn’t had a positive reaction from the Academy or the art critics.
Although, would Impressionism be in the history books if it wasn’t
mocked at first? New, revolutionary, and often controversial ideas
are often scorned before they are accepted. Especially if it goes
against the “normal” at that time. Impressionism was the outcome
of artists who were influenced by the controversial paintings of

Chapter 9 - Impressionism | 413

 the previous art movement, Realism, and focused on capturing and
communicating evanescent moments in a still image.
The Impressionists got a lot of their ideas from the Realist
painters and especially from the leader of the Realists, Gustave
1
Courbet. Courbet’s personal view on art was to paint the seen and
2
not paint anything he couldn’t see. He’d paint what was real and
3
wouldn’t advertise a false reality in his paintings. Even while doing
the same subject as another artist, Courbet would keep his paintings
accurate and would compose them in a way to give the viewer the
same experience that his subjects would see. He would show the
good and the bad in his art while other painters might engineer
facts in their paintings and paint things that weren’t historically
4
accurate. Moreover, the Realists painted massive paintings of
peasants which was a great controversy in the art world at that
5
time. Paintings of that scale were to be reserved for historical
6
or biblical themes. Not only did the Realists paint huge pictures
of peasants, they painted working peasants which was even more

1. Ross King, Art. Over 2,500 Works from Cave to

Contemporary. (New York, NY: DK Pub, 2008), 340
2. Dr. Beth Gersh-Nesic, “A Beginner’s Guide to Realism,”
Khan Academy, Accessed October 12, 2020,
https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/becoming-
modern/avant-garde-france/realism/a/a-beginner s-
guide-to-realism
3. Gersh-Nesic, “A Beginner’s Guide to Realism,”
4. Gersh-Nesic, “A Beginner’s Guide to Realism,”
5. King, Art. Over 2,500 Works from Cave to Contemporary,
340
6. King, Art. Over 2,500 Works from Cave to Contemporary,
340
414 | Chapter 9 - Impressionism
 7
controversial as it touched on the politics of the time. By doing this,
they paved the way for new ideas to be done in the art world. Just as
the following art movement Impressionism did.
The start of Impressionism
can be dated back to the
8
1860s. Two of the future
members of the movement,
Claude Monet and Camille
Pissarro, happened to meet the
art dealer, Paul Durand-Ruel
while they were in London all
Camille Pissarro, Hoarfrost, oil on
avoiding the Fraco-Prussian canvas, 1873
9
war. Durand-Ruel set them
both up with enough finances to live on so they could keep creating
10
art as both of the artists were not doing well financially. The
support of the art dealer provided them a way to be able to set up
11
the exhibit in 1874 with their fellow peers from art school.

7. King, Art. Over 2,500 Works from Cave to Contemporary,

340
8. King, Art. Over 2,500 Works from Cave to Contemporary,
340
9. Will Gompertz, What are you looking at?: The Surprising,
Shocking, and Sometimes Strange Story of 150 Years of
Modern Art (New York, NY: Plume books, 2012) 39
10. Gompertz, What are you looking at? 41
11. Gompertz, What are you looking at? 42
Chapter 9 - Impressionism | 415
 It was the art critic, Louis
Leroy, to first use the word
“Impression” in his critical
review of the Impressionist’s
12
first gallery showing together.
Little did he know the name
would stick and become the
term millions of people would
Claude Monet, Impression, Sunrise, oil know as one of the most
on canvas, 1872 famous art movements in
history.
Similar to a lot of revolutionary art movements, Impressionism
was not well received at first. The group of artists, Claude Monet,
Edgar Degas, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro and Berthe
Morisot, rejected the idea that art of importance could only be
shown in the Salon run by the Academy and that the art was chosen
13
by a jury for the Salon. The Academy stated that only paintings of
14
history or biblical stories were great paintings. Both the Realists
and the Impressionists questioned, challenged and tested that
15
statement. Impressionism was, in a way, a revolt against
16
traditional academic art. Fueled by their anger at the Salon for

12. Gompertz, What are you looking at? 34

13. Dr. Beth Gersh-Nesic, “A Beginner’s Guide to
Impressionism,” Khan Academy, Accessed October 12,
2020, https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/
becoming-modern/avant-garde-france/
impressionism/a/a-b eginners-guide-to-impressionism
14. Gersh-Nesic, “A Beginner’s Guide to Impressionism,”
15. Gersh-Nesic, “A Beginner’s Guide to Impressionism,”
16. King, Art. Over 2,500 Works from Cave to Contemporary,
340
416 | Chapter 9 - Impressionism
 rejecting their work, their exhibit was a way to stand up to the
17
Academy and have a way for themselves to show their work. This
defiance to the Academy risked their artist careers and artist
“status” as the Salon had great influence over the success or
18
unsuccessfulness of an artist. They also risked their incomes by
19
doing their own exhibit. By creating their own exhibit, this small
20
group of artists had a huge impact on the art world. Critics came
to view their exhibit and thought the work was “absurd” because
the paintings looked like “impressions” that the artist would capture
21
and then come back to repaint at a later date. Just like a sketch
that an artist would draw in the moment and then revisit later to
tonally finish as a drawing or paint in the studio. Monet’s Impression:
Sunrise was compared to wallpaper and Pissaro’s Hoarfrost was
22
compared to “paint scraped off of a dirty palette.” In comparison
to the realistic rendering of the previous art movements, the
Impressionist paintings do look more “unfinished” and
23
“unrefined.” However the aim was to capture the “impression” of
the moment and doesn’t mean the paintings are any less important
in the message they deliver to their audience.

17. Gompertz, What are you looking at? 33

18. Gompertz, What are you looking at? 32
19. Gompertz, What are you looking at? 31
20. Gersh-Nesic, “A Beginner’s Guide to Impressionism,”
21. Gersh-Nesic, “A Beginner’s Guide to Impressionism,”
22. Gersh-Nesic, “A Beginner’s Guide to Impressionism,”
23. Gompertz, What are you looking at? 35
Chapter 9 - Impressionism | 417
 In the Impressionist’s
paintings, the paint on the
canvas speaks more towards
the light and the atmosphere
then it does towards the objects
24
in the painting. These artists
weren’t just creating art, they
were capturing moments that
their viewers could visit by
looking at their art. They did
this by manipulating the
emphasis that light had in the
25
painting. “These are
Berthe Morisot, La Coiffure, oil on
paintings to be experienced canvas, 1894
26
and not just looked at.”
The goal of the Impressionists was to paint the effects of light and
27
because of that, their style was especially painterly. They aimed to
28
create paintings that reflected how they saw the world. They did
this by emphasising the use of light and using colour to show this
29
emphasis.

24. Gersh-Nesic, “A Beginner’s Guide to Impressionism,”

25. History.com Editors, “Impressionism,” History.com, A&E
Television Networks, August 3, 2017,
https://www.history.com/topics/art-history/
impressionism
26. Gompertz, What are you looking at? 35
27. King, Art. Over 2,500 Works from Cave to Contemporary,
340
28. History.com Editors, “Impressionism,”
29. History.com Editors, “Impressionism,”
418 | Chapter 9 - Impressionism
 Claude Monet, La Gare Saint-Lazare,
oil on canvas, 1877

The subject in the painting is

the light making an
Claude Monet, La Gare Saint-Lazare,
Arrival of a Train, oil on canvas, 1877 “impression” on the senses at
30
different moments in time.
Monet would make paintings in the same spot at different times of
day or in different seasons to explore the specific light that is within
31
each season and moment in time. The most famous of these sets

30. Justin Wolfe, “Impressionism Movement Overview and

Analysis,” The Art Story.org, February 1, 2012,
https://www.theartstory.org/movement/
impressionism/https://www.theartstory.org/
movement/impressi onism/
31. Wolfe, “Impressionism Movement Overview and
Analysis,”
Chapter 9 - Impressionism | 419
 32
of paintings is his Haystack series. However, this technique can be
noted in many of his other paintings such as his Gare Saint-Lazare
series.
Audio recording con’t:

One or more interactive elements has been excluded

from this version of the text. You can view them online
here: https://openeducationalberta.ca/
19thcenturyart/?p=298#audio-298-2

Monet also painted his

famous, The Thames Below
Westminster and the aim for
that piece was to capture an
essence of life in the painting.
The viewer’s imagination can
release as they step into the
moment through the hazy Claude Monet, The Thames Below
Westminster, oil on canvas, 1871
atmosphere the painting
suggests and the harmonious
33
colour palette. These paintings, by Monet and the other
Impressionists, give a window into the world that the artist saw at
that given moment. The brushstrokes suggest enough to give an
idea of the subjects but leave enough to the imagination so the
viewer is sucked into the story of the painting and the subjects in it.
These aren’t just paintings, they’re snapshots of moments. These are
breathing paintings full of life. They hold that life through the

32. Wolfe, “Impressionism Movement Overview and

Analysis,”
33. Gompertz, What are you looking at? 45
420 | Chapter 9 - Impressionism
 suggestion of the subject and the imagination of the living breathing
viewer.
Edgar Degas communicated a
similar feeling in his painting,
The Dance Class, which he
painted in 1874. He composed
the painting in a way that looks
like a captured moment, or
snapshot, in time. Degas
preferred to work in his studio
34
over painting en plein air. He
made hundreds of sketches in
preparation for a finished piece

Edgar Degas, The Dance Class, oil on

and spent hours on planning
35
canvas, 1874 it. He was advertently
focused on giving the viewer
36
what he called, an “Illusion of movement.” He studied
37
photographers and their photographs for anatomy practice. He
declared his ambition was to capture “movement in its exact
38
truth.” Even though Degas was associated and showed with the
39
Impressionists, he disliked being called an Impressionist.
However, he made paintings that too, captured the impression of
40
the moment and were aimed to do so.
Will Gompertz, the author of What are you looking at? The
Surprising, Shocking, and Sometimes Strange Story of 150 years of

34. Gompertz, What are you looking at? 48

35. Gompertz, What are you looking at? 48
36. Gompertz, What are you looking at? 49
37. Gompertz, What are you looking at? 49
38. Gompertz, What are you looking at? 49
39. Gompertz, What are you looking at? 50
40. Gompertz, What are you looking at? 48
Chapter 9 - Impressionism | 421
 Modern Art, said it best in his chapter on Impressionism:
“Degas’s intention was to communicate to us that what we are
41
seeing is a fleeting moment that he has frozen in time.” I believe
the highlight on communication in this quote showcases the
emphasis on what is important to remember about in all art. Art
is a visual language to make the viewer feel something and it can
be a way of expression for the artist. Either expressing ideas or
expressing how they see the subjects they paint. Art, communicated
clearly, can be an influential and powerful tool. Art is often
critiqued, examined, and analysed. However, sometimes the
reminder that art can be a way to communicate the artist’s view
is important. These artists, while great artists, were people. Any
person has the desire to be able to clearly communicate their ideas
or views. The Impressionists were able to use light to communicate
what the essence of their subjects were. How do you capture the
essence of a place or object? Through capturing the impression
that a place or moment or person makes on you. Capturing that
moment. Because, what is life but moments? And if you capture
those moments, you capture the essence of life.

41. Gompertz, What are you looking at? 48

422 | Chapter 9 - Impressionism
Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Dance at Le moulin de la Galette, oil on canvas, 1876

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Denvir, Bernard, et al. Modern Art: Impressionism to Post-
Modernism. edited by David Britt, London: Thames and Hudson, Ltd,
1989.

Dombrowski, André. “Impressionism and the Standardization of

Time: Claude Monet at Gare Saint-Lazare.” Art Bulletin 102, no. 2
(June 2020): 91–120. doi:10.1080/00043079.2020.1676129.
Gersh-Nesic, Dr. Beth. “A Beginner’s Guide to Impressionism .”
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 Gersh-Nesic, Beth. “A Beginner’s Guide to Realism.” Khan
Academy. Accessed October 13, 2020.
https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/becoming-modern/
avant-gard e-france/realism/a/a-beginners-guide-to-realism.
Gompertz, Will. What Are You Looking at?: The Surprising,
Shocking, and Sometimes Strange Story of 150 Years of Modern Art.
New York, NY: Plume Books, 2012.
Eisenman, Stephen. From Corot to Monet: the Ecology of
Impressionism. Milano, Italy: Skira, 2010.

King, Ross. Art. Over 2,500 Works from Cave to Contemporary.

1St American Editioned. New York, NY: DK Pub, 2008.
History.com Editors. “Impressionism.” History.com. A&E
Television Networks, August 3, 2017. https://www.history.com/
topics/art-history/impressionism.
Wolfe, Justin. “Impressionism Movement Overview and Analysis”.
TheArtStory.org. February 1, 2012. https://m.theartstory.org/
movement/impressionism/

Chapter 9 - Impressionism by Annika Blair is licensed under a Creative Commons

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, except where
otherwise noted.

424 | Chapter 9 - Impressionism

11. Chapter 9 - Pierre Auguste
Renoir & Edgar Degas
MEGAN BYLSMA

Audio recording of chapter opening segment:

One or more interactive elements has been excluded

from this version of the text. You can view them online
here: https://openeducationalberta.ca/
19thcenturyart/?p=325#audio-325-1

Audio recording of the full chapter can be found here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1U2bEjx-pvp7Hp__MDGvh-
Fm57qiIUQcd/view?usp=sharing

There are two kinds of Impressionism – Landscape Impressionism

and Urban Impressionism. Landscape Impressionism is easily
showcased in the work of Claude Monet, with is regular and careful
studies of light in nature. The Urban Impressionists were interested
in similar things as Monet, but they were more closely tied to the
ideals put forward by Baudelaire – the idea that modern day heroes
exist and deserve examination. The combination of the idea of the
value of daily life and the Realist approach to depicting light, the
Urban Impressionists captured the life of the city and two major
proponents of this approach were Pierre Auguste Renoir and Edgar
Degas.

Chapter 9 - Pierre Auguste Renoir &

Edgar Degas | 425
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
While Edgar Degas embraced the depiction of urban life to the
forsaking of all other depictions of existence (he hated working
in natural light and was one of the very few Impressionists who
preferred painting indoors under electric or gas light) Pierre
Auguste Renoir was not so interested in the impacts of artificial
light on subjects as he was on depicting humans. He was first a
landscape painter but when a friendship with a wealthy landowner
ended Renoir’s access to landscapes he wanted to paint also ended,
so he moved his focus to subjects closer at hand – people.
Renoir’s paintings feature human interaction and human
existence through the eyes of an Impressionist who valued light
and colour. He straddled the landscape genre and the figurative
tradition and in his work the impact of the landscape practices of
Impressionism on urban human subjects is clearly seen.

One or more interactive elements has been excluded

from this version of the text. You can view them online
here: https://openeducationalberta.ca/
19thcenturyart/?p=325#oembed-1

Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker, “How to recognize

Renoir: The Swing,” in Smarthistory, April 8, 2018,
https://smarthistory.org/renoir-swing/.
All Smarthistory content is available for free
at www.smarthistory.org
CC: BY-NC-SA

426 | Chapter 9 - Pierre Auguste Renoir & Edgar Degas

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Portrait of Madame Georges Charpentier and Her
Children, oil on canvas, 1878

When artists like Pierre-Auguste Renoir painted

portraits of real people, their work became embedded
with clues about cultural beliefs at a particular moment
in time — including notions of beauty, propriety, status,
and gender. In this portrait by Renoir, the artist
captured the likeness of Madame Charpentier with her
two children in an intimate setting within the family’s
elegant Parisian townhouse.

This work is one of several commissioned by Georges

Chapter 9 - Pierre Auguste Renoir & Edgar Degas | 427

 Charpentier, an influential publisher and an early
collector of Renoir’s work. In this portrait, Renoir
depicts Marguérite Charpentier seated on a richly
patterned settee alongside her two children and the
family’s large Newfoundland dog in a small room filled
with precious objects including Japanese screens,
crystal and porcelain. Renoir’s palette is lush and his
brushwork confident; the careful composition with its
strong diagonals invites the viewer into this private
space.

This large-scale work received favorable reviews

when it was exhibited in a prominent position at
the Salon of 1879 in Paris, and Renoir later
acknowledged the efforts of Madame Charpentier in
helping him gain subsequent portrait commissions.
However, in the decades after its initial reception,
viewers have often been surprised to learn that one of
the children is a boy, since both children are dressed
alike. This essay analyzes the garments and accessories
worn by Madame Charpentier and her children as
markers of status and gender at that time in history.
Gender —the cultural construction of identity that
distinguishes man from woman and boy from girl —is
typically represented through the fashioning of the
body, including the clothing and accessories, the styling
of the hair and the wearing of makeup or other body
modifications.

In this portrait, Madame Charpentier is dressed in a

long-sleeved black silk afternoon dress expansively
trimmed with lace. Each element of her dress is
indicative of her stature as the wife of a wealthy man.

428 | Chapter 9 - Pierre Auguste Renoir & Edgar Degas

 Her close-fitting dress is floor length, with a train that
pools on the floor beside her to reveal her white ruffled
underskirt. The dress has no bustle, but rather is flat-
backed; this style of dress was in fashion for a brief
interval of two or three years towards the end of this
decade, and this small detail marks the wearer as a close
follower of fashion.

Marguerite has added several pieces of jewelry to her

ensemble to signal the family’s wealth, including pearl
earrings, a daisy brooch pinned to her left shoulder, two
heavy gold bangles on both wrists, and several rings on
her fingers.

The color of the dress signals chic, rather than

mourning; black was a fashionable color for an elegant
afternoon dress that would be worn to receive visitors
or go visiting in one’s social circle. Madame Charpentier
was known for her sophisticated literary salons in which
she entertained writers like Flaubert and Zola, and this
formal daywear dress would be suitable for just such a
gathering.

In Renoir’s portrait, the children — Georgette, age six,

and Paul, age three — are dressed in identical sleeveless,
open-neckline, dropped-waist short dresses made of
pale blue moiré silk trimmed with white silk. Both
children have similar hairstyles with shoulder-length
wavy hair. The only discernible difference in their attire
is their footwear; Georgette wears shoes with a small
heel, while Paul wears flat shoes with a mid-foot strap.
These children, dressed alike in their expensive and
elegantly trimmed silk frocks, are fashionable
accessories for their elegant mother.

Chapter 9 - Pierre Auguste Renoir & Edgar Degas | 429

 Audio recording continued:

One or more interactive elements has been

excluded from this version of the text. You
can view them online here:
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19thcenturyart/?p=325#audio-325-2

The identical dresses

worn by the Charpentier
children in this painting
reveal a little-known
aspect of nineteenth-
century western dress
codes in which infants
and young children were
dressed alike in dresses
or petticoats until about
age four or five. At this
time in history, when
doing laundry was a Fashion Plate, Journal Des
tedious and lengthy Demoiselles, 1878

process, having young

children wear petticoats or frocks until they were toilet-
trained made sense from a practical standpoint. As well,
infants and young children were seen as asexual beings
and for this reason were dressed alike. For example, in
the fashion plate shown here, the child is dressed in a
jacket and skirt that could be worn by either boy or girl.

430 | Chapter 9 - Pierre Auguste Renoir & Edgar Degas

 Photographs from the
time also capture many
young boys dressed in
petticoats or a tunic and
skirt, including this
undated photo of two
young boys. The younger
boy is wearing a checked
ensemble consisting of a
tunic and a skirt trimmed
in velvet while his older
brother wears a wool suit
consisting of a jacket
worn with
Carte de visite photograph of knickerbockers.
two young boys, c. 1870s (
photographer M.E. Robb,
author’s collection)

Chapter 9 - Pierre Auguste Renoir & Edgar Degas | 431

 Tailoring guides from
The transition from this time reveal an age-
petticoats and dresses into related progression of
short pants and then attire for boys from
trousers took on symbolic petticoats indicated
importance as a rite of before age 3; jackets with
passage for a boy, but the skirts suggested for ages
age at which this occurred 3 to 6; tunic over trousers
was a matter of individual for boys aged 6-12; short
choice,…as every mother is wool jackets and trousers
for ages 12-15; and suits
desirous that her little
for boys over age 15.
ones should be seen at
With the emergence of
their best, it will be her department stores and
pride and pleasure to mass-production
exercise her taste and methods for clothing in
the latter part of the
judgement in this
nineteenth century, the
direction. AS QUOTED BY options for boys
CLARE ROSE, “AGE-RELATED expanded, but there was
CLOTHING CODES FOR BOYS also a significant shift in
IN BRITAIN, 1850-1900,” CRITICAL ideals of masculinity that
STUDIES IN MEN’S FASHION, VOL. resulted in a marked
2 (2015), PP.139. restriction in the types of
clothing and the colors
available for boys. As historians including Jo Paoletti
have observed, by about 1920, it was seen as highly
inappropriate for boys to wear dresses, lace, ruffles, and
other feminine-coded garments details or colors.

Renoir’s portrait of the Charpentier family reminds us

that the dress codes that signal gender are linked to

432 | Chapter 9 - Pierre Auguste Renoir & Edgar Degas

 culture as well as a specific time and place in history.
The idea that boys do not wear dresses dates back only
about a century. Gender is a culturally specific notion —
something that is learned rather than innate.
Interpreting a painting such as this one by Renoir
requires careful observation and reflection of the
inherent biases of our own standpoint in culture.

Adapted and Excerpted from: Dr. Ingrid E. Mida,

“Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Portrait of Madame Charpentier
and Her Children,” in Smarthistory, October 18, 2019,
https://smarthistory.org/renoir-charpentier/.
All Smarthistory content is available for free
at www.smarthistory.org
CC: BY-NC-SA

One or more interactive elements has been excluded

from this version of the text. You can view them online
here: https://openeducationalberta.ca/
19thcenturyart/?p=325#oembed-2

Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker, “Auguste Renoir, Luncheon
of the Boating Party,” in Smarthistory, November 12, 2015, accessed
November 6, 2020, https://smarthistory.org/renoir-luncheon-of-
the-boating-party/.
All Smarthistory content is available for free
at www.smarthistory.org
CC: BY-NC-SA

Chapter 9 - Pierre Auguste Renoir & Edgar Degas | 433

Edgar Degas
Degas painted La Belle Epoch– the beautiful era – which is the end
of the 1800s.

Just by way of personal anecdote:

It’s la belle epoch and it’s generally pronounced “lah bell e

pauk” but when said quickly it can sound like “la belly park.”
As a student I heard the words during lectures, but since
there were no text on the slides I never saw the words
written and the term was never explained. Hearing “The
Belly Park” was the subject of Degas’ paintings, I understood
this to mean that Degas painted an exciting and new locale
in the heart of Parisian society. The Belly Park – an electric
and modern place in Paris somewhere.

Much to my eternal chagrin it was years later that I

realized that “The Belly Park” was actually la belle epoch and
it was a time, not a place. It was a way of life, not a location.
It was a beautiful era, not an new development site in Paris.

Just as a technical aside: Degas wasn’t really an Impressionist at

heart but don’t tell the Art Historians! Degas exhibited with the
Impressionists and valued many of the same things they did, but
his philosophy and approach to art was, in some ways, radically
different than the other Impressionists. Whereas other
Impressionists were interested in light, Degas was in many ways all
about line and this becomes more and more clear in his Late Bathers
series.

434 | Chapter 9 - Pierre Auguste Renoir & Edgar Degas

 Degas used incredibly innovative compositions. Much of his
approach was attributed to Japonisme, Japanese prints, and
photography. He studied Japanese prints for their compositional
techniques but also looked to photography as he felt it was a way
to capture “movement in its exact truth.” Sometimes he would
physically cut his canvases to get a better cropped look to relate
more to the kind of composition a camera might capture and to
look like it was an unplanned and free composition. But that was
just artful cropping on Degas’ part. “No art was less spontaneous
than mine,” Degas once said. Every aspect was carefully constructed
and he rarely worked outside of his studio as he made endless
preparatory drawings and studies for his works, sometimes making
hundreds for a single final painting. He chose dancers and horses
as his most frequent subjects because he wanted to convey the
sense of beauty of movement and horses and dancers had perfect
musculature and athleticism.
He, like Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse who would come after
him, could draw like an old master thanks to the advice given to
him by Ingres in his youth – advice that he should draw and draw
some more. The harshest critics had to congratulate him on his
ability to draw and may have been able to accept, in a small way,
the avant-garde because of his ties to the old masters techniques as
well. Degas was a bit of a bridge between the old established ways
of art and the new styles emerging in the later parts of the 1800s.
As he aged he began constructing perspective in ways that would
be influential and important for the avant-garde that came after
him.

One or more interactive elements has been excluded

from this version of the text. You can view them online
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19thcenturyart/?p=325#oembed-3

Chapter 9 - Pierre Auguste Renoir & Edgar Degas | 435

Dr. Steven Zucker and Dr. Beth Harris, “Edgar Degas, At the Races
in the Countryside,” in Smarthistory, December 4, 2015,
https://smarthistory.org/edgar-degas-at-the-races-in-the-
countryside/.
All Smarthistory content is available for free
at www.smarthistory.org
CC: BY-NC-SA

One or more interactive elements has been excluded

from this version of the text. You can view them online
here: https://openeducationalberta.ca/
19thcenturyart/?p=325#oembed-4

Dr. Steven Zucker and Dr. Beth Harris, “Edgar Degas, The Dance
Class,” in Smarthistory, November 25, 2015,
https://smarthistory.org/edgar-degas-the-dance-class/.
All Smarthistory content is available for free
at www.smarthistory.org
CC: BY-NC-SA

436 | Chapter 9 - Pierre Auguste Renoir & Edgar Degas

12. Chapter 9 - Claude Monet
The Changes in the Art of Claude Monet during the
Times of his Mental Challenges
KELSEY ROBINSON

Audio recording of the full chapter can be found here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/
1RndV6kokslefxNXXDR5WCHc0c0jxUIA6/view?usp=sharing

Like poets with words, artists

exhibit their ideas, feelings and
emotions through their work.
Claude Monet is no exception
to this. Monet’s step into what
would later be called
“Impressionism” was also a step
into a more stylization of the
world as felt through the artist.
Through time, feelings and
emotions change and so do an
artist’s portrayal of the world as
a result. Monet went through
some difficult times in his life
Claude Monet, The Cradle – Camille that would ultimately have an
with the Artist’s son Jean, oil on
canvas, 1867 effect on his work. Through this
paper I am to demonstrate
Claude Monet’s changes in his art as a result of the mental struggles
he dealt with. In early August of 1867, Monet’s first son Jean was born

Chapter 9 - Claude Monet | 437

 1
in Paris. By this point in his career while Monet had already been
painting for over twenty years he was not completely financially
2
stable and was struggling with money. By 1868 he and his family
had to move out of Paris and his son and future wife Camille stayed
3
with friends in the country because of his money problems. Money
and the stress of a new child eventually caused him to break down
mentally and attempted to commit suicide by jumping into the River
4
Seine . We can see that his mental health may have been declining
since the birth of his son as seen through the subjects in his
paintings after the birth. In The Cradle – Camille with the Artist’s son
Jean (1867) Monet paints his son who was only a few months old in
his light blue and flowered bassinet next to Camille. This is one of
the first paintings we see of Monet’s son.

1. “Jean Monet (Son of Claude Monet),” Wikipedia. April 24,

2020. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Jean_Monet_(son_of_Claude_Monet)
2. “Monet, Khalo and Van Gogh, Their Art and Mental
Illness.” Bipolar Disorders 20 (March 2, 2018): 37–38.
3. “Jean Monet (Son of Claude Monet),” Wikipedia. April 24,
2020.
4. “Monet, Khalo and Van Gogh, Their Art and Mental
Illness.” Bipolar Disorders 20 (March 2, 2018): 37–38.
438 | Chapter 9 - Claude Monet
 Before Jean was born we can
see that Monet had been
painting areas in Sainte-
Adresse such as The Beach at
Sainte-Adresse (1867) and some
portraits such as Portrait of
Ernest Cabade (1867). However
after Jean’s arrival and after the
Cradle Portrait we see that Claude Monet, The Beach at
Sainte-Adresse, oil on canvas, 1867
Monet begins to focus on still
lives mostly consisting of Pears, Grapes and dead birds. French
artist’s in the late 19th Century used the term Nature Mort to
5
describe still lives as the term translates to “Dead Nature”. Monet
focused on these still life’s into 1868 and eventually began shifting
back into landscapes where he focused on the snow and ice on the
Seine in his two works: Ice Floes on the Seine at Bougival (1867-1868)
and Snow on the River (1867-1868).

5. Mary M. Gedo, “Mme Monet on Her

Deathbed”. JAMA 288, no. 8 (2002)
Chapter 9 - Claude Monet | 439
 Claude Monet, Ice Floes on the Seine at Bougival, oil on canvas, 1867-1868

I believe that these works reflect Monet’s feelings at the time that
would lead him to the act of attempting suicide and the struggles
he was working through afterward. The cold and dreariness of his
winter landscapes coupled with the still life’s that were most likely
painted from his home represent his depression during this time.
Monet worked primarily en plein air before finishing his pieces
6
later in his studio . Because of this painting technique it made
Monet very aware of the colours and shadows that the land could
take on, however instead of focusing on the colour that could be

6. Bevil R. Conway “Color Consilience: Color through the

Lens of Art Practice, History, Philosophy, and
Neuroscience”
440 | Chapter 9 - Claude Monet
 created during winter, he chose a more subdued colour pallet with
less dramatic lighting. This shift away from brighter tones and dull
overcast scenes may have been a reflection of Monet’s inner
feelings. Eventually Monet began to paint with more bright colours
and dramatic lighting, especially seen in works after Madame
Gaudibert (1868) were his financial circumstances began to look
7
up. He began to paint with more varied pallets and more intense
lighting and shadows. This would signal an increase in his value
of life as he would marry the mother of Jean, and love of his life,
Camille Doncieux in 1870 and paint Impression, Sunrise in 1874
8
which would begin the era of Impressionism in the art world.

7. Nicolas Pioch, “Monet, Claude” WebMuseum. September

19, 2002. https://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/
monet/early/gaudibert/
8. Laura Aricchio, “Claude Monet (1840-1926).” The Met
Museum. Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, October
2004. https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/cmon/
hd_cmon.htm.
Chapter 9 - Claude Monet | 441
 Claude Monet, Impression, Sunrise, oil on canvas, 1872

In 1878 Monet’s second son was born and due to already troubling
health problems his wife Camille‘s health declined drastically and
9
she died in 1879. Monet over the years with Camille, he had painted
numerus portraits of her, usually surrounded by bright or light
colours but while on her deathbed Monet painted her portrait once
again, Camille Monet on her Deathbed (1879). All of his colours are
very muted and dull. Later in his life he would explain the emotions
that he had felt while painting the work,

9. Mary M. Gedo, “Mme Monet on Her Deathbed”. JAMA

288, no. 8 (2002)
442 | Chapter 9 - Claude Monet
 Claude Monet, Camille Monet on her
Deathbed, oil on canvas, 1879

“I found myself staring at [my

wife’s] tragic countenance,
automatically trying to
identify the sequence, the
proportion of light and shade
in the colors that death had
imposed on [her] immobile face.
Shades of blue, yellow, gray,
and I don’t know what. . . . In
Monet describes how his
spite of myself, my reflexes
artistic reflexes took him away
drew me into the unconscious
from the moment and he
operation that is but the daily
studied her as if a simple
order of my life. Pity me, my
landscape or another one of his
friend.”10
casual portraits, and not of his

10. Mary M. Gedo, “Mme Monet on Her Deathbed”. JAMA

288, no. 8 (2002)
Chapter 9 - Claude Monet | 443
 now deceased wife who he loved dearly. The act of taking himself
out of the moment suggest that his sadness was so great that he
didn’t want to feel it. His artistic mind took control of the situation
and made it seem like any other painting.
After this portrait he once again turned to painting still life’s or,
11
Nature Morte “Dead Nature” . Monet painted vases, fruits and dead
pheasants, subjects that he could do from home, no doubt because
of his sadness over the loss of his wife. I believe the still life’s were
a way to continue painting while also staying in the comforts of
one’s home. He painted still life’s until 1880 when he began to study
12
landscapes again. Much like after his suicide attempt in 1868, he
didn’t go directly back to still life’s of grassy fields or colourful
landscapes but instead focused on the harsh landscapes of winter
for some time. Another example of Monet giving off a still and dull
landscape through a mostly greyscale pallet. After so many years of
painting, Monet would have understood the way light and colour
effected the mood of a scene and known that no colour is neutral
13
when it comes to the way it feels to the viewer.

11. Mary M. Gedo, “Mme Monet on Her Deathbed”. JAMA

288, no. 8 (2002)
12. “List of Paintings by Claude Monet,” Wikipedia. October
29, 2020. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
List_of_paintings_by_Claude_Monet
13. Mary Stewart, “Launching the Imagination” (New York;
McGraw Hill, 2019) 58
444 | Chapter 9 - Claude Monet
 1912 Monet began to develop
cataracts, a cloudy area that
forms within the lens of the eye
14
that obstructs ones sight. Due
to this, his work began to
change dramatically. His
delicate brushstrokes soon
turned more abstract and
chunky. We see this change
through his multiple paintings
Claude Monet, Flowering Arches,
15
Giverny, oil on canvas, 1913 of flowers from 1914 to 1917.

Monet complained of muddy

and weaker colours and even
noting that his paintings were
16
becoming darker as well.

Claude Monet, Water Lily Pond and

Weeping Willow, oil on canvas,
1916-1919

14. Rachel Hajar, “Eye Disease and Visual Perspective in

Painting.” Heart Views, 17, no. 1 (2016) 41.
15. “List of Paintings by Claude Monet,” Wikipedia. October
29, 2020. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
List_of_paintings_by_Claude_Monet
16. Anna Gruener, “The Effect of Cataracts and cataract
Chapter 9 - Claude Monet | 445
 There is no doubt that the effects of cataracts would also effect the
artist’s mental health as this disease was taking away his ability to
work. His work slowed as a result of this despondency as the work
was not up to his standers due to his difficulty in seeing the true
colours. Many of his paintings turned to more monochromatic blue
tones as seen in The Japanese Bridge (1918-1924) and The Japanese
Bridge (1917-1920) as a result of his cataract surgery, before
drastically changing to vibrant red hues, most likely after another
eye procedure sometime in 1923 or 1924, as seen in his multiple
17
Japanese Bridge pieces from 1918-1924. These red paintings also
show more of the abstract style that Monet had taken on due to
the poor eyesight. After some time and trying different methods to
improve his vision, he was finally able to return to his preferred style
with harmonious colours and gentle details, telling the viewers that
his drastic shift to the harsh reds and hard brushstrokes were not
an artistic decision but one that came out of necessity in order to
18
adapt with his changing vision .

surgery on Claude Monet.” British Journal of General

Practice, 65, no. 634 (2015)
17. Nikolić, Ljubiša, and Vesna Jovanović. “Cataract, Ocular
Surgery, Aphakia, and the Chromatic Expression of the
Painter Jovan Bijelić.” Vojnosanitetski Pregled: Military
Medical & Pharmaceutical Journal of Serbia 73, no. 11
(November 2016):
18. Anna Gruener, “The Effects of Cataracts and cataract
Surgery on Claude Monet.”
446 | Chapter 9 - Claude Monet
Claude Monet, The Japanese Footbridge, oil on canvas, circa 1922

Claude Monet had struggled with many different emotion heavy

events in his lifetime and his art during those times showed his
mental progression and coping abilities. During financial struggles
and the death of a loved one coupled with depression Monet
exhibited more still life’s done in a personal space before
transitioning back into landscapes through winter scenes that he
painted as dull and still. Monet also exhibited his ability to work
through disheartening results of cataracts and connected
procedures which showed his thirst for painting as a lifestyle that
helped him through tough times. The ways that Monet used light,
colour and subject matter in his paintings were both a way for his
fascination with light and colour to shine through as well as a way

Chapter 9 - Claude Monet | 447

to exhibit his emotions and work through difficult times in his life.
Monet, like many artists, view their art as not simply pretty pictures
but a way to communicate their feelings about a subject with the
world around them through varying means.

Claude Monet, The Japanese Bridge, oil on canvas, 1918-1924

Bibliography
Aricchio, Laura, “Claude Monet (1840-1926).” The Met Museum.
Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, October 2004.
https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/cmon/hd_cmon.htm.
Conway, Bevil R. “Color Consilience: Color through the Lens of Art
Practice, History, Philosophy, and Neuroscience.” Annals of the New
York Academy of Sciences 1251, no. 1 (March 2012): 77–94. doi:10.1111/
j.1749-6632.2012.06470.x.

448 | Chapter 9 - Claude Monet

 Gedo, Mary M. “Mme Monet on Her Deathbed”. JAMA 288, no. 8
(2002): 928. doi:10.1001/jama.288.8.928
Gruener, Anna. “The Effect of Cataracts and Cataract Surgery on
Claude Monet.” British Journal of General Practice 65, no. 634 (2015):
254-255.
Hajar, Rachel. “Eye Disease and Visual Perspective in Painting.”
Heart Views 17, no. 1 (January 2016): 41. https://search-
ebscohostcom.ezproxy.ardc.talonline.ca/
login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=115557633.
“Jean Monet (Son of Claude Monet),” Wikipedia. April 24, 2020.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Jean_Monet_(son_of_Claude_Monet)
“List of Paintings by Claude Monet,” Wikipedia. October 29, 2020.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
List_of_paintings_by_Claude_Monet
“Monet, Khalo and Van Gogh, Their Art and Mental Illness.”
Bipolar Disorders 20 (March 2, 2018): 37–38. doi:10.1111/bdi.25_12616.
Nikolić, Ljubiša, and Vesna Jovanović. “Cataract, Ocular Surgery,
Aphakia, and the Chromatic Expression of the Painter Jovan Bijelić.”
Vojnosanitetski Pregled: Military Medical & Pharmaceutical Journal
of Serbia 73, no. 11 (November 2016): 1003–9. doi:10.2298/
VSP150313126N.
Nicolas Pioch, “Monet, Claude” WebMuseum. September 19, 2002.
https://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/monet/early/
gaudibert/
Stewart, Mary. Launching the Imagination. New York: McGraw Hill
Education, 2019.

Chapter 9 - Claude Monet by Kelsey Robinson is licensed under a Creative Commons

Attribution 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

Chapter 9 - Claude Monet | 449

 13. Chapter 9 - Mary Cassatt
HANNAH MARTIN

Audio recording of the full chapter can be found here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OERGIi2kqFSrUjbxzmo0lkP-
M-0IozHX/view?usp=sharing

Mary Stevenson Cassatt was

an American painter living in
France for most of her adult life
and up until her death in 1926 at
age eighty-two. She was very
involved in the Impressionist
movement and one of only two
women who officially showed
art in the exhibits in France
during the Impressionist era,
and the only American in this
1
group at the beginning. She is
famous for her uncommon art
of the Impressionist era,
focusing on portraits – mostly
Mary Cassatt, Portrait of the Artist, oil
of mothers and their children –
on canvas, 1878
rather than the landscape and

1. F. “Mary Cassatt.” Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago

(1907-1951)20, no. 9 (1926):125-26. Accessed October 16,
2020. https://www-jstor-org.ezproxy.ardc.talonline.ca/
stable/4114190
450 | Chapter 9 - Mary Cassatt
 street scenes that were so common among Impressionists at the
time. As she experimented with many different subjects, she most
often depicted women without any of the men that were in their
lives, but with their children instead. Many of her artworks only
portrayed children or only women; rarely did she paint a portrait of
a woman with her husband or a lover. Cassatt was never interested
in the lovey-family-oriented kind of life she portrayed through her
art but painted it to “not only elucidate but celebrate and pay tribute
2
to the woman’s expected role during Cassatt’s lifetime.” That being
said, she still had love for her family, but she was never interested in
having one of her own.
Cassatt had a rough start in her career. She was born to a wealthy
family of bankers in Pittsburgh and was expected to become a
proper lady, which meant relying on her husband to support her.
She was pressured by her family and society to pursue a life in
homemaking by becoming a wife and a mother, and her schooling
was preparing her to do so by teaching her things like
homemaking, embroidery, music, sketching, and painting. Even
though at this time women were heavily discouraged from
pursuing a career, at the age of 16, she enrolled at Philadelphia’s
Academy of the Fine Arts because she had absolutely no interest in
becoming a mother or a wife (which was an incredibly absurd idea
for this time). She later dropped out because of the blatant
misogyny she faced while at the school: the male students and
faculty members resented her attendance at the school and
constantly patronized her and treated her unfairly compared to the
male members. She left the school and moved to Europe where she
3
could study the Old Masters of the Renaissance Era on her own.

2. Charlotte Davis, “Mary Cassatt: An Iconic American

Impressionist,” The Collector, April 21, 2020,
https://www.thecollector.com/mary-cassatt/
3. “Mary Cassatt Biography.” Biography, last modified June
Chapter 9 - Mary Cassatt | 451
 Once in France, she studied
and copied the great works of
art at the Louvre for practice
and took private lessons from
Ecole des Beaux-Arts because
women still weren’t allowed to
4
attend the school. She trained
under French artist Jean-Leon
Gerome who greatly influenced
Mary Cassatt, The Sisters, oil on her later style of painting. He
canvas, circa 1880
was known for his “eastern
influences in his art and his
5
hyper-realistic style” He used bold colours and interesting
patterns in his work; many of Cassatt’s paintings had similar
patterns, though her patterns were looser and more in the stroke of
the brush rather than in the intricate patterns Gerome was painting.
That being said, it was too early at this point to call her style
“Impressionist” because it was about ten years too early.

