0134484592 ch31

Copyright © 2018, 2014, 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Art History
Sixth Edition
Chapter 31
Mid- to Late Nineteenth-
Century Art in Europe and
the United States

Learning Objectives (1 of 2)
31.a Identify the visual hallmarks of mid- to late nineteenth-century
European and American art and architecture for formal, technical, and
expressive qualities.
31.b Interpret the meaning of works of mid- to late nineteenth-century
European and American art based on their themes, subjects, and
symbols.
31.c Relate mid- to late nineteenth-century European and American art
and artists to their cultural, economic, and political contexts.

Learning Objectives (2 of 2)
31.d Apply the vocabulary and concepts relevant to mid- to late
nineteenth-century European and American art, artists, and art history.
31.e Interpret a work of mid- to late nineteenth-century European or
American art using the art historical methods of observation, comparison,
and inductive reasoning.
31.f Select visual and textual evidence in various media to support an
argument or an interpretation of a work of mid- to late nineteenth-century
European or American art or architecture.

Gustave Eiffel EIFFEL TOWER, PARIS
1889 (also the date of this photograph). Height 984' (300 m).
Courtesy the Library of Congress. [Fig. 31-01]

Europe and the United States in the Mid
to Late Nineteenth Century (1 of 2)
• Advances in manufacturing, transportation, and communications
created new products and wealth.
– However, industrial laborers and owners of cottage industries
suffered extensively.
• Women demanded suffrage (only achieved in 1920) and many
suffragists were also slavery abolitionists.

Europe and the United States in the Mid
to Late Nineteenth Century (2 of 2)
• The second half of the nineteenth century has been called the
"positivist age" due to its faith in science.
– The development of the telephone, radio, electrical lighting,
vaccines, and disinfectant occurred.
– Charles Darwin challenged Creation.
• This paralleled the changes in art, but later abstract expression
emerged.

EUROPE AND THE UNITED STATES IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
In the nineteenth century, Europe and the United States became increasingly
industrialized, and many European nations established colonial possessions around the
world. Paris was firmly established as the center of the Western art world.
[Map 31-01]

French Academic Architecture and Art
• Public works were decorated with motifs drawn from historic models—
historicism.
• Historicists often combined allusions to other different historical
periods in a single work.
• Orientalist paintings arose, combining Egyptian, Turkish, and Indian
cultures through symbolism.

Art and Its Contexts: Orientalism
• The Snake Charmer by Jean-León Gérôme mixes Egyptian, Turkish,
and Indian cultures in a fantastical and erotic work.
• Edward Said describes Orientalism as the colonial gaze in which the
Orient is viewed as something to possess, an "exotic" playground for
the "civilized" European visitor.

Jean-Léon Gérôme THE SNAKE CHARMER
c. 1870. Oil on canvas, 33" × 48-1/8" (83.8 × 122.1 cm).
Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts. Acquired by Sterling and Francine
Clark, 1942. (1955.51). Bridgeman Images. [Fig. 31-02]

Academic Architecture
• Charles Garnier constructed the Paris Opéra (opera house) with a
cast-iron frame overlaid with nonstructural "neo-Baroque" decoration.
• The opulent foyer staircase served as a stage for nobility.

Charles Garnier OPÉRA, PARIS
1861–1874.
© akg-images. [Fig. 31-03]

GRAND STAIRCASE, OPÉRA
© John Kellerman/Alamy Stock Photo. [Fig. 31-04]

Painting and Sculpture (1 of 2)
• The Birth of Venus by Alexandre Cabanel represents the taste of the
Académie des Beaux-Arts at the mid nineteenth century.
– A combination of popular mythology and sexual allure
characterizes this piece.
– The won the Prix de Rome and went on to garner three-time top
honors at the Salon.

Alexandre Cabanel THE BIRTH OF VENUS
1863. Oil on canvas, 52" × 90" (1.35 × 2.29 m).
Musée d'Orsay, Paris. Photo © RMN-Grand Palais (musée d'Orsay)/Hervé Lewandowski.
[Fig. 31-05]

Painting and Sculpture (2 of 2)
• The works of Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux explore the deviations within the
academy.
– The Dance portrays a group of nude dancers in a somewhat
spontaneous arrangement.
– Unlike Neoclassical art, this piece contains figures that are more
naturalistic than idealized.

Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux THE DANCE
1867–1868. Plaster, height approx. 15' (4.6 m).
Musée d'Orsay, Paris. © akg-images/Erich Lessing. [Fig. 31-06]

Technique: The Photographic Process
• A camera is basically a lightproof box with an aperture, lens, and a
shutter.
• When the shutter is open, light reflected off objects strikes the film and
exposes it.
• Light is directed through a negative onto paper to create a positive
image.
• Today's technology records photo images digitally.

