TVM 2nd Floor: 18th & 19th C Romantic and Neoclassic Art -- Overview

Romantic and Neoclassic Art
1750 to 1850
(Part 1)

Romanticism and Neoclassicism are contrasting styles developed during the period. But because they share the same period of time the artists in both camps share many of the same goals and aspirations.

Romanticism primarily concerned itself with: history, literature, the Bible, and the Near-East. The Neoclassicists concerned themselves with human affairs ruled by reason, the outgrowth of the Enlightenment. Leaders in this philosophical movement were Hume, Voltaire, Rousseau (not either of the artists), and Heine. For art this philosophy translated into "noble simplicity" and "calm grandeur" as characterized by ancient Greek art. Thus it represented a strong reaction against the style of the Rococo.

This is the historical period of the American and French Revolutions. In music it is the period of the major classical music composers: Haydn and Mozart at the end of the 17th century, then the early romantic composers starting with Beethoven, Schubert, Berlioz, and Schumann, in the first half of the 19th century.

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Jean-Baptiste Greuze

born: Tournus, France; 21 August 1725
died: Paris, France, 21 March 1805

Count Stroganov
as a child
1778

The Paralytic
1763

Jacques-Louis David

born: Paris, France; 1748
died: Brussels, Belgium; 1825

Assassination of Marat
1793
Beaux-arts, Brussels

Ten more Jacques-Louis David Pictures.

John Henry Fuseli

born: Switzerland; 1741
died: 1825

Fuseli worked mostly in London. Michelangelo and Shakespeare were his two gods.

Lady Macbeth 1784	Titania and Bottom from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream 1793	Mad Kate 1807
Night Hag and Lapland Witches 1796	The Nightmare 1781 Institute of the Arts, Detroit, US.
The Incubus 1781

Francisco Goya

born: Saragossa, Spain; 1746
died: Bordeaux, France; 1828

Nude Maja
1800
Prado, Madrid

Fourteen more Goya pictures.

François Ferriere

born: Switzerland; 1752
died: 1839

alt spelling: Francois Francis

The Old Port of Geneva
1785
Oskar Reinhart Foundation
Winterhur, Switzerland

Antonio Canova Marchese d'Ischia

born: Possagno, Republic of Venice [now Italy]; 1 November 1757
died: Venice, Italy; 13 October 1822

Canova in 1805 was appointed inspector general of fine arts and antiquities of the papal state. In 1810 he was made president of the Accademia di S. Luca in Rome.

After having visited Paris to arrange for the return of Italian art treasures plundered by the French. The Pope rewarded Canova with the title of Marquis of Ischia for success of his French mission.