19, 2020, https://www.biography.com/artist/mary-

cassatt
4. “Mary Cassatt Biography.” Biography, last modified June
19, 2020, https://www.biography.com/artist/mary-
cassatt
5. Charlotte Davis, “Mary Cassatt: An Iconic American
Impressionist,” The Collector, April 21, 2020,
https://www.thecollector.com/mary-cassatt/
452 | Chapter 9 - Mary Cassatt
 In 1868, Mary Cassatt finally
got a piece of art in the Paris
Salon (one of the most
influential events in the art of
the Western world that ran
from about 1748 to 1890). The
painting was called A
Mandolin Player but because of
her father’s disappointment in
her life choices, she signed it
under the name Mary
6
Stevenson instead of Mary
Cassatt. This is “one of only two
paintings from the first decade
Mary Cassatt, The Mandolin Player, oil
of her career that can be on canvas, c.1872
documented today” according
7
to the Mary Cassatt Biography on marycassatt.org. This piece of art
got her in with the famous artists of the Salon where she submitted
work for many years until she quit working with the Salon. For one
thing, she became bored from the strict guidelines for the artwork,
but she also refused to flirt and sleep with the art jurors to get
positive responses to her art, as this was a common practice for the
women artists who weren’t related to the men by blood or marriage;
unfortunately her lack of a man (or want for a man) in her life made
it very difficult for her to move up in the Salon.

6. “A Mandolin Player.” The Famous Artists, Accessed

October 12, 2020, http://www.thefamousartists.com/
mary-cassatt/a-mandoline-player
7. “Mary Cassatt Biography.” Mary Cassatt, accessed
October 12, 2020, https://www.marycassatt.org/
biography.html
Chapter 9 - Mary Cassatt | 453
 Mary
Cassatt,
Little Girl in
a Blue
Armchair, oil
on canvas,
1878

By the time the 1870s came around, Mary Cassatt had become
successful with the Salon but wanted to do something with her
art that was more colourful and interesting. One day, she walked
past a window and saw the bright pastel works of Edgar Degas, and
once wrote to her friend: “I used to go and flatten my nose against
that window and absorb all I could of his art. It changed my life. I
saw art then as I wanted to see it.” The work inspired her, and in
1877, Degas stopped by her studio to invite her to an exhibit with
a group called the Impressionists. Shortly before this, she began to
experiment with colour and accuracy that wasn’t quite flattering,
which ultimately brought critique and the rejection of a few pieces
in the Salon. This new way of art, later called Impressionism,
fascinated Cassatt and the success of the group’s fourth exhibit
pushed her status through the roof (as much as a woman’s status
could elevate at this time). One of her most famous pieces at this
time was called Little Girl in a Blue Armchair and was thought to
8
have been worked on by Edgar Degas as well as Mary Cassatt. In

8. Abigail Yoder, “The Artistic Friendship of Mary Cassatt

and Edgar Degas,” Saint Louis Art Museum, last modified
454 | Chapter 9 - Mary Cassatt
 1879, the Impressionists held an exhibit that ended up being their
most successful one to date. She displayed eleven works but was
criticized for “her colours being too bright” and her portraits were
9
“too accurate to be flattering to the subjects”. She continued to
work on Impressionism until 1886 when she moved to a simpler
approach and ultimately no longer associated with any art
movement in particular.
In 1891 after a few years of
experimentation, she came
across a form of art called
Ukiyo-e, a popular form of
Japanese printmaking from the
Edo period of Japan, often
portraying traditional Kabuki
actors and other aspects of
10
traditional Japanese culture.

Mary Cassatt, Woman Bathing,

Drypoint and Aquatint print, 1890-91

April 20, 2017, https://www.slam.org/blog/the-artistic-

friendship-of-mary-cassatt-and-edgar-degas
9. “A Mandolin Player.” The Famous Artists, Accessed
October 12, 2020, http://www.thefamousartists.com/
mary-cassatt/a-mandoline-player
10. “Art of the Pleasure Quarters and the Ukiyo-e Style,”
Department of Asian Art, The Met, accessed October 13,
Chapter 9 - Mary Cassatt | 455
 It was relatively simple in its way of creation and its style; it is
created by carving the design into a woodblock and then pressing
it onto paper. Her two most famous Ukiyo-e works were Woman
Bathing and The Coiffure. Mary’s most successful and productive
time was during the 1890s. She kept in contact with a few of the
old Impressionists she worked with in the past and supported them
the best she could by buying their artwork and was an advisor to
many major art collectors. Her fame rose very slowly in the United
States, but she was always overshadowed by her older brother, the
president of the Pennsylvania Railroad.
She took a trip to Egypt and
was blown away by the beauty
of the art. This overwhelmed
her and put her in a creative
slump. She is quoted saying: “I
fought against it but it
conquered, it is surely the
greatest Art the past has left us
… how are my feeble hands to
11
ever paint the effect on me.”
In 1911, she was diagnosed with
diabetes, rheumatism,
neuralgia (pain caused by
broken or damaged nerves),
and cataracts. This didn’t slow Mary Cassatt, The Coiffure, color
drypoint and aquatint, 1890-91
down her work but when 1914
rolled around, she was almost

2020, https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/plea/
hd_plea.htm
11. “A Mandolin Player.” The Famous Artists, Accessed
October 12, 2020, http://www.thefamousartists.com/
mary-cassatt/a-mandoline-player
456 | Chapter 9 - Mary Cassatt
completely blind so she was forced to retire. She never painted
again but used her status and accumulated wealth to support the
women’s suffrage movement; she showed eighteen of her works in
an exhibition to raise money for the movement.

Even though she was pressured by many different parts of her

society – like her unsupportive father and the pressure from male
colleagues – she brought so many new ideas to the table and pushed
back against the societal norms of the time period she grew up in.
Her art reflected the life she was most interested in: one with no
man present to control or take the spotlight from her. She inspired
other artists to not stay stuck to the confines of one particular
movement or style and has helped push the women’s suffrage
movement forwards by donating her art funds to these
organizations. Mary Cassatt was one of the most incredible artists in
her time period but is still forgotten because of the lack of study of
female artists; great art needs to be recognized and we should start
with the incredible art of the women who were left out of history
books.

Chapter 9 - Mary Cassatt | 457

Mary Cassatt, Child in Straw Hat, oil on canvas, 1886

Bibliography
Biography. “Mary Cassatt Biography.” Last modified June 19, 2020.
https://www.biography.com/artist/mary-cassatt
Davis, Charlotte. “Mary Cassatt: An Iconic American Impressionist,”

458 | Chapter 9 - Mary Cassatt

The Collector, April 21, 2020, https://www.thecollector.com/mary-
cassatt/
F. “Mary Cassatt.” Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago (1907-1951)
20, no. 9 (1926): 125-26. Accessed October 5, 2020. https://www-
jstor-org.ezproxy.ardc.talonline.ca/stable/4114190
Grafly, Dorothy. “In Retrospect – Mary Cassatt.” The American
Magazine of Art 18, no. 6 (1927): 305-7. Accessed October 12, 2020.
https://www-jstor-org.ezproxy.ardc.talonline.ca/stable/23930251
Mary Cassatt. “Mary Cassatt Biography.” Accessed October 12, 2020.
https://www.marycassatt.org/biography.html
The Famous Artists. “A Mandoline Player.” Accessed October 12,
2020. http://www.thefamousartists.com/mary-cassatt/a-
mandoline-player
The Met. “Art of the Pleasure Quarters and the Ukiyo-e Style,”
Department of Asian Art. Accessed October 13, 2020.
https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/plea/hd_plea.htm
Yoder, Abigail. “The Artistic Friendship of Mary Cassatt and Edgar
Degas.” Saint Louis Art Museum. Last modified April 20, 2017.
https://www.slam.org/blog/the-artistic-friendship-of-mary-
cassatt-and-edgar-degas

Chapter 9 - Mary Cassatt by Hannah Martin is licensed under a Creative Commons

Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where
otherwise noted.

Chapter 9 - Mary Cassatt | 459

14. Chapter 9 - Alfred Sisley
“Purest of All the Impressionists”
LINDSEY BEAMISH

Audio recording of chapter is available here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/
1N3jfOsutJFymJUNxUbgFUdZsFZ1sf7YI/view?usp=sharing

Alfred Sisley, Le Pont de Moret, effet d’orage, 1887, oil on canvas

Alfred Sisley was an Impressionist painter in the nineteenth-

century. He started his artistic journey when he joined Gleyre’s

460 | Chapter 9 - Alfred Sisley

 studio in Paris. During his time at the studio he met what would
eventually be fellow Impressionist artists, Pierre-Auguste Renoir,
1
and Claude Monet. They worked alongside each other and created
a revolutionary change in the world of art that would later be
described as Impressionism. This did not come easy, there were
many harsh critics at the beginning stages of Sisley’s career. Life as
an artist has many challenges and unpredictability, and this was the
case for Sisley. He faced many obstacles, in regards to his artwork
which led to financial struggles throughout his life. For the most
part, Sisley was labeled with the “status as a “minor”
Impressionist”due to the lack of documentation and criticism of his
2
work compared to his fellow Impressionist artists. Sadly, Sisley
died in 1899, at the age of fifty-nine. It was in the last decade of his
life while living in Moret-sur-Loing, that Sisley “fully capitalized on
3
its picturesque potential.” He had previously painted landscapes at
Moret but it was at this time he found his niche and painted what
he is so well known for today. It was years after his death that he
got the recognition that he deserved. Today, it is evident that Sisley
is recognized as one of the greatest Impressionist artists of all time.
When looking at his work we can clearly see his unique abilities in
capturing the essence of his artistic visions.

1. MaryAnne Stevens, Isabelle Cahn, Caroline Durand-Ruel

Godfroy, William R. Johnston, and Christopher Llyod.,
Alfred Sisley. (London: Royal Academy of Arts, 1992), 259.
2. Stevens, Alder, and Shone, Alfred Sisley Impressionist
Master. Pg. 30
3. Stevens, Alder, and Shone, Alfred Sisley Impressionist
Master. Pg. 162
Chapter 9 - Alfred Sisley | 461
 In order to fully appreciate
and respect Sisley’s impact in
the art world, it is important to
understand Impressionism.
“Initially, it was not the artists
themselves who described
themselves as Impressionists…”
It was a journalist, Louis Leroy
Alfred Sisley, Fog – Voisins, 1874, oil on that dubbed a group of
canvas independent artists as an
“Exhibition of the
4
Impressionists.” “It was Claude Monet’s painting, Impression,
5
Sunrise” that initiated the name. After this, the artists themselves
6
used this term to describe their art. It is important to note that,
“Impressionist artists were not trying to paint a reflection of real
life, but an ‘impression’ of what the person, light, atmosphere, object
or landscape looked like to them.
They tried to capture the
movement and life of what they
saw and show it to us as if it
were happening before our
eyes. … Impressionists painted
outdoors…they looked at how
light and colour changed the
Alfred Sisley, The Seine at Grenelle,
1878, oil on canvas

4. Iris Schaefer, Caroline von Saint- George, and Katja

Lewerentz, Painting Light: The Hidden Techniques of the
Impressionists. (Italy: Skira, 2008). pg .19
5. Schaefer, Painting Light, 19
6. Albert Chatelet, Impressionist Painting. (New York,
McGraw-Hill Book Company. 1962). Pg.4.
462 | Chapter 9 - Alfred Sisley
 7
scenes. To achieve the artist’s perspectives, specific painting
techniques were used widely in the Impressionist genre, they are as
follows:

They used short, thick strokes of paint to capture the

essence of the object rather than the subject’s details.
Quickly applied brush strokes give the painterly illusion of
movement and spontaneity. A thick impasto application of
paint means that even reflections on the water’s surface
appear as substantial as any object in a scene. The
Impressionists lightened their palettes to include pure,
intense colours. Complementary colours were used for their
vibrant contrasts and mutual enhancement when
juxtaposed. Impressionists often painted at a time of day
when there were long shadows. This technique of painting
outdoors helped impressionists better depict the effects of
light and emphasize the vibrancy of colours. They used
8
Optical Mixing rather than mixing on the palette.

7. "Impressionism ." Tate Kids. https://www.tate.org.uk/

kids/explore/what-is/impressionism.
8. Julie Caves "Impressionist Painting Techniques."
Jackson's. Last modified April 24, 2015. Accessed October
21, 2021. https://www.jacksonsart.com/blog/2015/04/
24/impressionist-painting-techniques/.
Chapter 9 - Alfred Sisley | 463
 “From around 1872 to 1876,
Sisley…provides us with an A to
Z of Impressionist effects
within a comprehensive range
of landscape motifs.” At this
time his work captivated effects
such as, “hoarfrost, mist,
autumn fog, morning dew, high
Alfred Sisley, A February Morning at July clouds, threatening winter
Moret-Sur-Loing, 1881, oil on canvas 9
sky, and dark summer rain.”
“His longest and best known
10
series is the Church of Moret, seen in all weathers.“ The series was
broken into two “sub-groups” that were categorised by the side of
the church he would focus on. The first group was the west facade
of the church, he would primarily focus on the silhouettes that
would change during the day according to the level of the sun, as
well as working during a range of weather to showcase the church
in all conditions.
The second group was the
southern facade and transept,
and the market hall, where he
would focus on different angles
and change his positioning.
Similar to the first sub group he
would also work in different
weather conditions, specifically
rainy or sunny midsummer
Alfred Sisley, Church at Moret, 1889,
days. Sisley himself claims this oil on canvas

9. Stevens, Alder, and Shone, Alfred Sisley Impressionist

Master.Pg.26
10. Stevens, Alder, and Shone, Alfred Sisley Impressionist
Master.Pg.28
464 | Chapter 9 - Alfred Sisley
 series to be his best work. Taken from a letter he wrote to Adolphe
Tavernier, Sisley said, “It is in Moret, amid the dense nature, with its
tall poplars and the beautiful, transparent, changing waters of the
Loing…that my art has undoubtedly developed most; especially in
the last three years…I will never really leave this little place that is so
11
picturesque.” Not only did Sisley capture the Church in Moret, he
also had beautiful paintings of river banks, bridges, ports, and other
buildings. He truly was able to produce breathtaking art throughout
the commune of Moret-sur-Loing. Some of Sisleys most memorable
pieces come from the beauty he found in Moret.

Alfred Sisley, Under the Bridge at Hampton Court, 1874, oil on canvas

Sisley’s main inspiration and interests were, “unusual views of

bridges, he depicted this imposing structure from water level,
looking at it from underneath, as well as everyday detail of local

11. Stevens, Alder, and Shone, Alfred Sisley Impressionist

Master. Pg,162
Chapter 9 - Alfred Sisley | 465
 12
streets, often painting views from his own home or from close by.”
He was also fascinated by engineering structures, the variety of road
13
and rail bridges…and the impact of extreme weather conditions.
14
Sisley liked “remote or quiet, unvisited locations.” This is also a
reflection of his personality. Sisley was a very private man; he was
15
“reluctant to speak about his work”. The beauty in this is “the
paintings must speak for themselves… due to the “lack of
16
commentary on his work.”
One document that was
retrieved was a letter Sisley
wrote to Adolphe Tavernier on
January 24, 1892, he stated,
“The sky must be the medium,
the sky cannot be a mere
backdrop. Not only does it give
the picture depth through its
successive planes, but through
Alfred Sisley, The Loing’s Canal, 1892,
oil on canvas its form… it gives it movement.
Is there anything more
beautiful and more moving than the sky…What movement, what

12. Stevens, Alder, and Shone, Alfred Sisley Impressionist

Master. Pg 65
13. Stevens, Alder, and Shone, Alfred Sisley Impressionist
Master. Pg 65
14. Stevens, Alder, and Shone, Alfred Sisley Impressionist
Master. Pg. 22
15. Stevens, Alder, and Shone, Alfred Sisley Impressionist
Master. Pg. 28
16. Stevens, Alder, and Shone, Alfred Sisley Impressionist
Master. Pg. 28
466 | Chapter 9 - Alfred Sisley
 17
allure, don’t you agree?…I always begin by painting the sky.”
Reading these words really captures Sisley’s true passion for his
work and is spine tingling to hear words that came directly from his
mind. Since there is very little written work or even oral sources
directly from Sisley, his letter to Tavernier has to fill in those gaps
that researchers and historians try to dig up.
Art critic Octave Mirbeau describes Sisley: “His very delicate,
lively sensibility was at ease before all the glories of nature…
M.Sisley understood lovely light, the transparency of the envelope
of air, the mobility and changeability of reflection, and the speed of
18
movement.” All these aspects define what it takes to be an artist in
the Impressionist movement. Even though Sisley may not have had
the recognition, and the success he deserved in his lifetime, he is
19
now identified as one of the artists who created this genre. “Alfred
Sisley was perhaps one of the purest of all the Impressionists. He
adhered throughout his career to the style of divided light and
colour, momentary effects of illumination, and an acute
responsiveness to atmosphere that are signature aspects of
20
Impressionism.”

17. Stevens, Alder, and Shone, Alfred Sisley Impressionist

Master. Pg. 154.
18. Stevens, Alder, and Shone, Alfred Sisley Impressionist
Master. Pg. 112.
19. Albert Chatelet, Impressionist Painting. Pg.3.
20. Stevens, Alder, and Shone, Alfred Sisley Impressionist
Master.
Chapter 9 - Alfred Sisley | 467
Alfred Sisley, An Evening in Moret – End of October, 1888, oil on canvas

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Accessed September 21, 2021. https://fod.infobase.com/
PortalPlaylists.aspx?wID=103278&xtid=50302.

[1] MaryAnne Stevens, Isabelle Cahn, Caroline Durand-Ruel Godfroy,

William R. Johnston, and Christopher Llyod., Alfred Sisley. (London:
Royal Academy of Arts, 1992), 259.

[2] Stevens, Alder, and Shone, Alfred Sisley Impressionist Master. Pg.
30

[3] Stevens, Alder, and Shone, Alfred Sisley Impressionist Master. Pg

162

[4] Iris Schaefer, Caroline von Saint- George, and Katja Lewerentz,
Painting Light: The Hidden Techniques of the Impressionists. (Italy:
Skira, 2008). pg .19

[5] Albert Chatelet, Impressionist Painting. (New York: McGraw-Hill

Book Company, 1962). Pg.4.

[6] “Impressionism .” Tate Kids. https://www.tate.org.uk/kids/

explore/what-is/impressionism.

[7] Julie Caves “Impressionist Painting Techniques.” Jackson’s. Last

Chapter 9 - Alfred Sisley | 469

modified April 24, 2015. Accessed October 21, 2021.
https://www.jacksonsart.com/blog/2015/04/24/impressionist-
painting-techniques/.

[8] Stevens, Alder, and Shone, Alfred Sisley Impressionist

Master.Pg.26

[9] Stevens, Alder, and Shone, Alfred Sisley Impressionist Master.

Pg.28

[10] Stevens, Alder, and Shone, Alfred Sisley Impressionist Master.

Pg,162

[11] Stevens, Alder, and Shone, Alfred Sisley Impressionist Master. Pg

65.

[12] Stevens, Alder, and Shone, Alfred Sisley Impressionist Master. Pg.
22

[13] Stevens, Alder, and Shone, Alfred Sisley Impressionist Master. Pg.
28.

[14] Stevens, Alder, and Shone, Alfred Sisley Impressionist Master. Pg.
154.

[15] Stevens, Alder, and Shone, Alfred Sisley Impressionist Master. Pg.
112.

[16] Albert Chatelet, Impressionist Painting. Pg.3.

[17] Stevens, Alder, and Shone, Alfred Sisley Impressionist Master.

Chapter 9 - Alfred Sisley by Lindsey Beamish is licensed under a Creative Commons

Attribution 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

470 | Chapter 9 - Alfred Sisley

 15. Chapter 9 - Cecilia Beaux
Defining Beaux’s Art
WILLIAM ARMSTRONG

Audio recording of the full chapter can be found here:

One or more interactive elements has been excluded

from this version of the text. You can view them online
here: https://openeducationalberta.ca/
19thcenturyart/?p=318#audio-318-1

Anyone can find themselves defined by certain labels. Humans seem

to have a natural tendency to categorize people, perhaps as a way
of understanding. People can be defined by a whole host of
characteristics, from race to gender, sexuality to wealth. Sometimes
these labels can help people find a sense of common identity. Other
times, these labels ultimately restrict people, leading to unfair
judgement. Cecilia Beaux was an artist who undoubtedly showed
immense talent and skill in her work. She was also a woman, one
whose career started in the late 19th century, at a time when women
1
were not even allowed to vote. Beaux’s career was often defined by
this label over which she had no control, and it impacted her career

1. “Cecilia Beaux.” Smithsonian American Art Museum.

https://americanart.si.edu/artist/cecilia-beaux-300
Chapter 9 - Cecilia Beaux | 471
 in varying ways, all as she frequently tried to remove herself from its
power.
In the late 1800s, there were
certain forms of art that were
considered female, and others
that were not. The male-
dominated society in the
United States believed that
women were not suited for the
academic side of art, instead
believing that women should
focus on “commercial and
2
decorative work”. When a
teenage Cecilia Beaux began to
work in art, that was exactly the
kind of work she started with. Cecilia Beaux, Self Portrait, oil on
Notably, she did fossil canvas, 1894

illustrations as part of work for

3
the United States Geological Survey. She also learned to paint
portraits of children onto ceramic plates. It was another form of
4
commercial, decorative work, and one that she hated. Ironically, it
was this kind of ‘feminine’ work that Beaux developed skills in
drawing and painting, and discovered an interest in portraiture, an

2. Tara L. Tappert. “Cecilia Beaux: A Career as a Portraitist.”

Women’s Studies 14, no. 4 (1988): 391.
3. “Cecilia Beaux.” Smithsonian American Art Museum.
https://americanart.si.edu/artist/cecilia-beaux-300
4. Tara L. Tappert. “Cecilia Beaux: A Career as a Portraitist.”
Women’s Studies 14, no. 4 (1988): 395-397.
472 | Chapter 9 - Cecilia Beaux
 5
interest that would define her career as a professional artist. As
a person who aspired to make good art, Beaux understandably felt
that the commercial works she created were beneath her. As a
woman, however, she had had no alternative. Yet even if she could
not see it, she made use of the limitations prescribed to her,
learning and developing where she was allowed until she gained
enough skills to truly enter the world of art.
Part of the reason Beaux
hated her decorative work so
much is because it was work
that could be defined as
6
female. Beaux knew that she
could either be a professional
artist or she could be a woman
artist – there was little room for
both titles to coexist. Her early
‘feminine’ commercial work
gave her a good sense of
business and of art, both of
which she used to develop
herself as a skilled and
successful portraitist. Due to
Cecilia Beaux, Man with the Cat
(Henry Sturgis Drinker) oil on canvas, her skill, she was able to get
1898 help from her family and
admirers of her work and she
succeeded in traveling to study in Paris to further develop her
7
skills. She came to be well admired and recognized for her

5. Tara L. Tappert. “Cecilia Beaux: A Career as a Portraitist.”

Women’s Studies 14, no. 4 (1988): 395-397.
6. Tara L. Tappert. “Cecilia Beaux: A Career as a Portraitist.”
Women’s Studies 14, no. 4 (1988): 397.
7. Toohey, Jeanette M. ""Intricacies and
Chapter 9 - Cecilia Beaux | 473
 paintings. The Impressionist influence and subtle tonalities showed
a painter with a great deal of skill, even if the paintings themselves
conformed to many artistic conventions at the time. The skill was
evident, but Beaux’s success was attributed by the art community
to a diverse range of factors, all of which still seemed to highlight
her gender, despite her best efforts to conform. She was celebrated
8
for being special and unique, her work viewed as masculine.
Unfortunately for Beaux, it was as though she was being celebrated
for her success in spite of being a woman.
Beaux’s desire to be seen for
her work and not for her
gender caused herself to
become isolated. She began to
believe that she indeed was
special, and that she was not
like other women. Beaux’s
admirers compared her to
other female American painters
and positioned her as far above
all the rest. Though Beaux had
expressed the belief that
“success is sexless,” she was
continuously seen as a uniquely

Cecilia Beaux, Sita and Sarita, oil on

canvas, 1893-94

Interdependencies": Cecilia Beaux and the

PennsylvaniaAcademy of the Fine Arts." The Pennsylvania
Magazine of History and Biography 124, no. 3 (2000): 359.
8. Tara L. Tappert. “Cecilia Beaux: A Career as a Portraitist.”
Women’s Studies 14, no. 4 (1988): 405.
474 | Chapter 9 - Cecilia Beaux
 9
exceptional woman painter. It was the primary way she was
recognized, and it was as close as she could get to being removed
from her gender. She isolated herself from all other female painters,
buying into the belief that she was a rare type of woman who
had managed to rise above her gender. She did not believe that
a woman could be a successful artist unless she “sacrificed” what
made her a ‘woman’, and avoided the life of marriage and children as
10
Beaux had. This view further isolated her from many female artists
11
including her own niece. Beaux was trapped; she did not want to
be seen as a ‘female’ painter, but she would never be considered
to be on the same playing field as her male contemporaries. She
was applauded for conforming to ‘male’ forms of art even though
it was her practice in ‘female’ avenues that had helped lead her
to becoming who she was. Beaux would go on to win numerous
awards, including one presented by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt for
“the American woman who had made the greatest contribution to
12
the culture of the world”. An incredible honour, though even it
singled out her identity as a woman. She was a master of her craft,
regardless of gender, but ultimately neither she nor the world could
shake her categorization.
Identity can be an important force in a person’s life, but it should
not be used to impose limits on their potential. In a time when
women were treated as lesser, Cecilia Beaux worked and honed

9. Tappert. “Cecilia Beaux: A Career as a Portraitist.”

Women’s Studies 14: 407.
10. Tappert. “Cecilia Beaux: A Career as a Portraitist.”
Women’s Studies 14: 408.
11. Tara L. Tappert. “Cecilia Beaux: A Career as a Portraitist.”
Women’s Studies 14, no. 4 (1988): 408.
12. "Cecilia Beaux: Artist Profile." NMWA. May 28, 2020.
https://nmwa.org/art/artists/cecilia-beaux/
Chapter 9 - Cecilia Beaux | 475
her craft, becoming one of the best painters of her generation.
She entered male- dominated institutions and created works of the
highest quality. Though she sought to be recognized purely for her
work, the fact that she was a woman always managed to become a
factor as to how she was judged, even by herself. She was seen as
special, and special she indeed was, but not because she was a good
woman painter. She was special because she was a phenomenal
painter, one who rivalled any great painter of her time regardless of
gender. Cecilia Beaux’s identity cannot be ignored. Her experiences
as a woman played a great role in her development as an artist. But
those experiences do not define the nature of her work. She was as
skilled a portraitist as any, one who does deserve to be recognized
for her work as a woman, but who even more so deserves to be
recognized and defined for her work as an artist.

476 | Chapter 9 - Cecilia Beaux

Cecilia Beaux, Portrait of Mrs. Albert J. Beveridge, oil on canvas, 1916

Chapter 9 - Cecilia Beaux | 477

 Bibliography
“Cecilia Beaux.” Smithsonian American Art Museum.
https://americanart.si.edu/artist/cecilia-beaux-300 .
“Cecilia Beaux: Artist Profile.” NMWA. May 28, 2020.
https://nmwa.org/art/artists/cecilia-beaux/.
Mathews, Nancy Mowll. “”The Greatest Woman Painter”: Cecilia
Beaux, Mary Cassatt, and Issues of Female Fame.” The Pennsylvania
Magazine of History and Biography 124, no. 3 (2000): 293-316.
Accessed September 18, 2020. http://www.jstor.org/stable/
20093367.
Tappert, Tara L. 1988. “Cecilia Beaux: A Career as a Portraitist.”
Women’s Studies 14 (4): 389. https://search-ebscohost-
com.ezproxy.ardc.talonline.ca/
login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=5806669&site=eds-live.
Toohey, Jeanette M. “”Intricacies and Interdependencies”: Cecilia
Beaux and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.” The
Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 124, no. 3 (2000):
349-74. Accessed September 21, 2020. http://www.jstor.org/stable/
20093369.
Yount, Sylvia. 2007. “‘Like a Needle to the Pole’: The French
Adventures of Cecilia Beaux.” Magazine Antiques 172 (5): 170.
https://search-ebscohost-com.ezproxy.ardc.talonline.ca/
login.aspx?direct=true&db=f5h&AN=27471089&site=eds-live.
Katus, Barbara. “Between the Covers: An Artist Looks at the
Sketchbooks of Cecilia Beaux.” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History
and Biography 124, no. 3 (2000): 391-99. Accessed October 12, 2020.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/20093372.

478 | Chapter 9 - Cecilia Beaux

Chapter 9 - Cecilia Beaux by William Armstrong is licensed under a Creative
Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

Chapter 9 - Cecilia Beaux | 479

 16. Chapter 9 - Marie
Bracquemond
Impressionism
PAIGE EKDAHL

Audio recording of the full chapter can be found here:

One or more interactive elements has been excluded

from this version of the text. You can view them online
here: https://openeducationalberta.ca/
19thcenturyart/?p=350#audio-350-1

If you were to do some digging into the inspirational and inspiring

Impressionist art of the late 1800’s you would see names like Mary
Cassatt, or Claude Monet, to name a few, but you would have to dig
deep to find the name and history of a female Impressionist named
Marie Bracquemond. Marie Bracquemond was awarded the title as
one of les trois grande dames of Impressionism by art critic Gustave
1
Geffroy in 1894. Though she held this title and was acknowledged
as being one of the main female Impressionists to break the trail for
others to follow, Bracquemond is almost always missing from the

1. 1 Bouillon, Jean-Paul, and Elizabeth Kane. "Marie

Bracquemond." Woman's Art Journal 5, no. 2 (1984): 21.
480 | Chapter 9 - Marie
Bracquemond
 history books. If she was a trailblazer for future female artists, then
what are the factors contributing to this? Marie Bracquemond was
an adept artist whose art was undervalued and criticized by many,
including those that should have been supporting her ingenuity by
allowing her to flourish as a female, Impressionist artist.

Marie Bracquemond, On the Terrace at Sèvres, oil on canvas, 1880

The arts were mainly male dominated during the late 1800’s which
made it hard for women like Marie Bracquemond and the other
“grande dames” of Impressionism, Mary Cassatt and Berthe Morisot,
2
to become successful artists. Art was renowned for its
sophistication and the respect that an individual gained from its

2. Avarvarei, Simona C. “Medusa as the story of Victorian

feminine identity.” Journal of History Culture and Art
Research 4, no. 3 (2015): 65.
Chapter 9 - Marie Bracquemond | 481
 spectacle, especially after having a piece of one’s personal art
admitted into the Salon by The Academy. Fortunately, in 1857, Marie
Bracquemond’s hard work paid off as she submitted a piece of her
3
art to the Salon and it was accepted. Following this achievement, in
1860, she was taken under the wing of a talented and well respected
4
artist, Jean-Ausguste-Dominique Ingres. This is where
Bracquemond began her endeavor upstream, against the current of
the male dominated profession. As quoted by Bracquemond during
her time under the instruction of Ingres,

The severity of M. Ingres frightened me, I tell you, because

he doubted the courage and perseverance of a woman in
the field of painting. He wished to impose limits. He would
assign to them only the painting of flowers, of fruits, of still
5
lifes, portraits and genre scenes.

Female artists, like Marie Bracquemond, had to persevere through

the misogyny that is ingrained in the artistic profession to prove
their competence as professional, competent artists.

3. Bouillon and Kane, “Marie Bracquemond,” 22.

4. Myers, Nicole. “Women Artists in Nineteenth-Century
France.” metmuseum.org, 2008.
https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/19wa/
hd_19wa.htm
5. Myers, Nicole. “Women Artists in Nineteenth-Century
France.” metmuseum.org, 2008.
https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/19wa/
hd_19wa.htm
482 | Chapter 9 - Marie Bracquemond
 Marie Bracquemond had to
conquer many obstacles
throughout her artistic journey.
One significant mountain Marie
had to climb was her husband,
Felix Bracquemond’s
disapproval and jealousy of her
success as an artist. Marie
Bracquemond, formerly Marie
Quivoron, was married to Felix
Bracquemond in 1869 and they
6
had one child, Pierre, in 1870.
In 1877, Marie admired the work
of Monet and Renoir, which Marie Bracquemond, Three Graces or
Three Women with Parasols, oil on
altered her view of the canvas, 1880
aesthetic that her art
portrayed; she then chose to pursue down the path towards
7
Impressionism. Bracquemond said that “Impressionism had
produced… not only a new, but a very useful way of looking at
things” as though “all at once a window opens and the sun and air
8
enter your house in torrents.” Alternatively, Felix, an admired
painter, ceramist and printmaker, hated his wife’s move away from
medieval motifs and towards Impressionism; he deemed the
Impressionist aesthetic as distasteful and actively sought to
9
obliterate it. Despite being continually degraded as an
Impressionist artist by Felix, in 1880, Marie painted The Woman in

6. Bouillon and Kane, “Marie Bracquemond,” 22

7. Bouillon and Kane, “Marie Bracquemond,” 22.
8. Hutton, John. “Picking Fruit: Mary Cassatt's "Modern
Woman" and the Woman's Building of 1893.”Journal of
Feminist Studies 20, no. 2 (1994): 337.
9. Bouillon and Kane, “Marie Bracquemond,” 22.
Chapter 9 - Marie Bracquemond | 483
 White, which was an innovative Impressionist painting that utilized
the sinuous aspect of a woman’s white dress with the delicate,
flowing detail of colour surrounding her. This painting ignited
Marie’s creations of other pieces in 1880 like, On the Terrace at
Sevres, and Tea Time, and The Three Graces; all of these paintings
exemplify the same assemblage of similarly aesthetically pleasing
10
pieces. Succeeding these exquisite paintings that Marie
Bracquemond created in 1880, there is a gap of approximately five
years, 1881-1886, where she did not produce any pieces of art at
11
all. Why was this? I believe the reason that there is a gap of five
years is because Marie began to realize she was fighting a losing
battle against Felix that she needed to take a step away from to
gain some clarity about the direction she wished her life to go.
Though he never outwardly admitted it, Felix’s antipathy regarding
Marie’s Impressionist pieces influenced her success as an artist by
hindering her public recognition and impeding on her complexion
12
of artful style.

10. College Art Association. “Some Things New Under the

Sun.” Art Journal 35, no. 3 (1980): 205; Bouillon, Jean-
Paul, and Elizabeth Kane. "Marie Bracquemond."
Woman's Art Journal 5, no. 2 (1984): 24-5
11. Bouillon and Kane, “Marie Bracquemond,” 24.
12. Bouillon and Kane, “Marie Bracquemond,” 27
484 | Chapter 9 - Marie Bracquemond
 Eventually everything must
come to an end and
unfortunately, sometimes that
end comes sooner than
anticipated. Marie
Bracquemond continued
pursuing her artistic career by
making more Impressionist
paintings up until 1890 when
she inevitably succumbed to
Felix’s constant enmity towards
her and the Impressionist path
that she so eagerly wanted to
13
see through. Following 1890,
Marie Bracquemond, Afternoon Tea, Bracquemond only created
oil on canvas, 1880
small, private pieces including
The Artist’s Son and Sister in the
14
Garden of Sevres. This painting shows the relationship between
the colours by including the blues and reds, while having a detailed,
yet contrasting background that plays on the darks and lights. Much
like the painting The Woman in White, Bracquemond demonstrates
her proficiency in portraying the beautiful details on the white dress
on one of the figures; she adds flowing, yet subtly sharp details that
accent the definition of the woman’s dress. Both figures are not
facing forward, showing Bracquemond’s confidence in her ability to
delineate the serenity felt by the man and woman outside savouring
a beautiful day. Marie Bracquemond made a bold decision moving
towards Impressionism when she did, especially with all of the
factors that were urging her against it but, she had a true aptitude
to express all that Impressionism is and she did so for as long as she
could.

13. Bouillon and Kane, “Marie Bracquemond,” 27

14. Bouillon and Kane, “Marie Bracquemond,” 27
Chapter 9 - Marie Bracquemond | 485
 Marie Bracquemond had many factors that influenced her artistic
success that ultimately ended her career: societal misogyny, a
jealous husband and her role as a mother. All of these components
slowly buried Bracquemond deeper and deeper into the art history
books, typically only to be mentioned in the occurrence of her
husband’s name. Should you dig deep enough to find information on
her, you will learn how intuitive, inventive and incredible she was.
Marie Bracquemond helped pave the way for many other female
artists regardless of having been the least known out of the les
15
trois grande dames of Impressionism. Though she capitulated her
art career to the pressures of her unrelenting husband and her
constant effort of climbing the social ladder as a female artist, she
did not end up where she had planned, but she did manage to make
an impression as an Impressionist.

Marie Bracquemond, Under the Lamp, oil on canvas, 1877

15. Dwyer, Britta C. “Women Impressionists: Berthe Morisot,

Mary Cassatt, Eva Gonzales, Marie Bracquemond.” Art
Book 16, no. 2 (May 2009): 47.
486 | Chapter 9 - Marie Bracquemond
 Bibliography
Avarvarei, Simona C. “Medusa as the story of Victorian feminine
identity.” Journal of History Culture and Art Research 4, no. 3 (2015):
63-7. doi:10.7596/taksad.v4i3.480.
Bouillon, Jean-Paul, and Elizabeth Kane. “Marie Bracquemond.”
Woman’s Art Journal 5, no. 2 (1984): 21-27. Accessed September 18,
2020. doi:10.2307/1357962.
College Art Association. “Some Things New Under the Sun.” Art
Journal 35, no. 3 (1980): 205-6. Accessed September 18, 2020.
doi:10.2307/776356.
Dwyer, Britta C. “Women Impressionists Berthe Morisot, Mary
Cassatt, Eva Gonzales, Marie Bracquemond By Max Hollein (Ed.).”
The Art Book 16, no. 2 (May 2009): 46–47. https://doi.org/10.1111/
j.1467-8357.2009.01027_12.x.
Hutton, John. “Picking Fruit: Mary Cassatt’s “Modern Woman” and
the Woman’s Building of 1893.” Journal of Feminist Studies 20, no. 2
(1994): 318-348. doi: 10.2307/3178155.
Myers, Nicole. “Women Artists in Nineteenth-Century France.”
metmuseum.org, 2008. https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/
19wa/hd_19wa.htm

Chapter 9 - Marie Bracquemond by Paige Ekdahl is licensed under a Creative

Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except
where otherwise noted.

Chapter 9 - Marie Bracquemond | 487

17. Chapter 10 -
Post-Impressionism
Post-Impressionism

Georges Seurat, A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, oil on canvas, 1884-86

Audio recording of the chapter (part 1) is here:

One or more interactive elements has been excluded

from this version of the text. You can view them online
here: https://openeducationalberta.ca/
19thcenturyart/?p=341#audio-341-1

488 | Chapter 10
 Just a dozen years after the debut of Impressionism,
the art critic Félix Fénéon christened Georges Seurat as
the leader of a new group of “Neo-Impressionists.” He
did not mean to suggest the revival of a defunct style —
Impressionism was still going strong in the mid-1880s —
but rather a significant modification of Impressionist
techniques that demanded a new label.

Fénéon identified greater scientific rigor as the key

difference between Neo-Impressionism and its
predecessor. Where the Impressionists were “arbitrary”
in their techniques, the Neo-Impressionists had
developed a “conscious and scientific” method through
a careful study of contemporary color theorists such as
1
Michel Chevreul and Ogden Rood.

This greater scientific

rigor is immediately
visible if we compare
Seurat’s Neo-
Impressionist Grande
Jatte with Renoir’s
Impressionist Moulin de
Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Bal du
la Galette. The subject
Moulin de la Galette, oil on
canvas, 1876 matter is similar: an

1. Félix Fénéon, “Les Impressionnistes en 1886,” as

translated in Linda Nochlin, ed., Impressionism and
Post-Impressionism, 1874-1904: Sources and Documents
(Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1966), p. 108.
Chapter 10 | 489
 outdoor scene of people at leisure, lounging in a park by
a river or dancing and drinking on a café terrace. The
overall goal is similar as well. Both artists are trying to
capture the effect of dappled light on a sunny afternoon.
However, Renoir’s scene appears to have been
composed and painted spontaneously, with the figures
captured in mid-gesture. Renoir’s loose, painterly
technique reinforces this effect, giving the impression
that the scene was painted quickly, before the light
changed.

By contrast, the figures in La Grande Jatte are

preternaturally still, and the brushwork has also been
systematized into a painstaking mosaic of tiny dots and
dashes, unlike Renoir’s haphazard strokes and smears.
Neo-Impressionist painters employed rules and a
method, unlike the Impressionists, who tended to rely
2
on “instinct and the inspiration of the moment.”

2. Paul Signac, From Eugène Delacroix to Neo-

Impressionism (1899), as translated in Nochlin, ed., p. 122.
490 | Chapter 10
 Pointillism and optical mixture

One of these rules was

to use only the “pure”
colors of the spectrum:
violet, blue, green, yellow,
orange, and red. These
colors could be mixed
only with white or with a
color adjacent on the
color wheel (called
“analogous colors”), for
example to make lighter, The color wheel
yellower greens or darker,
redder violets. Above all, the Neo-Impressionists would
not mix colors opposite on the color wheel
(“complementary colors”), because doing so results in
muddy browns and dull grays.

More subtle color variations were produced by

“optical mixture” rather than mixing paint on the
palette. For example, examine the grass in the sun.
Seurat intersperses the overall field of yellow greens
with flecks of warm cream, olive greens, and yellow
ochre (actually discolored chrome yellow). Viewed from
a distance these flecks blend together to help lighten
and warm the green, as we would expect when grass is
struck by the yellow-orange light of the afternoon sun.
It was this technique of painting in tiny dots (“points” in

Chapter 10 | 491
 French) that gave Neo-Impressionism the popular
nickname ”Pointillism” although the artists generally
avoided that term since it suggested a stylistic gimmick.

For the grass in the shadows, Seurat uses darker

greens intermixed with flecks of pure blue and even
some orange and maroon. These are very unexpected
colors for grass, but when we stand back the colors
blend optically, resulting in a cooler, darker, and duller
green in the shadows. This green is, however, more
vibrant than if Seurat had mixed those colors on the
palette and applied them in a uniform swath.