TECHNIQUE: The Photographic Process

Early Photography in Europe and the
United States (1 of 4)
• The camera obscura was an early device for recording images from
life.
• Photography was developed as a way to make permanent visual
impressions.
• Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre was the first to "fix" a photographic
image.
– A silver-coated metal plate treated with iodine fumes could make
images visible when treated with mercury vapor.

Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre THE ARTIST'S STUDIO
1837. Daguerreotype, 6-1/2" × 8-1/2" (16.5 × 21.6 cm).
Société Française de Photographie, Paris. © akg-images. [Fig. 31-07]

• Daguerrotypes include a still life of plaster casts and a framed
drawing that stakes a claim for photography as art.
• Samuel Morse, inventor of the telegraph, introduced the daguerrotype
to America within weeks of Daguerre's announcement.
– He reduced exposure times short enough to take portrait
photographs.

DAGUERREOTYPE OF SAMUEL FINLEY BREESE MORSE
c. 1845. Sixth plate daguerreotype, 2-3/4" × 3-1/4" (7 × 8.3 cm).
The Daguerreotype Collection of the Library of Congress, Washington, DC. Courtesy the
Library of Congress. [Fig. 31-08]

• William Henry Fox Talbot worked on his own calotype independently
from Daguerre, making positive prints from negatives, from which an
unlimited number of prints could be made.

• Talbot published a book in six parts, The Pencil of Nature, which
included The Open Door.
– It is a picture evoking an agrarian way of life that was fast
disappearing.
• Frederick Scott Archer found that silver nitrate would adhere to glass if
mixed with collodion, resulting in a glass negative with greater tonal
subtlety.

Henry Fox Talbot THE OPEN DOOR
1843. Salt-paper print from a calotype negative, 5-5/8" × 7-11/16" (14.3 × 19.5 cm).
Science Museum, London. Fox Talbot Collection. © National Media Museum/Science &
Society Picture Library. [Fig. 31-09]

Alexander Gardner and Julia Margaret
Cameron (1 of 2)
• Alexander Gardner sought to show a Rebel Sharpshooter killed in
battle, but the image was not organically taken from the Battle of
Gettysburg.
– The photographers dragged the dead body to the site and posed
it, exhibiting the difficult reality that photography does not equate
to factuality.

Alexander Gardner THE HOME OF THE REBEL SHARPSHOOTER:
BATTLEFIELD AT GETTYSBURG
1863. Albumen print, 7" × 9" (18 × 23 cm).
Library of Congress, Washington, DC. Courtesy the Library of Congress [Fig. 31-10]

Alexander Gardner and Julia Margaret
Cameron (2 of 2)
• Julia Margaret Cameron began photographing at age 49 and created
purposely out-of-focus portraits of great British men.
– Thomas Carlyle calls attention to light that suffused the subject in
a metaphor for creative genius.

Julia Margaret Cameron PORTRAIT OF THOMAS CARLYLE
1867. Silver print, 10" × 8" (25.4 × 20.3 cm).
The Royal Photographic Society, Collection at National Museum of Photography, Film,
and Television, England. © National Media Museum/Science & Society Picture Library.
[Fig. 31-11]

Realism and the Avant-Garde
• The avant-garde, "advance guard," was created in reaction to rigid
academy training.
• Artists gathered to transform modern industrialized and bourgeois
society into an ideal state through radical art.
– Architect Viollet-le-Duc believed that this would sacrifice
reputations and reduce sales.

Realism and Revolution (1 of 6)
• The Revolution of 1848 saw the overthrow of the monarchy and
establishment of the Second Republic.
– Conflicts among reformers led to the deaths of over 10,000
working poor.
• Realism is less of a style and more of a commitment to paint the
brutalities of the modern world with honesty.

• Courbet
– Gustave Courbet (1819–1877) turned to painting poor and
ordinary people.
– The Stone Breakers, destroyed in World War II, depicts a young
boy and an old man crushing rocks.
 The figures represent both an obsolete past and a grim future.
 The work itself was the scale of a history painting.

Gustave Courbet THE STONE BREAKERS
1849. Oil on canvas, 5'3" × 8'6" (1.6 × 2.59 m).
Formerly Gemäldegalerie, Dresden; destroyed in World War II. © Staatliche
Kunstsammlungen Dresden/Bridgeman Images. [Fig. 31-12]

• Courbet
– A Burial at Ornans commemorates the funeral of Courbet's
grandfather.
 Genuine sorry of mourners is contrasted by indifference of two
Church officials.
 The painting captures the physical reality of a funeral with
awkward numbness.

