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On the Clark Art Institute, in Williamstown, MA, see the first post in this series. This post is available as a video at https://youtu.be/KTPg5BJcuio

This week: Romanticists and Neoclassicists battle it out circa 1800-1850.

Circa 1800

Sir Thomas Lawrence, The Honorable Caroline Upton. This is very much in the mood of the Gainsborough portrait of Elizabeth and Thomas Linley that we saw in last week’s post: a beautiful, charming woman, rendered with great finesse. Lawrence (1769-1830), a child prodigy, began his career at age ten by selling pastel portraits to help support his family. He was knighted in 1815 and named president of the Royal Academy in 1820. The Metropolitan Museum of Art has two of my favorites by Lawrence: Elizabeth Farren, later Countess of Derby, 1790, and the Calmady Children, 1823.

I mentioned the Neoclassical style last week, as the style that pushed out Rococo elegance and Greuze’s naturalism. This work is an example of Neoclassicism’s influence in subject: the sitter wears a white dress in the Greek style, and on her armband is a seated woman playing a lyre. The profile view is reminiscent of ancient cameos, which were always highly prized. More on this work here.

Circa 1815-1820

Theodore Gericault, Trumpeter of the Hussars.

In the mid-1810s, as the Napoleonic Wars were reaching their frenzied climax, Theodore Gericault (1791-1824) painted a series of military figures on horseback. Mounted Trumpeters of Napoleon’s Imperial Guard, at the National Gallery in Washington, is typical: three cavalrymen in brilliant uniforms are shown against a dull background. But the Clark’s painting has a different mood.

Hussars were notoriously fearless about rushing into the battle, and there is indeed a battle raging in the distance, with smoke that looks blood-tinged. But this Hussar is a trumpeter, so he can’t be in the thick of battle: he must stay at a distance so that he can be heard sounding the advance or retreat. Short of sending a rider across a battlefield, there is no other way to communicate when over 100,000 men are on the field. Yet the way Gericault shows this soldier makes him look isolated and alone. We can’t see his expression, only his profile as he looks intently into the distance.

In 1819, probably shortly after he completed this work, Gericault became famous with his enormous canvas The Raft of the Medusa. After nearly three centuries of paintings that glorified France’s history and rulers, the Raft starkly illustrated that the French government could be stupid and careless. By 1830, Raft was considered a masterpiece. But by that time Gericault, the rising star among Romantic painters, was dead, killed in his early thirties in a riding accident. For more on this painting, see here. For more on Gericault (including his thoughts on training of artists and on the role of reason and emotion in art), see my Seismic Shifts in Subject and Style, Chapter 4.

1816

Romantic painting was on the rise among artists such as Gericault, but it never completely dominated French painting. The Neoclassicists (who morphed into the Academics) remained a powerful force. Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825) trained under Fragonard, a leading Rococo artist (see last week’s post), but switched to Neoclassicism in the 1780s, with works such as The Oath of the Horatii. By the 1810s, David was the most famous French Neoclassicist.

But David was also a fervent supporter of the French Revolution, and then of Napoleon. When Napoleon was sent to St. Helena in 1815 and the Bourbons were restored to the throne, David went into self-imposed exile in Brussels. That’s why Ingres became the torch-bearer for the Neoclassicists in France. The subject of this portrait, shown in full uniform, was one of Napoleon’s distinguished officers who had also gone into exile in Brussels. On this painting, see here. For more on David (including his thoughts on the role of reason and emotions in creating art, on style vs. subject, and on judging art), see Seismic Shifts, Chapter 3.

1821

Francois-Joseph Navez (1787-1869), a Belgian, studied under David in Paris, then traveled to Rome, where he painted this Musical Group using Italian models in fancy dress costumes. This painting is very much in the Neoclassical style, with crisp, sharp details and a balanced composition. Navez emphasizes the interactions between the figures by their gazes: a man playing mandolin looks at woman seated on her mother’s lap, while the mother looks at a child holding tambourine, and the child stares at the mandolin-player’s hands. For more on this painting, see here; on Navez, see here.

Circa 1828

And now, back to the Romantics: specifically to Eugene Delacroix (1798-1863), the most famous of them after Gericault’s death. For Delacroix and many other Romantics, the purpose of art was to evoke a strong emotion. Sometimes instead of portraying humans with strong emotions, they showed animals or tempestuous weather. Delacroix uses both in this painting.

The “halo” formed by the pale horse’s flying mane suggests it’s good, which makes the dark horse – lunging in to bite the other horse’s neck – evil. The violent movement and swift, loose brushstrokes are typical of Delacroix. He used them in his most famous painting, Liberty Leading the People, 1830. But there instead of animals, he uses a combination of realistic and allegorical figures to immortalize the July Revolution of 1830.

On this painting, see here; on Delacroix (including his thoughts on the relationship between reason and art), see Seismic Shifts Chapter 4.

Circa 1850-1870

Barye (1796-1875) was the leading figure in the animalier movement, which was closely linked to the Romantics. Animalier artists specialized in realistic portrayals of animals – usually in violent conflict, like the horses we just saw by Delacroix. In the Clark’s painting by Barye, the tiger is at rest but has a mesmerizing gaze.

Barye often visited the Paris zoo to study the exotic animals for works such as Tiger at Rest. Critic Théophile Gautier called him “the Michelangelo of the menagerie”. For more on this painting, see here.

Next week: more from the Clark Art Institute.

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