Similarly, look at the number of colors that make up

the little girl’s legs! They include not only the expected
pinks and oranges of Caucasian flesh, but also creams,
blues, maroons, and even greens. Stand back again,
though, and “optical mixture” blends them into a
convincing and luminous flesh color, modeled in warm
light and shaded by her white dress. (For more technical
information on this topic, see Neo-Impressionist color
theory).

The Neo-Impressionists also applied scientific rigor to

composition and design. Seurat’s friend and fellow
painter Paul Signac asserted,

Numerous studies for La Grande Jatte testify to how

carefully Seurat decided on each figure’s pose and
arranged them to create a rhythmic recession into the
background. This practice is very different from the
Impressionists, who emphasized momentary views
(impressions) by creating intentionally haphazard-

492 | Chapter 10
 seeming compositions,
The Neo-Impressionist such as Renoir’s Moulin
… will not begin a de la Galette.
canvas before he has
Seurat’s Parade de
determined the layout
… Guided by tradition cirque is even more
and science, he will … rigorously geometrical. It
adopt the lines is dominated by
(directions and angles), horizontal and vertical
the chiaroscuro (tones), lines, and the just slightly
[and] the colors (tints) off-rhythmic spacing of
to the expression he the figures and
wishes to make architectural structure
dominant.3 creates a syncopated
grid. Scholars have
debated whether the composition is based on the
Golden Section, a geometric ratio that was identified by
ancient Greek mathematicians as being inherently
harmonious.

3. Paul Signac, Delacroix to Neo-Impressionism, in Nochlin,

ed., p. 121.
Chapter 10 | 493
 Georges Seurat, Parade de cirque, oil on canvas, 1887-88

The Neo-Impressionists also attempted to

systematize the emotional qualities conveyed by their
paintings. Seurat defined three main expressive tools at
the painter’s disposal: color (the hues of the spectrum,
from warm to cool), tone (the value of those colors, from
light to dark), and line (horizontal, vertical, ascending, or
descending). Each has a specific emotional effect:

Gaiety of tone is given by the dominance of light; of

color, by the dominance of warmth; of line, by lines
above the horizontal. Calmness of tone is given by an
equivalence of light and dark; of color by an equivalence
of warm and cold; and of line, by horizontals. Sadness of
tone is given by the dominance of dark; of color, by the
dominance of cold colors; and of line, by downward
directions.4

494 | Chapter 10
4. Georges Seurat, Letter to Maurice Beaubourg, August 28,
1890, in Nochlin, ed., p. 114 (translation modified for
clarity).
Chapter 10 | 495
 Georges Seurat, Parade de cirque, oil on canvas, 1887-88

Seurat’s Chahut (Can-Can) seems designed to

exemplify these rules, employing mostly warm, light
colors and ascending lines to convey a mood of gaiety
appropriate to the dance.

496 | Chapter 10
 The Neo-Impressionist style had a relatively brief
heyday; very few artists carried on the project into the
20th century. However, a great many artists
experimented with it and took portions of its method
into their own practice, from van Gogh to Henri Matisse.
More broadly, the Neo-Impressionist desire to conform
art-making to universal laws of perception, color, and
expression echoes throughout Modernism, in
movements as diverse as Symbolism, Purism, De Stijl,
and the Bauhaus.

Excerpted from: Dr. Charles Cramer and Dr. Kim

Grant, “Introduction to Neo-Impressionism, Part I,”
in Smarthistory, April 15, 2020,
https://smarthistory.org/introduction-to-neo-
impressionism-part-i/.
All Smarthistory content is available for free
at www.smarthistory.org
CC: BY-NC-SA

Audio recording of the chapter (part 2) here:

Chapter 10 | 497
 One or more interactive elements has been
excluded from this version of the text. You
can view them online here:
https://openeducationalberta.ca/
19thcenturyart/?p=341#audio-341-2

For the most part, the

Neo-Impressionists
continued to depict the
kinds of subjects
preferred by the
Impressionists:
landscapes and leisure
Paul Signac, Golfe Juan, oil on scenes. In addition to his
canvas, 1896 famous painting of people
lounging in the park on
the island of La Grande Jatte, many of Georges Seurat’s
paintings portrayed entertainments such as the circuses
and music halls that contributed to Paris’s reputation for
mass spectacles in the late nineteenth century.

Paul Signac’s landscape paintings similarly reveal a

concentration on leisure scenes. A sailor himself, Signac
painted dozens of harbor scenes dominated by the sails
and masts of small pleasure craft. The Mediterranean
coast of France, where Signac spent his summers, had a

498 | Chapter 10
 reputation both for the quality of its light — a key
interest of the Neo-Impressionists generally — and for a
laid-back, sun-filled lifestyle. In Signac’s canvases, the
bright colors favored by the Neo-Impressionists
perfectly complement this reputation.

Although these subjects suggest carefree pleasure,

there are undertones of social criticism in some Neo-
Impressionist paintings. Seurat’s Circus shows the strict
class distinctions in Paris both by location, with the
wealthier patrons seated in the lower tiers, and by dress
and posture, which gets markedly more casual the
further the spectators are from ringside.

One contemporary critic also remarked that the

rigidity of the poses in Seurat’s La Grande Jatte
reminded him of “the stiffness of Parisian leisure, prim
and exhausted, where even recreation is a matter of
5
striking poses.” As we examine the characters in La
Grande Jatte in detail, there are some surprising
inclusions and juxtapositions. In the left foreground, a
working-class man in shirtsleeves overlaps a much more
formally-dressed middle-class gentleman in a top hat
holding a cane. A trumpet player in the middle-ground
plays directly into the ears of two soldiers standing at
attention in the background. A woman with an
ostentatiously eccentric pet monkey on the right and

5. Henri Fèvre, “L’Exposition des Impressionnistes,” in

Étude sur le Salon de 1886 et sur l’exposition des
impressionnistes (Paris, 1886), p. 43 (our translation).
Chapter 10 | 499
 another fishing on the left have been interpreted as
prostitutes, one of whom is casting out lures for clients.
Between them, a toy lap-dog with a pink ribbon leaps
toward a rangy hound whose coat is as black as that of
the bourgeois gentleman with the cane.

Despite these provocative juxtapositions and overlaps,

very few of the figures actually seem to be interacting
with each other; each is lost in their own world. Unlike
the mood of convivial good-fellowship between the
classes and sexes in Auguste Renoir’s Moulin de la
Galette, Seurat’s Grande Jatte sets up a dynamic of
alienation and tension.

Georges
Seurat, Ba
thers at
Asnières,
oil on
canvas,
1884

La Grande Jatte forms an implicit pair with an earlier

painting of the same size by Seurat, Bathers at Asnières.
Asnières was an industrial suburb of Paris, just across
the river Seine from La Grande Jatte. Unlike that island’s

500 | Chapter 10
 largely middle-class patrons in their top hats and bustle
skirts, here we see more working-class and lower-
middle-class figures in shirtsleeves and straw hats or
bowlers. In the background the smokestacks of the
factories at Clichy serve as a reminder of labor, even
during the men’s leisure time.

As in the painting of La Grande Jatte, all of the figures

are isolated in their own world, but a sense of implicit
tension is raised by their insistent gaze across the river
at their wealthier compatriots. A middle-class couple
being rowed by a hired oarsman in a boat with a
prominent French flag further adds to the class tensions
raised by the work.

Perhaps it was this odd

sense of unresolved class
tensions that caused
Signac to suggest that
even Seurat’s paintings of
“the pleasures of
decadence” are about
exposing “the Paul Signac, In the Time of
Harmony, oil on canvas, 1893-95
degradation of our era”
and bearing witness to “the great social struggle that is
6
now taking place between workers and capital.”
Seurat’s own politics were unclear, but Signac was a

6. Paul Signac, “Impressionists and Revolutionaries,” La

Révolte, June 13-19, 1891, as translated in Nochlin, ed., p.
124.
Chapter 10 | 501
 social anarchist, as were several other Neo-
Impressionists, including Camille Pissarro and his son
Lucien, as well as Maximilian Luce, Theodore van
Rysselberghe, Henri Cross, and the critic Felix Fénéon.
Social anarchists reject a strong centralized government
in which the state owns the means of production and
guides the economy; they believe that social ownership
and cooperation will emerge naturally in a stateless
society.

Signac’s In the Time of Harmony was originally

titled In the Time of Anarchy, but political controversy
forced a change. Between 1892 and 1894 there were
eleven bombings in France by anarchists, and a very
public trial of suspected anarchists that included
Fénéon and Luce.

502 | Chapter 10
 Signac’s painting was
intended to show that,
despite its current
revolutionary tactics, the
aim of anarchism was a
peaceful utopia. In the
foreground, workers lay
down their tools for a
picnic of figs and
champagne while others
play at boules. A couple in
the center contemplates
a posy, while behind them
a man sows and women
hang laundry. Although
Paul Signac, The Demolition the mood is timeless —
Worker, oil on canvas, 1887-89 with different clothing,
this painting could be a
Classical pastoral scene — in the distance modern
mechanical farm equipment reinforces the painting’s
subtitle, “The Golden Age is Not in the Past, it is in the
Future.”

Relatively few Neo-Impressionist paintings are so

overtly allegorical and political. Signac argued that it
was the Neo-Impressionists’ technique, not any directly
socialist or anarchist subject matter, that was most in
tune with the political revolutionaries. The Neo-
Impressionists’ rigorous appeal to hard science, rather
than dead conventions, along with their
uncompromising will to “paint what they see, as they
feel it,” will help “give a hard blow of the pick-axe to the

Chapter 10 | 503
 old social structure” and promote a corresponding
7
social revolution.

Excerpted from: Dr. Charles Cramer and Dr. Kim

Grant, “Introduction to Neo-Impressionism, Part II,”
in Smarthistory, accessed November 13, 2020,
https://smarthistory.org/introduction-to-neo-
impressionism-part-ii/.
All Smarthistory content is available for free
at www.smarthistory.org
CC: BY-NC-SA

7. Paul Signac, “Impressionists and Revolutionaries,” La

Révolte, June 13-19, 1891, as translated in Nochlin, ed., p.
124.
504 | Chapter 10
18. Chapter 10 - Suzanne
Valadon
Post-Impressionism
MORGAN HUNTER

Audio recording of the full chapter can be found here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/
1K3azf XC6RNV8u1gYyaweLNQaJk4Gdo5F/view?usp=sharing

Beneath the beautiful colours of paint, there is a blank canvas that

comes in all shapes and sizes. This blank canvas turns into one of
many layers of beauty with extravagant colours and textures, yet
there still lay imperfections within it, because no matter how hard
one might try, imperfections are what makes us human. No female
body goes without a flaw, that is what makes all women beautiful
and unique in their own way. Yet, what is the flaw? Throughout
history, women were portrayed as having this perfect figure that
would catch any man’s eye, with no “perceived” imperfection in
sight. This created the ideology of a perfect body, something that is
intangible as it is only in the eye of the beholder. A woman’s shape is
endlessly unique and therefore subject to debate over one definition
of beauty. Suzanne Valadon changed history with her artistic mind,
she contradicted the ongoing ideology of beauty by portraying a
realistic view of women and their bodies. Suzanne Valadon climbed
the ladder into the art community and created unique artwork that
was unlike any other. Her portrayal of art was unlike any other and
had deeper meaning that even feminists today reflect on. Valadon, a
woman who knew a change needed to happen.

Chapter 10 - Suzanne Valadon | 505

 To fully grasp the concept of
who Suzanne Valadon was and
what her art work meant,
readers need to know her past.
Marie Clementine, who later
became the well-known
Suzanne Valadon, was born in
the middle working class, a far
cry from the distinct art
community. Her journey into
the art world was unlike most
artists but by no means not well
deserved. Due to being born in
that middle working class, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, The Braid
(Portrait of Suzanne Valadon), oil on
Marie did not have a canvas, circa 1886-1887
comfortable income that could
pay for artistic training, her dreams would have to be put aside. But
with that being said, she became invaluable to an artist, the model,
“She needed to approach the business from the other side of the
1
canvas: she would have to become a model.” Her modelling career
began because her beauty could not go unnoticed. Famous artists
even sought her out, “A petite and luminous beauty, she soon found
work as an artist’s model, posing for (and in many cases having affairs
with) the painters whose names came to define that moment in art
2
history.” Marie was now in the art world, just in an alternative way.
This arose a new phase in her life; but not the one she hoped for
in terms of her self image and respectability, “The model offered her

1. Catherine Hewitt, Renoir’s Dancer: The Secret Life of

Suzanne Valadon (New York: St. Martin’s Press (2018):
149.
2. Moira Egon, “Ekphrasis: Seven after Suzanne Valadon,”
New Criterion 35, no. 8 (2017): 38.
506 | Chapter 10 - Suzanne Valadon
 3
body for sale.” Her beauty was used for male satisfaction, and she
was seen as no more than just a woman with a beautiful figure on
a piece of canvas. Marie Clementine now became Suzanne Valadon,
“Toulouse-Lautrec suggested that the name “Suzanne” might be better
4
suited to her career as an artist’s model.” But, what they did not
realize then, was Suzanne Valadon would not only be the name of a
famous model but the name of a woman who changed the art world
with her own paintings.
While painters were
objectifying and critiquing her
female form on canvas, she
analyzed them, eventually
teaching herself how to become
an artist, “She had no formal
artistic education, but taught
herself to draw by watching
artists, and particularly by
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, The 5
modelling them.” It was
Hangover (Portrait of Suzanne
Valadon), oil on canvas, circa 1888 actually the man who
suggested she change her name
for modelling, who pushed her to become more than just a beautiful
figure on canvas, “It was Toulouse-Lautrec who first encouraged her
6
intellectual and artistic development.” This was something unheard

3. Janet Burns, “Looking as Women: The Paintings of

Suzanne Valadon, Paula Modersohn-Becker and Frida
Kahlo.” Atlantis 18, no. 1 & 2 (1991-1992): 31.
4. Egon, “Ekphrasis,” 38.
5. Patricia Mathew, “Returning The Gaze: Diverse
Representations of the Nude in the Art of Suzanne
Valadon.” The Art Bulletin 73, no. 3 (1993): 415.
6. Burns, “Looking as Women,” 31.
Chapter 10 - Suzanne Valadon | 507
 of. “Rare was the model who progressed beyond the passive object of
the male artist’s gaze to become an artist herself (Burns 1991-1992).”
7
Her artistic focus is what really created her spot in the art
community though. Instead of playing it safe, she chose a category
that was male dominated, the female nude, “Women were not only
excluded from formal study of the nude but also from the power to
8
determine the definition o f high art.” Being a woman did not stop
Suzanne Valadon, it only made her want to depict how a female
body should be portrayed and how the concept of beauty comes
in many forms. Her idea of the female body created a whole new
meaning to the word “nude” in the art community.
To understand Suzanne Valadon, we must first see her past. As
a model, she experienced first hand how women and their own
unique bodies were objectified on canvas until deemed perfection.
She used that experience to create a whole new ideology, which is
truly amazing.

7. Burns, “Looking as Women,” 31.

8. Burns, “Looking as Women,” 28.
508 | Chapter 10 - Suzanne Valadon
 In order to see how Suzanne
Valadon’s artwork had a
completely unique take on the
female nude, an analysis of the
previous male dominated nude
is required. Before Suzanne
Valadon started her artistic
journey, the depiction of the
female nude was totally male
dominated and made for the
male population, “Female
images are produced for
consumption by male
9
spectators.” Women’s bodies
were objectified on a piece of
Suzanne Valadon, Nudes, oil on canvas until they were
cardboard, 1919
absolutely perfect, with no flaw
in sight. They depicted women
as these sexual figures who only lived for male attention,”…the
glimpse of her breast and the expanse of her buttocks and thighs
10
emphasize her sexual availability.” “It suggests that the woman in
11
the image is literally possessed by the man who looks at her.”
Ultimately, the female nude was usually depicted by a perfect female
figure in a luring, sexual position and setting, almost like she was
awaiting or calling a male figure. This kind of nude created its own
ideology about what “beauty” had to be or look like, a standard
almost no woman could or should have to reach. The typical nudist

9. Burns, “Looking as Women,” 26.

10. Rosemary Betterton, “How Do Women Look? The Female
Nude in the Work of Suzanne Valadon.” Feminist Review
3, no. 19 (1985): 5.
11. Betterton, “How Do Women Look?” 5.
Chapter 10 - Suzanne Valadon | 509
 structure followed the same format, a woman laying seductively
across the painting, inviting male attention.
Suzanne Valadon’s artwork
did not follow that typical
structure at all. She had a
totally different idea in mind.
Her art work contradicted that
ideology of the female nude,
“Often her paintings of nudes
are stripped of any erotic
overtones and thus resist the
12
sexually charged male gaze.”
She changed the whole
concept, which included how a
woman’s body was shown, the
Suzanne Valadon, The Bath, pastel on
position she was in as well as paper, circa 1908
the setting and details in the
background. In her paintings with primarily the use of oil paint, oil
pencils, pastels, she highlighted a woman’s natural curve, she
painted women doing everyday things and lastly she put objects in
the painting that were far from anything sexual or luring. A perfect
example of this is her painting, Nude Grandmother and Young Girl
Stepping into the Bath (1908). Like the name states, this nude
features a young girl completely naked stepping into the bathtub
with her grandmother by her side. The young girl is not in an
inviting, sexual pose, she was just simply doing an everyday task
with her elderly grandmother sitting by her side. Suzanne Valadon’s
artistic mind differed so much from artists before her because of
her decision to portray a natural woman in her habitat.

12. Wioleta Polinska. “Dangerous Bodies: Women’s

Nakedness and Theology.” Journal of Feminist Studies in
Religion 16, no. 1 (2000): 57.
510 | Chapter 10 - Suzanne Valadon
 Valadon’s artwork was so much more than just a picture on
canvas. It challenged the that time’s ideology of what “beauty” was
or had to be, something that was honestly impossible. No women’s
body is the same, nor is any considered to be less beautiful. Every
flaw, curve, and sag a woman has just makes her that much more
unique. This was what Valadon highlighted, and this is how she
changed history. Her artwork proved beauty comes at any age, any
body type and that a woman’s body doesn’t always have to be
objectified for the male population, it can be depicted as women just
doing ordinary things, without calling for sexual intention, “This
suggests a conscious and deliberate attempt to change existing codes
of representation which, in the case of the female nude, emphasized
13
beauty of form, harmony and time.” Ultimately, she normalized
women’s sexuality and painted the female nude for females, not
for male satisfaction, “But what she did do was to open up different
possibilities within the painting of the nude to allow for the expression
14
of women’s experience of their own bodies.” This meant a new
beginning.
The nude now had a new purpose; to depict a woman in her,
not a man’s, natural habitat, “Unlike their male contemporaries, they
expressed the conflicts of their feminine self-image. Their work tells
us something of what it is like to be a modern woman rather than
15
what modern men wish women were like.” Looking at Valadon’s
artwork and not seeing the meaning behind the nude paintings, is
like seeing only the tip of the iceberg.
Suzanne Valadon, a model turned into an artist, forever changed
the female nude with her artistic, female centered mind. She found
a way into the art community with no artistic training, created
artwork with a completely different structure and used that art to

13. Burns, “Looking as Women,” 15.

14. Burns, “Looking as Women,” 22.
15. Burns, “Looking as Women,” 33.
Chapter 10 - Suzanne Valadon | 511
create a whole new ideology. There can be no beauty without flaw.
Women’s bodies were not meant to be objectified, nor made solely
for the male population. A woman’s body is her own, which is exactly
what Suzanne Valadon proved.

Suzanne Valadon, The Blue Room, oil on canvas, 1923

Bibliography
Betterton, Rosemary. “How Do Women Look? The Female Nude in
the Work of Suzanne Valadon.” Feminist Review 3, no. 19 (1985): 3-24,
https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/1394982.pdf
Burns, Janet. “Looking as Women: The Paintings of Suzanne
Valadon, Paula Modersohn-Becker and Frida Kahlo.” Atlantis 18, no.
1 & 2 (1991-1992): 25-46, https://journals.msvu.ca/index.php/
atlantis/article/view/5167/4365
Egon, Moira. “Ekphrasis: seven after Suzanne Valadon.” New
Criterion 35, no. 8 (2017): 38, https://content.ebscohost.com/
ContentServer.asp?T=P&P=AN&K=122288007&S=R&D=a9h&EbscoC

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ontent=dGJyMNLr40Sep7M40dvuOLCmsEiep7NSsam4SK6WxWXS
&ContentCustomer=dGJyMPGuslCyp7VQuePfgeyx43zx
Hewitt, Catherine. Renoir’s Dancer: The Secret Life of Suzanne
Valadon. New York: St. Martin’s Press 2018.
149. https://books.google.ca/
books?hl=en&lr=&id=YNouDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP9&dq=life of
suzanne
valadon&ots=C6jxLW5_C4&sig=GyQbkL4XdE4cV1egoGYMwmffA6Y
&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=life of suzanne valadon&f=false
Hunt, Courtney. “Wicked, Hard and Supple: An Examination of
Suzanne Valadon’s Nude Drawings of Young Maurice.” Art Inquiries
17, no. 4 (2019): 410–22, https://kb.osu.edu/bitstream/handle/1811/
91581/
HuntC_ArtInquires_xv2019_410-422.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
Mathews, Patricia. “Returning The Gaze: Diverse Representations
of the Nude in the Art of Suzanne Valadon.” The Art Bulletin 73,
no. 3 (1993): 416-430,https://content.ebscohost.com/
ContentServer.asp?T=P&P=AN&K=9112091984&S=R&D=f5h&EbscoC
ontent=dGJyMMvl7ESep7I40dvuOLCmsEieqK5Ssqq4S7SWxWXS&C
ontentCustomer=dGJyMPGuslCyp7VQuePfgeyx43zx
Polinska, Wioleta. “Dangerous Bodies: Women’s Nakedness and
Theology.” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 16, no. 1 (2000):
45-62, https://www.jstor.org/stable/
25002375?seq=13#metadata_info_tab_contents

Chapter 10 - Suzanne Valadon by Morgan Hunter is licensed under a Creative

Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

Chapter 10 - Suzanne Valadon | 513

19. Chapter 10 - Vincent Van
Gogh
Post-Impressionism
MEGAN BYLSMA

Audio recording of the full chapter can be found here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/15HcqiOdu8ZY-kbMp3nB-
W6khBj6dpxyr/view?usp=sharing

One of the most famous painters in the 20th century, Vincent Van
Gogh was not a famous artist during his lifetime. His story so
perfectly fits the narrative that is told and re-told about artists that
after his death his fame grew. During his lifetime he was known by
friends and artists, but it is unlikely that he ever sold a painting in
his life. (And if he did sell a painting, the story goes that he managed
to sell one – to an art school who used it as an example for their
students…of how not to paint.)
Much of Van Gogh’s life and art are tied up in the legendary
stories of his (mis)behaviours. In Van Gogh it is easy to find more of
a portrait of mental illness than a portrait of a human man. When
society says that mental illness carries stigma in Western culture,
Van Gogh serves as a prime example. When looking at the art of
Vincent Van Gogh, do viewers recognize what he was trying to
communicate, and feel what he was trying to get them to feel, and
see what he was working to portray? Or do they simply see nothing
beyond the stench of illness – fascinating as a circus freak and as
opposite to them as the moon is to the sun?
Out of all the artists that have ever been in the world, Vincent
Van Gogh’s name shows up the most in medical journals. So many

514 | Chapter 10 - Vincent Van Gogh

researchers have poured over every brush stroke of his paintings
and every line of his letters to diagnose his illness and to bring
into the realm of the easily labelled his strange perspective on life.
Paper after paper proclaims his mental and physical maladies and
deficiencies, in an attempt to explain the unique and unprecedented
art he created. From migraines to psychopathy, from epilepsy to
HSP, each reduces the artist to list of symptoms and creates the
image of a robot at the mercy of the juices in his brain and the
disorder of his construction. But barely any pause to ask a question:
How would Van Gogh feel about this?
Van Gogh, was at his core, a man of feeling. He felt things deeply.
Some see this as a symptom of his obvious mental malfunction and
the key to his perceived weakness. Feeling deeply certainly presents
challenges that are unique to the person who feels. However, these
are not, of themselves, weakness or illness. They simply mean the
person who feels has a difference of perception than those who
do not feel quite so much. Van Gogh wanted more than anything,
to be understood. Understood and accepted. But how can a man
who struggles to understand himself, be understood by others? And
how can one who is rarely understood be truly accepted? And so
Van Gogh struggled his entire life with a fish-out-of-water feeling.
He was the triangular peg in a very round hole. Even amongst his
fellow artists he had a reputation as being a very agreeable, friendly,
and pleasant man; a man who as as agreeable as he was intense
and awkward. His fellow artists rather liked him, but none really
wanted to be alone with him and his intensity. And so he attracted
only the truly kind and the truly horrible as his friends. Some of his
artist friends, in their amiable kindness, spent time with him. But
for a personality like Van Gogh it was the bullies and manipulators
who really found a plaything in their relationship with him and
who had the deepest impact on him (as is the case with traumatic
experiences).

Chapter 10 - Vincent Van Gogh | 515

Vincent Van Gogh, The Potato Eaters, oil on canvas, 1885

Van Gogh had gone to Paris and had spent time with many of the
avant-garde artists who were there. His stay in Paris had introduced
him to the art of the Impressionists, to Japanese woodblock prints,
to experimentation, and all of this had an irrevocable impact on his
art. For almost twenty years he had been trying to paint like an
old master, but in one trip to Paris his years of stagnant practicing
finally gained ground in leaps and bounds. Colours gathered in his
palette like tropical birds at a feeder, where before only brown
sparrows had pecked. His own innate awkward style became his
friend, instead of his enemy, and the Van Gogh we know now was
forged.

516 | Chapter 10 - Vincent Van Gogh

 But Paris is a busy city. It
bustles and bumps and jars. Van
Gogh had gone to Paris at the
suggestion of his brother Theo
– his best friend and biggest
supporter – to shake of the dark
funk he had found himself in
after failing to connect with the
parishioners he had been sent
to win at his first placement.
Van Gogh had trained to be a
minister; he wanted nothing
more than to win the poorest
and most wretched of people. Vincent Van Gogh, Portrait of Père
And so he had been placed with Tanguy, oil on canvas, 1887

the potato farmers in poverty.

He loved his (practice) flock, but he told Theo in his letters that he
knew he wasn’t connecting with them. They avoided him and didn’t
trust him and he realized if he couldn’t win the hearts of these
people he would never be an effective preacher. He gave up the
ministry.
Very sad and in a deep sense of gloom that he couldn’t shake,
Theo suggested that he visit Paris for an art trip. He had been
working hard at seminary school and at his ministry placement, so
why not go to Paris to embrace some art? The trip was a success.
The gloom lifted and an energized and inspired Van Gogh emerged.
But as time went on the energy levels of Van Gogh just kept
accelerating. With the intense stimulus of the city, Theo recognized
that his brother was starting to ‘wobble’ a little again. Not so much
that he was on a downward trajectory, but more that he was just
experiencing some failing mental health. Theo suggested that his
brother should take a break and head to the south of France for
some slow life in the sun and surf. Vincent Van Gogh enthusiastically
agreed. He had big plans – wouldn’t it be perfect if all the artists
in Paris could live in one place, without the distractions of the city,

Chapter 10 - Vincent Van Gogh | 517

and work on art together? He decided his trip to the south of France
would be to scout a location for a new artists commune. The other
artists seemed to agree, at least he felt they did, that it was a good
idea. So he went to Arles in the south of France and waited for his
friends to follow.
He painted and painted and painted as he worked through his
anticipation of his future companions enjoying the quiet peasant life
in Arles. Paul Signac eventually came down for a few weeks before
sailing off into the sunset for warmer and sunnier locales. Signac
was kind and encouraging and didn’t seem terribly put-off by Van
Gogh’s intense moods. But Signac was never one to stay in one place
long, so the commune life wasn’t for him.
Then Paul Gauguin arrived.
Gauguin’s arrival had been
impatiently anticipated by Van
Gogh. He had painted two
portraits in the form of two
chairs – one a painting of his
own chair and another a
painting of an armchair he had
reserved for Gauguin. In
Gauguin’s chair painting a lit
candle sits on the seat as as sign
of the anticipation of the other
artist’s visit. Van Gogh couldn’t
Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Gauguin’s have known that Gauguin was
Armchair, oil on canvas, 1888
using his trip to Arles as a trial
separation from his wife and
children (who he would bundle back to his in-laws saying he was
denouncing modern life in all its forms) before splitting for Tahiti
and a yet unknown thirteen year old bride. To be fair, perhaps
Gauguin didn’t really know that yet himself. Gauguin, a manipulator
at heart, saw Van Gogh (and most other people) as lesser than
himself. His belief in his superiority to others would become a
catalysing wedge in his friendship with Van Gogh. Gauguin, who

518 | Chapter 10 - Vincent Van Gogh

would one day have art cults built entirely on his reputation and
persona, was the kind of man who liked to create drama for people
and Van Gogh was the kind of man who would alternate between
trying to eliminate the repercussions of the drama or be swept
completely up in it. Gauguin created chaos nearly everywhere he
went – whether it was chaos of the variety caused by visiting a
friends house and then drinking all the liquor, taking off his pants,
playing the piano (pants-less), and staying until the visit lasted days
and the homeowners despaired that he was going to be there,
stirring up trouble, forever. Or it was chaos of the variety caused by
whipping up the mental state of someone who had mental illness
struggles and creating stories that would forever haunt the mentally
ill man (while never seeming to impact his own reputation), Gauguin
had dramatic chaos as his constant and well-honed companion.
In the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, at one point,
the collection of Van Gogh paintings they had on display were hung
in the same room, on the opposite wall of their collection of Gauguin
paintings. This arrangement would have thrilled Van Gogh. Gauguin
would have probably preferred having his own museum.

One or more interactive elements has been excluded

from this version of the text. You can view them online
here: https://openeducationalberta.ca/
19thcenturyart/?p=360#oembed-1

Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker, “Gauguin, Self-Portrait with
Portrait of Émile Bernard (Les misérables),” in Smarthistory, February
8, 2017, https://smarthistory.org/gauguin-self-portrait/.
All Smarthistory content is available for free
at www.smarthistory.org
CC: BY-NC-SA

Chapter 10 - Vincent Van Gogh | 519

 This self portrait was
painted for Paul Gauguin
as part of swap between
the artists. Van Gogh
chose
to represent himself with
monastic severity. The
other painting is Paul
Gauguin’s Self-Portrait
Dedicated to Vincent van
Gogh (Les Misérables).
Vincent van Gogh, Self-Portrait Gauguin’s title is a
Dedicated to Paul Gauguin, oil
on canvas, 1888 reference to the heroic
fugitive, Jean Valjean, in
Victor Hugo’s novel Les Misérables. Gauguin’s painting
also contains a portrait of Emile Bernard that was
painted not by Gauguin but by Bernard within Gauguin’s
painting.

The following is a letter

by Van Gogh to his
brother Theo about the
painting exchange with
Gauguin dated October 7,
1888:

My dear Theo,
Paul Gauguin, Self-Portrait
Many thanks for Dedicated to Vincent van Gogh
(Les Misérables), oil on canvas,
your letter. How glad 1888
I am for Gauguin; I
shall not try to find words to tell you – let’s be of
good heart.

520 | Chapter 10 - Vincent Van Gogh

 I have just received the portrait of Gauguin by
himself and the portrait of Bernard by Bernard
and in the background of the portrait of Gauguin
there is Bernard’s on the wall, and vice versa.

The Gauguin is of course remarkable, but I very

much like Bernard’s picture. It is just the inner
vision of a painter, a few abrupt tones, a few dark
lines, but it has the distinction of a real, real
Manet.

The Gauguin is more studied, carried further.

That, along with what he says in his letter, gave
me absolutely the impression of its representing a
prisoner. Not a shadow of gaiety. Absolutely
nothing of the flesh, but one can confidently put
that down to his determination to make a
melancholy effect, the flesh in the shadows has
gone a dismal blue.

So now at last I have a chance to compare my

painting with what the comrades are doing. My
portrait, which I am sending to Gauguin in
exchange, holds its own, I am sure of that. I have
written to Gauguin in reply to his letter that if I
might be allowed to stress my own personality in
a portrait, I had done so in trying to convey in my
portrait not only myself but an impressionist in
general, had conceived it as the portrait of a
bonze, a simple worshiper of the eternal Buddha.

And when I put Gauguin’s conception and my

own side by side, mine is as grave, but less

Chapter 10 - Vincent Van Gogh | 521

 despairing. What Gauguin’s portrait says to me
before all things is that he must not go on like this,
he must become again the richer Gauguin of the
“Negresses.”

I am very glad to have these two portraits, for

they finally represent the comrades at this stage;
they will not remain like that, they will come back
to a more serene life.

And I see clearly that the duty laid upon me is to

do everything I can to lessen our poverty.

No good comes the way in this painter’s job. I

feel that he is more Millet than I, but I am more
Diaz then he, and like Diaz I am going to try to
please the public, so that a few pennies may come
into our community. I have spent more than they,
but I do not care a bit now that I see their
painting—they have worked in too much poverty
to succeed.

Mind you, I have better and more saleable stuff

than what I have sent you, and I feel that I can go
on doing it. I have confidence in it at last. I know
that it will do some people’s hearts good to find
poetic subjects again, “The Starry Sky,” “The Vines
in Leaf,” “The Furrows,” the “Poet’s Garden.”

So then I believe that it is your duty and mine to

demand comparative wealth just because we have
very great artists to keep alive. But at the moment
you are as fortunate, or at least fortunate in the
same way, as Sensier if you have Gauguin and I

522 | Chapter 10 - Vincent Van Gogh

hope he will be with us heart and soul. There is no
hurry, but in any case I think that he will like the
house so much as a studio that he will agree to
being its head. Give us half a year and see what
that will mean.

Bernard has again sent me a collection of ten

drawings with a daring poem – the whole is called
At the Brothel.

You will soon see these things, but I shall send

you the portraits when I have had them to look at
for some time.

I hope you will write soon, I am very hard up

because of the stretchers and frames that I
ordered.

What you told me of Freret gave me pleasure,

but I venture to think that I shall do things which
will please him better, and you too.

Yesterday I painted a sunset.

Gauguin looks ill and tormented in his portrait!!

You wait, that will not last, and it will be very
interesting to compare this portrait with the one
he will do of himself in six months’ time.

Someday you will also see my self-portrait,

which I am sending to Gauguin, because he will
keep it, I hope.

It is all ashen gray against pale veronese (no

yellow). The clothes are this brown coat with a

Chapter 10 - Vincent Van Gogh | 523

 blue border, but I have exaggerated the brown into
purple, and the width of the blue borders.

The head is modeled in light colours painted in

a thick impasto against the light background with
hardly any shadows. Only I have made the eyes
slightly slanting like the Japanese.

Write me soon and the best of luck. How happy

old Gauguin will be.

A good handshake, and thank Freret for the

pleasure he has given me. Good-by for now.

Ever yours,

Vincent.

Excerpted and Adapted from: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr.

Steven Zucker, “Vincent van Gogh, Self-Portrait
Dedicated to Paul Gauguin,” in Smarthistory, August 9,
2015, https://smarthistory.org/van-gogh-self-portrait-
dedicated-to-paul-gauguin/.
All Smarthistory content is available for free
at www.smarthistory.org
CC: BY-NC-SA

524 | Chapter 10 - Vincent Van Gogh

 The following report
appeared in the Arles
journal Le Forum
Republicain on December
30, 1888:

Last Sunday, at 11:30

in the evening, Vincent
Vaugogh [sic], a painter
of Dutch origin, called
at the Brothel No. 1,
Vincent van Gogh, Self-Portrait asked for a woman
with Bandaged Ear, oil on
canvas, 1889 called Rachel and
handed her … his ear,
saying: ‘Guard this object with your life’. Then he
disappeared. When informed of the action, which
could only be that of a pitiful madman, the police
went the next day to his house and discovered him
lying on his bed apparently at the point of death.
The unfortunate man has been rushed to hospital.

Accounts of what took place that night vary. Whatever

the exact circumstances, though, whatever underlying
motivations could have compelled van Gogh to do it, the
episode effectively put an end to one of the most
famous working relationships in the history of art, as
Paul Gauguin boarded the train to Paris the next day.

For nine weeks they had lived together sharing

lodgings in the Yellow House, just outside the old town
walls of Arles in the South of France, spurring each
other on as collaborators and as rivals too. The dream
had been to set up “a studio in the South,” as van Gogh

Chapter 10 - Vincent Van Gogh | 525

 put it, a community of artists, with himself and Gauguin,
the founding fathers, all working in harmony with
nature and, as he hoped, with each other.

There are some issues with the stories that emerged

about Van Gogh’s ear. So many, especially at the time,
said that Van Gogh and Gauguin had gotten into yet
another intense argument. Gauguin’s dismissive and
cruel humours created such anxious unrest for Van
Gogh that Van Gogh would act oddly (to say the least).
And Gauguin was known to spin stories to make Van
Gogh look dangerously unbalanced. Stories of Van Gogh
attacking Gauguin from behind, completely unprovoked,
with a machete were popular. The idea that Gauguin
might be taking something out of context for chaotic
narrative’s sake was rarely considered, because as
everyone knew – that Van Gogh was intense and weird.

For context: Van Gogh and Gauguin used to engage in

machete sword fights (at Gauguin’s urging) frequently
during their time at Arles. (But that story is less
dramatic than the one-sided story of being attacked
with a machete for no reason whatsoever.)

In the story that emerged immediately after Van

Gogh’s ear incident is that he and Gauguin had an
argument and in a rage Van Gogh cut his own earlobe
off with a straight razor to make Gauguin suffer. Van
Gogh then boxed up the detached lobe and gifted it to
his favorite prostitute at the local brothel. At least, that’s
the story Gauguin told. But maybe Gauguin had some
covering up to do in regards to his own marriage
because…

526 | Chapter 10 - Vincent Van Gogh

 A different story has since emerged about that
evening. Some say that Gauguin cut the lobe off Van
Gogh’s ear during one of their machete duels. In a
situation wracked with chaotic drama, it seemed that
perhaps Gauguin could get into trouble with the law for
this, so Van Gogh told everyone that he had done it to
himself to save Gauguin from the trouble. Van Gogh
then packaged the earlobe and did indeed gift it to a
woman at the local brothel, but the woman was not a
sex worker that Van Gogh frequented. The woman was
Gauguin’s favorite prostitute. That last detail changes the
flavour of the story just a little bit, adding a little
intrigue to things.

Regardless of Van Gogh’s intentions (which he seems

to have never fully shared in a form that anyone has paid
attention to), Gauguin left Arles never to return. The
two artists did stay in contact – through letters, but
they would never see each other face to face again.
Gauguin did suggest to Van Gogh in 1890 that they
should found an artists’ studio in Antwerp, but by a few
months later Van Gogh would be dead by gunshot and
Gauguin would be moving to Tahiti.

The painting, completed two weeks after the event, is

often read as a farewell to that dream. For Steven Naifeh
and Gregory White Smith, the most recent biographers
of the artist, however, the portrait was first and
foremost a plea to van Gogh’s doctors.

It shows the artist in three-quarter profile standing in

a room in the Yellow House wearing a closed coat and a
fur cap. His right ear is bandaged. It was in fact his left
ear that was bandaged, the painting being a mirror

Chapter 10 - Vincent Van Gogh | 527

 image. To his right is an easel with a canvas on it. Barely
visible, a faint outline underneath reveals what looks to
be a still-life which appears to have been painted over.
The top of the easel has been cropped by the edge of
the canvas and the sitter’s hat so as to form a fork-like
shape. To his left is a blue framed window, and partly
obscured by the gaunt ridge of his cheek, a Japanese
woodblock print shows two geishas in a landscape with
Mount Fuji in the background.

Naifeh and White Smith argue that van Gogh,

following his release from hospital, was anxious to
persuade his doctors that he was indeed perfectly fit
and able to take care of himself and that, despite his
momentary lapse, it would not be necessary for them to
have him committed, as had been suggested, to one of
the local insane asylums; hence the winter coat and hat,
to keep warm as they had advised, and with the window
ajar still getting that much-needed fresh air into his
system. The bandage too, which would have been
soaked in camphor, suggests that he both accepts what
has happened and is happy, literally, to take his
medicine. The same note of stoic optimism, if one
wishes to read the painting this way, is also found in the
letters to his brother Theo, in which van Gogh, far from
abandoning his dream of a “studio in the South,” talks of
continuing the project, expressing the desire for more
artists to come to Arles, even proposing that Gauguin
and he could “start afresh.”

Yet, of course, whether or not van Gogh was willing to

admit to it, the project had most definitely reached its
end. And though for a short time he did get to carry on

528 | Chapter 10 - Vincent Van Gogh

living in the Yellow House, within a few weeks, acting on
a petition handed in to the local authorities and signed
by 30 of his neighbors, he was forcefully removed and
taken to Arles Hospital where he was locked in an
isolation cell. In May van Gogh committed himself to the
private asylum in Saint-Remy a small town north of
Arles and in a little over a year he was dead.