Gustave Courbet A BURIAL AT ORNANS
1849. Oil on canvas, 10'3-1/2" × 21'9" (3.1 × 6.6 m).
Musée d'Orsay, Paris. Photo © RMN-Grand Palais (musée d'Orsay)/Gérard Blot/Hervé
Lewandowski. [Fig. 31-13]

• Millet
– Accusations of political radicalism were leveled against Courbet,
and later against Jean-François Millet for his paintings' focus on
rural life.
 The Gleaners shows three women gathering left-over grain
after harvest in a scene where warm colors contrast extreme
poverty.
 Millet would deny social criticism.

Jean-François Millet THE GLEANERS
1857. Oil on canvas, 33" × 44" (83.8 × 111.8 cm).
Musée d'Orsay, Paris. Photo © RMN-Grand Palais (musée d'Orsay)/Jean Schormans.
[Fig. 31-14]

• Corot
– Through a more romantic approach, Corot painted intimate scenes
of rural France like First Leaves, Near Mantes.
– Images of peaceful country life held appeal for Parisians sick of
the crowded and chaotic metropolis.

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot FIRST LEAVES, NEAR MANTES
c. 1855. Oil on canvas, 13-3/8" × 18-1/8" (34 × 46 cm).
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Photograph © 2016 Carnegie
Museum of Art, Pittsburgh. Photo: Richard Stoner. [Fig. 31-15]

• Bonheur
– Rosa Bonheur was a popular painter of French farm life.
 She had to dress in men's clothing (with police permission) to
make detailed studies in stockyards and slaughterhouses.
 The Horse Fair was highly praised at the 1853 Salon, which
was unusual for a painting of farm animals.

Rosa Bonheur THE HORSE FAIR
1853–1855. Oil on canvas, 8'-1/4" × 16'7-1/2" (2.45 × 5.07 m).
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. © 2016. Image copyright The Metropolitan
Museum of Art/Art Resource, NY/ Scala, Florence. [Fig. 31-16]

Manet: "The Painter of Modern Life"
(1 of 4)
• Themes of the modern city and politics are key to understanding the
trends that developed in Paris at this time.
• Édouard Manet became the unofficial leader of a group of artists and
writers who pushed the French Realist tradition into new territory.

(2 of 4)
• Luncheon on the Grass
– Manet offered flat, sharply outlined, and starkly lit figures who
stand out against their setting.
 In a nod to Titian's Pastoral Concert, a completely naked
woman is seated next to two fully clothed bourgeois men.
– This nudity was scandalous as it was not part of
mythological or historical narrative, but within
contemporary life.

Édouard Manet THE LUNCHEON ON THE GRASS/LE DÉJEUNER SUR L'HERBE
1863. Oil on canvas, 7' × 8'8" (2.13 × 2.64 m).
[Fig. 31-17]

(3 of 4)
• Olympia
– The title alludes to a socially ambitious prostitute of the same
name in a novel and play by Alexandre Dumas fils.
 It is based on Titian's "Venus" of Urbino, but instead of a
curvaceous and round nude, Manet's subject is angular and
flattened.
– The tradition of the accommodating female nude is
subverted by her gaze.

Édouard Manet OLYMPIA
1863. Oil on canvas, 4'3" × 6'2-1/4" (1.31 × 1.91 m).
Musée d'Orsay, Paris. Photo © RMN-Grand Palais (musée d'Orsay). [Fig. 31-18]

(4 of 4)
• Later Works
– A Bar at the Folies-Bergère portrays a girl hard at work in a bar,
maintaining Manet's dedication to painting modern urban life.
 The piece acknowledges both her class and gender; both she
and the products she sells appear to be available for purchase.

Édouard Manet A BAR AT THE FOLIES-BERGÈRE
1881–1882. Oil on canvas. 37-3/4" × 51-1/4" (95.9 × 130 cm).
The Samuel Courtauld Trust, The Courtauld Gallery, London. (P.1934.SC.234).
© Samuel Courtauld Trust, The Courtauld Gallery, London, UK/Bridgeman Images.
[Fig. 31-19]

Responses to Realism Beyond France
(1 of 9)
• Social effects of urbanization and industrialization in other countries
led to movements of art not labeled "Realism," but called the same
manner of attention to the same bleak reality the working poor
experienced.

(2 of 9)
• Realism in Russia: The Wanderers
– Reacting against escapist aesthetics of the St. Petersburg
Academy of Art, a group of artists reasserted what they called
authentic Russian culture.
– Bargehaulers on the Volga evoked sympathy for a group of
peasants in a call to action against the labor practices on the
Volga River.

Ilya Repin BARGEHAULERS ON THE VOLGA
1870–1873. Oil on canvas, 4'3-3/4" × 9'3" (1.3 × 2.81 m).
State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg. © akg-images. [Fig. 31-20]

(3 of 9)
• Realism in the United States: A Continuing Tradition
– Realism was unbroken in American painting as far back as
Colonial portrait painters.
– Philadelphia artist Thomas Eakins specialized in frank portraits.
 The Gross Clinic was controversial because surgery was
deemed an unfit subject for art.

Thomas Eakins THE GROSS CLINIC
1875. Oil on canvas, 8' × 6'5" (2.44 × 1.98 m).
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pennsylvania. Gift of the Alumni Association to Jefferson
Medical College in 1878 and purchased by the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
and the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 2007. © 2016. Photo The Philadelphia Museum of
Art/Art Resource/Scala, Florence. [Fig. 31-21]

(4 of 9)
– Winslow Homer was a reporter and illustrator for Harper's Weekly,
producing works of the Civil War.
 Later, he created The Life Line, depicting a coast guard saving
a shipwrecked woman with a breeches buoy.

Winslow Homer THE LIFE LINE
1884. Oil on canvas, 28-3/4" × 44-5/8" (73 × 113.3 cm).
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pennsylvania. The George W. Elkins Collection, 1924.
© 2016. Photo The Philadelphia Museum of Art/Art Resource/Scala, Florence.
[Fig. 31-22]

(5 of 9)
– Edmonia Lewis created highly successful busts and medallions of
abolitionist leaders and Civil War heroes.
 Inspired by the struggle of recently freed slaves for equality,
she created Forever Free to commemorate the Emancipation
Proclamation.

Edmonia Lewis FOREVER FREE
1867. Marble, 41-1/4 × 22 × 17" (104.8 × 55 × 43.2 cm).
Howard University Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. [Fig. 31-23]

(6 of 9)
– Henry Ossawa Tanner's painting received favorable critical
attention after he moved from Atlanta to Paris.
 The Banjo Lesson is a humanizing image of African-American
life, where an elderly man teaches a young boy with serious
concentration.

Henry Ossawa Tanner THE BANJO LESSON
1893. Oil on canvas, 49 × 35-1/2" (124.4 × 90 cm).
Hampton University Museum, Virginia. Hampton University’s Archival and Museum
Collection Hampton University. [Fig. 31-24]

(7 of 9)
• Developments in Britain
– In England, artists looked to art of the Middle Ages and Early
Renaissance for beauty, naturalism, and moralizing spirituality
they found was lacking.
– Rossetti's La Pia de' Tolomei illustrates a story from Dante's
Purgatory.
 It is rich with symbolism, implying that La Pia (the pious one) is
a captive within her marriage.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti LA PIA DE' TOLOMEI
1868–1869. Oil on canvas, 41-1/2" × 47-1/2" (105.4 × 119.4 cm).
Spencer Museum of Art, The University of Kansas. (1956.0031) [Fig. 31-25]

(8 of 9)
– William Morris argued for handcrafted objects over gaudy and
shoddy industrially-produced goods.
 He founded a decorating firm to produce a full range of
domestic products.
 Some products were relatively affordable, such as the rush-
seated Chair shown on the next slide.

Philip Webb and William Morris "SUSSEX" CHAIR and "PEACOCK AND DRAGON"
CURTAIN
Chair (by Webb): In production from c. 1865.
Ebonized wood with rush seat, 33" × 16 1/2" × 14" (83.8 × 42 × 35.6 cm).
Curtain (by Morris): 1878. Handloomed jacquard-woven woolen twill, 12'10-1/2" × 11'5-
5/8" (3.96 × 3.53 m). Chair and curtain manufactured by Morris & Company. The William
Morris Gallery, London Borough of Waltham Forest. The William Morris Gallery, London,
E17, England. [Fig. 31-26]

(9 of 9)
– James Abbott McNeill Whistler sought to satisfy an elitist taste for
pure beauty.
 His art was of pure aesthetic value.
 Nocturne in Black and Gold, the Falling Rocket depicts a
fireworks show with several observers in the foreground.
– It was criticized as unfinished, or as flinging paint in the
audience's face.

James Abbott McNeill Whistler NOCTURNE IN BLACK AND GOLD, THE FALLING
ROCKET
1875. Oil on panel, 23-3/4" × 18-3/8" (60.2 × 46.7 cm).
The Detroit Institute of Arts. Gift of Dexter M. Ferry Jr. (46.309).
Bridgeman Images. [Fig. 31-27]

Art and Its Contexts: Art on Trial in 1877
• The trial that James Abbott McNeill Whistler initiated against critic John
Ruskin ended in favor of the artist, whom Ruskin had libeled.
• However, in those days, the person who brought the suit had to pay all
court costs; this bankrupted the artist.

Impressionism
• Artists began to paint outdoors, en plein air in an effort to record
fleeting effects of light and atmosphere.
• A group under the organization of Camille Pissarro urged artists to
band into grass-roots organizations rather than rely on state-
sanctioned institutions.
– Their exhibitions drew relative success.

Landscape and Leisure (1 of 6)
• The Franco–Prussian War of 1870 and the deaths of over 20,000
people rocked Paris and led to the diminishment of political
commentary in French art.
• Impressionists sought to celebrate semirural outings afforded by the
Paris train system.