Excerpted and Adapted from: Ben Pollitt, “Vincent van

Gogh, Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear,” in Smarthistory,
August 9, 2015, https://smarthistory.org/van-gogh-
self-portrait-with-bandaged-ear/.
All Smarthistory content is available for free
at www.smarthistory.org
CC: BY-NC-SA

Chapter 10 - Vincent Van Gogh | 529

20. Chapter 10 - Paul Cezanne
Post-Impressionism
BETHANY MILLER

Paul Cézanne, Mont Sainte-Victoire with Large Pine, oil on canvas, c. 1887

Chapter audio recording here:

One or more interactive elements has been excluded

from this version of the text. You can view them online
here: https://openeducationalberta.ca/
19thcenturyart/?p=379#audio-379-1

530 | Chapter 10 - Paul Cezanne

 Paul Cezanne, born in the year of 1839 and passed away in 1906,
is considered to be one of the greatest influences in the world of
modern art. Cezanne was always interested in the arts from a young
age, especially painting. When he was contemplating the option
of getting an education in the arts, his father strongly objected,
thinking that it was a waste of time and that he would not find the
1
success his father hoped for him by being an artist. His father, who
was a successful banker, was also worried that there would be no
2
monetary gain for his son in the arts. Therefore, his father wanted
him to pursue a more academically charged career path that would
be more likely to bring him wealth and a promising future, and so he
3
strongly suggested that Cezanne go to school to gain a law degree.
Cezanne went along with his fathers’ wishes but found he had no
passion for law, and so, after two years, Cezanne finally convinced
his father (with some help from his mother) to pursue an artistic
4
career. In that event, Cezanne set out to study painting in Paris
and began his journey in becoming one of the most well known
5
Impressionist artists.

1. Paul Cezanne, “Paul Cezanne and his Paintings”.

Accessed September 16, 2020.
https://www.paulcezanne.org/
2. Paul Cezanne, Paul Cezanne and his Paintings.
3. Paul Cezanne, Paul Cezanne and his Paintings.
4. Trachtman, Paul. “Cezanne”. Smithsonian Magazine,
January, 2006, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-
culture/cezanne-107584544/
5. Trachtman, Paul, Cezanne.
Chapter 10 - Paul Cezanne | 531
 The beginning of Cezanne’s
studies in painting while in
Paris did not start out so well
for the young artist. Burdened
by the thoughts that he was not
as artistically inclined as his
peers and grappling with critics
of his work, Cezanne became
6
depressed. He began to feel
lost and inadequate when he
saw the work of the artists
around him and he felt inferior
with his skills as he faced the all
too common demon of
comparison. After taking a
break from the art world and
spending some time working at
his father’s bank, Cezanne
Paul Cezanne, The Artist’s Father,
Reading “L’Événement”, oil on canvas, decided to once again pursue
1866 his dream as an artist and
returned to Paris to continue
7
his studies with a newfound determination.
Cezanne used his art as a form of expression and his early
paintings were wrought with emotion that was tangible on the
8
canvas. Using techniques such as applying paint onto the canvas
with a palette knife in a thick, crusted fashion and embracing dark
and moody colour schemes, Cezanne broke away from the norm

6. Trachtman, Paul, Cezanne.

7. Richman-Abdou, Kelly. “Father Of Modern Art”. My
Modern Met, Accessed September 11, 2020,
https://mymodernmet.com/paul-cezanne-paintings/
8. Trachtman, Paul, Cezanne
532 | Chapter 10 - Paul Cezanne
 and became more emotional with his art as he began to experiment
with never before seen tactics of painting.
At the beginning of the
Franco-German war in 1870,
Cezanne left Paris for Provence,
partly due to the fact that he
was avoiding the chances of
9
being drafted into the war.
During his time in Provence, he
started to become inspired by
the vast scenes of nature
Paul Cezanne, L’Estaque, oil on canvas,
around him, and developed a 1883-85
love of the natural which
influenced his future paintings. Cezanne, with his new inspirations,
began to become proficient in painting landscapes. Unlike other
landscape artists at the time, he aimed to not only replicate the
nature he observed around him in a truthful fashion, but to also
include elements of his own feelings and emotions and he
successfully combined the two together into beautiful pieces of art.
During this time of his nature inspired works, he moved from a more
dark and dramatic approach of painting, to focusing more on the
qualities of light and atmosphere.

9. Trachtman, Paul, Cezanne

Chapter 10 - Paul Cezanne | 533
 Like most artists, Cezanne’s
work was always evolving and
maturing. As seen in his still life
painting, Cezanne began to be
more technical in his approach;
solving problems of
perspective, dimension, and
10
tonal variations. As his work
as an artist continued to thrive,
Paul Cezanne, The Basket of Apples, oil
on canvas, 1890-94 his art became increasingly
dynamic, with rich colours and
11
skillful compositions.
As an artist who was
constantly seeking ways to
break free from the “rules” of
painting, Cezanne was always
working to discover new ways
to deal with form, colour, and
space and how he could
stimulate the viewer. One such
way he accomplished this was Paul Cezanne, Still Life with Carafe,
by approaching perspective in a Bottle, and Fruit, watercolour on
paper, 1906
previously unseen method.
Viewing some of Cezanne’s
paintings, the viewer is left wondering from what vantage point the
artist was settled in when he created the work, as he would shift the
traditional perspective to allow for more information to be seen,
this is especially evidenced in his still life paintings.

10. Richman-Abdou, Kelly. “Father Of Modern Art”. Accessed

September 11, 2020.
11. Richman-Abdou, Kelly. “Father Of Modern Art”. Accessed
September 11, 2020.
534 | Chapter 10 - Paul Cezanne
 All together, throughout Cezanne’s life and work as an artist, he
inspired future generations of painters in countless ways. First of all,
Cezanne never gave up on his aspirations and dreams to become a
successful artist and to share his work with the world around him.
He was determined to make art his life’s focus and he continues
to be an inspiration for others to break free from societal norms
and the pressures that we have placed on us by other people or
by ourselves. Cezanne is a major key influencer in modern art in
the way he created new techniques of paint application, colour
schemes, perspective, creating a new sense of space, and combining
your imagination with the real world. In his career, that lasted four
decades, Cezanne created more than nine hundred oil paintings and
four hundred watercolour paintings. His work influenced modern
art in a way that he never imagined, he went from almost giving
up on his dream, to becoming one of the most influential artists of
12
today.

12. Huyghe, René. 2020. “Paul Cezanne.” Encyclopedia

Britannica, inc, Accessed September 11, 2020,
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Paul-Cezanne.
Chapter 10 - Paul Cezanne | 535
Paul Cezanne, Mont Sainte-Victoire and Château Noir, oil on canvas, 1904-05

Bibliography
Boztunali, Zehra Seda. “Analysis of Nature in Paul Cezanne’s Art.”
Sanat Eğitimi Dergisi (2017): 5 (2). doi:10.7816/sed-05-02-02. 2017.
Huyghe, René. 2020. “Paul Cezanne.” Encyclopedia Britannica, inc,
September 11, 2020, https://www.britannica.com/biography/
Paul-Cezanne.
Lord, Douglas. “Paul Cezanne.” The Burlington Magazine for
Connoisseurs 69 (400): 32. (1936): https://search-ebscohost-
com.ezproxy.ardc.talonline.ca/login.aspx
direct=true&db=edsjsr&AN=edsjsr.866551&site=eds-live.
Richman-Abdou, Kelly. “Father Of Modern Art”. My Modern Met,
September 11, 2020, https://mymodernmet.com/paul-cezanne-
paintings/
Trachtman, Paul. “Cezanne”. Smithsonian Magazine, January, 2006,

536 | Chapter 10 - Paul Cezanne

 https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/
cezanne-107584544/
Voorhies, James. “Paul Cézanne.” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art
History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, (1839–1906).
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/pcez/hd_pcez.htm.
“Paul Cezanne and his Paintings”. Paul Cezanne: Paintings,
Biography, and Quotes. 2010, https://www.paulcezanne.org/

Chapter 10 - Paul Cezanne by Bethany Miller is licensed under a Creative Commons

Attribution 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

Chapter 10 - Paul Cezanne | 537

21. Chapter 10 - Paul Cezanne
(part 2)
Post-Impressionism

Audio recording of chapter (part 1) here:

One or more interactive elements has been excluded

from this version of the text. You can view them online
here: https://openeducationalberta.ca/
19thcenturyart/?p=369#audio-369-1

Categorizing the style

of Paul Cézanne’s (Say-
zahn) artwork is
problematic. As a young
Paul man he left his home in
Cézanne, Still
Life with Provence in the south of
Apples, oil on France in order to join
canvas, 1895-98
with the avant-garde in
Paris. He was successful,
too. He fell in with the circle of young painters that
surrounded Manet, he had been a childhood friend of
the novelist, Emile Zola, who championed Manet, and he

538 | Chapter 10 - Paul Cezanne

(part 2)
even showed at the first Impressionist exhibition, held
at Nadar’s studio in 1874.

However, Cézanne
didn’t quite fit in with the
group. Whereas many
other painters in this
circle were concerned Paul
primarily with the effects Cézanne, Paul
Alexis reading
of light and reflected to Émile Zola,
color, Cézanne remained oil on canvas,
1869-1870
deeply committed to
form. Feeling out of place
in Paris, he left after a relatively short period and
returned to his home in Aix-en-Provence. He would
remain in his native Provence for most of the rest of his
life. He worked in the semi-isolation afforded by the
country, but was never really out of touch with the
breakthroughs of the avant-garde.

Like the Impressionists,

he often worked outdoors
directly before his
subjects. But unlike the
Impressionists, Cézanne
used color, not as an end
Paul in itself, but rather like
Cézanne, Mada line, as a tool with which
me Cézanne
(Hortense
to construct form and
Fiquet, space. Ironically, it is the
1850–1922) in a
Parisian avant-garde that
Red Dress, oil
on canvas, would eventually seek
1888-90 him out. In the first years

Chapter 10 - Paul Cezanne (part 2) | 539

 of the 20th century, just at the end of Cézanne’s life,
young artists would make a pilgrimage to Aix, to see the
man who would change painting.

Paul Cézanne is often

considered to be one
of the most influential
painter of the late 19th
century. Pablo Paul
Cézanne, Mont
Picasso readily admitted Sainte-Victoire,
his great debt to the elder oil on canvas, c.
1887
master. Similarly, Henri
Matisse once called
Cézanne, “…the father of us all.” For many years The
Museum of Modern Art in New York organized its
permanent collection so as to begin with an entire room
devoted to Cézanne’s painting. The Metropolitan
Museum of Art also gives over an entire large room to
him. Clearly, many artists and curators consider him
enormously important.

From: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker, “An

introduction to the painting of Paul Cézanne,”
in Smarthistory, August 9, 2015,
https://smarthistory.org/an-introduction-to-the-
painting-of-paul-cezanne/.
All Smarthistory content is available for free
at www.smarthistory.org
CC: BY-NC-SA

540 | Chapter 10 - Paul Cezanne (part 2)

 It can be difficult to estimate, by eye, just how far
away a mountain lies. A peak can dominate a landscape
and command our attention, filling our eyes and mind.
Yet it can come as something of a shock to discover that
such a prominent natural feature can still be a long
distance from us.

At 3317 feet (1011 meters) high, the limestone peak of

Mont Sainte-Victoire is a pigmy compared to the giants
of, say, Mount Fuji and Mount Rainier. But, like them, it
still exercises a commanding presence over the country
around it and, in particular, over Aix-en-Provence, the
hometown of Paul Cézanne. Thanks to his many oil
paintings and watercolors of the mountain, the painter
has become indelibly associated with it. Think of
Cézanne and his still-lifes and landscapes come to mind,
his apples and his depictions of Mont Sainte-Victoire.

Chapter 10 - Paul Cezanne (part 2) | 541

 Paul Cézanne, Mont Sainte-Victoire, oil on canvas, 1902-04

Steeped in centuries of
history and folklore, both
classical and Christian,
the mountain—or, more
accurately, mountain
range—only gradually
emerged as a major
Paul Cézanne, Bathers at Rest, theme in Cézanne’s work.
oil on canvas, 1876-77 In the 1870s, he included
it in a landscape
called The Railway Cutting, 1870 and a few years later it
appeared behind the monumental figures of his Bathers
at Rest, 1876-77 which was included in the Third
Impressionist Exhibition of 1877. But it wasn’t until the

542 | Chapter 10 - Paul Cezanne (part 2)

beginning of the next decade, well after his adoption of
Impressionism, that he began consistently featuring the
mountain in his landscapes. Writing in 1885, Paul
Gauguin was probably thinking of Mont Sainte-Victoire
when he imagined Cézanne spending “entire days in the
mountains reading Virgil and looking at the sky.”
“Therefore,” Gauguin continued, “his horizons are high,
his blues very intense, and the red in his work has an
astounding vibrancy.” Cézanne’s legend was beginning
to emerge and a mountain ran through it.

Cézanne would return to the motif of Mont Sainte-

Victoire throughout the rest of his career, resulting in
an incredibly varied series of works. They show the
mountain from many different points of view and often
in relationship to a constantly changing cast of other
elements (foreground trees and bushes, buildings and
bridges, fields and quarries). From this series we can
extract a subgroup of over two-dozen paintings and
watercolors. Dating from the very last years of the
artist’s life, these landscapes feature a heightened
lyricism and, more prosaically, a consistent viewpoint.
They show the mountain as it can be seen from the hill
of Les Lauves, located just to the north of Aix.

Cézanne bought an
acre of land on this hill in
1901 and by the end of the
following year he had
built a studio on it. From Mont
Sainte-Victoire
here, he would walk (photo: Bob
further uphill to a spot Leckridge, CC
BY-NC-ND 2.0)
that offered a sweeping

Chapter 10 - Paul Cezanne (part 2) | 543

 view of Mont Sainte-Victoire and the land before it. The
painter Emile Bernard recalled accompanying Cézanne
on this very walk:

Cézanne picked up a box in the hall [of his

studio] and took me to his motif. It was two
kilometers away with a view over a valley at the
foot of Sainte-Victoire, the craggy mountain
which he never ceased to paint[…]. He was filled
with admiration for this mountain.

Cézanne consciously cultivated his association with

the mountain and perhaps even wanted to be
documented painting it. When they visited Aix in 1906,
the artists Maurice Denis and Ker-Xavier Roussel found
themselves being led to the same location. In an oil
painting by Denis and in some of Roussel’s photographs,
we see Cézanne standing before his easel and painting
the mountain. Again! It was the view we can see in most
of Cézanne’s late views of Mont Sainte-Victoire,
including the painting that concerns us here, which is
now in the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

In this work, Cézanne divides his composition into

three roughly equal horizontal sections, which extend
across the three-foot wide canvas. Our viewpoint is
elevated. Closest to us lies a band of foliage and houses;
next, rough patches of yellow ochre, emerald, and
viridian green suggest the patchwork of an expansive
plain and extend the foreground’s color scheme into the
middleground; and above, in contrasting blues, violets
and greys, we see the “craggy mountain” surrounded by
sky. The blues seen in this section also accent the rest of

544 | Chapter 10 - Paul Cezanne (part 2)

the work while, conversely, touches of green enliven the
sky and mountain.

Detail, Paul Cézanne, Mont Sainte-Victoire, oil on canvas,

1902-04

In other words, Cézanne introduced subtle

adjustments in order to avoid too simple a scheme. So
the peak of the mountain is pushed just to the right of
center, and the horizon line inclines gently upwards
from left to right. In fact, a complicated counterpoint of
diagonals can be found in each of the work’s bands, in
the roofs of the houses, in the lines of the mountain, and
in the arrangement of the patches in the plain, which
connect foreground to background and lead the eye
back.

Cézanne evokes a deep, panoramic scene and the

atmosphere that fills and unifies this space. But it is
absolutely characteristic of his art that we also remain
acutely aware of the painting as a fairly rough, if deftly,

Chapter 10 - Paul Cezanne (part 2) | 545

 worked surface. Flatness coexists with depth and we
find ourselves caught between these two poles—now
more aware of one, now the other. The mountainous
landscape is both within our reach, yet far away.

Audio recording of chapter audio (part 2) here:

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excluded from this version of the text. You
can view them online here:
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19thcenturyart/?p=369#audio-369-2

Comparing the
Philadelphia canvas with
some of Cézanne’s other
views of Mont Sainte-
Paul Victoire and with photos
Cézanne, Mont
Sainte-Victoire of the area can help us to
with Large grasp some of the
Pine, oil on
canvas, c. 1887 perceptual subtleties and
challenges of the work.
Take the left side of the
mountain. Though the outermost contour is
immediately apparent, inside of it one can also discern a

546 | Chapter 10 - Paul Cezanne (part 2)

second line (or, more accurately, a series of lines and
edges). The two converge just shy of the mountaintop.
The area between this outer contour and the interior
line or ridge demarcates a distinctive spatial plane; this
slope recedes away from us and connects to the larger
mountain range lying behind the sheer face. Attend to
this area, and the mountain seems to gain volume. It
becomes less of an irregular triangle and more of a
complicated pyramid.

Detail, Paul Cézanne, Mont Sainte-Victoire, oil on canvas,

1902-04

Or look again at the painting’s most obvious focus of

interest, the top of the mountain. Cézanne’s other works
show that the mountain has a kind of double peak, with
a slightly higher point to the left side and a lower one to
the right. At first glance, the Philadelphia canvas seems
to contradict this: the mountain’s truncated apex
appears to rise slightly from left to right. But a closer

Chapter 10 - Paul Cezanne (part 2) | 547

 look reveals that Cézanne does respect topography. The
small triangular patch of light gray—actually the priming
of the canvas—can be read as belonging to the space
immediately above the mountain or perhaps as a cloud
behind it. Thus it is the gray and light blue brushstrokes
immediately below this patch that describe the
downward slant of the mountain top.

Curiously, in one respect, our point-of-view is actually

a little misleading. At an elevation of 3104 feet (946
meters), the left peak is not the highest point, but
merely appears to so from Les Lauves. A huge iron
cross—la croix de Provence—was erected on this spot in
the early 1870s, the fourth to be placed there. Though
visible from afar, the cross appears in none of Cézanne’s
depictions of the mountain.

Cézanne had presumably stood on this summit, or

these summits, several times. He had thoroughly
explored the countryside around Aix, first during
youthful rambles with his friends and later as a plein-air
artist in search of motifs. And we know for certain that
he had climbed to the top of the mountain as recently as
1895. Armed with these experiences, he could have
estimated the distance from Les Lauves to the top of
Mont Sainte-Victoire with some accuracy—it’s about ten
miles (16 kilometers) as the crow flies.

548 | Chapter 10 - Paul Cezanne (part 2)

 When he stood on the
mountain in 1895
Cézanne had, so to speak,
entered into one of his
Detail, Paul
own landscapes. As he Cézanne, Mont
stood there, perhaps he Sainte-Victoire,
oil on canvas,
paused to recall some of 1902-04
the paintings of Mont
Sainte-Victoire he had
already made. But, to return to Gauguin’s language,
could he possibly have dreamt of the works he would go
on to paint in the following decade—works like the
Philadelphia landscape, with its high horizon, intense
blues, and astounding vibrancy?

From: Dr. Ben Harvey, “Paul Cézanne, Mont Sainte-

Victoire,” in Smarthistory, August 9, 2015,
https://smarthistory.org/cezanne-mont-sainte-
victoire/.
All Smarthistory content is available for free
at www.smarthistory.org
CC: BY-NC-SA

Chapter 10 - Paul Cezanne (part 2) | 549

 Paul Cézanne, The Card Players, oil on canvas,1890-92

Writing near the end of his life, Paul Cézanne told an

art critic that “one does not put oneself in place of the
1
past, one only adds a new link.” In other words, through
his art he wanted to engage with art history but also to
modify it and take it in a new direction. It is a sentiment
beautifully exemplified in the artist’s five paintings of
card players, which he had worked on about a decade
earlier, in the early-to-mid 1890s.

1. Letter to Roger Marx, January 23, 1905, as quoted in John

Reward (editor), Paul Cézanne, Letters(Da Capo Press,
1995), p. 313.
550 | Chapter 10 - Paul Cezanne (part 2)
 In terms of its subject
matter, the series owes a
clear debt to earlier
Caravaggio, The depictions of card and
Cardsharps, oil game players by Baroque
on canvas, c.
1594 and Rococo artists such
as Caravaggio (above), de
la Tour, the Le Nain brothers, and Chardin; within
Cézanne’s own lifetime, the theme had been taken up
anew by Daumier, Meissonier, Degas, and Caillebotte.

Cézanne’s “new link” lies in the way he steers the

subject away from its obvious symbolic and dramatic
potential: clubs and hearts, winners and losers, the
cheaters and the cheated. All of this had been
thoroughly explored already. Instead, Cézanne attends
to other aspects of the activity. He stresses the shared
social space of the card game, intimate and familiar, and
the attention and concentration the game demands. Not
coincidentally, these are the same psychological states
demanded by the acts of making and looking at art.

The version of the card players at Metropolitan

Museum of Art by Cezanne (above) is now generally
thought to be the earliest of the five paintings in the
series. It depicts somewhat eccentrically-proportioned
figures surrounding a table: three play cards and a
fourth merely observes the game, his pipe indicative of
his contemplative attitude. These are rural laborers
quietly and sociably passing the time in a tavern or
room. Like the other works in the series, the setting in

Chapter 10 - Paul Cezanne (part 2) | 551

 the Met’s canvas is sparse. We see a table and three
chairs (two of them more implied than fully described); a
full pipe rack and a swag of yellow fabric hang from the
room’s rear wall. The tabletop creates a clear focus of
attention within the larger work. It supports the players’
arms and hands, which, in turn, provide a frame for
some objects: a pipe, cards, and a prominent grey
rectangle—perhaps a tobacco pouch or another card.

Although this would have been a familiar scene to

Cézanne, we should not imagine him setting up his easel
in front of an actual card game. Instead, the artist’s
surviving preparatory works indicate that he studied his
figures independently, one by one, and then
incorporated these studies into his multi-figure
compositions. Cézanne made oil studies for two of the
figures in the Met’s painting and both models have been
identified as farm hands who worked at the Cézanne
family’s estate near Aix-en-Provence, the Jas de Bouffan.
Even while they share the same space, Cézanne’s figures
retain a sense of independence and self-containment.
They are engaged, as one art historian aptly put it, in a
game of “collective solitaire.”

And yet one detail in

the Met’s painting points,
albeit subtly, to a
sequence of events and
thus to the logic of an
actual game. The figure
on the left of the work
(modelled by one Paulin Gustave Caillebotte, Game of
Bezique, 1881

552 | Chapter 10 - Paul Cezanne (part 2)

Paulet) appears to be on the verge of extending his
index finger, as though about to pick up a card from the
table. It’s a gesture that connects thought to action, the
contemplation of a hand of cards to the movement of a
hand. Similar actions, although more emphatically
rendered, can be found in an earlier depiction of card
players by Gustave Caillebotte (right), who was both
Cézanne’s colleague in the Impressionist group and a
collector of his work.

The particular logic of any card game determines the

value of any given card within it, and so Caillebotte
provides us an important clue in his title (The Bezique
Game) and even allows his viewer to discern the colors
and ranks of a few cards in his painting (a red ace, a
black seven). In contrast, Cézanne’s instinct is to
withhold all such information—to keep his cards close to
his chest. On his table, there is an upturned card
holding three roughly rectangular patches of red
pigment (see detail). But these patches do not closely
resemble diamonds and, as though to lessen any
resemblance, the card also contains similar patches of
white and bluish paint.

Chapter 10 - Paul Cezanne (part 2) | 553

 Table and hands with cards (detail), Paul Cézanne, The Card
Players, oil on canvas,1890-92

Audio recording of chapter (part 3) here:

One or more interactive elements has been

excluded from this version of the text. You
can view them online here:
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The tricolor of colors is picked up elsewhere in the

554 | Chapter 10 - Paul Cezanne (part 2)

 composition, in the blue of the workers’ clothes, the
white of their pipes and shirts, and in the red of the
standing man’s cravat. With their vivid color
combinations and flat forms, playing cards may even
have had aesthetic significance to Cézanne, suggesting a
model for his own practice. As early as 1876, he told
Camille Pissarro about a landscape motif he was
working on: “It’s like a playing-card,” he wrote. “Red
2
roofs over the blue sea.”
For Cézanne, the formal elements (color, shape,
texture, composition) ultimately trumped narrative
considerations. The marks we see on the card create a
grid of compositional elements, and this places the card
in relationship to two analogous grids. The first consists
of the larger collection of objects on the table, where
the objects and the spaces between them form a kind of
tic-tac-toe pattern. The second is made up of the four
figures themselves, each of whom occupies one of three
distinct spatial zones (foreground, middle-ground,
background) as well as one of three different lateral
positions (left, center, right).

This connection between objects and figures is even

more evident in the largest work in the series of card
players now at the Barnes Collection in Philadelphia (see
below), which Cézanne probably made soon after the

2. Letter to Camille Pissarro, July 2, 1876, as quoted in John

Reward (editor), Paul Cézanne, Letters(Da Capo Press,
1995), p.146.
Chapter 10 - Paul Cezanne (part 2) | 555
 Met’s painting. By adding a fifth figure at the back right,
the figures now repeat the X schema formed by the
objects on the table.

Paul Cézanne, The Card Players (Les Joueurs de cartes), oil on

canvas, 1890-92

The three remaining works in the series (Courtauld

Gallery—see below, Musée d’Orsay, and a private
collection) contain just two card players confronting
each other in strict profile, a compositional idea that
first appeared in the two foreground figures in the Met’s
work. In these later paintings, the table is narrower and
cleared of all objects, with the exception of a centrally
placed wine bottle. The two men study their cards

556 | Chapter 10 - Paul Cezanne (part 2)

intently, but no movement or move appears imminent.
The details of the game have receded still further and
life has been stilled. Cézanne’s card players, like many of
his figures, occupy a space somewhere between the
painting of figures and the painting of objects. They drift
between different genres.

Paul Cézanne, The Card Players, oil on canvas, c. 1892-95

A New Yorker cartoon exploits this drift to humorous

effect. In it, Robert Mankoff lets still-life elements and
game-playing details flood back into one of the artist’s
two-figure works. He fills up the card players’ arms and
table with piles of apples, reminding us of Cézanne’s
close association with the fruit. “I see your Granny
Smith,” runs the caption, “and I raise you a Golden

Chapter 10 - Paul Cezanne (part 2) | 557

 Delicious” Cézanne’s famous apples are now a specific
type, as though straight from a supermarket. His figures
are now not merely poker-faced: they are poker players.

Though no money seems to be at stake in Cézanne’s

card games, commerce was certainly involved in the
creation of the piece. By the 1890s, Cézanne was
independently wealthy; he could comfortably afford to
pay his models to pose and the resulting works were
made out of industrially produced pigments usually
applied to commercially manufactured, standard-size
canvases (a “no. 25” in the case of the Met’s work).
Around the same time he finished the series, the artist
struck up a relationship with a Parisian picture dealer,
Ambroise Vollard, who then became the first owner of
the Met’s canvas. Vollard’s business ledgers record that
he made a tidy profit from the work, buying it for 250
francs and, in early 1900, selling it for 4,500. The
enduring appeal of Cézanne’s card players, though, may
owe something to the way the five paintings provide a
distinct contrast to the modern capitalism that
surrounded their creation. If life can seem increasingly
fast, superficial, and mercenary, then perhaps some
consolation can be found here—in our prolonged
engagement with handmade canvases showing a
timeless, rooted, and sociable pastime.

Adapted from: Dr. Ben Harvey, “Paul Cézanne, The

Card Players,” in Smarthistory, November 20, 2015,
accessed November 16, 2020, https://smarthistory.org/
paul-cezanne-the-card-players/.
All Smarthistory content is available for free

558 | Chapter 10 - Paul Cezanne (part 2)

at www.smarthistory.org
CC: BY-NC-SA

Chapter 10 - Paul Cezanne (part 2) | 559

22. Chapter 10 - Georges
Seurat
Post-Impressionism
KYLEE SEMENOFF

Chapter audio recording available here:

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19thcenturyart/?p=374#audio-374-1

560 | Chapter 10 - Georges Seurat

Georges Seurat, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of la Grande Jatte, oil on
canvas, 1884

When creating something like a piece of art, an original concept

or a creative piece, the artist can often be left behind or even
shadowed by their work. Being recognized for your effort and the
trouble that goes into creating something is amazing, but it is often
that what an artist has created it what ends up being well known
to the public. Sometimes a creation is so popular that the artist
is a secondary thought, or they are compared to someone who
has created something similar. This is where Georges Seurat can
be an interesting topic. It could be argued that while his style of
pointillism is well known, he is not necessarily the first image that
comes to someone’s mind. Seurat is often compared to his
contemporaries however, Andre Salmon says, “his name should be
pronounced alone. Between him and his contemporaries, Signac

Chapter 10 - Georges Seurat | 561

 1
and Cross, there is only a chronological relationship”. Even though
Seurat was one of the first Post-Impressionists, Van Gogh and
Cezanne can take up slightly more of the spotlight or Seurat and
his works are compared but Salmon is right in saying the there is
only really a comparison in when they lived. Seurat is a master and
creator of this style and should be recognized more for it. While
Seurat is often compared to his contemporaries, it is important that
we as reader and viewers take steps to acknowledge where he is
different and unique through looking at his attitude towards art, use
of science and colour theory as well as his contributions to the Neo-
impressionists movement despite now engaging much with the art
community.

Georges Seurat, Bathers at Asnières, oil on canvas, 1884

1. Andre Salmon, "Georges Seurat," The Burlington

Magazine for Connoisseurs Vol. 37, No. 210. (1920): 115,
https://www.jstor.org/stable/861087
562 | Chapter 10 - Georges Seurat
 Looking back at the French Art community of the 19th century,
it was dominated by a veil of judgement towards artists and their
creations. One’s stance and opinions on an artist’s work could
elevate or decrease an artist’s exposure. While critics were looking
at many different aspects of a painting while making their reports
and articles, creating a new style would attract a lot of attention
in a gallery show and opportunities to look down on the artist.
The irony though is this is arguably why some artists are more
well known because they tried something different and received
judgement. Seurat is a prime example how this works. With his
new use of the pointillism techniques, he painted his first Neo-
Impressionist painting Bathers which was rejected by the Salon due
to the style but caught the eye of Paul Signac at the Salon des
2
Independents were Seurat continued to display his work. Seurat
helped lead the Neo-impressionist movement which should already
set him apparent from his contemporaries. However he was
relatively lesser known compared to them. Seurat was proud in his
position of the leader of the new movement but was protective of
3
his role. He was a recluse and often was secretive due to his beliefs
4
that his technique was being corrupted by other artists. This led
to him being relatively unknown until long after his death. However,
once his work was more known outside of France, his paintings
started to become collectors’ pieces. One reason he became popular

2. Russell T. Clement and Annick Houzé, Neo-impressionist

Painters: A Sourcebook on Georges Seurat, Camille
Pissarro, Paul Signac, Théo Van Rysselberghe, Henri
Edmond Cross, Charles Angrand, Maximilien Luce, and
Albert Dubois-Pillet (Westport, CT: Greenwood
Publishing Group, 1999), 63.
3. Clement and Houzé, Neo-Impressionist Painters, 64.
4. Clement and Houzé, Neo-Impressionist Painters, 64.
Chapter 10 - Georges Seurat | 563
 in death was probably due to his views of the artists around him
and his reclusion, since this likely is how he was able to paint over
two hundred and forty oil paintings a little over nine years. With this
large collection, his work spread in the years after his death.
While his contemporaries, such as Van Gogh and Cezanne, have
their own unique styles, Seurat use of a logical science and optical
manipulation was a mastery of its own. With his techniques of
pointillism, Seurat helped to pioneer a movement but kept his use
of colour ground in logic. Seurat used the works and writings of
Eugene Delacroix along with other theorists and aesthetics of the
time. He read Ogden Rood’s book Modern Chromatics and adapted
his colour wheel and system of color harmonies in his new style
5
of painting, the first work with this being Bathers. It was this new
style that started his short journey with the Neo-Impressionist
painters. John Gage described Seurat by saying “there can be little
doubt that the painter himself nailed his flag firmly to the mast of
6
technical innovation.”

5. Clement and Houzé, Neo-Impressionist Painters, 64.

6. John Gage, "The Technique of Seurat: A Reappraisal," The
Art Bulletin 69, no. 3 (1987): xx, accessed
October 13, 2020, doi:10.2307/3051065.
564 | Chapter 10 - Georges Seurat
 Seurat first started playing
around with this style with
drawings as he experimented
7
with light and shadow. This
allowed him to perfect his
techniques while using light
and shadow while painting his
future works. His drawings
were also a way to learn more
about him as at the time,
friends and colleagues
described his love for drawing,
saying he would “craze about
the art and turn to it when he
Georges Seurat, L’Écho (study for 8
Bathers at Asnières), charcoal on was down”. These drawing
paper, 1883-84 were key to developing his
style. Seurat work with his style
of is also what one could describe as very manipulating to the eye
and this becomes what his paintings are well known for.

7. Norma Broude, Seurat in Perspective (Englewood Cliffs,

New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1978), 59.
8. Jodi Hauptman, Georges Seurat: The Drawings (New
York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2008), 10
Chapter 10 - Georges Seurat | 565
 The fact that the images are
made from thousands of dots of
paint that came together to
form an image from a distance.
Every time he went to a new
canvas, he continued to
improve his technique and
improve his use of coloured
dots. Gage describes “viewing
distance, the relationship of
contrasts to mixtures in the
structure of the surface, and
the perceived relationship of
hues and values” as being the
keys to Seurat pointillism
technique and a way to
9
consider his paintings. Georges Seurat, The Eiffel Tower, oil
Seurat’s style and how he put so on canvas, 1889
much work into developing it
was the start of many style and movements and deserves to be
recognized.
Georges Seurat was a revolutionary artist whose style was new
and whose technique left marks on the art community. Seurat was
one of the leaders of the Neo-Impressionist movement and to look
into the future, gave influence to Cubism with his used of colour and
10
style. With his relatively short amount of life, Seurat had managed

9. John Gage, "The Technique of Seurat: A Reappraisal," The

Art Bulletin 69, no. 3 (1987): xx, accessed
October 13, 2020, doi:10.2307/3051065.
10. Andre Salmon, "Georges Seurat," The Burlington
Magazine for Connoisseurs Vol. 37, No. 210. (1920): 115,
https://www.jstor.org/stable/861087
566 | Chapter 10 - Georges Seurat
to accomplish so much while at the same time kept many thing
hidden. He was met with some walls put up by art critics and still
manage to make himself known, even if some of that recognition
came a while after his death. With two hundred and forty painting
under his belt and his role as a Neo-Impressionist leader that he
coveted dearly; Georges Seurat will forever remain a staple of the
art community. As people learn about him, they should try to think
about and understand his methods and life accomplishments.

Georges Seurat, Circus Sideshow (Parade de Cirque), oil on canvas, 1887-88

Bibliography
Broude, Norma. Seurat in Perspective. Englewood Cliffs, New
Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1978.
Clement, Russell T., and Annick Houzé. Neo-impressionist
Painters: A Sourcebook on Georges Seurat, Camille Pissarro, Paul
Signac, Théo Van Rysselberghe, Henri Edmond Cross, Charles

Chapter 10 - Georges Seurat | 567

Angrand, Maximilien Luce, and Albert Dubois-Pillet. Westport, CT:
Greenwood Publishing Group, 1999.
Gage, John. “The Technique of Seurat: A Reappraisal.” The Art
Bulletin 69, no. 3 (1987): 448-54. Accessed September 23, 2020.
doi:10.2307/3051065.
Hauptman, Jodi. Georges Seurat: The Drawings. New York: The
Museum of Modern Art, 2008.
Ireson, Nancy. “The Pointillist and the Past: Three English Views
of Seurat.” The Burlington Magazine 152, no. 1293 (2010): 799-803.
Accessed September 23, 2020. http://www.jstor.org/stable/
25769879
Thomas, David. Manet, Monet, Seurat. New York: Tudor Publishing
company, 1970.

Chapter 10 - Georges Seurat by Kylee Semenoff is licensed under a Creative Commons

Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

568 | Chapter 10 - Georges Seurat

23. Chapter 10 - Paul Signac
Post-Impressionism
MAKAYLA BERNIER

Audio recording of chapter available here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wHTpYeWQAPht_KBmcAZr-
jbO9C9vnKP2/view?usp=sharing

Paul Signac, In the Time of Harmony: the Golden Age is not in the Past, it is in
the Future, oil on canvas, 1893–95

Paul Signac (1863-1935) was a French painter who was one of the

Chapter 10 - Paul Signac | 569

 1
leading figures of Neo-Impressionism. Alongside other artists of
the century, including Georges Seurat, Signac helped create the art
ideals of the Neo-Impressionist era. Neo-Impressionism was an art
movement of the 19th century, which focused on French paintings
and the improvement of Impressionism through a systematic
approach of form and color, which led to the development of the
2
pointillist technique. Signac used this technique, and many others
within his art. Throughout his career, Signac was publicly open
about his political views. His art often reflected his political
opinions, which was anarchism, and this was included within his art
to spread his message and opinions to the art population. Signac’s
art expressed his anarchist views, and followed a certain aesthetic,
all with its own reasoning.
Signac’s art was based on aesthetic harmony. It revolved around
mingling aspects of Neo-Impressionism, science, and anarchism.
When he was working on his art pieces, all three of these aspects
played a role in the development of his pieces, which made them
unique, and his own piece of work. His process was a “technical
3
and stylistic” one in order to ensure it revolved around his ideals.

1. “Signac, Paul,” Gale Biographies: Popular People, edited by

Gale Cengage Learning, Gale, 2018,
http://ezproxy.ardc.talonline.ca/
login?url=https://search.credoreference.com/content/
entry/galegbpp/signac_paul/0?institutionId=2645.
2. “Neo-impressionism,” Oxford Languages, accessed
October 14, 2020, Google dictionary.
3. Robyn S Roslak, “The politics of aesthetic harmony: Neo-
Impressionism, science, and anarchism,” Art Bulletin 73,
no. 3 (1991): 381. https://ezproxy.ardc.talonline.ca/
login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/
570 | Chapter 10 - Paul Signac
 His goal in revolving his art around his ideals was to “create visual
harmony through the application of paint according to certain
4
scientific principles.” By creating art around scientific principles,
Signac was able to make art pieces that turned out more vivid and
real. His paintings created pictures that involved “fields of color
that, while always appearing finely divided to the eye, nevertheless
5
emerge[d] as unified and harmonious in the final analysis.” All while
making his art pieces aesthetically pleasing, he ensured it was
socially significant to his political ideals of anarchism. The Neo-
Impressionist artists, Signac included, did not want to resort to
aggressive behaviour to exploit their beliefs, and so they used their
art to express themselves and their ideals instead. The way in which
Signac used his art to express himself was by using “strongly
accentuated brush strokes” in order to form harmony in the picture
6
as a whole. By including this technique in his art, Signac “paralleled
the individualistic yet communal spirit of communist-anarchism,”
7
which is what he was fighting against. He was able to provide his
political beliefs in his art to fight for change, rather than become
aggressive for change. Through looking at the science aspect of the
art, it was believed by Signac, and other anarchist artists, that by
“[creating] paintings infused with a scientific aesthetic that they
imagined possessed the power to promote in a viewer the condition
of moral harmony, and presumably through it the possibility of
social harmony as well,” and exemplifies exactly what Signac was
8
fighting for in his art. The aesthetic harmony of the art was also

login.aspx?direct=true&db=f5h&AN=9112091981&site=eds
-live.
4. Roslak, 381.
5. Roslak, 382.
6. Roslak, 383.
7. Roslak, 383.
8. Roslak, “The politics of aesthetic harmony,” 385.
Chapter 10 - Paul Signac | 571
 seen in the explicit deployment of two systems that worked
together. The deployment of “divisionism and decorative pattern”
of the art allowed Signac to hope he could “initiate contemporary
viewers into the aesthetic and social harmony of an anarcho
9
communist future”. Signac’s approach to his art allowed him to get
his political message across to the population who viewed his art,
and gave him the chance to fight for his beliefs in a peaceful way.
His work, as said by Signac himself, “includes a general harmony and
a moral harmony” due to its “constant observation of contrast, its
10
rational composition, and its aesthetic language of colors.”

9. Katherine Brion, “Paul Signac’s Decorative Propaganda of

the 1890s,” RIHA Journal 0044, (2012): 1, https://doaj.org/
article/c85f3bbff394430cba5a1b22006fd18e.
10. Roslak, 382.
572 | Chapter 10 - Paul Signac
 One of the important pieces
painted by Signac was Le
Démolisseur. By looking at this
piece in depth, we can come to
understand how Signac
represented his political
thoughts into his art. This piece
was painted between 1897 and
1899. The analysis of this piece
allows the viewers to
understand “Signac’s creative
and intellectual development”
and “gives a sense of the
complexities and ragged
conceptual edges of the
interaction between Neo-
Impressionism and
11
anarchism.” Le Démolisseur is
Paul Signac, Le Demolisseur, oil on “undoubtedly to be interpreted
canvas, 1897-1899
as the worker demolishing the
12
capitalist state”. Neo-
Impressionism is not a one way street, different artists of the time
saw it and interpreted it in their own ways. But for Signac, it
“involved an interlocking network of values” which were
demonstrated by the techniques that were “innovative, scientific

11. Richard Thomson, “Ruins, Rhetoric, and Revolution: Paul

Signac’s Le Démolisseur and Anarchism in the 1890s,” Art
History 36, no. 2 (2013): 367, doi: 10.1111/1467-8365.12005.
12. Robert L Herbert, and Herbet, "Artists and Anarchism:
Unpublished Letters of Pissarro, Signac and Others - I,"
The Burlington Magazine 102, no. 692 (1960): 479,
http://www.jstor.org/stable/873246.
Chapter 10 - Paul Signac | 573
 13
and rational.” Even with the terrorism that unfolded in the early
1890s, Signac’s position was almost certainly against terror, and this
14
left him to advocate his political ideals through his art. Through
his development as an artist, Signac created the painting Le
Démolisseur. This piece of art exemplifies Signac’s rhetorical turn
of phrase that was said in an article for La Révolte about giving a
15
“solid blow of the pick to the old social edifice.” The piece itself
was a painting of a “muscular worker, stripped to the waist, hewing
16
at the fabric of a building with a pick axe.” Le Démolisseur provides
a dynamic and moral momentum, regarding the main worker’s form
as a left handed posture and this opposed the “rubble of bourgeois
17
capitalism to the sheer force of anarchism.” The painting itself
was large in size, allowing for clear detail within the image and the
colours used. The light pink colours used to represent dawn gave
18
the image a cold feel, and cast a shadowy look on the bottom. The
section of the painting that stands out the most is the foreground.
The foreground is equipped with the manly figure. He is “wielding
his pick” and “fills half the picture space with his energetic,
19
determined action.” The character is exuding energy through his
20
muscular body, demonstrating that he is in heroic mode. These
pictorial elements provide understanding towards Signac’s meaning
of the painting. The meaning being destruction is done in order to

13. Thomson, 375.

14. Thomson, 375.
15. Thomson, 378.
16. Thomson, 378.
17. Thomson, 380.
18. Thomson, 381.
19. Thomson, “Ruins, Rhetoric, and Revolution,” 381.
20. Thomson, 381.
574 | Chapter 10 - Paul Signac
 21
construct an anarchist future. It represents the process of how
destruction (of a certain ideal) can lead to the construction of a
new ideal. The construction is referenced to by the crane in the
background of the image. By breaking down an old building (or
ideal), new ideals can start to show light, and take the place of
the old. This is what Signac believed in, and he used this painting
to encapsulate this idea of his anarchists beliefs. In order for
anarchism to take place, the old ways must be destroyed and buried.
Signac also used geography as a means to portray his anarchist
beliefs. In general, when he created paintings regarding
geographical locations, he would receive his inspiration from the
southern shore of France. By creating his paintings around the
southern shore of France, it allowed for him to appropriate “the
conventions of pastoral landscape painting to his anarchists goals to
22
envision a paradisical future.” Signac moved to St. Tropez in order
to continue making paintings of the southern shore. He would paint
the north and south shore as juxtaposing pastorals which promoted
23
a left-wing vision of the Mediterranean shore. This art created
surrounds the shore, bringing to light his anarchists beliefs. They
also “assimilated [his] hopes for a utopian society,” where anarchism
24
would thrive. By using geography as a way to explore and share
his political opinions, Signac was able to compare the north and
south shores and relate them in a way that influences anarchism.