• Monet's painting, Impression, Sunrise, was how the Impressionist
movement was named.
– A critic meant for it to mock the open brushstrokes and unfinished
look, but Monet and his colleagues felt it aptly described their aim
of depicting a fleeting moment.

Claude Monet IMPRESSION: SUNRISE
1872. Oil on canvas, 19" × 24-3/8" (48 × 63 cm).
Musée Marmottan, Paris. Bridgeman Images. [Fig. 31-28]

• Monet painted the façade of the Rouen Cathedral on over 30
canvases.
– Rather than for religious reasons, Monet's fascination with this
particular cathedral involved the way the light changed the façade
constantly.

Claude Monet ROUEN CATHEDRAL, WEST FAÇADE, SUNLIGHT
1894. Oil on canvas, 39-3/8 × 25-7/8" (100.1 × 65.8 cm).
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Chester Dale Collection (1963.10.179).
Image courtesy the National Gallery of Art, Washington. [Fig. 31-29]

• Camille Pissarro painted scenes where urban visitors were embedded
within a rural countryside.
– Wooded Landscape at L'Hermitage, Pontoise is composed of a
village shrouded in a screen of trees.

Camille Pissarro WOODED LANDSCAPE AT L'HERMITAGE, PONTOISE
1878. Oil on canvas, 18-5/16" × 22-1/16" (46.5 × 56 cm).
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri. Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Nicholas S.
Pickard. [Fig. 31-30]

• Pierre-Auguste Renoir focused his attention on depicting the middle
class at leisure.
– Moulin de la Galette shows the relaxed and informal crowd at a
dance hall.
– The artist sought to capture a carefree life, a paradise removed
from the real world.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir MOULIN DE LA GALETTE
1876. Oil on canvas, 4'3-1/2" × 5'9" (1.31 × 1.75 m).
[Fig. 31-31]

• Berthe Morisot married Edouard Manet's brother and continued
painting even after the birth of her daughter.
– Her art was dedicated to the lives of bourgeois women, such as in
Summer's Day.
 This painting exemplifies the emphasis on formal features in
Impressionist painting.

Berthe Morisot SUMMER'S DAY
1879. Oil on canvas, 17-13/16" × 29-5/16" (45.7 × 75.2 cm).
National Gallery, London. Lane Bequest, 1917. © 2016. Copyright The National Gallery,
London/Scala, Florence. [Fig. 31-32]

Modern Life (1 of 4)
• The work of Edgar Degas often depicted observances of rehearsals
and performance of ballet.
– The Rehearsal on Stage is not a factual record, but a contrivance
viewed from the angled perspective of an opera box.
– Dancers stretch, look bored or exhausted, and are watched over
by several "protectors."

Edgar Degas THE REHEARSAL ON STAGE
c. 1874. Pastel over brush-and-ink drawing on thin, cream-colored wove paper, laid on
bristol board, mounted on canvas, 21-3/8" × 28-3/4" (54.3 × 73 cm).
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer Collection, Gift
of Horace Havemeyer, 1929 (29.160.26). © 2016. Image copyright The Metropolitan
Museum of Art/Art Resource, NY/Scala, Florence. [Fig. 31-33]

• Degas's later images include intimate scenes of bathing women.
– The Tub is rendered from an elevated, domineering vantage point,
evidenced by the tipped-up table with a still life of objects
associated with bathing.

Edgar Degas THE TUB
1886. Pastel on cardboard, 23-5/8" × 32-5/8" (60 × 83 cm).
[Fig. 31-34]

• Mary Cassatt was an American expatriate living in Paris who
befriended Degas.
– Her work sought to counteract the clichéd conceptions of the
domestic and social life of bourgeois women.
– Mother and Child features contrast between loosely painted
clothing and solidly modeled forms of faces and hands.

Mary Cassatt MOTHER AND CHILD
c. 1890. Oil on canvas, 35-1/2" × 25-3/8" (90.2 × 64.5 cm).
Wichita Art Museum, Kansas. [Fig. 31-35]

• Gustave Caillebotte expressed his fascination for the regularized,
radiating streets of Paris in Paris Street, Rainy Day.
– This asymmetrical composition and tipped perspective highlights
the streets as the subject amidst bustling, anonymous crowds.

Gustave Caillebotte PARIS STREET, RAINY DAY
1877. Oil on canvas, 83-1/2" × 108-3/4" (212.2 × 276.2 cm).
The Art Institute of Chicago. Charles H. and Mary F.S. Worcester Collection (1964.336).
Photo © The Art Institute of Chicago. [Fig. 31-36]

Japonisme (1 of 2)
• After the forced reopening of the borders of Japan in 1853, artworks
began to be distributed through Paris.
– Soon, obsession with collecting Japanese objects and art was
termed Japonisme.
• Individual Japanese artists worked purely on aesthetic conception
rather than Renaissance rules.