21. Thomson, 381.

22. Anne Dymond, “A Politicized Pastoral: Signac and the
Cultural Geography of Mediterranean France.” The Art
Bulletin 85, no. 2 (2003): 353, https://www.jstor.org/
stable/3177348.
23. Dymond, 353.
24. Robert L Herbert, and Herbet, "Artists and Anarchism,
480.
Chapter 10 - Paul Signac | 575
 His comparisons would bring light to the new ideals he wished to be
implemented and eliminate the old ways of life.
From Neo-Impressionism, science and anarchism, to looking at a
specific painting (Le Démolisseur), to the cultural geography used
in his art, Signac used his art to promote anarchism. His art was
produced by the use of “contrasting principles”, and the “manner of
25
divided tones for optical mixture”. He also created his art around
the “honest portrayal of the life of the humble [and how it] could
serve the cause by exposing the injustices and inequalities of the
existing social order” and at the same time “their artistic merits
could educate the workers and prepare them for the richer
26
existence promised by an anarchist future” . In reference to his
cultural geography paintings, he “[articulates] his individuality as
a painter and an anarchist ideal in the depiction of individuals
27
working for the collective good.” Signac was an artist who
portrayed his ideals in many different ways, but always through his
art. He often used similar techniques in order to help keep his ideas
consistent, and truly be able to portray anarchism in his paintings.
Signac was an important artist in the Neo-Impressionist era due to
his ability to portray his anarchists beliefs in his artwork.

25. José Argüelles, "Paul Signac's "Against the Enamel of a

Background Rhythmic with Beats and Angles, Tones and
Colors, Portrait of M. Félix Fénéon in 1890, Opus 217","
The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 28, no. 1
(1969): 51-52, https://www.jstor.org/stable/428908.
26. Robert L Herbert, and Herbet, 478.
27. Thomson, “Ruins, Rhetoric and Revolution,” 376.
576 | Chapter 10 - Paul Signac
Paul Signac, The Port of Saint-Tropez, oil on canvas, 1901

Bibliography
Argüelles, José. “Paul Signac’s “Against the Enamel of a
Background Rhythmic with Beats and Angles, Tones and Colors,
Portrait of M. Félix Fénéon in 1890, Opus 217″.” The Journal of
Aesthetics and Art Criticism 28, no. 1 (1969): 49-53.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/428908
Brion, Katherine. “Paul Signac’s Decorative Propaganda of the
1890s.” RIHA Journal 0044, (2012): 0-37. https://doaj.org/article/
c85f3bbff394430cba5a1b22006fd18e
Dymond, Anne. “A Politicized Pastoral: Signac and the Cultural
Geography of Mediterranean France.” The Art Bulletin 85, no. 2
(2003): 353-370. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3177348
Herbert, Robert L., and Eugenia W. Herbert. “Artists and
Anarchism: Unpublished Letters of Pissarro, Signac and Others –

Chapter 10 - Paul Signac | 577

I.” The Burlington Magazine 102, no. 692 (1960): 473-482.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/873246
“Neo-impressionism.” Oxford Languages, accessed October 14,
2020. Google dictionary.
Roslak, Robyn S. “The politics of aesthetic harmony: Neo-
Impressionism, science, and anarchism.” Art Bulletin 73, no. 3 (1991):
381-390. https://ezproxy.ardc.talonline.ca/
login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/
login.aspx?direct=true&db=f5h&AN=9112091981&site=eds-live
“Signac, Paul.” Gale Biographies: Popular People, edited by Gale
Cengage Learning. Gale, 2018. http://ezproxy.ardc.talonline.ca/
login?url=https://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/
galegbpp/signac_paul/0?institutionId=2645
Thomson, Richard. “Ruins, Rhetoric and Revolution: Paul Signac’s
Le Démolisseur and Anarchism in the 1890s.” Art History 36, no. 2
(2013): 366-391. doi: 10.1111/1467-8365.12005

Chapter 10 - Paul Signac by Makayla Bernier is licensed under a Creative Commons

Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where
otherwise noted.

578 | Chapter 10 - Paul Signac

24. Chapter 10 - Odilon
Redon
Odilon Redon: Influence on Art History and
Symbolic Artwork
HAILEE SHARYK

Audio recording of chapter available here:

One or more interactive elements has been excluded

from this version of the text. You can view them online
here: https://openeducationalberta.ca/
19thcenturyart/?p=641#audio-641-1

Well known for his symbolism and mysticism within his artwork,
Odilon Redon, was born in 1840 in Bordeaux, France.[1] At just a
mere 10 years old, Redon won a prize for one of his drawings,
helping kickstart his creative mind and passion for art.[2] Redon
began his career as an abstract and symbolist artist prior to the
Franco-Prussian War; sculpting, drawing, and beginning to learn the
process of etching and lithography.[3]

Chapter 10 - Odilon Redon | 579

 Then, in 1878, Redon joined
the army to help fight in the
Franco-Prussian War, putting a
pause to his artistic
endeavors.[4] It was not until
many years after the war when
Redon no longer served the
army, did he begin to become
recognized for his artwork,
especially for his lithographic
prints he referred to as the
“Noirs”.[5] Redon greatly
influenced art history through
the use of his lithographs, and
Redon, Odilon. “The Crying Spider.” his unique perspective on life
1881. Drawing in Charcoal. One of
many drawings to become a part of his and art can also been viewed
Noir lithograph series. A lone symbolically through his work.
human-spider is depicted in front of a
blank space, with a sad gaze, and a
singular tear. Large emotions. Sad. Odilon Redon was not a
Melancholy. One of many of Redon’s
mythical like creatures he referred to
traditional artist for his time.
as his “monsters”. For his most famous work,
Redon used etching and
lithography techniques to publish his drawings known as “Noirs”,
which was not a popular medium for artists to use in the 1880’s.[6]
However, Redon’s use of this technique and his rise to popularity did
influence the French art community to begin using lithography as a
more common art medium. This method of copying his drawings
allowed for the increased distribution of his artwork, allowing for an
increased income and exposure to his artwork.[7] Not only did
Redon use an uncommon technique for artists to recreate and
redistribute his visions on paper, but the way he drew and
constructed his Noir drawings were also unique as well. He only
used the colour black, and he worked almost exclusively in
charcoal.[8] By using only black, Redon was able to create images
that held strong and intense emotions. Yet, by using the charcoal in

580 | Chapter 10 - Odilon Redon

soft and bold lines, he was able to tell a story through the contrast
of the various lines and strokes.
Why did Redon choose on
black for his lithographs?
Redon stated: “One must
respect black. Nothing
prostitutes it. It does not please
the eye and it awakens no
sensuality. It is the agent of the
mind far more than the integral
part of the artist’s fantasy.”[9]
In addition to using unusual
techniques and colours, Redon
created images that were
symbolic by incorporating his
own personal interests and
Odilon Redon, Il y eut peut-etre une
inquiries into his creative vision premiere essayee dans la fleur
imagery. With the advances of (There was perhaps a first vision
attempted in the flower), 1883,
empirical enquiry within the lithograph
sciences, and new concepts like
astrophysics replacing old ideals in 1860, things within society were
ever-changing and unpredictable.[10] Redon was attracted to the
invisible and unknown forces of the world, man’s lack of
understanding or control over these forces, and the implications it
could have on himself and humanity.[11] His curiosity brings
acknowledgement to the metaphysical world, the cosmos,
mythological stories, nodes to Buddhism, consciousness, and even
Christianity.[12] When presenting these ideas and themes within in
his work, he does so in an almost simplistic, but unassuming way.
The time and attention spent to detail did not lie in his brushstrokes,
but in the meanings behind the strokes. Although his artwork is not
simple in its construction, Redon does not find the need to draw
extremely realistic drawings with many details. He uses the basic
building blocks to get an idea or story across. The image itself seems

Chapter 10 - Odilon Redon | 581

simple in comparison to the grandiose feelings he can communicate
in fewer brushstrokes than most artists of his time.
Around the 1870’s, Redon
began to explore the
cosmological and spiritual side
of life throughout his artwork
when the mystery and
mysticism of Symbolist’s work
was at its height.[13] When
discussing his own artwork,
Redon describes it as “putting
the logic of the visible to the
service of the invisible” and
uses his minds eye to create
imaginary beings with material
reason.[14] His artwork is not
intended for the viewer to have
Odilon Redon, La Mort – Mon ironie a pleasant, enjoyable, visual
depasse toutes les autres! (Death – My
experience, but for them to
iron surpasses all others!), 1889,
lithograph ignite a different framework of
thought, contemplation,
mystery, and curiosity instead. Redon often spoke about how his
artwork did not obey the laws of life and nature, and he put his full
self in his works and the creation of his monsters.
In Redon’s work, Dans le Reve: Germination (translates to:
Germination from in The Dream), using only black and the contrast
of the white paper, disembodied heads are pictured floating within
a black abyss. Starting from a large portrait at the top of the print,
then scaling down in size as they disperse throughout the dark
space. This gives the lithograph a cosmological and atmospheric
feeling, as well as a sense of melancholy. Yet, despite the
melancholic energy the white and black contrast around the largest
head and portrait gives it an illuminated, light feeling. When
investigating the image closer, the eyes of the largest head look
down upon the smaller, more skull-like faces. The skull-like faces

582 | Chapter 10 - Odilon Redon

have their eyes looking all about, leaving the viewer with a sense of
confusion and chaos – they are unsure where to look. The floating
heads may represent life, or one’s soul as they float around the
unknown. Amongst the floating heads are smaller, white circles.
These may be more floating heads or souls, or even stars. As a
symbolist artist, this image could be a cosmological rendition of
birth, life, and germination itself. Redon prided himself in
“exploit[ing] mental imagery rather than [the] visual experience”
and mentions that his drawings are meant to inspire others, not to
define things.[15]
After 1900, Redon abandoned
lithography for more abstract
art with distinct colour
palettes.[16] Although Redon
almost exclusively drew in
charcoal using only black, later
in his life he began to take up
painting and pastels.[17] At a
first glance, the colours chosen
Odilon Redon, Portrait of Violette
seem almost out of place in Heymann, 1910, pastel,
comparison to traditional
works of its time. However, with Redon’s symbolistic background,
these colours are chosen and placed very articulately. He drew
portraits of his wife and son, using splashes of colour that appear to
be out of place in comparison to the rest of the image to show
abstract emotions. Random spots of blue or orange in various
corners can be seen in renditions of his family members.

Chapter 10 - Odilon Redon | 583

 Redon also had a collection of
oil paintings just before he
passed in 1916 of realistic vases
of flowers.[18] These pieces
really show how talented of an
artist Redon was, that he was an
artist who could “art” like no
other artists from his lifetime.
The symbolism Redon used
Odilon Redon, Flowers, 1909, oil on
embodied mystery; evoking
canvas
intense emotions but leaving
the “why” up to the viewer to figure out as the symbolism was never
explicit. His diverse talents and spiritual outlook on life not only
greatly influenced Redon’s work, but art history itself with his
unique creatures and the use of lithographs as a mean of
reproduction and distribution of his art.

To see Odilon Redon’s Dans le Reve: Germination from 1879 check

out this webpage from the Museum of Modern Art:

Odilon Redon, Dans le Reve: Germination, 1879, lithograph

with chine appliqué https://www.moma.org/audio/
playlist/6/316

Bibliography

Conrad, Christian. “The Life and Art of Odilon Redon with Christian
Conrad”, video, 24:00, May 7, 2021, www.youtube.com/
watch?v=mApHYkN9oQo.

584 | Chapter 10 - Odilon Redon

Enger, Reed. “The Crying Spider.” Obelisk Art History. Accessed
September 19, 2021. http://arthistoryproject.com/artists/odilon-
redon/the-crying-spider/.54
Larson, Barbara. “The Franco-Prussian War and Cosmological
Symbolism in Odilon Redon’s ‘Noirs.’” Artibus et Historiae 25, no.
50 (2004): 127–38. https://doi.org/10.2307/1483791.
Lieberman, William S., and Odilon Redon. “Redon: Drawings and
Lithographs.” The Bulletin of the Museum of Modern Art 19, no. 2
(1952): 3–15. https://doi.org/10.2307/4058189.
Redon, Odilon. 1840-1916. Crying Spider. Images, n.d. Accessed
September 19, 2021. https://jstor.org/stable/
community.13697044.
Redon, Odilon. “Dans Le Reve: Germination”. Accessed September 19,
2021. https://jstor.org/stable/community.13726129.
Seiferle, Rebbeca. “Odilon Redon Artist Overview and Analysis”, The
Art Story, Accessed September 19, 2021,
https://www.theartstory.org/artist/redon-odilon/.

[1] Rebbeca Seiferle, “Odilon Redon Artist Overview and Analysis”,

The Art Story, Accessed September 19, 2021,
https://www.theartstory.org/artist/redon-odilon/.

[2] Rebbeca Seiferle, “Odilon Redon Artist Overview and Analysis”.

[3] Seiferle, “Odilon Redon Artist Overview and Analysis”.

[4] Christian Conrad, “The Life and Art of Odilon Redon with
Christian Conrad”, video, 24:00, May 7, 2021, www.youtube.com/
watch?v=mApHYkN9oQo.

[5] Barbara Larson, “The Franco-Prussian War and Cosmological

Symbolism in Odilon Redon’s ‘Noirs.’” Artibus et Historiae 25, no. 50
(2004): 127–38. https://doi.org/10.2307/1483791.

[6] Christian Conrad, “The Life and Art of Odilon Redon with

Chapter 10 - Odilon Redon | 585

Christian Conrad”, video, 24:00, May 7, 2021, www.youtube.com/
watch?v=mApHYkN9oQo.

[7] Rebbeca Seiferle, “Odilon Redon Artist Overview and Analysis”,

The Art Story, Accessed September 19, 2021,
https://www.theartstory.org/artist/redon-odilon/.

[8] Reed Enger, “The Crying Spider.” Obelisk Art History. Accessed
September 19, 2021. http://arthistoryproject.com/artists/odilon-
redon/the-crying-spider/.54

[9] William S. Lieberman and Odilon Redon, “Redon: Drawings and

Lithographs”, 3-15.

[10] Barbara Larson, “The Franco-Prussian War and Cosmological

Symbolism in Odilon Redon’s ‘Noirs.’” Artibus et Historiae 25, no. 50
(2004): 127–38. https://doi.org/10.2307/1483791.

[11] Barbara Larson, “The Franco-Prussian War and Cosmological

Symbolism in Odilon Redon’s ‘Noirs.’”.

[12] Christian Conrad, “The Life and Art of Odilon Redon with
Christian Conrad”.

[13] William S. Lieberman and Odilon Redon, “Redon: Drawings and

Lithographs,” The Bulletin of the Museum of Modern Art 19, no. 2
(1952): 3–15, https://doi.org/10.2307/4058189.

[14] Rebbeca Seiferle, “Odilon Redon Artist Overview and Analysis”,

The Art Story, Accessed September 19, 2021,
https://www.theartstory.org/artist/redon-odilon/.

[15] William S. Lieberman and Odilon Redon, “Redon: Drawings and

Lithographs”, 3-15.

[16] William S. Lieberman and Odilon Redon, “Redon: Drawings and

Lithographs”, 3-15.

586 | Chapter 10 - Odilon Redon

[17] Christian Conrad, “The Life and Art of Odilon Redon with
Christian Conrad”, video, 24:00, May 7, 2021, www.youtube.com/
watch?v=mApHYkN9oQo.

[18] Christian Conrad, “The Life and Art of Odilon Redon with
Christian Conrad”, video, 24:00, May 7, 2021, www.youtube.com/
watch?v=mApHYkN9oQo.

Chapter 10 - Odilon Redon by Hailee Sharyk is licensed under a Creative Commons

Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where
otherwise noted.

Chapter 10 - Odilon Redon | 587

25. Chapter 10 - Henri
Matisse
Henri Matisse and Modern Art
TAYLOR DENNIS

Audio recording of this chapter available here:

One or more interactive elements has been excluded

from this version of the text. You can view them online
here: https://openeducationalberta.ca/
19thcenturyart/?p=354#audio-354-1

588 | Chapter 10 -
Post-Impressionism
Henri Matisse, The Joy of Live, oil on canvas, 1905-06

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. At least that’s what they always
told us, right? When Henri Matisse began as an artist, artwork was
predominately celebrated for realism and the historical scenes they
depicted. There were much more objective, rigid ideas of what made
art “good”. Matisse however, started off with classical art knowledge
and worked backward to elicit a modern take of the subject. Henri
Matisse went on to influence the concept and definition of
modernism in his art and in his life. This is demonstrated in his
letters with Walter Pach, his transition to cut-out art, and the
careful planning he put into his work.

Chapter 10 - Post-Impressionism | 589

 Modernism is all about
breaking away from classical
ideals and paradigms. Which
was exactly what Matisse did.
He devolved his work, changing
proportions, focal points,
colours, and mediums to elicit
emotion in the audience. Some
of his collections demonstrated
this progression, like Interior
with Goldfish and Goldfish and
Palette where Matisse started
off with a room scene where
the goldfish merely was, and
then made the goldfish the
focal point and the room
around it abstract. He
Henri Matisse, Goldfish, oil on canvas,
1911 demonstrates this again with
Young Sailor I and Young Sailor
II, where she starts off in Young Sailor I with a more tradition and
realistic portrait and decomposes it to be flatter, less dimensional,
and far more modern. Young Sailor II, while far less realistic is a
soulful and expressive capturing of the young fisherman which was
become far more famous than the former.

590 | Chapter 10 - Post-Impressionism

 In addition to the work he
created that influenced other
artists he founded the Matisse
Academy and coached other
artists in modern techniques,
as seen in his letters to Walter
1
Pach. In one of his later letters
Matisse writes “a modern
painting has no need for a
frame”, after Pach wrote
Matisse asking what frame he
should use for one of his
2
works. From these letters we
can clearly see that Matisse had Henri Matisse, Young Sailor II, oil on
canvas, 1906
well developed ideas of what
modernism could be and was eager to influence other artists as they
helped develop the style. He also had his own academy for young
artists in France where he taught them and influenced their art for
many years.
Part of Matisse’s modern work was the use of different mediums,
Matisse created an extensive cut out art collection. Sometimes
described as “drawing (or painting) with scissors” because of his

1. Henri Matisse, Gail Levin, and John Cauman.

Researching at the Archives of American Art: HENRI
MATISSE'S LETTERS TO WALTER PACH. Archives of
American Art Journal: 2010, 49, no. ½: 28-41.
2. Henri Matisse, Gail Levin, and John Cauman.
Researching at the Archives of American Art: HENRI
MATISSE'S LETTERS TO WALTER PACH. Archives of
American Art Journal: 2010, 49, no. ½: 28-41.
Chapter 10 - Post-Impressionism | 591
 3
artistry and ability to capture form and evoke emotion. His work
4
in cut-out art began when he was bed-ridden with cancer. Like,
the style of modernism, Matisse adapted and took on this new form
of expressing his artistic vision rather than allowing himself to held
back by the cultural ideals around what art should be. This act alone
gives me so much respect for Matisse, and his courageous creative
vision. He made more than 200 cut outs during his time and as he
went, they grew in size and grandeur, many of which were installed
on walls. He felt this time was ‘his second life’ and this work reflects
5
the joy he had for the world around him.
While modern art was often seen as a less developed or
sophisticated form than traditional styles, Matisse put great care
and attention into his work. He created works that appeared
spontaneous but were actually carefully crafted and designed.
Matisse studied the female form and particularly, the movement of
the body dancing, so much so that his work has even been compared
to a dancer on display. Sue Karen Smith in her article: Masterworks
in Progress: Exploring the Mind, and Work, of Henri Matisse wrote,
“Like a toned dancer, Matisse could produce his work only after
6
submitting to an arduous process”. As we can see from his
extensive sketches and drawing, Matisse put great care and
attention into every element of his work to capture more than just
the realistic scene a like many of the painters before him. And in

3. 3. Weston Neville. “Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs.” Craft

Arts International: 2014, no. 92: 69.
4. Weston Neville. “Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs.” Craft
Arts International: 2014, no. 92: 69.
5. Weston Neville. “Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs.” Craft
Arts International: 2014, no. 92: 69.
6. Weston Neville. “Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs.” Craft
Arts International: 2014, no. 92: 69.
592 | Chapter 10 - Post-Impressionism
 his later cut-out work, the many pinholes reveal the same thing,
that Matisse adjusted and adapted his pieces many times before
7
they were glued down. Although his work looked spontaneous and
sometimes abstract, Matisse was had a precise vision and often
restarted projects if they weren’t quite right.
In the end, Henri Matisse not only created influential and modern
works, but he embodied the ideals himself. He was a living example
of resilience when he transitioned too cut-out work in his illness,
and he brought life and happiness into his art. Since his time, art
has progressed a long way and is respected as subjective and
challenging, Matisse helped fuel that change. Matisse was adaptive,
creative, and passionate about capturing the essence of everyday
life and displaying it for us to enjoy.
My Favourite Henri Matisse
While I love all the cut outs, my favourite is the blue nude
collection: standing, sitting, and hair in the wind. They’re so carefree
and raw without being obscene. I feel the emotion: distress,
exhaustion, and joy when I look at them. They feel carefree, seen
and beloved but not exposed, at least not shamefully. They are
presented honestly but not at expense of themselves.
I can only imagine that this is exactly how Henri wanted me to see
them. He must have seen so much beauty and grace around him to
capture the world with the colours and bold lines of his cut-outs. I
am glad that we get to enjoy his perspective and outlook on life in
his work to this day. Thanks Henri.

To see Matisse’s Blue Nude II from 1952 check out this webpage from
the Museum of Modern Art:

7. Weston Neville. “Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs.” Craft

Arts International: 2014, no. 92: 69.
Chapter 10 - Post-Impressionism | 593
 MoMA, “Henri Matisse – Blue Nude II, 1952,” from Henri
Matisse – The Cut-Outs Exhibition, Oct 12, 2014–Feb 10,
2015, https://www.moma.org/audio/playlist/6/316

Bibliography
Borg, M B ter. “Sense Giving in the Art of Henri Matisse.” Implicit
Religion 19, no. 1 (2016): 55–60. doi:10.1558/imre.v19i1.30005.
Crooker, Barbara Poti. “Sketch for ‘Le Bonheur De Vivre,’ 1905: The
Happiness of Life, Henri Matisse.” Italian Americana 34, no. 1 (2016):
67. Accessed October 26, 2020. http://www.jstor.org/stable/
43926875.
D., and W. S. L. “Henri Matisse.” The Metropolitan Museum of
Art Bulletin 61, no. 4 (2004): 25-41. Accessed October 19, 2020.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/3269127.
Matisse, Henri, Gail Levin, and John Cauman. “Researching at the
Archives of American Art: Henri Matisse’s Letters to Walter Pach.”
Archives of American Art Journal 49, no. 1/2 (2010): 28-41. Accessed
October 25, 2020. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23025799.
O’Donovan, Leo J. “Risking Everything: Henri Matisse’s Truest
Expressions.” America 203, no. 5 (2010): 20–22. https://search-
ebscohost-com.ezproxy.ardc.talonline.ca/
login.aspx?direct=true&db=reh&AN=CPLI0000513104&site=eds-
live.
Smith, Karen Sue. “Masterworks in Progress: Exploring the Mind,
and Work, of Henri Matisse.” America 208, no. 5 (2013): 24–26.
https://search-ebscohost-com.ezproxy.ardc.talonline.ca/
login.aspx?direct=true&db=reh&AN=CPLI0000539048&site=eds-
live.
Weston, Neville. “Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs.” Craft Arts
International, no. 92 (October 2014): 69. https://search-ebscohost-

594 | Chapter 10 - Post-Impressionism

com.ezproxy.ardc.talonline.ca/
login.aspx?direct=true&db=f5h&AN=99647119&site=eds-live.

Chapter 10 - Henri Matisse by Taylor Dennis is licensed under a Creative Commons

Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

Chapter 10 - Post-Impressionism | 595

26. Chapter 10 - Edward
Mitchell Bannister
Post-Impressionism
EMILY BECKER

Audio Recording of chapter available here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/
1_p1DcVasGVkaR0ecpWKnMEiA6AS_r1bD/view?usp=sharing

Edward Mitchell Bannister, Untitled, charcoal and chalk on paper, ca. 1885.

596 | Chapter 10 - Edward Mitchell

Bannister
 When I had started researching Edward M. Bannister I had originally
thought that finding information about a man born around the same
time as photographic documentation would be easy to find. If we
are able to keep knowledge and information from thousands of
years ago, a man who lived only one-hundred-and-fifty years ago
would be even easier to find out about. However, it would seem that
due to his African American heritage his fame was buried in history.
Bannister was born in 1828 in St. Andrews, New Brunswick,
Canada, his mother Hannah Alexander Bannister was a free
1
Canadian black, and his father was a Barbados native. Both passed
when he was young, first his father when Bannister was only a
2
toddler then his mother in 1844 his teen years. Before his mother
passed Bannister recollects that she had coddled his growing
affection for art, encouraging him to draw and color in his spare
3
time. He did have an older brother who was of age to live on his
own, so with the passing of their parents his brother moved away to
4
Boston, USA, leaving Bannister in the care of a white foster family.
He was under the care of Mr. Harris Hatch, who was a wealthy
lawyer in St. Andrews which ended up an opportunity for Bannister
5
that he did not look down. He was able to enjoy the luxuries of his

1. “Edward Mitchell Bannister,” Smithsonian American Art

Museum, accessed September 17, 2020,
https://americanart.si.edu/artist/edward-mitchell-
bannister-226.
2. Smithsonian.
3. Anthony Joyette, “Three Great Black Canadian Artists,”
Gale OneFile: CPI.Q, 2014, https://link-gale-
com.ezproxy.ardc.talonline.ca/apps/doc/A393211753/
CPI?u=red68720&sid-CPI&xid-430a07d4.
4. Joyette, “Three Great Black Canadian Artists”.
5. Joyette.
Chapter 10 - Edward Mitchell Bannister | 597
 new home and used his time and available resources that was Mr.
Hatch’s house and library to study and copy images from the books
6
and paintings all around him.
As Bannister grew into
adulthood, he did the
customary thing for young men
in the Maritimes and took a job
at sea though he had never
given up his desire to become
an artist, and every time the
ship would port in Boston and
Edward Mitchell Bannister, Palmer
River, oil on canvas, 1885 Newyork Bannister would take
it upon himself to use his little
7
bit of free time visiting galleries and museums. In 1848 Bannister
took the plunge and moved to Boston where he dipped his toes in
8
different artistic jobs like barbering and photograph tinting.
Bannister ended up obtaining a job as a hairstylist in one of
Christiana Cartreaux’s salons for Boston’s elite, she took an interest
in Bannister’s passion for creating and the two fell in love and wed
9
in 1857. After the wedding, with his new wife’s support he left
working at the salon and started as a full-time artist.

In 1871 the two moved to Providence, Rhode Island where

Cartreaux was originally from, to live out the rest of their days,
though they never had children they stayed busy by creating and
being activists in their community. They held benefits for the
soldiers who had opted to serve in the Civil War without pay instead
of accepting the lower pay for black men. The Bannisters’ efforts

6. Joyette.
7. Joyette.
8. Joyette.
9. Joyette.
598 | Chapter 10 - Edward Mitchell Bannister
 along with the efforts of those of the Boston Colored Ladies’
Sanitary Commision helped to support soldiers of color and their
families as they boycott the pay discrimination for more than a
10
year. According to African American Lives, a collection of
biographies of noteworthy Black Americans, Edward Bannister
reportedly said of his wife in his later years:

“I would have made out very poorly had it not been for her,
and my greatest successes have come through her, either
through the criticism of my pictures, or the advice she
11
would give me in the matter of placing them in public”.

Bannister enrolled in evening

classes at the local Lowell
Institute and started creating at

Edward Mitchell Bannister,

Newspaper Boy, oil on canvas, 1869

10. Tatiana Walk-Morris, ”You’ve Probably Never Heard Of

This Black Beauty Hero – But Here’s Why You Need To,”
Bustle, February 9, 2020, https://www.bustle.com/p/
madame-christiana-carteaux-bannister-is-the-black-
beauty-hero-you-havent-heard-of-7984997.
11. Tatiana Walk-Morris.
Chapter 10 - Edward Mitchell Bannister | 599
 12
the Boston Studio Building. Although he did not receive extensive
academic training, Bannister was able to study under William
Rimmer; sculptor and painter, who was an instructor at Lowell at
13
the time. Not many of Bannister’s works from the 1850’s and 1860’s
have survived leaving scholars with little to speculate at when it
14
comes to Bannister’s early style. However, it is clear through his
many pieces that he was a persistent experimenter and though
primarily is known for his landscapes, he created many other
paintings of black portraits, biblical scenes, still life’s, and other
15
genres. He also wrote the manuscript, The Artist and His Critics
(1886) which indicated that he developed his own artistic theory in
16
Transcendentalism. This ideology centered around Ralph Waldo
Emerson, which was flourishing by the 1850’s, operated with a sense
that the new era was at hand and urged that each person in society
finds, in the words of Emerson “an original relation to the universe”,
sought through solitude in nature and in writing, or in Bannister’s
17
case, in his paintings. Bannister found inspiration from other
landscape artists, notedly William Morris Hunt and the Barbizon
18
School which Hunt had learned his skills from.

12. ”Edward Mitchell Bannister,” Smithsonian.

13. Smithsonian.
14. Smithsonian.
15. Smithsonian.
16. Traci Lee Costa, ”Edward Mitchell Bannister and the
Aesthetics of Idealism,” Roger Williams University (2017),
8. http://docs.rwu.edu/aah_theses/1.
17. Russell Goodman, ”Transcendentalism,” The Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy, last modified August 30,
2020, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/
transcendentalism/.
18. Anthony Joyette,” Three Great Black Canadian Artists”.
600 | Chapter 10 - Edward Mitchell Bannister
 The style of Bannister’s works
are true to the characteristics
of Transcendentalist ideology
and Barbizon School imagery,
showing a desire for equality by
containing no social or racial
overtones within his work, as
Edward Mitchell Bannister, Driving well as showing self-reliance
the Cows Home, oil on canvas, 1881
and optimism through beautiful
bucolic scenes. He worked mostly with oil and watercolor paints, he
found solitude in the nature around his home, and created literally
hundreds of land and seascapes. Bannister’s mid-period landscapes
of the 1870’s were executed with heavy impasto and few details
while later landscapes of the 1880’s-90’s use a gentler impasto and
19
loosely applied broken color, similar to impressionist techniques.
Attracted to picturesque motifs, he was able to evoke tranquil
moods with his paintings, which became a hallmark of his style, as
20
he portrayed nature as a calm and submissive force.
Bannister’s name rose to fame in 1876 when he entered his oil
landscape “Under the Oaks”, which has since been lost, into the first
National Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition, and it won the first-
21
prize bronze medal. The judges ‘reconsidered’ the award when
they found that Bannister was black, but the other white
competitors upheld the decision, making Bannister the first African
22
American to receive a national award. At first, I did not think
that white men of the 19th century would stand behind a black
man as they had, since the world today is still very racist, however,
Bannister was a respected man of high social standing in his society,

19. ”Edward Mitchell Bannister,” Smithsonian.

20. Smithsonian.
21. Smithsonian.
22. Smithsonian.
Chapter 10 - Edward Mitchell Bannister | 601
 skin color aside. Fellow artist and friend John Nelson Arnold wrote
about Bannister saying:

“He went to nature with a poet’s feeling, skies, rocks, trees

and distances were all absorbed and distilled through the
alembic of his soul and projected upon the canvas with virile
force and a poetic beauty that will in time place him in the
23
front rank of American artists.”

In 1880 Bannister and three other Providence painters founded the

Providence Art Club which inducted twelve other members, and the
group went on to lay the foundation for the educational institute
24
now known as Rhode Island School of Design. Bannister’s wife
Christiana went on to lead the efforts to establish a home for aging
women of color in Providence, known today as Bannister Nursing
Care Center where she herself spent her last years before passing
25
in 1903. In 1901 Bannister passed suddenly during a church prayer
meeting, and shortly after his death the Providence Art Club
exhibited one hundred and one of Bannister’s paintings owned by
26
Providence collectors. Bannister’s grave plot is rather extensive
marked by a granite boulder ten feet high, relieved with a carving of
an artist palette, Bannister’s name, and a pipe, also adorned with a
bronze plaque that reads:

23. Liza Kirwin, ”Regional Reports,” Archives of American Art

Journal 24, no. 1 (1984): 30, accessed October 8, 2020,
https://link-gale-com.exproxy.ardc.talonline.ca/apps/
doc/A393211753/
CPI?u=red68720&sid=CPI&xid=430a07d4
24. ”Edward Mitchell Bannister,” Smithsonian.
25. Tatiana Walk-Morris, ”You’ve Probably Never Heard Of
This Black Beauty Hero – But Here’s Why You Need To”.
26. Smithsonian.
602 | Chapter 10 - Edward Mitchell Bannister
 “ This pure and lofty soul … who, while he portrayed nature,
27
walked with God.”

All this information that made Edward Mitchell Bannister check out
to be an amazing part of Canadian and American history had been
shrouded and lost due to the same racism that he spent a lot of
his life trying to fight. Black artists are in the collections of every
28
great museum, just maybe not put out on show. He was able to
win the hearts of society back in the 19th century with his timeless
landscapes, he could easily do it again today if our museums did our
artists of color throughout history, the justice they deserve.

27. Smithsonian.
28. ”America’s Art Museums and the Broad Canvas of
American Racial Thought,” The Journal of Blacks in
Higher Education, Summer 1997, 49.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2962897.
Chapter 10 - Edward Mitchell Bannister | 603
Edward Mitchell Bannister, Boston Street Scene (Boston Common), oil on
canvas, 1898-99

Bibliography

604 | Chapter 10 - Edward Mitchell Bannister

“America’s Art Museums and the Broad Canvas of American Racial
Thought.” JSTOR. The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, no. 16
(Summer, 1997). https://www.jstor.org/stable/2962897.
Bell, Clive. “Barbizon.” The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs 47,
no. 272 (1925): 254-257. http://www.jstor.org/stable/862657.
Costa, Traci Lee. “Edward Mitchell Bannister and the Aesthetics of
Idealism” Roger Williams University, 2017. http://docs.rwu.edu/
aah_theses/1
“Edward Mitchell Bannister.” Smithsonian American Art Museum
online. Accessed September 17, 2020. http://americanart.si.edu/
artist/edward-mitchell-bannister-226.
Floyd, Minuette. “More Than Just a Field Trip… Making Relevant
Circular Connections Through Museum Experiences.” Art
Education 55, no. 5 (2002): 39-45. doi: 10.2307/3193957.
Goodman, Russell. “Transcendentalism.” The Stanford Encyclopedia
of Philosophy. Edward N. Zalta (ed.), accessed October 8, 2020.
https://plato.stanford.edu/enteries/transcendentalism/.
Heller, Diane. “Edward M. Bannister: An American Artist.” Accessed
September 30, 2020. http://www.edwardbannister.com/
index.html.
Joyette, Anthony. “Three Great Black Canadian Artists.” Kola 26, no.
2 (2014): 63 . Gale OneFile: CPI.Q. https://link-gale-
com.exproxy.ardc.talonline.ca/apps/doc/A393211753/
CPI?u=red68720&sid=CPI&xid=430a07d4.
Kirwin, Liza. “Regional Reports.” Archives of American Art Journal 24,
no. 1 (1984): 30. Accessed October 8, 2020. https://www.jstor.org/
stable/1557349.
Skerrett, Joseph T. “Edward M. Bannister, Afro-American Painter
(1828-1901).” Negro History Bulletin 41, no. 3 (1978): 829.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/44213838.
“The Club’s History.” The Providence Art Club. Accessed October
23, 2020. https://providenceartclub.org/about/
the_clubs_history/.
Walk-Morris, Tatiana. “You’ve Probably Never Heard Of This Black
Beauty Hero – But Here’s Why You Need To.” Bustle, February 9,

Chapter 10 - Edward Mitchell Bannister | 605

 2020. https://www.bustle.com/p/madame-christiana-carteaux-
bannister-is-the-black-beauty-hero-you-havent-heard-
of-7984997.

Chapter 10 - Edward Mitchell Bannister by Emily Becker is licensed under a Creative

Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except
where otherwise noted.

606 | Chapter 10 - Edward Mitchell Bannister

27. Chapter 11 - Art Nouveau
Audio recording of chapter available here:

One or more interactive elements has been excluded

from this version of the text. You can view them online
here: https://openeducationalberta.ca/
19thcenturyart/?p=386#audio-386-1

Victor Horta, Tassel House, Brussels, 1893

Chapter 11 - Art Nouveau | 607

 Victor Horta’s Tassel House in Brussels is one of the
earliest examples of the Art Nouveau style. Horta
designed the building’s architecture and every detail of
the interior decoration and furnishings, making the
house into a Gesamtkunstwerk, or total art work in
multiple media. The repeated use of organically curved,
undulating lines — often called whiplash lines — unifies
the design, repeating in the floor tiles, wall painting,
ironwork, and even in the structure of the spiraling
staircase and surging entryways.

Art Nouveau artists and

designers created a
completely new style of
decoration, rejecting the
widespread nineteenth-
century practice of
copying historical, and
especially Classical and
Medieval, forms. While
each designer invented
their own decorative
motifs, organic, often
plant-based, forms and
the whiplash line became
hallmarks of Art Nouveau
Victor Horta, Horta House, design, appearing in
detail of column multiple media and
contexts.

Art Nouveau architects and designers also embraced

modern building materials, notably cast iron. Cast iron

608 | Chapter 11 - Art Nouveau

is both stronger and more flexible than traditional wood
or stone and allows for much thinner supports, like the
slender columns in Horta’s own house. Iron support
structures also made it possible to create curved
facades with large windows, which became prominent
elements in many Art Nouveau buildings, including
Horta’s Maison du Peuple.

Art Nouveau is only one

of many names given to
this internationalfin-de-
sièclestyle, which had
many regional variations.
The term (French for
“New Art”) derives from
Victor Horta, Maison du Peuple,
La Maison de L’Art Brussels, 1899 (demolished)
Nouveau, the Paris art
gallery run by Siegfried Bing, who was a major promoter
of the new style, as well as of Japonisme and the Nabis.
In addition to marketing individual objects, Bing
commissioned artists and designers to create model
rooms in his gallery to display Art Nouveau ensembles
that included furniture, wallpaper, carpets, and
paintings.

Chapter 11 - Art Nouveau | 609

 Left:
Siegfried
Bing’s
Maison de
l’Art
Nouveau,
Paris
(demolishe
d); right:
Eugène
Gaillard,
Bedroom
for the
Pavillion
de l’Art
Nouveau
Bing, 1900
In French Art Nouveau was linked to
addition
to Paris, government-supported efforts to expand the
major decorative arts and associated craft
centers of
the industries. Private residences and luxury
modern objects were the focus for many Art Nouveau
fin-de-siè
cle style
designers, including Emile Gallé, who made
included both decorative glass and furniture. Despite
Brussels,
the close association of Art Nouveau with
Glasgow,
Munich luxury items, the style is also apparent in
(where it urban design, public buildings, and art for
was
known as the masses. Horta’s Maison du Peuple was the
Jugendstil center for the socialist Belgian Workers’
or Youth
Style), and Party, and among the most famous examples
Vienna of Art Nouveau style are Hector Guimard’s
(where it
was called entrances to the Paris Metro, the city’s new
public transportation system.

610 | Chapter 11 - Art Nouveau

 Secession
Style).
Barcelona’
s Catalan
Modernis
m,
especially
Antoní
Gaudí‘s
architectu
re and
decorative
designs, is
also
closely
related to
Art
Nouveau.