Suzuki Harunobu YOUNG WOMAN LOOKING AT A POT OF PINKS
c. 1767. Woodblock print, 10-5⁄8" × 7-1⁄2″ (27 × 19.2 cm).
The Cleveland Museum of Art. Bridgeman Images. [Fig. 31-37]

Japonisme (2 of 2)
• Cassatt directly emulated the ukiyo-e style, which she had seen at a
1890 exhibition of Japanese woodblock prints.
– She created ten prints using aquatint and drypoint, and they
featured cropped, asymmetrical compositions that would have
been seen in Japanese prints.

Mary Cassatt WOMAN BATHING
1890–1891. Color drypoint and aquatint, 16-5⁄8" × 12″ (42.3 × 30.5 cm). National Gallery
of Art, Washington, D.C., Chester Dale Collection (1963.10.253)
Image courtesy the National Gallery of Art, Washington. [Fig. 31-38]

The Late Nineteenth Century
• Artists worked to developed new visual languages for their messages.
• French Post-Impressionists interpreted art as an expression of the
imagination.
– Symbolist artists found a similar retreat in the imagination.
• Art Nouveau artists rejected rational order in favor of whimsical,
writhing designs.

Post-Impressionism (1 of 5)
• Critic Roger Fry used this term as a description for a group of artists
whose work was not unified, but shared the founding principles of
Impressionism from which to adapt.

• Seurat
– Georges Seurat (1859–1891) devoted his life to "correcting"
shallow aspects of Impressionism.
 He juxtaposed small strokes of pure, unblended color, creating
pointilism and the effect of complementary color proposed by
Chevreul.
 Sunday Afternoon... was painted with 11 colors in three values.

Georges Seurat A SUNDAY AFTERNOON ON THE ISLAND OF LA GRANDE JATTE
1884–1886. Oil on canvas, 6'9-1/2" × 10'1-1/4" (207 × 308 cm).
The Art Institute of Chicago. Helen Birch Bartlett Memorial Collection (1926.22).

• Van Gogh and Gauguin
– One of the most famous Post-Impressionists, Van Gogh was a
socialist who believed that modern life alienated people from both
one another and themselves.
– His contributions to art would lead to the later emergence of
Expressionism, art that exaggerates aspects of form to evoke
subjective emotion.

– The artist adapted Seurat's technique, painting in free,
multidirectional impasto lines.
– The Starry Night explores his contemplation of life and death with
psychological, energetic intensity.

Vincent van Gogh THE STARRY NIGHT
1889. Oil on canvas, 28-3/4 × 36-1/4" (73 × 93 cm).
Museum of Modern Art, New York. Acquired through the Lillie P. Bliss Bequest
(472.1941). © 2016. Digital Image, The Museum of Modern Art, New York/Scala,
Florence. [Fig. 31-40]

– Paul Gauguin created a style he called synthetism, which mixed
the observation of a subject with the artist's feelings on that
subject.
 Mahana no Atua, painted during his brief return from travels to
the South Pacific, depicts an Edenic ideal closer to his
imagination than the colonized cultural reality.

A CLOSER LOOK: Mahana no atua (Day of the God) by Paul Gauguin
1894. Oil on canvas. 27-3/8" × 35-5/8" (69.5 × 90.5 cm).

Symbolism (1 of 3)
• This movement addressed the fears, desires, and impulses of the
human mind.
• Artists rejected the value of rationalism and utilized strange and
ambiguous subject matter in stylized forms.
– Paintings paralleled a similar movement among poets and writers.

Symbolism (2 of 3)
• Moreau
– Gustave Moreau rendered The Apparition with the macabre head
of John the Baptist dripping blood as it hovers in midair.
 A seductive Salomé drips with decadence in the foreground,
symbolizing her role as femme fatale who uses her sensuality
to destroy a male victim.

Gustave Moreau THE APPARITION
1874–1876. Watercolor on paper, 41-5/16" × 28-3/16" (106 × 72.2 cm).
Musée du Louvre, Paris. Photo © RMN-Grand Palais (musée d'Orsay)/Jean-Gilles
Berizzi. [Fig. 31-42]

Symbolism (3 of 3)
• Munch
– Edvard Munch's The Scream depicts a feeling of overwhelming
anxiety culminating in a primal scream.
• Ensor
– A group of agitated people in the foreground of The Intrigue are
rendered with masks on their faces, giving them a disturbing and
menacing quality.

Edvard Munch THE SCREAM
1893. Tempera and oil on unprimed canvas, 33 × 26" (83.5 × 66 cm).
Munch Museum, Oslo. © 2016 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Nasjonalgalleriet,
Oslo, Norway/Bridgeman Images. [Fig. 31-43]

James Ensor THE INTRIGUE
1890. Oil on canvas, 35-1/2" × 59" (90.3 × 150 cm).
Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp. © Lukas - Art in Flanders VZW/Photo:
Hugo Maertens/Bridgeman Images. [Fig. 31-44]

French Sculpture (1 of 2)
• Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) failed to get into the École des Beaux-
Arts, leading him to assist other sculptors.
– He developed a vigorously modeled style, exhibited in the
Burghers of Calais monument commissioned to commemorate an
event from the Hundred Years' War.
 Critics in Calais were not please with the exaggerated
expressions.

Auguste Rodin THE BURGHERS OF CALAIS
1884–1889. Bronze, 6'10-1/2" × 7'11" × 6'6" (2.1 × 2.4 × 2 m).
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. Gift
of Joseph H. Hirshhorn, 1966 (66.4340). [Fig. 31-45]

French Sculpture (2 of 2)
• Camille Claudel, assistant and later mistress to Rodin, was herself an
accomplished sculptor.
– The Waltz is a celebrated sculpture of a dancing couple in the
nude.
 After a government inspector called the nudity indecent, she
added a swirling cloth to the woman's lower body.
 Sinuous poses recall fluid lines of the Art Nouveau.

Camille Claudel THE WALTZ
1892–1905. Bronze, height 9-7/8" (25 cm).
Neue Pinakothek, Munich. Photo © Blauel/Gnamm/ARTOTHEK. [Fig. 31-46]

Art Nouveau (1 of 5)
• Literally "new art," the Art Nouveau movement rejected values of
modern industrial society.
• Rejecting the functional aesthetic in works such as the Eiffel Tower,
artists and architects drew their inspiration from nature and delicate,
graceful forms.

• Horta
– Victor Horta (1861–1947) designed Tassel House with graceful
and attenuated curvilinear designs.
 The use of ironwork, wall decoration, and floor mosaic formed
an exquisite and unified whole.

Victor Horta STAIRWAY, TASSEL HOUSE, BRUSSELS
1892–1893. © 2016 – Victor Horta, Bastin & Evrard/DACS, London. [Fig. 31-47]

• Gaudí
– Before Horta's Tassel House, Antoní Gaudí was designing Art
Nouveau buildings in Barcelona.
 Casa Batlló draws on Islamic, Gothic, and Baroque traditions.
– The façade is a dreamlike fantasy of sandstone sculpture
and multicolor glass mosaic.
– Its roof resembles a recumbent dragon.

Antonio Gaudí CASA BATLLÒ, BARCELONA
43 Passeig de Gracia. 1900–1907.
Vincent Abbey Photography. [Fig. 31-48]

• Guimard
– Hector Guimard is best known for his designs of entrances to the
Paris Métro.
– Much of the rest of his career dealt with interior design and
furnishings.
– Desk is asymmetrical and organic.

Hector Guimard DESK
c. 1899 (remodeled after 1909).
Olive wood with ash panels, 28-3/4" × 47-3/4" (73 × 121 cm).
Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Madame Hector Guimard. © 2016. Digital
Image, The Museum of Modern Art/Scala, Florence/ Art Resource, NY. [Fig. 31-49]

• Toulouse-Lautrec
– Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec chronicled life in Montmartre, capturing
café dancer Jane Avril.
 Emphasis on outline, tipped-up ground, and integration of
blank paper reflect japonisme in addition to expressionism.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec JANE AVRIL
1893. Four color lithograph, 51-1/8" × 37/3/8" (129.85 × 94.93 cm).
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Billy Wilder
(59.80.15). [Fig. 31-50]

The Beginnings of Modernism
• At this time in history, the industrial industry was caught between the
classical traditions of the Beaux-Arts style and the new aesthetic.
• Cities like the industrialized Chicago demanded new ways of designing
and creating tall buildings.

European Architecture: Technology and
Structure (1 of 3)
• A fast-paced life was born of the ability for people to manufacture
more, consume more, and travel more.
• There was a growing belief in the perfectibility of society that spawned
international fairs celebrating innovations in industry and technology.
• Britain asserted their right to empire at the Great Exhibition in 1851.

Structure (2 of 3)
• The Crystal Palace
– Created by Joseph Paxton, this structure consisted of an cast-iron
skeleton holding the largest glass panes that could be mass-
produced at the time.
– The triple-tiered edifice covered over 18 acres, unsurprisingly the
largest space ever enclosed up to that time.

Joseph Paxton THE CRYSTAL PALACE
London. 1850–1851. Iron, glass, and wood.
(Print of the Great Exhibition of 1851; printed and published by Dickinson Brothers,
London, 1854. Illustration by Joseph Nash and Robert Haghe). British Library, London.
[Fig. 31-51]

Structure (3 of 3)
• Bibliothèque Nationale
– The Reading Room is an example of the fusion of the academy's
historicizing married with technical advances in engineering.
– Domes faced with white ceramic tiles sat atop thin iron arches and
columns that opened up the space.