Hector Guimard, Porte Dauphine,

Metro entrance, 1900, Paris

Chapter 11 - Art Nouveau | 611

 Hector Guimard, Bastille Métro
Pavilion entrance, 1900, demolished in
1962
Like Horta’s designs for
the Tassel House, Guimard used cast iron and invented
stylized motifs based on plant forms. Industrially
fabricated in modular units, the cast iron was relatively
cheap, but it was painted green to resemble oxidized
copper, a much more expensive material that adds a
sense of luxury to the elaborate entrances. The use of
modules made it possible to individualize each station
while maintaining stylistic unity throughout the city.

Art Nouveau designs were also widely visible in the

advertising posters that decorated Paris. Henri de
Toulouse-Lautrec, Alphonse Mucha, and Jules Chéret
depicted famous fin-de-siècle performers such as Jane
Avril, Sarah Bernhardt, and Loïe Fuller. Their posters
stylized the female body and used sinuous whiplash
lines, decorative plant forms, and flattened abstract
shapes to create vivid decorative images.

612 | Chapter 11 - Art Nouveau

Left: Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Jane Avril, lithograph, 1893;
Center: Alphonse Mucha, La Dame aux Camelias,
lithograph,1896); Right: Jules Chéret, La Loïe Fuller,
lithograph,1893

The English designer William Morris and the English

Arts and Crafts Movement that he initiated were a key
influence on many designers associated with Art
Nouveau. Morris promoted a holistic approach to
interior decoration as well as advocating for the social
importance of design and high quality craftwork. In 1907
the art Nouveau furniture designer (heavily influenced
by Morris in his work), Henry van de Velde founded the
School of Arts and Crafts in Weimar, Germany, which
promoted similar values. It later became the famous
modern art and design school, the Bauhaus, which
maintained the tradition of integrating art, craft, and
design for the improvement of society.

Chapter 11 - Art Nouveau | 613

 Left: Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Room de Luxe, Willow Tea
Room, Glasgow, 1903; Right: Margaret Macdonald, O ye, all ye
that walk in Willowwood, decorative panel for Willow Tea Room,
gesso and beads on burlap, 1903

Curving whiplash lines are a common characteristic of

French and Belgian Art Nouveau, but architects and
artists working in Glasgow developed a more rectilinear
style exemplified by the Willow Tea Room. Charles
Rennie Mackintosh and Margaret Macdonald designed
every component of the tea room, including the
architecture, stained glass, decorative panels, furniture,
cutlery, and staff uniforms. In keeping with Art Nouveau
artists elsewhere they developed original stylized design
motifs based on plant forms, but theirs were rigidly
contained within elongated rectangles rather than
expanding into supple curves.

614 | Chapter 11 - Art Nouveau

 Art Nouveau was fashionable for only a brief period
around the year 1900, but the movement was part of a
long-term modern trend that rejected historicism and
Academicism and embraced new materials and original
forms. In the modern period artists and designers
increasingly recognized that the health and well-being
of society and all its members were supported and
enhanced by well-designed objects, buildings, and
spaces. The unified designs of Art Nouveau presaged the
innovations of the Bauhaus as well as architects such
as Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier.

Excerpted from: Dr. Charles Cramer and Dr. Kim

Grant, “Art Nouveau,” in Smarthistory, June 14, 2020,
https://smarthistory.org/art-nouveau/.
All Smarthistory content is available for free
at www.smarthistory.org
CC: BY-NC-SA

Chapter 11 - Art Nouveau | 615

28. Chapter 11 - Antoni
Gaudi (part 1)
A Brief Summary: Antoni Gaudi
REBECCA SEVIGNY

Audio recording of chapter available here:

One or more interactive elements has been excluded

from this version of the text. You can view them online
here: https://openeducationalberta.ca/
19thcenturyart/?p=443#audio-443-1

616 | Chapter 11 - Antoni Gaudi (part

1)
 You know, there are artists
who are well known for one of
their many artworks. Like,
everyone in general knows a
specific piece out of the
multitude creations the artist
worked on during their lifetime.
Take Antoni Gaudi for example,
Antoni Gaudi was a Spanish
architect known for his
distinctive style in architecture
during the late 1800s up to the
1920s in Barcelona, Spain. Some
may have heard of him for his
incomplete building – La
Sagrada Familia – because he
Antoni Gaudi, Casa Batllo, 1904
died before he ever got the
chance to finish. [Okay, that
sounds a bit depressing even without much context about how the
architect passed away. That’s besides the point.] Some may
recognise the building (or buildings) from looking through pictures
on the internet. Some may never heard of the artist at all and have
no clue on what I’m talking about. And that’s okay. It’s important to
learn about the artist’s work and their impact on the art world
because an artist’s work can influence other artists – even their not
well known projects and incomplete ones too.
As mentioned before, Antoni Gaudi was indeed a Spanish
architect born on June 25, 1852, in Reus, Spain; with numerous
projects completed; and not completed during his lifetime. Though,
one of Gaudi’s strongest aspects to stand out was indeed his
consistent elements in the modernesque style consisting of free
flowing movements inspired by nature and his own construction
techniques he used throughout his lifetime.
During his lifetime, Gaudi had developed and changed his own
style a few times, while art throughout Europe was generally more

Chapter 11 - Antoni Gaudi (part 1) | 617

 invested in the Victorian style. Basically he was one of the founders
influencing the Catalan movement in the art world at the time. For
instance, Gaudi’s style at one point was in a “Mudejar” style – a style
consisting of a mix of both Spanish and Arabic artistic elements –
to Neo-Gothic and even testing out Victorian and baroque styles
1
in some of his earlier works. It wasn’t until later on in his life he
created his own modernesque style which can be considered to
defy the traditional convention classification for stylizing. The main
elements that are consistent throughout his work are his use of
freedom, form, colour, texture, and organic unity. Although those
elements are consistent, Gaudi’s style mostly emphasizes more of
the natural movements and forms – and they’re inspired from his
experiences growing up with nature around his birth place in
Catalonia before moving to Barcelona. Construction wise, he
developed a type of structure method he uses is the “equilibrated” –
a structure designed to stand on its own without the use of internal
2
support – when creating both the Casa Batllo and the Casa Mila in
his later life.
One of his completed works
is the construction of two
“apartments” called the Casa
Batllo [constructed in 1904-06]
and Casa Mila [constructed in
1905-10]. Well, the Casa Batllo
was actually owned by a
businessman, Josep Batllo, and
granted Gaudi permission with Antoni Gaudi, Casa Mila Rooftop, 1906
full creative freedom in

1. “Antoni Gaudi,” Encyclopedia Britticanna,

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Antoni-Gaudi
2. “Antoni Gaudi Biography,” A&E Television Networks,
https://www.biography.com/artist/antoni-gaudi
618 | Chapter 11 - Antoni Gaudi (part 1)
 reconstructing the interior of the building. At one point, Batllo
wanted the building to be destroyed but Gaudi convinced him to
3
keep the exterior of the building. Afterwards, the Casa Batllo was
used for renting rooms out and owned by the Batllo family. Over the
years after Batllo’s death, The Casa Batllo was owned by different
businessmen in the 1950s until later owned by the Bernat family in
the 1990s and is restored to its original designs to this day.
On the other hand, The Casa
Mila [also known as “La
Pedrera”] was technically a
residential house owned by a
couple, Pere Mila and Roser
Segimon, and Gaudi was
commissioned to build their
new home. However, during the
Antoni Gaudi, Casa Mila, 1906 construction there were a few
complications such as Gaudi
spending a bit over budget – which caused a bit of financial conflict
between Gaudi and Mila and was taken to court. Gaudi eventually
won the court case and Mila had to pay the fines for the property.
Although Casa Mila was used to rent out rooms after completion,
the public actually ridiculed the structure due to the unusual design
4
and the relationship between Gaudi and Mila. Casa Mila was also
owned by different business companies and was generally used as
another apartment complex. Currently, both the Casa Mila and Casa

3. “The history of Casa Batllo,” Casa Batllo Newsletter,

https://www.casabatllo.es/en/antoni-gaudi/casa-
batllo/history/
4. “La Pedrera - Casa Mila, History,” Fundació Catalunya La
Pedrera, https://www.lapedrera.com/en/la-pedrera/
history
Chapter 11 - Antoni Gaudi (part 1) | 619
 Batllo have become popular historical sights for tourists to visit in
Barcelona.
The most popular historical
sight that Gaudi built was the
Sagrada Familia – which was
the one project he never had
the chance to finish. Gaudi was
working on the building in
around 1883 and continued
construction during the 1920s.
Well, technically he ended up
committed to completing the
church due to the deaths and
Antoni Gaudi, Passion façade of the
passing of family and friends Sagrada Família, 1882-present
throughout the 1910s; so he
5
focused more on his work in the 1920s. He was invested in
completing the project to the point he moved his studio inside the
building, declined any more commissions, plus changing personal
habits like not taking care of his appearance and devoted more of
catholic beliefs. If you think about it, the 1920s was around the time
when work was starting to become a struggle prior to heading into
the great depression and far after the First World War. It’s no
wonder that his dedication, although impressive and determined,
ended up costing his life.
In the last year of his life, Gaudi got hit by a tram when he was
heading to his daily confessional at the Sant Felip Neri Church.
He basically was left unconscious after getting hit for a couple

5. “Gaudi’s Accidental Death: Why the great architect was

mistaken for a beggar,” The Mental Floss,
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/72482/gaudis-
accidental-death-why-great-architect-was-mistaken-
beggar
620 | Chapter 11 - Antoni Gaudi (part 1)
 days until he was taken to the Santa Creu hospital. Gaudi died on
June 10, 1926 from his injuries and later buried at the crypt of the
6
Sagrada Familia a couple days later. What’s even more depressing
was passerbys didn’t recognise the artist after being struck – so
basically people ignored him because of his appearance (Gaudi was
neglecting his appearance, focusing more on his work than social
gatherings, and devoting more of a religious sentiment) and he
7
didn’t have any identification on him. It wasn’t until the Priest of
the Sagrada Familia recognised him at the hospital. After his death,
his legacy would continue on through other architects working on
his work and his tourists visiting to see Gaudi’s monuments.

Antoni Gaudi, Sagrada Familia columns, 1882-present

6. “The traffic accident that killed Gaudi,” Rome Reports,

https://www.barcelonayellow.com/bcn-tourist/
785-how-when-where-did-gaudi-die
7. “Where did Gaudi die?” BarcelonaYellow,
https://www.barcelonayellow.com/bcn-tourist/
785-how-when-where-did-gaudi-die
Chapter 11 - Antoni Gaudi (part 1) | 621
To this day, Gaudi’s work became important pieces of art in the Art
world as one of the few founders for modernism – especially in this
day of age. Antoni Gaudi was indeed a Spanish architect. Yet the
impact he participated during and after his lifetime affected the art
world in more ways than one – even by a little.

Antoni Gaudi, Sagrada Familia Vault of the Nave, 1882-present

Bibliography

Biography.com Editors, “Antoni Gaudi Biography.” The

Biography.com website, A&E Television Networks. Accessed
September 20, 2020. https://www.biography.com/artist/antoni-
gaudi
Bourdi Roberto, “What was Gaudi inspired by? – Everything you
need to know.” Lugaris.com. Lugaris. Published May 8, 2020.
https://www.lugaris.com/en/what-was-gaudi-inspired-by-
everything-you-should-know/
Clericuzio Peter, “Antoni Gaudi Artist Overview and Analysis.”
TheArtStory.org. The Art Story Contributors. Published May 2017.
Accessed September 2020. https://www.theartstory.org/artist/
gaudi-antoni/

622 | Chapter 11 - Antoni Gaudi (part 1)

Collins George R; “Antoni Gaudi.” Encyclopedia Britannica,
Encyclopedia Britannica Inc. Published June 21, 2020.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Antoni-Gaudi
GCR staff. “Work rumes on Sagrada Familia but Covid-19 will slow it
down.” Global construction review. Published September 17, 2020.
https://www.globalconstructionreview.com/news/work-
resumes-sagrada-familia-covid-19-will-slow-it/
“La Pedrera – Casa Mila, History” lapedrera.com, Fundació
Catalunya La Pedrera. Accessed November 7, 2020.
https://www.lapedrera.com/en/la-pedrera/history
Raga Suzanne; “Gaudi’s Accidental Death: Why The Great Architect
Was Mistaken For A Beggar,” mentalfloss.com. Mental Floss.
February 11, 2016. https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/72482/
gaudis-accidental-death-why-great-architect-was-mistaken-
beggar
“The history of Casa Batllo” Casa Batllo Newsletter. Accessed
November 7, 2020. https://www.casabatllo.es/en/antoni-gaudi/
casa-batllo/history/
“The Sagrada Familia – Barcelona, Spain..” Atlas Obscura. 2020 Atlas
Obscura. Accessed November 7, 2020.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/sagrada-familia
“The traffic accident that killed Antoni Gaudi.” romereports.com,
Rome Reports 2017. Accessed September 20, 2020.
https://www.romereports.com/en/2020/06/10/the-traffic-
accident-that-killed-antoni-gaudi/
“Where did Gaudi die?” Barcelonayellow.com. BarcelonaYellow,
updated June 10, 2019. https://www.barcelonayellow.com/bcn-
tourist/785-how-when-where-did-gaudi-die

Chapter 11 - Antoni Gaudi (part 1) by Rebecca Sevigny is licensed under a Creative

Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except
where otherwise noted.

Chapter 11 - Antoni Gaudi (part 1) | 623

29. Chapter 11 - Antoni Gaudi
(part 2)
Sagrada Família

One or more interactive elements has been excluded

from this version of the text. You can view them online
here: https://openeducationalberta.ca/
19thcenturyart/?p=418#oembed-1

Audio recording of the chapter is available here:

One or more interactive elements has been excluded

from this version of the text. You can view them online
here: https://openeducationalberta.ca/
19thcenturyart/?p=418#audio-418-1

Although Antoni Gaudí was influenced by John

Ruskin’s analysis of the Gothic early in his career, he
sought an authentic Catalan style at a time, the late 19th

624 | Chapter 11 - Antoni Gaudi (part

2)
century, when this region (currently mostly in
northern Spain) was experiencing a resurgence of
cultural and political pride. Ruskin, an English critic,
rejected ancient classical forms in favor of the Gothic’s
expressive, even grotesesque qualities. This interest in
the value of medieval architecture resulted in Gaudi
being put in charge of the design of Sagrada Família
(Sacred Family) shortly after construction had begun.

Gaudí was a deeply religious Catholic

whose ecstatic and brilliantly complex fantasies
of organic geometry are given concrete form
throughout the church. Historians have identified
numerous influences especially within the northeast
façade, the only part of the church he directly
supervised. The remainder of the church, including
three of the southwest transept’s four spires, are based
on his design but were completed after Gaudí’s death in
1926. These include African mud architecture, Gothic,
Expressionist, of course a variant of Art Nouveau that
emphasizes marine forms.

Chapter 11 - Antoni Gaudi (part 2) | 625

 Nave ceiling, Antoni Gaudí, Church of the Sagrada Família or
Basílica i Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família, 1882-
(consecrated 2010, but still under construction)

The iconographic and structural programs of the

church are complex but its plan is based on the
traditional basilica cruciform found in nearly all
medieval cathedrals. However, unlike many these
churches, Sagrada Familia is not built on an east-west
axis. Instead, the church follows the diagonal
orientation that defines so much of Barcelona, placing
the church on a southeast-northwest axis.

626 | Chapter 11 - Antoni Gaudi (part 2)

 The Glory Façade
(southeast):

This will eventually be

church’s main façade and
entrance. As with the
transcept entrances, it
holds a triple portal
dedicated to charity,
faith, and hope. The
façade itself is dedicated
View of the Passion Façade, to mankind in relation to
Josep Maria Subirachs the divine order.
(sculptor), Antoni Gaudí, Church
of the Sagrada Família or The Passion Façade
Basílica i Temple Expiatori de la
Sagrada Família, 1882- (southwest):
(consecrated 2010, but still
under construction)

Detail of the Passion Façade,

Dedicated to the Josep Maria Subirachs
Passion of Christ, its four (sculptor), Antoni Gaudí, Church
of the Sagrada Família or
existing bell towers are Basílica i Temple Expiatori de la
between 98 and 112 Sagrada Família, 1882-
(consecrated 2010, but still
meters tall and are under construction)
dedicated to the apostles

Chapter 11 - Antoni Gaudi (part 2) | 627

 James the Lesser, Bartholomew, Thomas and Philip (left
to right). Josep Maria Subirachs is responsible for the
façade sculpture.

The Nativity Façade (northeast):

Depicts the birth of

Christ and is the only
façade to be completed
during Gaudi’s lifetime. its
four existing bell towers
are between 98 and 112
meters tall and are
dedicated to the saints
Barnabas, Jude, Simon
and Matthew (left to
right).

Ten additional
View of the Nativity Façade,
Antoni Gaudí, Church of the belltowers (98-112 meters
Sagrada Família or Basílica i high) are planned though
Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada
Família, 1882- (consecrated these will be
2010, but still under overwhelmed by six
construction)
towers that will be
significantly taller. Four of these towers will be
dedicated to the Evangelists, one to the Virgin Mary, and
the grandest, rising to 170 meters, to Jesus Christ.

628 | Chapter 11 - Antoni Gaudi (part 2)

Detail of the Nativity Façade, Antoni Gaudí, Church of the
Sagrada Família or Basílica i Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada
Família, 1882- (consecrated 2010, but still under construction)

Chapter 11 - Antoni Gaudi (part 2) | 629

 Sagrada Família in 1905

630 | Chapter 11 - Antoni Gaudi (part 2)

Sagrada Família, Facade of the Nativity, in 2002

Adapted from: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker,

“Antoni Gaudí, Sagrada Família,” in Smarthistory, August
9, 2015, accessed November 20,
2020, https://smarthistory.org/gaudi-sagrada-familia/.
All Smarthistory content is available for free
at www.smarthistory.org
CC: BY-NC-SA

Chapter 11 - Antoni Gaudi (part 2) | 631

632 | Chapter 11 - Antoni Gaudi (part 2)
30. Chapter 11 - Aubrey
Beardsley
Art Nouveau
SPENCER BEAUDOIN

Audio recording of chapter available here:

One or more interactive elements has been excluded

from this version of the text. You can view them online
here: https://openeducationalberta.ca/
19thcenturyart/?p=424#audio-424-1

Chapter 11 - Aubrey Beardsley | 633

Aubrey Beardsley, The Climax from the illustrations for Salomé, 1893-4

Art is an expression that allows artists to visualize unique ideas

and produce works that are appreciated for their beauty. Aubrey
Beardsley’s art became eminent in the 19th century when he was

634 | Chapter 11 - Aubrey Beardsley

 inspired by Japanese woodcuts, the grotesque and the erotic which
helped him develop his style. Beardsley was a controversial artist
during the Art Nouveau Era because his artwork displayed erotic
illustrations that were deemed unacceptable to some. Bridget Elliot
claims that the females that were drawn “challenged middle-class
1
feminine ideals of the dependent wife and mother.” Some of
Beardsley’s more perverse art is what led to him becoming a
recognized artist. Beardsley featured naked people along with large
dark areas of contrast which is how his work can be recognized.
The majority of his artwork is done in ink against a white
background that develops a deep contrast. Beardsley’s art
challenged norms in his time by expressing his art in a sexual
manner and suggesting vices, making him a controversial artist.

1. Bridget Elliot, "New and Not So "New Women" on the

London Stage: Aubrey Beardsley's "Yellow Book" Images
of Mrs. Patrick Campbell and Réjane," Victorian Studies,
no.1 (2020): 2.
Chapter 11 - Aubrey Beardsley | 635
 Prior to Beardsley’s fame in
the art community he
participated in art classes to
enhance his natural skills.
Beardsley began to push the
boundaries of his art which is
described as “sharp [and]
2
elegant” in Sasha Dovzhyk’s
‘Review of Aubrey Beardsley at
Tate Britain.’ Dovzhyk describes
Beardsley’s accumulation of
followers from countries such
as Germany and China as “The
3
Beardsley Craze.” I argue that
Beardsley’s following not only
Aubrey Beardsley, The Peacock Skirt,
1893 encouraged him to push his
boundaries, but figure out
where his interests lie. Illustrations such as The Peacock Skirt and
The Stomach Dance are prime examples of Beardsley incorporating
sexuality and Japanese culture into his drawings. The Peacock Skirt
is one of Beardsley’s more famous illustrations and it challenges
sexuality and gender roles because the piece shows a dominant
woman intimidating a Syraian boy. The sexually driven woman is
trying to seduce and eventually devour the man with her great
presence. The woman has subtle Japanese features which is
something Beardsley has been influenced by in his art. This
illustration is Beardsley’s interpretation of Oscar Wilde’s play
Salome. Journalist Nicole Fluhr claims that “Salomé made
[Beardsley] famous and linked his reputation to that of Oscar Wilde,

2. Sasha Dovzhyk, “Review of Aubrey Beardsley at Tate

Britain.” Open Library of Humanities 19, no. 30 (2020): 1.
3. Dovzhyk, “Review of Aubrey Beardsley at Tate Britain” 1.
636 | Chapter 11 - Aubrey Beardsley
 whose arrest two months later cost Beardsley his job as art editor
4
for The Yellow Book.”
Beardsley’s illustration The
Stomach Dance, portrays a
woman dancing which is shown
using a variation of swirls and
curved lines. She has an
ambiguous body that is open to
interpretation. The woman
appears to have Japanese facial
features which is something
Beardsley incorporates into
many of his illustrations. The
woman appears indifferent as
the creature strums its
instrument as if it is luring her
into the water. With regard to Aubrey Beardsley, The Stomach Dance,
Wilde, it is argued that he “was 1893-4
arrested for gross indecency
(that is, homosexuality) in 1895, and imprisoned, following his
5
famous trial, shortly thereafter.” Perhaps Beardsley was making a
statement by continuing to produce art that was deemed sexualized
and queer so that he could support Wilde and his lifestyle by
incorporating these elements into his art.
One’s image in the art community can take years to build and
seconds to shatter. The 19th century was a time where people were
pressured to live traditional lifestyles and stay in between the lines.

4. Nicole Fluhr, “'Queer Reverence': Aubrey Beardsley's

Venus and Tannhäuser.” Cahiers Victoriens et
Édouardiens, no. 90 (2019): 1.
5. Morgan Meis, “The Faith Behind Aubrey Beardsley's
Sexually Charged Art,” The New Yorker, no. 1 (2020): 3.
Chapter 11 - Aubrey Beardsley | 637
 Beardsley was cut from a different cloth, meaning he was an
advocate for alternative lifestyles which he expressed through his
art. Donald S. Olson believes that Beardsley “battled for artistic
6
freedom in a world of stultifying conventions and condemnations.”
That being said, I maintain that although Beardsley was “fighting
7
against the narrowmindedness of a public” while confronting his
own truth. Beardsley’s sexuality remains in question, however, “His
conversion to Roman Catholicism is another indication that he was
8
struggling with issues of faith and redemption.” During this time
9
Beardsley had his “obscene drawings [destroyed]” which suggests
that he was uncomfortable with his beliefs pertaining to sexuality.
In short, I believe that Beardsley had the desire to get rid of his
sexually suggestive illustrations because the way society saw him
had a greater impact on him than living his truth. Olson Claims that
10
the “public that knows nothing about art except how to destroy it,”
which adds to my argument that Beardsley’s artistic legacy needed
to coincide with what the public believed so he could thrive as an
artist.
The artists that we remember are the ones who made an impact
in the art community and colour outside the lines. Juliana F. Duque
proposes that Beardsley’s art “brought a fresh and rebellious
11
intensity.” Beardsley’s art faced many critics, however, he used his

6. Donald S. Olson, “The Fall of Aubrey Beardsley,” The Gay

& Lesbian Review Worldwide, no. 27 (2020): 17.
7. Olson, “The Fall of Aubrey Beardsley” 17.
8. Olson, “The Fall of Aubrey Beardsley” 17.
9. Olson, “The Fall of Aubrey Beardsley” 7.
10. Olson, “The Fall of Aubrey Beardsley” 17.
11. Juliana F. Duque, “Spaces in Time: The Influence of
Aubrey Beardsley on Psychedelic Graphic Design,” Hart,
no. 5 (2019): 15.
638 | Chapter 11 - Aubrey Beardsley
 art to express inequalities. He was concerned about social issues
12
such as “the inequities and hypocrisies of Victorian society.”
Specifically, the illustration “The Climax” features a woman staring
into the eyes of a severed head while asserting dominance over him.
13
This symbolizes the power of “femme fatale.” Lots of Beardsley’s
illustrations demonstrate women freely expressing their gender.
These women are empowered and are typically larger than the men
to show their dominance. Beardsley portrayed men in his artwork
to be struggling for power and lusting for wealth. He shows men
corrupting each other intellectually which led to him facing
criticism. Beardsley defended his art in the statement “People hate
to see their darting vices depicted [but] vice is terrible and it should
14
be depicted.” Beardsley is a highly recognized artist who not only
produces visually pleasing illustrations, he also seeps his art with his
political views.
With regard to Beardsley’s illustrations and place in the art
community it is safe to say that his art challenged norms and
reflected his personal beliefs in relation to gender. The majority of
Beardsley’s artwork suggests vices and reflects dominance which
is why his work is seen as controversial. Beardsley’s illustrations
are bold and show deep contrasts which is how his art can be
identified. I believe his openness towards gender and sexuality can
be appreciated more in the 21st century than the 19th century
because we live in a society that is far more accepting to lifestyles.
He demonstrates his intellectual side by portraying his political

12. Duque, “Spaces in Time: The Influence of Aubrey

Beardsley on Psychedelic Graphic Design” 15.
13. Duque, “Spaces in Time: The Influence of Aubrey
Beardsley on Psychedelic Graphic Design” 15.
14. Erin Smith, “The Art of Aubrey Beardsley: A Fin De Siecle
Critique of Victorian Society,” Victorian Studies 31, no. 1
(2005): 4.
Chapter 11 - Aubrey Beardsley | 639
beliefs in his illustrations which adds a bold flavour to the artwork.
Sexuality is something that is to be celebrated which is exactly what
Beardsley demonstrated in his art.

Aubrey Beardsley, John the Baptist and Salome, 1893-4

640 | Chapter 11 - Aubrey Beardsley

 Bibliography
Dovzhyk, Sasha. “Review of Aubrey Beardsley at Tate Britain.” Open
Library of Humanities 19, no. 30 (2020): 1-7. Accessed October 5,
2020. https://19.bbk.ac.uk/article/id/2942/.
Duque, Juliana F. “Spaces in Time: The Influence of Aubrey
Beardsley on Psychedelic Graphic Design.” Hart, no. 5 (2019):
15–38. Accessed October 5, 2020. doi:10.25025/hart05.2019.02.
Elliott, Bridget. “New and Not So “New Women” on the London
Stage: Aubrey Beardsley’s “Yellow Book” Images of Mrs. Patrick
Campbell and Réjane.” Victorian Studies 31, no. 1 (1987): 33-57.
Accessed October 9, 2020. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3828061.
Flur, Nicole. “Queer Reverence: Aubrey Beardsley’s Venus and
Tannhäuser.” Cahiers Victoriens et Édouardiens, no. 90 (2019): 1-35.
Accessed October 5, 2020. doi:10.4000/cve.6482.
Meis, Morgan. “The Faith Behind Aubrey Beardsley’s Sexually
Charged Art.” The New Yorker, no. 1 (2016): 1-9. Accessed October
5, 2020. https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-
faith-behind-aubrey-beardsleys-sexually-charged-art.
Olson, Donald S. “The Fall of Aubrey Beardsley.” The Gay & Lesbian
Review Worldwide, no. 27 (2020): 1-20. Accessed October 5, 2020.
https://search-ebscohost-com.ezproxy.ardc.talonline.ca/
login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsglr&AN=edsgcl.629605826&site=e
ds-live.
Smith, Erin. “The Art of Aubrey Beardsley: A Fin De Siecle Critique
of Victorian Society.” The Art of Aubrey Beardsley, (2005): 1-114.
http://people.loyno.edu/~history/journal/1992-3/smith-e.htm.

Chapter 11 - Aubrey Beardsley by Spencer Beaudoin is licensed under a Creative

Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

Chapter 11 - Aubrey Beardsley | 641

31. Chapter 11 - Symbolism
Art Nouveau

Audio recording of chapter can be found here:

One or more interactive elements has been

excluded from this version of the text. You
can view them online here:
https://openeducationalberta.ca/
19thcenturyart/?p=403#audio-403-1

642 | Chapter 11 - Symbolism

 In the fall of 1888 Paul
Sérusier spent an
afternoon with Paul
Gauguin in Brittany
painting a small
landscape on a cigar box
lid. He followed Gauguin’s
instructions to emphasize
the colors he saw by
using paint directly from
the tube with little or no
Paul Sérusier, The Talisman, oil mixing. The result was a
on panel, 1888 patchwork design of vivid
colors only vaguely
suggestive of its subject, trees on a riverbank.

Later in Paris Sérusier showed the landscape to fellow

art students at the Académie Julian who saw it as an
artistic revelation. They named the painting “The
Talisman” and formed a group called the Nabis, after the
Hebrew word for prophet. In addition to Sérusier the
group included Pierre Bonnard, Édouard Vuillard,
Maurice Denis, Paul Ranson, and Ker-Xavier Roussel, as
well as others. In the 1890s the Nabis were one of the
most innovative Post-Impressionist groups working in
Paris.

Chapter 11 - Symbolism | 643

 Like Gauguin and many
other artists of the
period, the Nabis were
engaged with the spiritual
and mystical concerns
associated with fin-de-
siècle Symbolism.
Sérusier’s Portrait of Paul
Ranson in Nabi
Costume documents their
early interest in esoterica
and occult ceremonies.
The simplified style Paul Sérusier, Portrait of Paul
Sérusier used derived Ranson in Nabi Costume, oil on
canvas, 1890
from Gauguin’s
Synthetism but was only
one of the styles associated with Symbolism. It forms a
marked contrast to the academic naturalism used by
many fin-de-siècle Symbolist painters such as Jean
Delville, who depicted the Symbolist writer Joséphin
Péladan in robes and accompanied by ceremonial
objects and symbols, much as Sérusier portrayed Paul
Ranson.

644 | Chapter 11 - Symbolism

Jean Delville, Portrait of the Grand Master of the Rosicrucians in
Choir Dress, oil on canvas, 1895

Chapter 11 - Symbolism | 645

 Symbolism began as a literary movement with the
1886 publication of Jean Moréas’ Symbolist manifesto in
the Paris newspaper Le Figaro. It quickly became a kind
of catch-all term for a widespread fin-de-siècle
aesthetic attitude that embraced the spiritual
significance of art while rejecting science and
objectivity. Symbolist artists favored idealism over
realism, suggestion over specificity, and subjective
expression over objective representation. They
employed a variety of styles and approaches, including
both traditional naturalism and modern techniques
associated with Post-Impressionism. Many of the
painters who exhibited at the popular Symbolist Salon
of the Rose + Cross organized by Péladan in the 1890s
favored a highly-detailed naturalism. These included
Delville and Fernand Khnopff, whose dream-like images
became prominent examples of Symbolist art.

Nabi painters used the modern Synthetist style of

Gauguin, which emphasized abstract form, to convey
spiritual meaning as well as a means of suggestion and
personal expression. Maurice Denis was the most
prominent art theorist associated with the Nabis, and
one of his early statements became a famous
touchstone of formalist modernism:

Emphasis on color and surface design is a primary

characteristic of Nabi painting, which conveys emotion
and meaning through abstract formal relations.

646 | Chapter 11 - Symbolism

 “A painting — before
being a battle horse, a
nude woman, or some
anecdote — is
essentially a flat surface
covered with colors
arranged in a certain
order.”1

In Denis’ Climbing to
Calvary the simple dark
shapes of black-robed
nuns rise diagonally
towards a large cross
carried by a barely-
defined red Christ. One
nun reaches out to
embrace Christ at the top
of the hill, and a strip of
bright sky tops off the
Maurice Denis, Climbing to scene. The basic forms
Calvary, oil on canvas, 1889 convey the combination
of mourning and hope
that Christians associate with Christ’s death and
resurrection. The scene is timeless, containing elements

1. Maurice Denis, “Definition of neo-traditionism” (1890), in

Jean-Paul Bouillon, ed., Le Ciel et l’arcadie (Paris:
Hermann, 1993), p. 5
Chapter 11 - Symbolism | 647
 of the present (the nuns) and the past (Mary embracing
Christ on the way to the Crucifixion, the dark silhouette
of a crowd of Roman soldiers over the hill). The figure of
Christ suggests both the nuns’ spiritual vision of Christ
carrying the cross, similar to Gauguin’s Vision after the
Sermon, and a Good Friday procession re-enacting the
Crucifixion.

A comparison of Denis’
painting with Carlos
Schwabe’s Death and the
Gravedigger shows two
very different approaches
to Symbolist painting. In
Denis’ work, the forms
are reduced and
simplified to mostly flat
color areas. Basic
symbols, shapes and their
relationships convey
meaning: the Christian Carlos Schwabe, Death and the
cross, black for mourning, Gravedigger, watercolor and
gouache on paper, c. 1895
red for the blood of
sacrifice, the upward
movement towards light and resurrection.

Schwabe uses similar compositional devices to convey

the theme of death and resurrection; both paintings
show darkness and symbolic death at the bottom of the
painting, light and resurrection rise above. Unlike Denis,
however, Schwabe employs a traditional naturalistic
technique that records many details based on careful
observation. The figures and location are so specific

648 | Chapter 11 - Symbolism

that they suggest the illustration of a particular scene in
a story. Denis by contrast depicts a more generalized,
anonymous image of death and Christian resurrection.

Symbolism is perhaps easiest to recognize in artworks

that present known symbols, such as the Christian
cross, or overtly symbolic meanings through
recognizable themes such as youth, old age, love, death,
etc. In addition to Denis’ Climbing to Calvary, many
well-known Post-Impressionist works use conventional
symbolism in this way, including Gauguin’s Vision after
the Sermon. Symbolism was also, however, associated
with both a conception of art as subjective expression
and the capacity of art to suggest profound meanings
indirectly. As a result, many artworks that lack obvious
symbols or clear symbolic significance are also
associated with Symbolism.

Although some Symbolist works depict ordinary

leisure activity (a typical subject of Impressionist
painting), the mood is usually melancholy and dream-
like, in keeping with Symbolist attitudes. And regardless
of the style of painting and technique, a mysterious
dream-like quality is typical of much Symbolist painting
(regardless of its style).

Chapter 11 - Symbolism | 649

 Fernand Khnopff, Memories (Lawn Tennis), pastel on paper
mounted on canvas, 1889

A Symbolist work in a more traditional naturalistic

style is Fernand Khnopff’s Memories, in which several
women holding racquets stand on a lawn seemingly lost
in thought. Khnopff has turned an ordinary modern
subject into an image that suggests greater depth and
significance without specifying any particular meaning.

The subjects of Nabi paintings varied from the overt,

often religious, symbolism of Maurice Denis to scenes of
contemporary urban and suburban life depicted by
Pierre Bonnard and Édouard Vuillard. Whatever their
subject, though, the Nabis relied on the formal qualities
of color, pattern, and surface design to enhance the
dreamy moods and profound meanings of Symbolist art.
Their emphasis on the capacity of formal elements to

650 | Chapter 11 - Symbolism

convey meaning and emotion was an early contribution
to the developments that led to abstract art.

Carlos Schwabe, Death Day, c 1890

Excerpted and Adapted from: Dr. Charles Cramer and

Dr. Kim Grant, “The Nabis and Symbolism,”
in Smarthistory, June 14, 2020, accessed November 20,

Chapter 11 - Symbolism | 651

 2020, https://smarthistory.org/nabis-symbolism/.
All Smarthistory content is available for free
at www.smarthistory.org
CC: BY-NC-SA

652 | Chapter 11 - Symbolism

 32. Chapter 11 - Gustave
Moreau
The Mystic Moreau
ERIC WALTERS

Audio recording of this chapter is available here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lqvWpzUoeq-1os–RXR-
rpuDuys0n09C/view?usp=sharing

Gustave Moreau was born in Paris, France on April 4, 1826, to

1
parents extremely passionate about the arts . In 1841, before going
on a trip with his mother to Italy, his architect Father Louis, gave
Moreau a sketchbook and ordered him to fill it by the time he
2
came home . When Moreau returned, he exhibited a newfound
3
passion for drawing. Around 1844, after devoting all his free time

1. Mathieu, Pierre-Louis. “Gustave Moreau with a

Catalogue of the Finished Paintings, Watercolors and
Drawings.” Boston, MA: New York Graphic Society, 1976:
24-29.
2. Selz, Jean. “Gustave Moreau.” New York, NY: Crown
Publishers, 1979: 8-22.
3. Mathieu, Pierre-Louis. “Gustave Moreau with a
Catalogue of the Finished Paintings, Watercolors and
Drawings.” Boston, MA: New York Graphic Society, 1976:
24-29
Chapter 11 - Gustave Moreau | 653
 to practicing, Moreau was accepted into École des Beaux-Arts to be
4
taught by painter François-Édouard Picot. It was not until Moreau
left the school and Picot’s teaching that he could be free to
submerse himself in such things as spirituality, myth, literature,
color, and decor, which we know him for today.
As a young artist, Moreau began to seek inspiration for his art. In
1846, an interest in the poetic nature of history and myth started
to take form. His first artwork to have been inspired by this was
5
the pencil drawing Sappho on the Edge of the Cliff. Soon after,
Moreau came to greatly admire two artists by the names of Eugène
Delacroix and Théodore Chassériau. Eventually, Moreau became
close friends with Chassériau. Painting with Chassériau inspired
Moreau to work with rich color, examine literature for inspiration,
and paint the same subject multiple times as Chassériau did with
6
Hamlet. The two’s friendship left a lasting impact on Moreau’s
7
style.
Chassériau died suddenly in 1856, causing Moreau to lock himself
8
in his study and focus on his work. His depression and
dissatisfaction with the work he was producing inspired him to

4. Mathieu, Pierre-Louis. “Gustave Moreau with a

Catalogue of the Finished Paintings, Watercolors and
Drawings.” Boston, MA: New York Graphic Society, 1976:
24-29
5. Selz, Jean. “Gustave Moreau.” New York, NY: Crown
Publishers, 1979: 8-22.
6. Selz, Jean. “Gustave Moreau.” New York, NY: Crown
Publishers, 1979: 8-22.
7. Selz, Jean. “Gustave Moreau.” New York, NY: Crown
Publishers, 1979: 8-22.
8. Schiff, Bennett. “The Many Faces of Gustave Moreau.”
Smithsonian, 1999. 100.
654 | Chapter 11 - Gustave Moreau
 9
take a trip to Italy. Here he studied the Renaissance, as well as
10
Greek and Roman architecture and artifacts. Moreau began to
take even more of an interest in decor when he became fascinated
by the Byzantine enamels, early mosaics, and Persian and Indian
11
miniatures that he was exposed to. While trying to understand the
essence of some of the Italian master painters’ styles, he replicated
works by artists such as Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and
12
Raphael . During his stay in the Italian countryside, Moreau painted
several watercolor landscapes, realizing it was a medium he adored
13
and was good at. This influenced him to create many watercolor
14
masterpieces .
Moreau always considered himself a history painter, although he
did not accept all the conventions by which it had been categorized
by the artistic establishment. He was not out to make an academic
history painting, but rather one he considered to be epic. History
painting at the time used an academic system of facial expressions
taken from Charles le Brun’s 1732 collection Expressions des Passions
de I’ame, a system Moreau despised as he saw the theatrics of the

9. Schiff, Bennett. “The Many Faces of Gustave Moreau.”

Smithsonian, 1999. 100.
10. Schiff, Bennett. “The Many Faces of Gustave Moreau.”
Smithsonian, 1999. 100.
11. Schiff, Bennett. “The Many Faces of Gustave Moreau.”
Smithsonian, 1999. 100.
12. Schiff, Bennett. “The Many Faces of Gustave Moreau.”
Smithsonian, 1999. 100.
13. Selz, Jean. “Gustave Moreau.” New York, NY: Crown
Publishers, 1979: 27.
14. Selz, Jean. “Gustave Moreau.” New York, NY: Crown
Publishers, 1979: 27.
Chapter 11 - Gustave Moreau | 655
 15
history painting as idiotic, childish and not for the pictorial form.
This did not change the academics from viewing him as a history
16
painter though . A great example of his history painting is 1869’s,
The Martyred Saint Sebastian.

15. Cooke, Peter. “Gustave Moreau and the Reinvention of

History Painting.” Art Bulletin, 2008. 394. doi:10.1080/
00043079.2008.10786400.
16. Cooke, Peter. “Gustave Moreau and the Reinvention of
History Painting.” Art Bulletin, 2008. 394. doi:10.1080/
00043079.2008.10786400.
656 | Chapter 11 - Gustave Moreau
Gustave Moreau, The Martyred Saint Sebastian, oil on canvas, 1869

The art Moreau created was fueled in part by his quest for spiritual
enlightenment. In his search, he researched the history of many
cultures and belief systems. His focus was on Greece, India, the
Orient, Judaism, Christianity, the occult, and Neo-Platonic

Chapter 11 - Gustave Moreau | 657

 17 18
traditions. This research led Moreau to embrace Gnosticism .
Moreau may not have been following all of what the academics
thought was proper in art, but one thing they could agree on was
mythology and the bible being one of the most favorable themes.
The intense passion he had for these themes, and the attachment
to his view of history painting, led him to use archaeological
documents as a reference to add to the depth of the paintings that
19
were beginning to be hung in the Salons .
Moreau loved using ornaments and other decorations in his art,
having been inspired by his trip to Italy. When talking about the
Italian masters he loved, Moreau stated they “feel that in framing
the subject with a profusion of decorative formulas, they ennoble
20
the subject. ” Moreau saw this as a great form of symbolism as he

17. Ellem, Lucy M. Grace. “Gustave Moreau and Gnosticism.”

Essay. In Religion, Literature and the Arts Project:
Conference Proceedings of the Australian International
Conference, 1995: 155.
https://openjournals.library.sydney.edu.au/index.php/
SSR/article/view/11671/10994
18. Ellem, Lucy M. Grace. “Gustave Moreau and Gnosticism.”
Essay. In Religion, Literature and the Arts Project:
Conference Proceedings of the Australian International
Conference, 1995: 155.
https://openjournals.library.sydney.edu.au/index.php/
SSR/article/view/11671/10994
19. Selz, Jean. “Gustave Moreau.” New York, NY: Crown
Publishers, 1979: 26-51.
20. Gordon, Rae Beth. “Aboli Bibelot? The Influence of the
Decorative Arts on Stéphane Mallarmé and Gustave
Moreau.” Art Journal, 1985. 105. doi:10.2307/776787.
658 | Chapter 11 - Gustave Moreau
 often painted people of importance. For example, Salome’s nobility
is shown through the jewels on her outfit. On Salome Moreau said,
“I should like to render the idea of a sibyl and religious enchantress
with a pronounced character. I, therefore, conceived of the costume
21
as a reliquary.”
Wanting to dive into the themes of dreaming, obsession, magic,
exoticism, and extravagance, Moreau took to the character
archetype of the femme fatale. Once again embracing his love for
history, literature and myth, Moreau painted many women including
22
Salome, Helen of Troy, and Lady Macbeth . With lots of his
depictions of women being evil, Moreau was often criticized for
being a misogynist. It is worth noting that many romantic artists at
this time, including poet Charles Baudelaire, often used women as a
23
symbol of nature’s force . It is only natural for an attraction that we
cannot control to feel powerful and dangerous. Moreau himself had
an interesting love life. He has been linked to Adelaide-Alexandrine
Dureux, who he painted several times over decades, but there is
much ambiguity if the two were actually a couple or not as he did

21. Gordon, Rae Beth. “Aboli Bibelot? The Influence of the

Decorative Arts on Stéphane Mallarmé and Gustave
Moreau.” Art Journal, 1985. 105. doi:10.2307/776787.
22. “Gustave Moreau and the Eternal Feminine.” NGV.
National Gallery of Victoria, September 3,2010.
https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/media_release/gustave-
moreau-and-the-eternal-feminine/.
23. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Odilon Redon,
Gustave Moreau, Rodolphe Bresdin.Garden City, NY:
Doubleday & Co, 1961: 112-114.https://www.moma.org/
documents/moma_catalogue_3419_300062233.pdf
Chapter 11 - Gustave Moreau | 659
 24
not live with her. One could speculate that this relationship also
reinforced the inspiration for the themes around the women he
depicted.
The Apparition (1876) captures many of Moreau’s themes
perfectly. Salome is a historical biblical figure who plays the role
of a femme fatal, she is covered in jewels as mentioned before,
and the head of John the Baptist is ennobled by Moreau’s use of
decoration behind his floating head. Moreau was also the first to
depict this scene with John’s head floating, providing the viewer
25
with a symbolic experience. Ary Renan has said he believes
Moreau was inspired by Heinrich Heine’s poem Atta Troll, as Moreau
26
had a copy . This was not the only time Salome made an
appearance in Moreau’s art as she became a recurring character
throughout his career.

24. Selz, Jean. “Gustave Moreau.” New York, NY: Crown

Publishers, 1979: 26-51.
25. Mathieu, Pierre-Louis. “Gustave Moreau with a
Catalogue of the Finished Paintings, Watercolors and
Drawings.” Boston, MA: New York Graphic Society, 1976:
124-126.
26. Mathieu, Pierre-Louis. “Gustave Moreau with a
Catalogue of the Finished Paintings,Watercolors and
Drawings.” Boston, MA: New York Graphic Society, 1976:
124-126.
660 | Chapter 11 - Gustave Moreau
Gustave Moreau, The Apparition, watercolor on paper, 1876

In 1891, things came full circle for Moreau when Jules-Élie Delaunay

Chapter 11 - Gustave Moreau | 661

 on his deathbed asked Moreau to take over for him at École des
27
Beaux-Arts . Here he taught young artists such as Léon
Bonhomme, Edgar Maxence, and René Piot. It has been said that
28
Moreau had a deep passion for fostering artist’s personal styles.
His students loved him so much that years after his death, they put
on two exhibitions in his memory, one in 1910, and the other in
29
1926. When Moreau died in 1898, his students felt lost with all the
new teachers who came and went attempting to fill his position. Not
having the same coaching Moreau provided, lots of his students left
30
the school.
Moreau’s creations have left a lasting impact on the art world. In
the last two decades of the nineteenth century, the poetic nature
of Moreau’s art would become an inspiration to the artists who
began to call themselves symbolists. Just as Moreau was inspired by

27. Mathieu, Pierre-Louis. “Gustave Moreau with a

Catalogue of the Finished Paintings,Watercolors and
Drawings.” Boston, MA: New York Graphic Society, 1976:
211-256.
28. Mathieu, Pierre-Louis. “Gustave Moreau with a
Catalogue of the Finished Paintings, Watercolors and
Drawings.” Boston, MA: New York Graphic Society, 1976:
211-256.
29. Mathieu, Pierre-Louis. “Gustave Moreau with a
Catalogue of the Finished Paintings, Watercolors and
Drawings.” Boston, MA: New York Graphic Society, 1976:
211-256.
30. Mathieu, Pierre-Louis. “Gustave Moreau with a
Catalogue of the Finished Paintings, Watercolors and
Drawings.” Boston, MA: New York Graphic Society, 1976:
211-256.
662 | Chapter 11 - Gustave Moreau
literature, writers and poets alike would in return become inspired
by his works. Oscar Wilde wrote his play Salome (1893) with
Moreau’s art as his muse. Claude Debussy even told Victor Segalen
to look to Moreau’s art to fuel his creativity when he had proposed
writing his opera Orphée-Roi (Mathieu 1976, 255-256). For an artist
of any sort who wants to create anything mystic, poetic, decorative
or historic, Moreau is one of the most interesting artists to seek out
for inspiration.

Bibliography

Cooke, Peter. “Gustave Moreau and the Reinvention of History

Painting.” Art Bulletin, 394. doi:10.1080/00043079.2008.10786400.
Ellem, Lucy M. Grace. “Gustave Moreau and Gnosticism.” Essay. In
Religion, Literature and the Arts Project: Conference Proceedings
of the Australian International Conference, 1995: 155.
https://openjournals.library.sydney.edu.au/index.php/SSR/
article/view/11671/10994
Gordon, Rae Beth. “Aboli Bibelot? The Influence of the Decorative
Arts on Stéphane Mallarmé and Gustave Moreau.” Art Journal,
1985. 105. doi:10.2307/776787.
“Gustave Moreau and the Eternal Feminine.” NGV. National Gallery
of Victoria, September 3, https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/
media_release/gustave-moreau-and-the-eternal-feminine/.
Mathieu, Pierre-Louis. “Gustave Moreau with a Catalogue of the
Finished Paintings, Watercolors and Drawings.” Boston, MA: New
York Graphic Society, 1976: 24-255.
Selz, Jean. “Gustave Moreau.” New York, NY: Crown Publishers, 1979:
8-51.
Schiff, Bennett. “The Many Faces of Gustave Moreau.” Smithsonian,
1999. 100. https://search-ebscohost-
com.ezproxy.ardc.talonline.ca/
login.aspx?direct=true&db=f5h&AN=2065771&site=eds-live
The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Odilon Redon, Gustave
Moreau, Rodolphe Bresdin. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co, 1961:

Chapter 11 - Gustave Moreau | 663

 112-114. https://www.moma.org/documents/
moma_catalogue_3419_300062233.pdf

Chapter 11 - Gustave Moreau by Eric Walters is licensed under a Creative Commons

Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where
otherwise noted.

664 | Chapter 11 - Gustave Moreau

33. Chapter 11 - Pierre Puvis
de Chavannes
Symbolism & The Academy
HANNAH MYLES

Audio recording of chapter is available here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/
10cCr4rHwgguAiSeyPtBlzuGoSPURpR-e/view?usp=sharing

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes is “held in great regard as one of the

greatest muralists in his home country – and arguably in Europe.”[1]
This quote really outlines the large amount of influence Puvis de
Chavannes had on artwork. He pushed boundaries, while serving as
a source of inspiration for other artists. Pierre Puvis de Chavannes’
artwork caused an uproar in the Paris Salon. However, he stood
up for himself and others and would not conform to the Salons
traditional norms, which proved to make Pierre Puvis de Chavannes
an influential figure for other artists and styles.

Chapter 11 - Pierre Puvis de

Chavannes | 665
Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, The Beheading of St. John the Baptist, 1869, oil on
canvas

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes was most well-known for his decorative

mural work; however, he did other types of paintings as well. He did
admire Eugene Delacroix, however, he strongly disliked romantic
anarchy with “it’s disordered passions, and despised academic
conventions, the timid taste and feeble ideas of the so-styled
classical.”[2] Mécistas Goldberg, an anarchist critic from the 1900s,
believed that Puvis de Chavannes’ “ability to express an ideal
community is linked not to what he paints but how he paints.”[3]
Puvis de Chavannes’ style is characterized by a muted color palate
along with abstract linework and the unique compositional
arrangements of his paintings.[4] One of his earlier works is The
Beheading of St. John the Baptist in 1869, this oil painting is a complex
symbolic piece. Puvis de Chavannes applies muted colors
throughout the piece except for around the crown of St. John’s head,
which is surrounded by a narrow ray of light. Puvis de Chavannes’

666 | Chapter 11 - Pierre Puvis de Chavannes

subject matter varies, but often contained “religious themes,
allegories, mythologies, and historical events.”[5] The Beheading of
St. John the Baptist is a religious theme and a historical event.

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Summer, 1891, oil on canvas, Esquisse pour l’Hôtel
de Ville de Paris

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes decorative mural Summer was one of

his most recognized pieces and it represented a pivot in his career.
There are two Summer paintings, one in the Cleveland Museum
and the other in The Hotel-de-Ville of Paris. Summer in the Hôtel-
de-Ville (city hall) of Paris depicts women participating in many
different activities in a beautiful park, like a woman bathing a child,
a couple in a boat, a woman nursing a baby.[6] I think the overall
feeling of this section is peace and tranquility, women are in nature
relaxing and performing motherly tasks. Puvis de Chavannes also
shows the beauty in the natural body too. Although, Puvis de
Chavannes painted a second version of Summer (in The Cleveland
Museum) it is quite different from the first. Puvis de Chavannes
changes the composition multiple times, there is no longer the void
created by the doorway as in the original, he also “simplified the

Chapter 11 - Pierre Puvis de Chavannes | 667

background, eliminated the three figures on the far river bank, and
enclosed the three women … in an embracing cluster of trees.”[7]
The results of the composition change push figures “closer to the
viewer… as if we are now witnessing some private, dream-like
vision.”[8] I think the biggest change from the first to the second
Summer is the more personable feeling. Summer in the Hôtel-de-
Ville emanates the feeling of tranquility to the viewers, while
Summer in the Cleveland Museum actually makes you feel apart of
not only the painting scene but Puvis de Chavannes vision for the
piece; like you have been there the whole time he was making it.
The Summer murals seem to take one back to an older time, almost
more primitive. The contrasting versions also suggest that Puvis
de Chavannes was aware of the links he made between “maternal
imagery and national sentiment,”[9] as France was at the “height of
pronatalist campaign meant to address fears about France’s falling
population.”[10] This is a constant theme throughout Puvis de
Chavannes murals Summer, he has woman nursing babies, while in
the French countryside. These two murals also show his ability to
reimagine, be creative, and adapt similar pieces, while evoking a
wide variety of feelings. Pierre Puvis de Chavannes creativity and
imagination are unquestionably strong.

668 | Chapter 11 - Pierre Puvis de Chavannes

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Summer, 1891, oil on canvas, Cleveland Museum
of Art

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes

was a prominent influence
among many different artist
styles including Modernism,
Symbolist avant-garde, and
Post-Impressionists. Some of
the modernist artists he has
influenced include Georges
Seurat, Paul Gauguin (also
Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Hope, oil
considered a symbolist), and on canvas, 1872
Pablo Picasso who valued Puvis
de Chavannes’ “dreamlike themes and anti-naturalistic style of
simplified, flattened forms.”[11] The Symbolists also claim Puvis de
Chavannes as part of their movement because of the shared goal of
“conveying feelings and ideas through direct plastic meanings.”[12]
This can be seen in Puvis de Chavannes color and linework. Take for
example Hope, he used abstract linework and the muted colors

Chapter 11 - Pierre Puvis de Chavannes | 669

compared to the bright white of the females dress to convey
meaning[13]. Pierre Puvis de Chavannes was also influenced of the
avant-garde; he veered away from traditional painting styles of the
Salon, like Neo-Classicism, and pushed boundaries into new
modern techniques like his muted color palates and wide variety
of themes. In other words, Puvis de Chavannes is characteristized
by an interest in the “irrational and the ambiguous, by a distrust of
realism and enthusiasm for dreams and visions.”[14]
Pierre Puvis de Chavannes
stood up for movements and
artists he believed in and was
not going to let outside
opinions effect his judgement
on artwork. Puvis de Chavannes
was familiar to the struggle of
being an artist in France and
the struggle getting work
Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, The Poor
Fisherman, 1881, oil on canvas noticed by the Salon; Puvis de
Chavannes work did not get
accepted into the Paris Salon until 1859.[15] The Salon could make
or break an artist career, however, it has a massive impact on art as
a whole because “it allowed an elite organization to dictate the
definition of art.”[16] This is crucial because the Paris Salon should
have allowed artists to dictate art not elite and powerful
organizations that possibly do not know anything about art. Puvis
de Chavannes was a member on the Salon jury, however, he did not
let the elite organizations have power over him when it came to
artwork he believed in. In 1872 Puvis de Chavannes resigned from
the Salon jury “to protest its rejection of entries of Gustave Courbet,
a leader in the assault on academic painting conventions.”[17] Puvis
de Chavannes related to rejected artists from the Salon because he
was one of them; as many of his paintings can be viewed as “radical.”
Take for example his oil painting The Poor Fisherman, it was viewed
as quite radical and received negative feedback from the 1881 Salon
exhibit, but later in 1887 was bought by the French government.[18]

670 | Chapter 11 - Pierre Puvis de Chavannes

A possible reason for the dislike of The Poor Fisherman in 1881 is the
dullness, however, with more in-depth examination one can see the
melancholy the piece radiates.
Puvis de Chavannes had a complex relationship with the Paris
Salon. The Salon valued more traditional styles like Neo-Classicism
and did not like anything seen as different. Therefore, styles like
growing Impressionism and the artists of the avant-garde were
often rejected. Pierre Puvis de Chavannes supported the artwork
rejected by the Salon many times. In 1873 Puvis de Chavannes began
“exhibiting at the galleries of Paul Durand-Ruel … [and he] joined
the campaign demanding that the state accept the gift of Manet’s
Olympia.”[19] Manet’s artwork was controversial much like Puvis de
Chavannes’, Olympia was not liked by the Salon for many of the
same reasons Puvis de Chavannes artwork was disliked because of
its muted color and flatness. Puvis de Chavannes was not going to
let an elite organization dictate the art world.
Pierre Puvis de Chavannes impact on art has been immense, his
legacy represents a shift “away from representation and toward
the language of formal abstraction.”[20] He has been an influential
figure in many artist styles and artists. Puvis de Chavannes did not
bow to elite organizations and stood up for what he believed in.
Puvis de Chavannes’ imagination was huge, his artwork escaped
reality, his artwork often leaves the viewers questioning the true
meaning. Pierre Puvis de Chavannes pushed art towards the
imaginary, leaving naturalism behind.

Bibliography
Kiama Art Gallery. “Pierre Puvis de Chavannes – Symbolism and
Hope.” Last modified May 25, 2016. Pierre Puvis de Chavannes –
Symbolism and Hope – Kiama Art Gallery (wordpress.com) .
Boston Preservation Alliance. “Philosophy Mural, Boston Public
Library.” Accessed on October 21, 2021, Philosophy Mural, Boston
Public Library | Boston Preservation Alliance.

Chapter 11 - Pierre Puvis de Chavannes | 671

Daily Dose of Art. “’The Poor Fisherman” by Pierre Puvis de
Chavannes.” Accessed on October 21, 2021. “The Poor Fisherman”
by Pierre Puvis de Chavannes | Daily Dose of Art (myddoa.com).
My Modern Met. “The History of the Prestigious Paris Salon (And
the Radical Artists Who Subverted it).” Last modified April 4,
2020. The History of the Paris Salon (And the Radical Artists Who
Subverted It) (mymodernmet.com).
Neo-Impressionism. “Pierre Puvis de Chavannes.” Accessed on
September 16, 2021. Puvis de Chavannes – Neo-Impressionism
(neoimpressionism.net).
The Art Story. “Pierre Puvis de Chavannes – Biography and Legacy.”
Accessed on September 26, 2021. Puvis de Chavannes Biography,
Life & Quotes | TheArtStory.
The Cleveland Museum of Art. “Summer.” Accessed on October 19
2021. Summer | Cleveland Museum of Art (clevelandart.org).
The National Gallery. “Pierre-Cécile Puvis de Chavannes.” Accessed
on September 24, 2021. Pierre-Cécile Puvis de Chavannes (1824 –
1898) | National Gallery, London.
Robinson, William H. “Puvis de Chavannes’s “Summer” and the
Symbolist Avant-Garde.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of
Art 78, no. 1 (1991): 2-27. https://www.jstor.org/stable/25161310.
Shaw, Jennifer L. “Frenchness, Memory, and Abstraction: The Case
of Pierre Puvis de Chavannes.” Studies in the History of Art 68, no.
45 (2005): 152-171. https://www.jstor.org/stable/42622396.
Shaw, Jennifer L. “Imagining the Motherland: Puvis de Chavannes,
Modernism, and the Fantasy of France.” The Art Bulletin 79, no. 4
(1997): 586-610. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3046277.

[1] Boston Preservation Alliance, “Philosophy Mural, Boston Public

Library,” accessed on October 21, 2021, Philosophy Mural, Boston
Public Library | Boston Preservation Alliance.

672 | Chapter 11 - Pierre Puvis de Chavannes

[2] New Advent, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, CATHOLIC
ENCYCLOPEDIA: Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (newadvent.org) .

[3] Jennifer L. Shaw, “Frenchness, Memory, and Abstraction: The

Case of Pierre Puvis de Chavannes,” Studies in the History of Art 68,
no. 45 (2005): 167, https://www.jstor.org/stable/42622396.

[4] William H. Robinson, “Puvis de Chavannes’s “Summer” and the

Symbolist Avant-Garde,” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art
78, no. 2 (January 1991): 15, https://www.jstor.org/stable/25161310.

[5] Kiama Art Gallery, “Pierre Puvis de Chavannes – Symbolism and

Hope,” lasted modified May 25, 2016, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes –
Symbolism and Hope – Kiama Art Gallery (wordpress.com).

[6] Robinson, “Puvis de Chavannes’s “Summer” and the Symbolist

Avant-Garde,” 6.

[7] Robinson, “Puvis de Chavannes’s “Summer” and the Symbolist

Avant-Garde,” 8.

[8] Robinson, “Puvis de Chavannes’s “Summer” and the Symbolist

Avant-Garde,” 8.

[9] Jennifer L. Shaw, “Imagining the Motherland: Puvis de

Chavannes, Modernism, and the Fantasy of France,” The Art Bulletin
78, no. 4 (December 1997): 60, https://www.jstor.org/stable/
3046277.

[10] Shaw, “Imagining the Motherland: Puvis de Chavannes,

Modernism, and the Fantasy of France,” 601.

[11] The Cleveland Musuem of Art, “Summer,” accessed on October

19, 2021, Summer | Cleveland Museum of Art (clevelandart.org).

[12] Robinson, “Puvis de Chavannes’s “Summer” and the Symbolist

Avant-Garde,” 15.

Chapter 11 - Pierre Puvis de Chavannes | 673

[13] [13] Kiama Art Gallery, “Pierre Puvis de Chavannes – Symbolism
and Hope,” accessed on November 11, 2021.

[14] Neo-Impressionism, “Pierre Puvis de Chavannes,” accessed on

October 20, 2021, Puvis de Chavannes – Neo-Impressionism
(neoimpressionism.net).

[15] The National Gallery, “Pierre-Cécile Puvis de Chavannes,”

accessed on September 24, 2021, Pierre-Cécile Puvis de Chavannes
(1824 – 1898) | National Gallery, London.

[16] My Modern Met, “The History of the Prestigious Paris Salon

(And the Radical Artists Who Subverted It)” lasted modified April 4,
2020, The History of the Paris Salon (And the Radical Artists Who
Subverted It) (mymodernmet.com).

[17] Robinson, “Puvis de Chavannes’s “Summer” and the Symbolist

Avant-Garde,” 4.

[18] Daily Dose of Art, “’The Poor Fisherman” by Pierre Puvis de

Chavannes,” accessed on October 21, 2021, “The Poor Fisherman” by
Pierre Puvis de Chavannes | Daily Dose of Art (myddoa.com).

[19] Robinson, “Puvis de Chavannes’s “Summer” and the Symbolist

Avant-Garde,” 4.

[20] The Art Story, “Pierre Puvis de Chavannes – Biography and

Legacy,” accessed on September 26, 2021, Puvis de Chavannes
Biography, Life & Quotes | TheArtStory.

Chapter 11 - Pierre Puvis de Chavannes by Hannah Myles is licensed under a Creative

Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

674 | Chapter 11 - Pierre Puvis de Chavannes

34. Chapter 11 - Arts & Crafts
Movement
Art Nouveau
SHAYLA BEAUCHAMP

Audio recording of chapter available here:

One or more interactive elements has been excluded

from this version of the text. You can view them online
here: https://openeducationalberta.ca/
19thcenturyart/?p=393#audio-393-1

Chapter 11 - Arts & Crafts

Movement | 675
William Morris (Morris & Co.), Strawberry Thief textile detail, 1883

The Arts and Crafts movement was a defining period in the late
19th century and early 20th, its influence granted the modern world
the opportunity to finetune traditional morals to suit a new, more
developed society. With these reinvented morals came new
perspectives and opinions. The movement allowed artists that
typically would not have had a voice to be recognized. The influx
of diverse artists during the Arts and Crafts Movement allowed
for the art to be influenced by many different perspectives, thus
promoting unique and rare styles that otherwise would not have
been spotlighted.

676 | Chapter 11 - Arts & Crafts Movement

 The Arts and Crafts
movement created drastic
change and spread its roots all
over the world, beginning in the
United Kingdom around 1860 it
grew to spread its influence to
the rest of Europe, American
1
and eventually Japan by 1920.
“Anxieties about industrial life
fueled a positive revaluation of
hand craftsmanship and
precapitalist forms of culture
2
and society” This movement
entailed many factors that
catalyzed its success but the
main aspect was the fear that
the world had become too
industrialized. “The division of
labour had led to a moral and
A Wooden Pattern for Textile Printing
artistic collapse that could only from William Morris’s Company
be reversed by returning (Morris & Co.)

control over working practices

3
to the craftsman. ” Motivated by concerns that machinery was

1. Suichi Nakayama, “The Impact of William Morris in

Japan, 1904 to the present” 1996, http://www.jstor.org/
stable/1316044.
2. Monika Obniski, “The Arts and Crafts Movement in
America” 2008, https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/
hd/acam/hd_acam.htm.
3. Mary Greenstead, “The Arts and Crafts Movement:
exchanges between Greece and Britain (1876-1930)”
Chapter 11 - Arts & Crafts Movement | 677
 absorbing society of its true craftsmen and unique art the people
began a revolution of home made, quality crafted and practical
goods in order to “suppress the proliferation of cheap, mass-
4
produced objects. ”The movement included architecture, painting,
sculpture, furniture, ect. Social reformists began the movement
with a goal of “preserving handcraft and the authenticity of the
5
artist. ”

This movement was not

“I do not want art for a few, developed for the rich or poor,
any more than I want it was created for the masses
education for a few, or and curated in such a way that
freedom for a few.” it aimed to improve the lives of
– William Morris. everyone involved. “The
craftsman was given the
freedom to select consciously or unconsciously whatever design
motives forms and techniques he or she deemed appropriate – the
result was a wide range of products that expressed the individual
6
personality of the designer. ”

Accessed October 23, 2020. https://etheses.bham.ac.uk/

id/eprint/1110/1/Greensted10MPhil_A1a.pdf.
4. Catherine W. Zipf, Professional Pursuits: Women and the
American Arts and Crafts Movement (The University of
Tennessee Press. 2007), 125
5. Peter Clericuzio, “Arts and Crafts Movement” 2017,
https://www.theartstory.org/movement/arts-and-
crafts/history-and-concepts/.
6. Catherine W. Zipf, Professional Pursuits: Women and the
American Arts and Crafts Movement, 5.
678 | Chapter 11 - Arts & Crafts Movement
 With no definitive style this
form of art was more accepting
than others. It did not require
prior skills, education or
knowledge. Artists were not
bound to rules or styles but
instead encouraged to create
their own unique, handcrafted
art in support of the movement
and its beliefs. “The Movement
had no manifesto, and is
notoriously difficult to define William Morris, Design for “Trellis”
7 wallpaper, 1862
as a style. ” With this open-
mindedness the movement
invited artists from all ways of life and encouraged them to develop
the Arts and Crafts into their own style. Contrasting art periods
prior to its time the Arts and Crafts sought out less known and less
established artists in order to incorporate a multitude of pieces that
were authentic and created with integrity, two very important
factors to this idea.

7. Mary Greenstead, “The Arts and Crafts Movement:

exchanges between Greece and Britain (1876-1930)” 7.
Chapter 11 - Arts & Crafts Movement | 679
 The demand for new ideas
granted aspirant artists the
chance to showcase their work
regardless of experience or
background. “The Arts and
Crafts community was open to
the efforts of non-
professionals, encouraging the
involvement of amateurs and
8
students. ” The optimism held
within amateur artists was a
major factor in the success and
influence of the Arts and Crafts
Movement. With new artists
came new or reworked
perspectives and styles, a
William Morris, Design for defining aspect of the
“Windrush” textile pattern, 1881-83
movement. “The magazine, The
9
Studio -included -competitions for amateur artists and designers. ”
Opportunities such as these were a big deal to undiscovered artists,
if they were not born into wealth or status they were now granted a
chance for their art to be recognized. If the movement and society
did not hold such value to ideas of non-mechanized, authentic items
there would be no need to search for such a vast amount of new and
diverse artists. William Morris, ”The leading champion of the Arts

8. Victoria and Albert Museum “Arts and Crafts: An

Introduction” Accessed October 23, 2020,
https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/arts-and-crafts-an-
introduction.
9. Mary Greenstead, “The Arts and Crafts Movement:
exchanges between Greece and Britain (1876-1930)” 13.
680 | Chapter 11 - Arts & Crafts Movement
 10
and Crafts movement. ” was a strong advocate for ideas of non-
mechanized art and originality. In his pursuit to further the
movement he developed schools that were aimed to assist Arts and
Crafts artists. “He (Morris) had initiated a genuine revival of art
industry and was now instrumental in forming a school of designers
11
and makers. ” These schools offered artists the ability to improve
their skills and further their craftsmanship. This in turn furthered
the movement, resulting in items that were more skilled and rare
in style. If not given the opportunity to be educated and evolve
their skills many of the artists from this movement may not have
produced work. This school created by William Morris encouraged
artists to perfect and produce their own, unique styles.
With the new inclusion of diverse artists into the scene pieces
from the movement became increasingly more distinct. “For the
first time, women as well as men could begin to take an active role in
12
developing new forms of design, both as makers and consumers. ”
The acceptance of women into the movement allowed for even
further unique creations and the demand for them as well. With
the addition of more feminine qualities and ideas this art assisted
in the further development of the movement’s ideals. The works of
the time now contained the ideas and opinions of a women. When

10. Amy Dempsey, “Arts and Crafts Movement Origins,

History, Aims and Aesthetic” 2007, http://www.visual-
arts-cork.com/history-of-art/arts-and-crafts.htm.
11. Oscar Triggs, The Arts and Crafts Movement (Parkstone
International. 2009), 69.
12. Victoria and Albert Museum “Arts and Crafts: An
Introduction” Accessed October 23, 2020,
https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/arts-and-crafts-an-
introduction.
Chapter 11 - Arts & Crafts Movement | 681
 these opinions are included pieces can become even more practical
around the house and become further appealing to women.
Women taking a more
involved roll as a consumer
allowed them to have a say in
the importance of Arts and
Crafts products, resulting in
them further assisting in the
success of the movement,
“Unlike other women of the
time Arts and Crafts women
were able to build professional
13
careers for themselves. ”
Previously it was very
uncommon for a women who
was not of status to be able to
produce art and receive
Newcomb Pottery, Vase, 1902–1904
recognition. With the
movement’s reform to society and its thoughts it now became a
possibility for these women to truly be considered artists and
consumers, in the world of Arts and Crafts. In doing so they gained
the ability to make a meaningful contribution to society and the Arts
and Crafts Movement.

The Arts and Crafts Movement brought great social and artistic
reform to society. One of the contributing factors to its success
was the idea that an Arts and Crafts artist did not have to possess
a certain background. If amateur artists were not included in Arts
and Crafts the movement would’ve been stunted with the same,
manufactured pieces that began it. The newly found inclusion of

13. Catherine W. Zipf, Professional Pursuits: Women and the

American Arts and Crafts Movement 1.
682 | Chapter 11 - Arts & Crafts Movement
various types of artists directly influenced the art, allowing the
pieces to be extremely authentic and diverse.

Bibliography
Clericuzio, Peter. 2017. “Arts and Crafts Movement.”
https://www.theartstory.org/movement/arts-and-crafts/
history-and-concepts/.
Dempsey, Amy. “Arts and Crafts Movement Origins, History, Aims
and Aesthetic.” 2007. http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/history-
of-art/arts-and-crafts.htm.
Greenstead, Mary. n.d. “The Arts and Crafts Movement: exchanges
between Greece and Britain (1876-1930).” Accessed October 23,
2020. https://etheses.bham.ac.uk/id/eprint/1110/1/
Greensted10MPhil_A1a.pdf.
Nakayama, Shuichi. “The Impact of William Morris in Japan, 1904
to the Present.” Journal of Design History 9, no. 4 1996.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/1316044.
Obniski, Monika. “The Arts and Crafts Movement in American.”
2008. https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/acam/
hd_acam.htm.
Triggs, Oscar L. The Arts and Crafts Movement. Ho Chi Minh City,
Vietnam: Parkstone International. 2009.
Victoria and Albert Museum. “Arts and Crafts: An Introduction.”
Accessed October 23, 2020. https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/
arts-and-crafts-an-introduction.
Zipf, Catherine W. Professional Pursuits: Women and the American
Arts and Crafts Movement. Knoxville, Tennessee: The University of
Tennessee Press. 2007.

Chapter 11 - Arts & Crafts Movement by Shayla Beauchamp is licensed under a

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except where otherwise
noted.

Chapter 11 - Arts & Crafts Movement | 683

35. Chapter 11 - Margaret
Macdonald Mackintosh
Art Nouveau
COLLIN JOHNSON

Audio recording of chapter available here:

One or more interactive elements has been excluded

from this version of the text. You can view them online
here: https://openeducationalberta.ca/
19thcenturyart/?p=413#audio-413-1

Margaret Macdonald Macintosh, The May Queen, mural, 1900

Margaret Macdonald (1864-1933) was a Scottish artist who was

specialized primarily in Design. She spent most of her art career

684 | Chapter 11 - Margaret

Macdonald Mackintosh
 collaborating with other artists, and her collaboration work has
brought a lot of scrutiny as to whether she was as skilled an artist
as some claim or if she simply clung onto the success of her very
skilled husband, Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Many factors need to
be examined to determine whether Margaret was deserving of the
status of a great artist. Societal norms and any misogynistic
viewpoints could have played a big part in a lot of the criticism
Margaret Macdonald faced in her career and even after she passed
away as well. Was she a talented artist who suffered from the
opinions of critics who seemed to be against her succeeding or
was she overrated and lived in the shadow of the success of her
husband?
Margaret Macdonald
Mackintosh started her art
training with her younger
sister, Frances, in 1890-1891 at
the Glasgow School of Art
which was one of the top art
schools in Britain. They learned
various art styles such as design
and drawing and then moving
onto metal work which both
1
were very skilled in. Over time,
Margaret MacDonald Macintosh, The
White Rose and The Red Rose, paint on Margaret proved to be skilled in
glass, 1902 watercolour, metalwork,
embroidery, and textiles and
she and her sister would collaborate on many pieces of work and

1. Helland, Janice. “ The “New Woman” in Fin-De-Siecle

Art: Frances And Margaret Macdonald”
Chapter 11 - Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh | 685
 they drew their inspiration from Celtic imagery, literature,
2
symbolism, and folklore.
It was during her time at Glasgow where Margaret would meet the
man who would become her husband, Charles Rennie Mackintosh.
Margaret and her Sister, Frances, would collaborate with two men
3
and the four of them would be called the “Glasgow Four”. The group
would collaborate on many pieces of work, some received well and
others not. Scottish Critics took offense to the conventionalized
4
figures used in their work, labeling the group, “The Spook School.”
Collaboration was big for Margaret Macdonald, more than half of
her Art came from working with another Artist. In her thesis, Kristie
Powell explains that collaboration was essential for any aspiring
5
female artist. This could be due to that men were predominantly
involved in all of the “important art” (architecture) so for women in
design, collaborating with a male artist was a good way to get your
art seen at all.

Margaret MacDonald Macintosh, Seven Princesses, gesso on panel, 1907

2. Panther, Patricia. " Margaret MacDonald: The Talented

Other Half of Charles Rennie Mackintosh."
3. Powell, Kristie. “ The Artist Couple”
4. Powell, Kristie. “ The Artist Couple”
5. Powell, Kristie. “ The Artist Couple”
686 | Chapter 11 - Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh
 Charles Rennie Mackintosh started at Glasgow in 1884. Margaret
Macdonald and him would develop an artistic relationship with the
Glasgow Four and then later the two developed a romantic
relationship and started collaborating art between the two of them.
They designed houses for people, focusing on not building a
6
machine for them to live in but a work of art. They designed
thirteen buildings and architectural designs, Macdonald’s roles in
these were her including one or more pieces to an overall theme.
Charles himself vouched for her involvement in these designs and
both Artists achieved their greatest success and critical claim
7
during the peak of their collaboration with each other. Many would
say Margaret Macdonald benefited from working with Mackintosh
but it is clear that there was mutual benefit for the two of them. In
a society that heavily favoured masculinity, one can not deny that
Margaret Macdonald played a key role in her husband’s success.

6. González Mínguez, María Teresa. “ Dark/

Masculine—Light/Feminine: How Charles Rennie
Mackintosh and Margaret MacDonald Changed Glasgow
School of Art ”
7. Powell. “ Artist Couple ”
Chapter 11 - Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh | 687
 When discussing the
criticism Margaret Macdonald
faced, one must not forget the
gender norms that were
common when she was an
artist. Pamela H. Simpson talks
about these norms in her
review of the book The Studios
of Frances and Margaret
Macdonald written by Janice
Helland. Pamela Simpson talks
Margaret MacDonald Macintosh,
about how she believes Opera of the Winds, gesso on panel, c
misogyny of the critics played a 1903
role in how Margaret
Macdonald’s art was received. Architecture was deemed masculine
while design was labeled as feminine and thus architecture was held
8
to a higher standard then design was. This saw Charles Rennie
Mackintosh being viewed as a hero of architecture. When critiquing
their collaborated work, Margaret is already at a disadvantage when
her style of art is seen as lesser to that of her husband. It does not
help that her husband is also very skilled and when comparing how
much she contributed, critics already see her art as less of a
contribution simply because it is the feminine style of art. One
would need to not critique the style of art she is creating but
critique how well the art itself is. Many sources mention this
patriarchal structure during this time period and if Art did not
conform to that structure, this may be a reason for it not being
received well by male critics.
It is well known that Margaret Macdonald was known for using
symbolism in her art. Macdonald liked to do watercolour paintings,
which she preferred over oil painting even though oil painting was

8. Simpson, Pamela H.. " The Studios of Frances and

Margaret Macdonald ."
688 | Chapter 11 - Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh
 deemed more important or more masculine. Janice Helland
discusses this symbolism and how it is representative of women
9
during this time period, particularly the silence of women. It
discusses the lack of rights women had compared to their male
counterparts and the patriarchal norms that favoured masculinity
over feminism. In Margaret Macdonald’s work Pool of Silence, a
woman is looking into her reflection in water and holding a finger to
her mouth, asking for silence. There are three faces in this drawing
and Critics had written that this drawing was the “dead figure of
10
a beautiful woman”. It was common for Margaret Macdonald to
focus on women and death and critics agreed that this piece had
fulfilled that purpose. Margaret Macdonald used her art to voice the
lack of equality between men and women and this may have been
why critics may have not liked her art because it challenged the
norms that existed then.

Visit the National Gallery of Canada link below to see Margaret

Macdonald Macintosh’s Pool of Silence drawing:

Margaret Macdonald Macintosh, Pool of

Silence, watercolour and gouache with other pigments on
wove paper, 1913. https://www.gallery.ca/collection/
artwork/pool-of-silence

9. Helland, Janice. "The Critics and the Arts and Crafts: The
Instance of Margaret Macdonald and Charles Rennie
Mackintosh. Pg 252
10. Helland. 252, 253
Chapter 11 - Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh | 689
 Bibliography
González Mínguez, María Teresa. “Dark/Masculine—Light/
Feminine: How Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Margaret
MacDonald Changed Glasgow School of Art” IES Manuel E.
Patarroyo https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/61919238.pdf
Helland, Janice. “The Critics and the Arts and Crafts: The Instance of
Margaret Macdonald and Charles Rennie Mackintosh.” Art History
17, no. 2 (June 1994): 209-27. https://eds-a-ebscohost-
com.ezproxy.ardc.talonline.ca/eds/pdfviewer/
pdfviewer?vid=1&sid=bcf3bfd1-c414-4560-98dd-
efa4722e227c%40sdc-v-sessmgr02 .
Helland, Janice. “The “New Woman” in Fin-De-Siecle Art: Frances
And Margaret Macdonald” Dissertation. University of Lethbridge,
1973. University of Victoria, 1984. http://dspace.library.uvic.ca/
handle/1828/9511
Macdonald, Margaret. “Pool of Silence”. GBR, 1913. Drawing.
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. Accessed October 25, 2020.
https://www.gallery.ca/collection/artwork/pool-of-silence
Panther, Patricia. “Margaret MacDonald: the talented other half of
Charles Rennie Mackintosh.” BBC.Co.UK. Last modified January
10, 2011. http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/arts/
margaret_macdonald_the_talented_other_half_of_charles_re
nnie_mackintosh.shtml
Powell, Kristie. “The Artist Couple”. Thesis. University of Cincinnati,
2010.
https://etd.ohiolink.edu/!etd.send_file?accession=ucin127749769
1&disposition=inline
Simpson, Pamela H.. “The Studios of Frances and Margaret
Macdonald.” Women’s Art Journal 19, no. 1 (1996): 44-45.
https://doi.org/10.2307/1358655 .

690 | Chapter 11 - Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh

Chapter 11 - Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh by Collin Johnson is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
License, except where otherwise noted.

Chapter 11 - Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh | 691

36. Chapter 11 - Kay Nielsen
Art Nouveau

Audio recording of this chapter available here:

One or more interactive elements has been excluded

from this version of the text. You can view them online
here: https://openeducationalberta.ca/
19thcenturyart/?p=428#audio-428-1

692 | Chapter 11 - Kay Nielsen

Kay Nielsen, Illustration from East of the Sun and West of the Moon, 1914

Chapter 11 - Kay Nielsen | 693

 Kay Nielsen was born in Copenhagen into an artistic
family; both of his parents were actors – Nielsen’s father,
Martinus Nielsen, was the director of Dagmarteater and
his mother, Oda Nielsen, was one of the most celebrated
actresses of her time, both at the Royal Danish Theater
1
and at the Dagmarteater. Kay Nielsen studied art in
Paris at Académie Julian and Académie Colarossi from
2
1904 to 1911.

In 1914, Nielsen
provided twenty-five
colour plates and more
than twenty-one
monotone images for the
children’s collection East
of the Sun and West of the
Moon. The colour images
for both In Powder and
Crinoline and East of the
Sun and West of the Moon
were reproduced by a
Kay Nielsen – Illustration from four-colour process, in
East of the Sun and West of the
Moon, 1914 contrast to many of the

1. Allan, Robin (1999). Walt Disney and Europe (1st ed.).

John Libbey and Company, Ltd. p. 162
2. Haase, Donald, ed. (2008). The Greenwood Encyclopedia
of Fairy Tales & Folk Tales. 2 (1st ed.). Greenwood Press.
p. 678
694 | Chapter 11 - Kay Nielsen
illustrations prepared by his contemporaries that
characteristically utilized a traditional three-colour
process. Also in that year, Nielsen produced at least
three illustrations depicting scenes from the life of Joan
of Arc. When published later in the 1920s, these images
were associated with relevant text from The Monk of
Fife.

While painting
landscapes in
the Dover area, Nielsen
came into contact with
The Society of Tempera
Painters where he
learned new skills, and
was able to reduce the
time involved in the
painting process. In 1917
Nielsen left for New York Kay Nielsen, Illustration from In
where an exhibition of his Powder and Crinoline, 1912

work was held and

subsequently returned to Denmark. Together with a
collaborator, Johannes Poulsen, he painted stage
scenery for the Royal Danish Theatre in Copenhagen.
During this time, Nielsen also worked on an extensive
suite of illustrations intended to accompany a
translation of The Arabian Nights that had been
undertaken by the Arabic scholar, Professor Arthur
Christensen. According to Nielsen’s own published
comments, these illustrations were to be the basis of his
return to book illustrations following a hiatus during
World War I and the intention had been to publish the

Chapter 11 - Kay Nielsen | 695

 Danish version in parallel with versions for the English-
speaking world and the French market. The project
never came to fruition and Nielsen’s illustrations
remained unknown until many years after his death.