The Chicago School (1 of 4)
• The city of Chicago required spaces that would accommodate more
people and activities in urban areas.
• It became the center of a new way of thinking about urban design and
construction.

• World's Columbian Exposition
– Richard Morris Hunt, an American, began with academy training
and supervised the building of this Exposition in 1983.
– The photograph shows this "White City" in its intended glory—a
model city, clean and spacious with Classical planning, in contrast
to the conditions found in most American cities.

• Richardson
– Henry Hobson Richardson created the style of Richardsonian
Romanesque, seen in the Marshall Field Wholesale Store.
 The rough stone facing, arched windows, and decorated
cornice evoke architectural antecedents, but with a readily
identifiable new style.

Henry Hobson Richardson MARSHALL FIELD WHOLESALE STORE, CHICAGO
1885–1887. Demolished c. 1935.
Courtesy the Library of Congress. [Fig. 31-54]

• Sullivan
– An early example of the Chicago School style is the Wainwright
Building in St. Louis, Missouri.
 This building is taller than it is wide and is comprised of ten
stories in three parts.
– Such a tripartite structure suggests the lingering influence
of Classical columns.
 It illustrates the philosophy of "form follows function."

The City Park
• Crowding and pollution prompted the creation of large public parks
between the 1830s–1860s.
• Rapid growth of Manhattan caused civic leaders to set aside parkland
while space existed.
– The resulting Central Park was designed to be the opposite of
rectangular and paved-in streets.

Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux MAP OF CENTRAL PARK, NEW YORK CITY
Revised and extended park layout as shown in a map of 1873.
Frederick Law Olmsted & Calvert Vaux/City of New York, Department of Parks.
[Fig. 31-53]

Cézanne (1 of 4)
• Paul Cézanne (1839–1902) adopted a bright palette and loose
brushwork to paint his landscapes in the 1870s.
– These were highly structured and merged drawing and modeling
into a single process.
• His goal was to make Impressionism solid and durable, like the art of
museums.

Cézanne (2 of 4)
• Mont Sainte-Victoire shows a mountain rising above a valley dotted
with houses and trees.
– Its even lighting and absence of human activity create a sense of
timelessness.
– Brushstrokes vary from short cross-hatchings to broad swaths of
flat color and are highly deliberate.

Paul Cézanne MONT SAINTE-VICTOIRE
c. 1885–1887. Oil on canvas, 25-1/2" × 32" (64.8 × 92.3 cm).
The Samuel Courtauld Trust, The Courtauld Gallery, London. (P.1934.SC.55). © Samuel
Courtauld Trust, The Courtauld Gallery, London, UK/Bridgeman Images. [Fig. 31-57]

Cézanne (3 of 4)
• Still Life with Basket of Apples shows spatial ambiguities.
– The right side of the basket is higher than the left and pastries are
tilted up toward the viewer.
– These shifting viewpoints are not the product of incompetence, but
rather a rejection of scientific perspective in favor of positioning
objects from multiple sightings.

Paul Cézanne STILL LIFE WITH BASKET OF APPLES
1880–1894. Oil on canvas, 24-7/16" × 31-1/2" (64.8 × 80 cm).

Cézanne (4 of 4)
• The Large Bathers, left unfinished at the end of the artist's life, was the
largest canvas he ever painted.
– In some ways it returns to certain conventions of history painting;
for example, an Arcadian landscape suggesting a mythological
theme.

Paul Cézanne THE LARGE BATHERS
1906. Oil on canvas, 6'10" × 8'2" (2.08 × 2.49 m).
Philadelphia Museum of Art. The W.P. Wilstach Collection. © 2016. Philadelphia Museum
of Art/Art Resource, NY/Scala, Florence. [Fig. 31-59]

Think About It (1 of 2)
• Discuss the interests and goals of French academic painters and
sculptors and explain how their work differed from other art of the
same time and place, such as that of the Realists and Impressionists.
• Discuss the innovative content of Impressionist paintings and explain
how it differs from that of traditional European paintings by focusing on
one specific work from the chapter.

Think About It (2 of 2)
• Discuss Gustave Courbet's Realism in works such as The Stone
Breakers (Fig. 31–12) and A Burial at Ornans (Fig. 31–13) in relation
to the social and political issues of mid-century France.
• Explain how the photographic process works and evaluate the roles
played by Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre and Henry Fox Talbot in the
emergence of this medium.

0134484592 ch31

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

What's hot

What's hot (20)

Similar to 0134484592 ch31

Similar to 0134484592 ch31 (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

0134484592 ch31

Editor's Notes