During the 1920s, Nielsen returned to stagecraft in

Copenhagen designing sets and costumes for
professional theater. During that time, at age 40, he
married the charismatic 22-year-old Ulla Pless-Schmidt
and they became a devoted couple. At this point, he was
3
Scandinavia’s most famous artist.

Following his theatrical

work in Copenhagen,
Nielsen returned to
contributing to illustrated
books with the
publication of Fairy Tales
by Hans Andersen in 1924.
That title included twelve
colour plates and more
than forty monotone
Kay Nielsen, Illustration from Of illustrations. The colour
Powder and Crinoline, on the images were prepared
way to the dance, 1912
with integrated formal
and informal borders; the
informal borders were produced in a mille fleur style. A
year later, Nielsen provided the artwork for Hansel and

3. "The brilliance of Kay Nielsen now on view". Greenfield

Recorder. 2019-12-05. Retrieved 2020-08-28.
696 | Chapter 11 - Kay Nielsen
 Gretel and Other Stories by the Brothers Grimm which
was first published with twelve colour images and over
twenty detailed monotone illustrations. A further five
years passed before the publication of Red Magic, the
final title to be illustrated comprehensively by Nielsen.
The 1930 version of Red Magic included eight colours
and more than fifty monotone contributions from the
Danish artist.

In 1939 Nielsen left for California and worked for

Hollywood companies. A personal recommendation
from Joe Grant to Walt Disney secured Nielsen a job
4
with The Walt Disney Company. At Disney, his work
was used in the Night on Bald Mountain and Ave Maria
5
sequences of Fantasia. Nielsen was renowned at the
Disney studio for his concept art and he contributed
artwork for many Disney films, including concept
paintings for a proposed adaptation of Hans Christian
Andersen’s The Little Mermaid. The adaptation was to be
part of a package film containing various segments
based on Andersen’s fairy tales. The film, however, was
not made within Nielsen’s lifetime and his work went
6
unused until production started on the 1989 film.

4. Allan, p. 30
5. Johnston, Ollie; Thomas, Frank (1981). The Illusion of Life:
Disney Animation (1st ed.). Walt Disney Productions. p.
139.
6. Allan, 163; (2006) Audio Commentary by John Musker,
Ron Clements, and Alan Menken Bonus material from
Chapter 11 - Kay Nielsen | 697
 Nielsen worked for The Walt Disney Company for four
years, from 1937 to 1941 before being let go due to
7
budget constraints and Nielsen’s slow creation process.
Destitute, Nielsen died in illness and poverty, his work
nearly forgotten until the 21st century.

Excerpted and adapted from: Wikipedia, (October 7

2020), s.v. “Kay Nielsen.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Kay_Nielsen

The Little Mermaid: Platinum Edition [DVD]. Walt Disney

Home Entertainment.
7. Haase, Donald, ed. (2008). The Greenwood Encyclopedia
of Fairy Tales & Folk Tales. 2 (1st ed.). Greenwood Press.
p. 678.
698 | Chapter 11 - Kay Nielsen
37. Chapter 11 - Edvard
Munch
Art Nouveau

Chapter 11 - Edvard Munch | 699

Audio recording of chapter available here:

One or more interactive elements has been excluded

from this version of the text. You can view them online
here: https://openeducationalberta.ca/
19thcenturyart/?p=438#audio-438-1

700 | Chapter 11 - Edvard Munch

Edvard Munch, The Scream, tempera on board, 1910

Second only to Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, Edvard

Munch’s The Scream may be the most iconic human
figure in the history of Western art. Its androgynous,

Chapter 11 - Edvard Munch | 701

 skull-shaped head, elongated hands, wide eyes, flaring
nostrils and ovoid mouth have been engrained in our
collective cultural consciousness; the swirling blue
landscape and especially the fiery orange and yellow sky
have engendered numerous theories regarding the
scene that is depicted. Like the Mona Lisa, The
Scream has been the target of dramatic thefts and
recoveries, and in 2012 a version created with pastel on
cardboard sold to a private collector for nearly
$120,000,000 making it the second highest price
achieved at that time by a painting at auction.

Conceived as part of Munch’s semi-autobiographical

cycle “The Frieze of Life,” The Scream’s composition
exists in four forms: the first painting, done in oil,
tempera, and pastel on cardboard (1893, National
Gallery of Art, Oslo), two pastel examples (1893, Munch
Museum, Oslo and 1895, private collection), and a final
tempera painting (1910, National Gallery of Art, Oslo).
Munch also created a lithographic version in 1895. The
various renditions show the artist’s creativity and his
interest in experimenting with the possibilities to be
obtained across an array of media, while the work’s
subject matter fits with Munch’s interest at the time in
themes of relationships, life, death, and dread.

For all its notoriety, The Scream is in fact a

surprisingly simple work, in which the artist utilized a
minimum of forms to achieve maximum expressiveness.
It consists of three main areas: the bridge, which
extends at a steep angle from the middle distance at the
left to fill the foreground; a landscape of shoreline, lake

702 | Chapter 11 - Edvard Munch

or fjord, and hills; and the sky, which is activated with
curving lines in tones of orange, yellow, red, and blue-
green. Foreground and background blend into one
another, and the lyrical lines of the hills ripple through
the sky as well. The human figures are starkly separated
from this landscape by the bridge. Its strict linearity
provides a contrast with the shapes of the landscape
and the sky. The two faceless upright figures in the
background belong to the geometric precision of the
bridge, while the lines of the foreground figure’s body,
hands, and head take up the same curving shapes that
dominate the background landscape.

The screaming figure is thus linked through these

formal means to the natural realm, which was
apparently Munch’s intention. A passage in Munch’s
diary dated January 22, 1892, and written in Nice,
contains the probable inspiration for this scene as the
artist remembered it: “I was walking along the road with
two friends—the sun went down—I felt a gust of
melancholy—suddenly the sky turned a bloody red. I
stopped, leaned against the railing, tired to death—as
the flaming skies hung like blood and sword over the
blue-black fjord and the city—My friends went on—I
stood there trembling with anxiety—and I felt a vast
infinite scream [tear] through nature.” The figure on the
bridge—who may even be symbolic of Munch
himself—feels the cry of nature, a sound that is sensed
internally rather than heard with the ears. Yet, how can
this sensation be conveyed in visual terms?

Munch’s approach to the experience of synesthesia, or

the union of senses (for example the belief that one

Chapter 11 - Edvard Munch | 703

 might taste a color or smell a musical note), results in
the visual depiction of sound and emotion. As such, The
Scream represents a key work for the Symbolist
movement as well as an important inspiration for the
Expressionist movement of the early twentieth century.
Symbolist artists of diverse international backgrounds
confronted questions regarding the nature of
subjectivity and its visual depiction. As Munch himself
put it succinctly in a notebook entry on subjective vision
written in 1889, “It is not the chair which is to be painted
but what the human being has felt in relation to it.”

Since The Scream’s first appearance, many critics and

scholars have attempted to determine the exact scene
depicted, as well as inspirations for the screaming
figure. For example, it has been asserted that the
unnaturally harsh colors of the sky may have been due
to volcanic dust from the eruption of Krakatoa in
Indonesia, which produced spectacular sunsets around
the world for months afterwards. This event occurred in
1883, ten years before Munch painted the first version
of The Scream. However, as Munch’s journal
entry—written in the south of France but recalling an
evening by Norway’s fjords also demonstrates—The
Scream is a work of remembered sensation rather than
perceived reality. Art historians have also noted the
figure’s resemblance to a Peruvian mummy that had
been exhibited at the World’s Fair in Paris in 1889 (an
artifact that also inspired the Symbolist painter Paul
Gauguin) or to another mummy displayed in Florence.
While such events and objects are visually plausible, the
work’s effect on the viewer does not depend on one’s

704 | Chapter 11 - Edvard Munch

 familiarity with a precise list of historical, naturalistic, or
formal sources. Rather, Munch sought to express
internal emotions through external forms and thereby
provide a visual image for a universal human experience.

Excerpted from: Dr. Noelle Paulson, “Edvard

Munch, The Scream,” in Smarthistory, August 9, 2015,
https://smarthistory.org/munch-the-scream/.
All Smarthistory content is available for free
at www.smarthistory.org
CC: BY-NC-SA

One or more interactive elements has been excluded

from this version of the text. You can view them online
here: https://openeducationalberta.ca/
19thcenturyart/?p=438#oembed-1

Dr. Juliana Kreinik and Dr. Amy Hamlin, “Edvard Munch, The Storm,”
in Smarthistory, December 18, 2015, https://smarthistory.org/
edvard-munch-the-storm/.
All Smarthistory content is available for free
at www.smarthistory.org
CC: BY-NC-SA

Chapter 11 - Edvard Munch | 705

 38. Chapter 12 - Gustav Klimt
The Work of Gustav Klimt
RACHEL SLUGGETT

Audio recording of this chapter is available here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/
1yDn_OiqeWlZD3lTmrhFDiKWCZh3ah0Zi/view?usp=sharing

Gustav Klimt, The Beethoven Frieze: The Hostile Powers, 1901

Gustav Klimt was born in July

of 1862 as the second of seven
children. Although they were
poor for most of Gustav’s life,
the whole family was known to
1
be artistically talented . His

Gustav Klimt, Hope II, oil, gold, and

platinum on canvas, 1907-08

1. Moffat, Charles. Biography of a Symbolist Painter: Gustav

706 | Chapter 12 - Gustav Klimt
father had experience working with gold which may have led Gustav
to using gold in his work later on. Klimt was enrolled in the Vienna
School of Arts and Crafts in 1876, not long after he had dropped
out of grade school. He was only fourteen. There he studied
architectural painting until he was in his early twenties. Shortly
after he began accepting commissions in order to earn a small wage
for himself. With help from his only older sibling Ernst, the Klimt
Brothers were able to make quite a name of themselves. They were
well-known all-over Austria. Over the span of his life, Klimt had
created a good life for himself. He was both loved and hated, as
every good artist should be. He had helped revolutionize the way
art was made, and the way art was viewed by both critics and the
general public.

Klimt - Symbolist Painter – (The Art History Archive,

2008)
Chapter 12 - Gustav Klimt | 707
 As one of the co-founders of
the Secession Movement, Klimt
had become a large player in
the rebirth of art in Vienna. He
had brought many ideas of
foreign art back home from his
travels. Klimt was known to
have many influences on his
work from around the world.
Many say that his art reflects
influences from Egyptian,
Byzantine, Minoan, and
2
Classical Greek art . The goal
of the Secession group was to
provide a way for
unconventional artists to have a
platform to showcase their
work. The group “did not
encourage any particular style
and thus Naturalists, Realists,
3
and Symbolists all coexisted.”
The group was able to get
Gustav Klimt, Judith II, oil on canvas, government support and built
1909. an exhibition hall. They would
be able to show off work of
smaller and larger artists who may have had work that the public
was not privy to. In Vienna there was a building put up which was
designed by Joseph Maria Olbrich who was another founding
member of the movement. It was completed in 1898 as a manifesto
to the movement. Above the main doors of the exhibition hall read
the words Der Zeit ihre Kunst der Kunst ihre Freiheit which

2. Moffat. Biography of a Symbolist Painter.

3. Moffat. Biography of a Symbolist Painter.
708 | Chapter 12 - Gustav Klimt
 4
translates to “to every age its art, to art its freedom” . The
Secession group stirred much controversy, one reason being that
artists such as Klimt were already in a group of artists that would
have an upper hand over the art industry. This group, known as the
Association of Viennese Artists, was against any immigrant art, and
soon Klimt and ten other artists left because of this. Klimt was a
part of this group until 1908. Even though Klimt left the movement
before many other artists, his art is often the face of the movement,
namely his pieces Beethoven Frieze, Judith II, and Hope II.
Within his symbolism, Klimt
would often use rectangles to
represent the man, and circles
to represent the woman. This
can prominently be seen in The
Kiss. It was symbolism such as
this that showed the fact that
Klimt had seen men and women
as unique and different
creatures. One of his larger
works Beethoven Frieze was 112
Gustav Klimt, The Kiss, oil on canvas,
feet long and had visually 1907-08
depicted Beethoven’s 9th
Symphony. It was pieces like this that really showed how Klimt was
able to use symbolism and artistic vision in his art. This work was
also one of his more explicit paintings at the time, showing motifs of
both love and sex. The sexual nature surrounding women in his
work was believed to be inspired in part by French sculptor Auguste
Rodin who had done many sculptures of naked people, often in
erotic positions. Despite any negative criticism such as being called
a misogynist, Klimt continued to focus his gaze on the female
form. Many of his more erotic pieces had used symbolism more than

4. Gotthardt, Alexxa. Klimt’s Iconic “Kiss” Sparked a Sexual

Revolution in Art. (Artsy, May 8, 2019).
Chapter 12 - Gustav Klimt | 709
naturalistic depictions. This is partially because at this time it was
unusual to depict naked humans, especially if they are shown in an
erotic nature. Even during the Secessionist Movement t, he was
told he had to censor parts of his paintings. Due to this censorship,
he had to find different ways to capture his vision using symbols.
Thus, Klimt ended up being extremely well known for his use of
symbolism in his artwork. Klimt would end up incorporating gold or
colour into his work in order to censor more exotic natures of the
art.

Gustav Klimt, Adele Bloch-Bauer I, oil, silver and gold on canvas, 1907

After his father and older brother passed, Klimt was the bearer of

710 | Chapter 12 - Gustav Klimt

 5
the family name, which he did well with . He had kept to himself
for the most part of his life because he had become so well known
that he had the luxury of being selective with his clients. This led to
only the most beautiful work being done during his Golden Phase.
Many of Klimt’s pieces would be commissioned portraits of Vienna’s
upper-class women. The wife of a wealthy Jewish banker is the
6
subject of his work titled Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I . For this
piece Klimt had used gold and silver leaf for the majority of the
frame. This work painted in 1907 ended up being one of the most
prominent works within Klimt’s Golden Phase due to the extreme
7
use of gold leaves. In a letter to his long-time partner Emilie Flöge,
Klimt writes:

I have never painted a self portrait. I am less interested in

myself as a subject for a painting than I am in other people,
above all women… There is nothing special about me. I am
a Painter who paints day after day from morning to night…
Whoever wants to know something about me… ought to
8
look carefully at my pictures.

This shows that Klimt had put his heart and soul into every piece he
did. To say that you must look at his art to know about him shows
how each painting or drawing he did had a bit of him in it, and that
each one is uniquely his.

5. Moffat. Biography of a Symbolist Painter.

6. Gotthardt. Klimt’s Iconic “Kiss” Sparked a Sexual
Revolution in Art.
7. Gotthardt.
8. Richman-Abdou, Kelly. The Splendid History of Gustav
Klimt’s Glistening “Golden Phase”. (My Modern Met,
September 2018)
Chapter 12 - Gustav Klimt | 711
 Klimt’s Golden Phase was
quite a success within the art
world. He had already created
a good name for himself but his
work with gold leaf had sent
him into the history books.
Klimt was quite peculiar about
his use of pure gold within his
Golden Style. He had also
visited Ravinia, Italy twice in
the early 1900s so he could
Gustav Klimt, Pailas Athene, oil on
canvas, 1898 study mosaics. He ended up
using gold as both additives to
his paintings, as well as entire background details. The work most
commonly associated with this period of Klimt’s includes The Kiss,
which to many is considered better than the Mona Lisa. His work
titled Pallas Athene from 1898 is believed to be the earliest piece in
his Golden Phase. It shows the Greek goddess Athena in Golden
armor. For many, the use of gold would seem to draw the mind to
9
religious figures . For Klimt, using gold around a woman was his
way to show the almost supreme nature of women. “Klimt’s women
are covered in gold, supreme creatures mounted into precious
10
surfaces like jewels and icons of a new religion.”

9. Gotthardt.
10. di Stefano, Eva. Gustav Klimt: Art Nouveau Visionary.
(New York: Sterling, 2008).
712 | Chapter 12 - Gustav Klimt
 Prior to The Kiss, Klimt had
used art to explore the life
cycle, and how sex played a role
11
within it . In this group of
paintings was a piece titled
Medicine. When it was unveiled
it was immediately criticized
and deemed pornographic due
to both the sight of female
public hair, as well as female
bodies intertwined. In
response to his critics, Klimt
titled a work To My Critics, later
changed to Goldfish, which
shows a woman naked from

Gustav Klimt, Goldfish, oil on canvas,

1901-2

11. Gotthardt. Klimt’s Iconic “Kiss” Sparked a Sexual

Revolution in Art.
Chapter 12 - Gustav Klimt | 713
 12
behind . Klimt’s work within his Golden Phase was cemented in
time. “When Klimt created his masterpiece at the height of the
Viennese avant-garde and its psycho-sexual revolution, it was
13
brazenly erotic, politically charged, and artistically revolutionary.”
Still, Klimt’s work would often be focused on the female form from
a more sensual viewpoint. Art critic Ludwig Hevesi had described
the work during the Golden Phase, comparing his work with gold
to “zebra stripes flashing like lightning, tongues of flame… vine
14
tendrils, smoothly linked chains, flowing veils, tender nets.” Gold
was no longer the subject of interest of Klimt after about 1911, when
he instead began using bright colours and patterns.
Although in many cases Klimt’s work with gold was facing
rejection, some art critics had noted that the use of gold had shown
a great resemblance to the original medieval mosaics. As a
prominent art critic, Hevesi had noticed this, and noted that he felt
immersed in their painting due to the glittering from the gold. In
the end, Klimt’s paintings would be some of the most valuable
individual works of art. After his death, many of his pieces sold
for tens of millions of dollars, his work Adele Bloch-Bauer I sold
15
for $135 million in 2006 . Many works from his Golden Phase
are prominent in Viennese culture in the modern day, being on
everything from life sized replicas to keychains to printed t-shirts.
Although Klimt would have known his impact on Viennese culture
during his lifetime, he could not have known the legacy he would
leave behind.

12. Gotthardt.
13. Gotthardt.
14. Gotthardt. Klimt’s Iconic “Kiss” Sparked a Sexual
Revolution in Art.
15. Moffat. Biography of a Symbolist Painter.
714 | Chapter 12 - Gustav Klimt
 Gustav Klimt, Hygieia – Medicine (detail), mural,
1899-1907. Destroyed 1945.

Bibliography
Bailey, Colin. Gustav Klimt: Modernism in the Making. New York:
Harry N. Abrams Inc., 2001.
di Stefano, Eva. Gustav Klimt: Art Nouveau Visionary. New York:
Sterling, 2008.
Gotthardt, Alexxa. “Klimt’s Iconic “Kiss” Sparked a Sexual Revolution
in Art” Artsy, May 8, 2019. https://tinyurl.com/y23d4u4g.

Chapter 12 - Gustav Klimt | 715

Fliedl, Gottfried. Gustav Klimt, 1862-1918: The World in Female Form.
New York: Taschen. 1998.
Miller, Hannah. “A Partner in Their Suffering: Gustav Klimt’s
Empowered Figure in Hope II.” All Theses and Dissertations, 2017.
https://doi.org/10.1093/benz/9780199773787.article.b00099386
Moffat, Charles. “Biography of a Symbolist Painter.” Gustav Klimt
– Symbolist Painter – The Art History Archive, 2008.
https://tinyurl.com/6wngvyt.
Neret, Gilles. Gustav Klimt: 1862-1918. Germany: Taschen, 2005.
Richman-Abdou, Kelly. “The Splendid History of Gustav Klimt’s
Glistening “Golden Phase””. My Modern Met, September 2018.
https://tinyurl.com/y2txe84f.

716 | Chapter 12 - Gustav Klimt

39. Chapter 12 - Franz von
Stuck
Art Nouveau
KAYDIN WILLIAMS

Audio recording of this chapter available here:

One or more interactive elements has been excluded

from this version of the text. You can view them online
here: https://openeducationalberta.ca/
19thcenturyart/?p=449#audio-449-1

Chapter 12 - Franz von Stuck | 717

Franz von Stuck, Self-Portrait, oil on panel, 1905

718 | Chapter 12 - Franz von Stuck

 There were many great
artists throughout the
nineteenth century who were
known for not only perfecting
their medium of choice and
being the most skilled at what
they did, but also for
influencing future artists and
their craft. One artist from
Germany, however, stands out
from the rest. Franz von Stuck.
Franz Stuck was an influential Franz von Stuck, Spring, oil on canvas,
1902
Symbolist/Art Nouveau artist
who practiced
1
“gesamtkunstwerk, or total work of art ” and that is exactly the
phrase that best describes him. Franz Stuck embodied art in every
way he could, it wasn’t simply just his painting skills that made him
such an icon, his wholistic devotion and success in such multiple
areas of art is truly what made him “the last prince of art of Munich’s
2
great days. ” Franz von Stuck was an icon and had even influenced
people outside the world of art. Franz von Stuck was a prodigy who
was able to become one of the most iconic artists to ever influence
the world of art because of his early commitment to the arts at a
young age, his outstanding talent in several mediums, and his
patriotic admiration and self-made success.

1. “Franz Von Stuck,” Frye Art Museum, Accessed October

12, 2020, https://fryemuseum.org/exhibition/5097/.
2. “Franz Von Stuck (1863 - 1928),” Art Experts Website,
October 21, 2019, https://www.artexpertswebsite.com/
artist/stuck-von/.
Chapter 12 - Franz von Stuck | 719
 A lot of known artists usually
have some sort of mentor but
Stuck did not. “Franz Stuck
came from a peasant stock, and
his talent as an artist was
3
evident from an early age. ” His
father was a miller and as soon
as Stuck was able to he
4
supported himself. After his
talents in drawing were noticed
he went to live in Munich,
where he lived the rest of his
life, and where “he received his
artistic training at the Academy
of Applied Arts and the
Franz von Stuck, The Guardian of
Paradise, oil on canvas, 1889 Academy of Fine Arts in
5
Munich.” His first jobs that he
started to earn income from weren’t all that fancy, but they were
still jobs in the art world. These jobs included such things as being
an illustrator, making drawings or caricatures for magazines,
6
making bookplates, menus, and any other job of the sort. He
needed work somehow so he turned to the everyday run of the mill
artistic jobs that he could find; working for the magazine the

3. “Franz Von Stuck,” Stephen Ongpin Fine Art, Accessed

October 12, 2020, https://www.stephenongpin.com/
artist/236640/franz-von-stuck.
4. “Franz Von Stuck,” Stephen Ongpin Fine Art.
5. “Franz Von Stuck,” Stephen Ongpin Fine Art.
6. “Franz Von Stuck,” Stephen Ongpin Fine Art, Accessed
October 12, 2020, https://www.stephenongpin.com/
artist/236640/franz-von-stuck.
720 | Chapter 12 - Franz von Stuck
 7
Fliegende Blätter is where most of his early career started. In 1889
when Stuck was twenty six he exhibited his first paintings, and won
8
the gold medal, at the Munich Glass Palace exhibition. The winning
painting was The Guardian of Paradise. Because of Franz Stuck’s
early years as a lower working artist, and having many different jobs,
he was able to further hone his craft skills even more and even
outside the realm of painting and drawing.

When it came to talent, Franz Stuck was a jack of all trades and
a master of all. Stuck was not simply just a painter but he was
9
also an active sculptor, printmaker, and architect. In painting he
was known for his close attention to describing three-dimensional
forms. While Stuck won many gold medals for painting at
exhibitions, he also won gold at the Paris World Exhibition in 1900
10
but for the furniture he made ; they were made for an artist’s
studio and private living villa. As stated before, Franz Stuck
practiced gesamtkunstwerk or total work of art and Villa Stuck
embodies this perfectly. With Franz Stuck’s multiple talents focused
into one area, it was bound to be a success. He put thought

7. “Franz Von Stuck (1863 - 1928),” Art Experts Website,

October 21, 2019, https://www.artexpertswebsite.com/
artist/stuck-von/.
8. “Franz Von Stuck (1863 - 1928),” Art Experts Website.
9. “Franz Von Stuck,” Stephen Ongpin Fine Art, Accessed
October 12, 2020, https://www.stephenongpin.com/
artist/236640/franz-von-stuck.
10. “Museum Villa Stuck.” Museum Villa Stuck: Ein Museum
der Stadt München. Accessed September 26, 2020.
https://www.villastuck.de/museum/index.htm.
Chapter 12 - Franz von Stuck | 721
 everywhere that he could, “life, architecture, art, music and theatre
11
are combined ” all into the creation of Villa Stuck.
Even on his paintings Stuck
did not simply put them into
just any frame but a handmade
frame made by himself for each
piece; He paid such “close
attention to the frames for his
paintings and generally
designed them himself with
such careful use of panels, gilt
carving and inscriptions that
the frames must be taken as an
integral part of the overall
12
piece. ” Franz Stuck did not
simply just make art but he
Franz von Stuck, The Sin, oil on
embodied it. He added detail
canvas, 1893
and looked for any amount of
space he could find, in any aspect of his creations, that could
somehow be altered and created into an artist’s image. When people
describe a piece made by Stuck it is always no short of a
sophisticated astonishment claimed to be made by a genius. “It’s
marked originality of color generally, and luminosity of the flesh-
tones; its aplomb, life, style; its unusual distinction of line and
13
modeling; together with a certain sculpturesque grace of pose. ”

11. “Museum Villa Stuck,” Museum Villa Stuck: Ein Museum

der Stadt München.
12. “Franz Von Stuck (1863 - 1928).” Art Experts Website,
October 21, 2019. https://www.artexpertswebsite.com/
artist/stuck-von/.
13. Moran, J. W, ""Saharet," by Franz von Stuck," Fine Arts
722 | Chapter 12 - Franz von Stuck
As Stuck started to cross the line from rags to riches, his claim to
fame was followed by enormous admiration from his people as an
artist and as a German.

Franz von Stuck, The Dance, oil on canvas, 1896

Journal 23, no. 1 (1910): 23, http://www.jstor.org/stable/

23905827.
Chapter 12 - Franz von Stuck | 723
 Franz Stuck worked for his
fame, from being born a
peasant, to becoming famous to
the point where he was
awarded nobility. “In 1905 he
was awarded a Knight’s Cross of
the Order of the Bavarian
Throne, which raised him to the
nobility, and from this point
onwards he signed his works as
14
‘Franz von Stuck’. ” He was a
Franz von Stuck, Dissonance, oil on full-fledged patriot icon for
canvas, 1910 Germany. During his time alive
he was very successful, he won
multiple gold medals at exhibitions in more than just painting. Franz
von Stuck was also a phenomenal teacher. “When only thirty-two,
15
he was appointed professor at the Munich Academy in 1895 ” he
used his talents to give back to his country by teaching new
generations of artists at the academy where he had started his
career; “His notable students included Paul Klee, Hans Purrmann,
16
Wassily Kandinsky, and Josef Albers. ” The number of Stuck’s pupils

14. “Franz Von Stuck,” Stephen Ongpin Fine Art, Accessed

October 12, 2020, https://www.stephenongpin.com/
artist/236640/franz-von-stuck.
15. “Franz Von Stuck,” Franz Von Stuck - Biography & Art -
The Art History Archive, Accessed September 26, 2020,
http://www.arthistoryarchive.com/arthistory/
symbolism/Franz-Von-Stuck.html.
16. “Franz Von Stuck,” Franz Von Stuck - Biography & Art -
The Art History Archive, Accessed September 26, 2020,
724 | Chapter 12 - Franz von Stuck
 who went on to great success served to enhance the teacher’s own
17
fame even further. ” He touched people’s heart through his story
of being born into the lower end of society and being completely
self-made in an American dream sense and creating his own success
from the ground up. He elevated himself from famous artist into an
example of ideal Germanic values. When Franz von Stuck passed
away it was a big loss for the whole country “A great artist who had
been a distinguished figure in international art for a generation and
had done much honor to Germany had closed his career. Franz von
Stuck was dead. This even, too, profoundly touched the people of
18
Munich. ”
The Life of Franz von Stuck is
one of rags to riches, making
something from nothing. Since
his early years he started
learning and devoting himself
in any way he could to his
journey in art. He gained the
recognition he deserved and
was even able to become a
noble; through nothing but Franz von Stuck, Wounded Amazon, oil
work. He was able to succeed in on canvas, 1903
so many different mediums and

http://www.arthistoryarchive.com/arthistory/
symbolism/Franz-Von-Stuck.html.
17. “Franz Von Stuck (1863 - 1928),” Art Experts Website,
October 21, 2019, https://www.artexpertswebsite.com/
artist/stuck-von/.
18. Fox, William H, "Franz Von Stuck and the Bavarian
Exhibition," The Brooklyn Museum Quarterly 16, no. 1
(1929): 1, http://www.jstor.org/stable/26459703.
Chapter 12 - Franz von Stuck | 725
ideals in art as well as be able to stay true and express himself
through his many creative outlets. He won multiple medals, became
a professor at his academy at only thirty-two and was able to give
back to his country by teaching many successful artists in the next
generation. Furthermore, he ascended past just an artist and
became an example of what a proud German should be. Franz von
Stuck pushed the limits and set the bar higher for what it means to
be a true artist.

Franz von Stuck, Samson and the Lion, oil on canvas, 1891

Bibliography
Fox, William H. “Franz Von Stuck and the Bavarian Exhibition.” The
Brooklyn Museum Quarterly 16, no. 1 (1929): 1-4. Accessed
September 22, 2020. http://www.jstor.org/stable/26459703.
“Franz Von Stuck (1863 – 1928).” Art Experts Website, October 21,
2019. https://www.artexpertswebsite.com/artist/stuck-von/.
“Franz Von Stuck.” Franz Von Stuck – Biography & Art – The Art
History Archive. Accessed September 26, 2020.
http://www.arthistoryarchive.com/arthistory/symbolism/
Franz-Von-Stuck.html.

726 | Chapter 12 - Franz von Stuck

“Franz Von Stuck.” Frye Art Museum. Accessed October 12, 2020.
https://fryemuseum.org/exhibition/5097/.
“Franz Von Stuck.” Stephen Ongpin Fine Art. Accessed October 12,
2020. https://www.stephenongpin.com/artist/236640/franz-
von-stuck.
Moran, J. W. “”Saharet,” by Franz von Stuck.” Fine Arts Journal 23,
no. 1 (1910): 22-28. Accessed September 28, 2020.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/23905827.
“Museum Villa Stuck.” Museum Villa Stuck: Ein Museum der Stadt
München. Accessed September 26, 2020.
https://www.villastuck.de/museum/index.htm.

Chapter 12 - Franz von Stuck by Kaydin Williams is licensed under a Creative

Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

Chapter 12 - Franz von Stuck | 727

40. Chapter 12 - Thomas
Eakins
SAMANTHA DONOVAN

Audio recording of chapter is available here:

One or more interactive elements has been excluded

from this version of the text. You can view them online
here: https://openeducationalberta.ca/
19thcenturyart/?p=653#audio-653-1

Thomas Eakins was an

American painter who through
his career as an artist founded
American Realism.[1] “[He]
depicted naturalistic scenes of
boating, swimming, hunting,
surgeons operating, scientists
with their apparatus, musicians
performing, boxers in the
ring.”[2] For his whole career
Eakins’ paintings were only of
people, places and things he
has seen in his daily life.[3] “In
Thomas Eakins, Self-Portrait, 1902, oil
on canvas his pictures there is nothing
unnecessary, nothing
meaningless, nothing that is not significant.”[4] His passion was for

728 | Chapter 12 - Thomas Eakins

anatomy, “[for] him the human body was the most beautiful thing in
the world – not as an object of desire, or as a set of proportions, but
as a construction of bone and muscle.”[5] Eakins studied at Jefferson
Medical College for two years to gain a deeper understanding of the
human body in order to replicate it in his paintings.[6] Eakins also
spent time teaching at the Pennsylvania Academy of Art before he
was forced to resign due to his unconventional and revolutionary
teaching practices.[7] Eakins’ passion for the human body and his
goal of achieving realism was often taken to the extreme. Thomas
Eakins was the center of much controversy during his career; he
pushed a lot of boundaries and broke many rules but he was a
passionate, meticulous artist with great talent and knowledge.
The most problematic of his
teaching practices which led to
Eakins’ forced resignation from
the Pennsylvania Academy of
Art was the use of fully nude
models for his students, both
male and female, to work from
in his classes.[8] “In the midst of
an impromptu lecture
on Thomas Eakins, The Swimming Hole,
anatomy in a life study class 1885, oil on canvas
attended by female students he
had impulsively stripped away the loincloth of a male model, leaving
nothing to the imagination.”[9] Apart from bringing in nude models
for his students to work off of in class, Eakins himself appears in the
nude in the photograph, Circle of Eakins.[10] Photographs
showcasing both male and female nudity were very much
unprecedented at the time and ran the risk of disapproval.[11]
“Eakins was breaking all the rules with teaching practices such as
these. What we see in the [Circle of Eakins] photograph did not
constitute normal studio procedure, not in Philadelphia, nor in
Paris.”[12] “While his highly specialized interest in figure
construction contributed to his uniqueness as an artist and
theoretician, it narrowed the scope of his teaching until it was no

Chapter 12 - Thomas Eakins | 729

longer appropriate for the majority of his students. Eakins’s
insistence on a specific course of study limited the flexibility of
the curriculum and alienated many pupils. These problems were
compounded by his deliberate disregard of conventional Victorian
moral standards and by his uncompromising advocacy of intensive
professional training for women.”[13] Eakins’ passion for anatomy
came across in a way that portrayed him in a very salacious light.
It was so comfortable for him to be in the presence of the fully
nude body that he failed to respect the boundaries of others in that
regard. He was surrounded by much scandal due to his carelessness
with nudity and sexuality.
The time that Thomas Eakins
spent at Jefferson Medical
College he worked alongside
professor Samuel Gross, his
muse for one of his most
famous masterpieces, The
Gross Clinic.[14] “The Gross
Clinic is eight feet high and six
and one half feet wide. It was
originally painted [with oil] on a
seamless but light weight linen
canvas.”[15] Eakins had high
hopes for The Gross Clinic in
Thomas Eakins, Dr. Gross’s Clinic , terms of its success at the
1875, oil on canvas
Centennial Exposition of 1876
but the committee refused to
put it on display in the art hall because of its gore and clinical
nudity.[16] “Instead they put it in a mock army field hospital, a minor
exhibit, foreshadowing rejections that dogged Eakins for the rest of
his life.”[17] Eakins admired the ways in which surgeons worked so
much that he created intricate works depicting real life scenes of
medical procedures. His passion for anatomy would make these
particular scenes very fascinating for him but I can understand that
not many others would be interested in admiring the details of

730 | Chapter 12 - Thomas Eakins

medical procedures. There was an under-appreciation and
misinterpretation of these works because his realistic art was very
raw and real.
Another one of Thomas
Eakins’ popular paintings is The
Agnew Clinic. It took Eakins
only three months to portray
Agnew conducting a clinic for
his devoted medical
students.[18] The medical
procedure being performed in Thomas Eakins, The Agnew Clinic,
this painting is a mastectomy; 1889, oil on canvas
this sparked controversy once
again for Eakins.[19] It was first deemed revolting and unnecessarily
gross and “has more recently been addressed for what has been
considered its overly sexist representation of the female body
within the realm of medical discourse.”[20] The students in
attendance of Agnew’s clinic all possess the ‘gaze’ which represents
the hierarchy of male doctor over female patient.[21] The inclusion
of a healthy breast in The Agnew Clinic sexualizes and fetishises the
patient.[22] Once again, one of Eakins’ works faced criticism
because “period medical texts suggest that operating for breast
cancer was controversial – not only was the surgery a long, gruelling
procedure, but one whose efficacy was questioned.”[23] Even
though his similar painting, The Gross Clinic, wasn’t well received he
continued to create art that he believed in and was passionate
about.

It was nothing close to a dull career for Thomas Eakins. Not only
did he submerge himself into a lifestyle of art and education, he
navigated his way through a career of controversy and scandal.
Eakins was a very inspired man. He took intricate details from many
parts of his life and found a way to replicate them for others to
appreciate through art and passed along his wisdom to a number
of students. Although he had to deal with backlash and judgment

Chapter 12 - Thomas Eakins | 731

from many, his intentions came from a place of passion and genuine
curiosity. There is something to be said for a man whose talent is
able to stand out above all the criticism and disapproval he was
faced with. Although he was a very controversial man, Eakins was a
very talented and intentional artist.

Bibliography

Athens, Elizabeth. “Knowledge and Authority in Thomas Eakin’s ‘The

Agnew Clinic.’” The Burlington Magazine 148, no. 1240 (2006):
482–85. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20074493.
Canaday, John. “The Realism of Thomas Eakins.” Philadelphia
Museum of Art Bulletin 53, no. 257 (1958): 47-50. https://doi.org/
10.2307/3795025.
Davies, Penelope J. E., Walter B. Denny, Frima Fox Hofrichter,
Joseph Jacobs, David L. Simon, Ann M. Roberts, H. W. Janson,
Anthony F. Janson. Janson’s History of Art: The Western Tradition.
Saddle River, NJ: Pearson, 2010.
Doyle, Jennifer. “Sex, Scandal, and Thomas Eakins’s The Gross
Clinic.” Representations, no. 68 (1999): 1–33. https://doi.org/
10.2307/2902953.
Eakins, Thomas. “The Gross Clinic (1876).” BMJ: British Medical
Journal 301, no. 6754 (1990): 707–707. http://www.jstor.org/
stable/29709107.
Erwin, Robert. “Who Was Thomas Eakins?” The Antioch Review 66,
no. 4 (2008): 655-664. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25475641.
Goodrich, Lloyd. “Thomas Eakins, Realist.” Bulletin of the
Pennsylvania Museum 25, no. 133 (1930): 9-17. https://doi.org/
10.2307/3794382.
Lippincott, Louise. 2008. “Thomas Eakins And The Academy”. In This
Academy: The Pennsylvanian Academy Of Fine Arts 1805-1976.
Lubin, David. “Projecting an Image: The Contested Cultural Identity
of Thomas Eakins.” The Art Bulletin 84, no. 3 (2002): 510–22.
https://doi.org/10.2307/3177312.
Siegl, Theodor. “The Conservation of the ‘Gross Clinic.’” Philadelphia

732 | Chapter 12 - Thomas Eakins

 Museum of Art Bulletin 57, no. 272 (1962): 39–62. https://doi.org/
10.2307/3795054.

[1] Robert Erwin, “Who Was Thomas Eakins?,” The Antioch Review
66, no. 4 (2008): 655, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25475641.

[2] Erwin, “Who Was Thomas Eakins?,” 655.

[3] Lloyd Goodrich, “Thomas Eakins, Realist,” Bulletin of the

Pennsylvania Museum 25, no. 133 (1930): 13, https://doi.org/
10.2307/3794382.

[4] Goodrich, “Thomas Eakins, Realist,” 17.

[5] John Canaday, “The Realism of Thomas Eakins,” Philadelphia

Museum of Art Bulletin 53, no. 257 (1958): 47, https://doi.org/
10.2307/3795025.

[6] Canaday, “The Realism of Thomas Eakins,” 47.

[7] Jennifer Doyle, “Sex, Scandal, and Thomas Eakins’s The Gross
Clinic,” Representations, no. 68 (1999): 1, ttps://doi.org/10.2307/
2902953.

[8] Penelope J. E. Davies, Denny, Hofrichter, Jacobs, Simon, Roberts,

Janson, Janson, Janson’s History of Art: The Western Tradition,
Saddle River, NJ: Pearson, 2010, 888.

[9] David Lubin, “Projecting an Image: The Contested Cultural

Identity of Thomas Eakins,” The Art Bulletin 84, no. 3 (2002): 510–22.
https://doi.org/10.2307/3177312, 516.

[10] Lubin, “Projecting an Image: The Contested Cultural Identity of

Thomas Eakins,” 516.

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[11] Lubin, “Projecting an Image: The Contested Cultural Identity of
Thomas Eakins,” 516.

[12] Lubin, “Projecting an Image: The Contested Cultural Identity of

Thomas Eakins,” 516.

[13] Lippincott, Louise. 2008. “Thomas Eakins And The Academy”. In

This Academy: The Pennsylvanian Academy Of Fine Arts 1805-1976,
paragraph 2.

[14] Thomas Eakins, “The Gross Clinic (1876),” BMJ: British Medical
Journal 301 no. 6754 (1990): 707, http://www.jstor.org/stable/
29709107.

[15] Theodor Siegl, “The Conservation of the ‘Gross Clinic,’”

Philadelphia Museum of Art Bulletin 57, no.272 (1962): 39,
https://doi.org/10.2307/3795054.

[16] Erwin, “Who Was Thomas Eakins?,” 656.

[17] Erwin, “Who Was Thomas Eakins?,” 656.

[18] Elizabeth Athens, “Knowledge and Authority in Thomas Eakin’s

‘The Agnew Clinic.’” The Burlington Magazine 148, no. 1240 (2006):
482–85. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20074493.

[19] Athens, “Knowledge and Authority in Thomas Eakin’s ‘The

Agnew Clinic,’” 482.

[20] Athens, “Knowledge and Authority in Thomas Eakin’s ‘The

Agnew Clinic,’” 482.

[21] Athens, “Knowledge and Authority in Thomas Eakin’s ‘The

Agnew Clinic,’” 482.

[22] Athens, “Knowledge and Authority in Thomas Eakin’s ‘The

Agnew Clinic,’” 485.

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[23] Athens, “Knowledge and Authority in Thomas Eakin’s ‘The
Agnew Clinic,’” 485.

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