Hi! This next video will cover the Rococo and Neoclassical periods,
and also cover ideas related to the Enlightenment in art
and also satire of the aristocracy. So, we start off with this Rococo style,
which was extremely luxurious and associated with
the top "one percent" of French culture., so those
in the aristocracy, those associated with the King. It was particularly associated
with
the mistress Louis XV (not Louis XIV) -- Louis
XV and her name was the Marquise de Pompadour [or Madame de Pompadour],
so she was really a great
proponent of this style, and had paintings of herself created in this style.
So, it's a luxurious artistic expression of salon culture -- salon culture means
people are gathering together
in luxurious spaces in Paris people are
returning to the capital city. This culminates in a style known as Rococo,
coming from
the French word for stone or pebble and also for shell, so
very decorative, very frilly,
and it's kind of taking that Baroque style to the next level.
It appears in paintings and sculptures, but also in interiors.
It's considered a more feminine style, so you see it in small delicate,
decorative interiors.
You see it in small decorative arts, as well,
and then in architecture. So, let's look at an example of a Rococo
painting. Starting off, we have one by François Boucher,
who was one of the key figures in the Rococo art
movement. Just looking at this painting, you can get a sense that these [paintings] were
intended to be incorporated into interiors -- interiors designed in that
Rococo style.
And a lot of times, the subject has to do with LOVE -- so LOVE
is the key theme in a lot of these images, and they're pretty straight forward to
understand -- they're not overly intellectual;
they're not overly complicated; it relates to
that luxurious and playful lifestyle that a lot of these aristocrats were leading
because the monarchy had become an absolute monarchy --
a lot of these nobles didn't have a lot to do, so it reflects that
playful lifestyle. So, looking here, we can see,
it's called "Cupid a Captive," so this idea trying to
disarm Cupid -- trying to remove some of his power
in order to keep him from getting people to fall in love.
So, you see Cupid here reclining. They're basically tying him up,
but not in a scary way -- they're tying him up with ropes
covered in flowers. And you see him surrounded by three very lovely women,
and they're also removing his arrows, so, that again,
he can't shoot people -- shoot people with the arrows to make them fall in love --
It's in beautiful garden setting -- this idea that it's
the kind of garden that you might encounter in a villa or a palace
owned by one of these French aristocrats. So it's somewhat similar,
if we go back to that Bronzino [Mannerist] image, "The Exposure of Lust" --
the one with Cupid and Venus, where you see
her disarming Cupid. But that one was so complicated -- that one was
very intellectual, and was owned by the French king. it was intended
for the French king François I [Francis I], but this is a
much more straightforward, much more friendly kind of image.
Probably the most famous Rocco image
is the work by Fragonard, "The Swing" and you can
see you have a woman here, who is swinging,
and you see a man who's pushing her here. So, again, a scene of leisure in one
of these beautiful gardens that you might encounter
in a really upper class household. But you see that she
is having a secret meeting with her secret lover or
her boyfriend. And so you see him hiding out in the bushes here, as she's being
pushed on the swing,
she's becoming more and more visible to him. She kicking up her
skirt and so that means that he actually gets to look up her skirt.
She's kicking her shoe to him, and
the man who is her chaperone or escort -- who is trying to keep her out of trouble --
clearly has no idea what's going on. What's nice is
you have these little sculptures, who help you understand the narrative. We know that
the little putti there or little angel [or cupid] figures going "shh, don't tell anyone
what's going on." So, again, very overgrown, and fertile and lush,
speaking to ideas of love and fertility,
but also just speaking to the kind environments that people might have been
familiar with and that are pleasing to the eye --
pleasing visually -- this is a very happy,
pleasing subject matter, but it's important to keep in mind that in
about twenty years the revolution will get going --
this is the kind of lifestyle that most French people are not living,
and that they're going to start objecting to. So what we start to
see is more of a satire of the aristocracy,
especially in England. So we see an artist named William Hogarth,
who develops prints and also a series of paintings
that satirize the aristocracy -- the lifestyle that they lead.
So here we see a work called "Breakfast Scene from Marriage à la Mode,"
which "marriage à la mode" in this case means "stylish marriage" [not marriage with ice cream!]
and he's poking fun at kinds of marriages that aristocrats, or those
those in that high-level -- what they tended to have.
So this was actually an arranged marriage -- these are newlyweds
and they're very grand house. But you can see the house is a mess!
There are chairs knocked over. The woman has actually hosted a party the night
before -- you can see the servant
is exhausted. The candle has just been blown out. It's burned all the way down.
They've been playing cards. You can see those on the ground here.
The man, however, has been out on the town, so he
is just now returning. He's clearly exhausted. He's not sitting up straight.
He's reclining and looks
like a mess. And you can see the dog is actually sniffing at him -- sniffing at a
bonnet in his pocket,
indicating that he's been out canoodling with another woman -- indicating that the
marriage is
already falling apart. And again she's been hosting her own party, so they are
already leading these very separate lives. And then we see the butler here -- or the man
who runs their household,
who clearly has brought them a stack of bills that they need to tend to,
and neither of them want to deal with it. So, you can see that the man is
kind of going "I give up!" and he's running off to the side.
And so you can see that, although this is a very grand house,
and although these people are very nicely dressed, the whole thing is kind of a
mess. Also commenting on the ancestry of this family, you have a bust of one of their
ancestors,
and he has kind of a pig nose, speaking to the fact that the ancestry doesn't matter -- it's kind of
silly. Also you see there's that curtain covering an image here and this would
have been a reclining nude
female, and these would have been covered most of the time, and then when you
maybe had friends over who were interested in seeing it -- maybe your guy friends --
you would open it up, or you would remove the curtain, so you could see what's underneath.
This was part of a whole series, so there were other scenes were eventually both
of them end up dying, speaking to the fact that this was such a horrible marriage.
So, also at this time, you have the Enlightenment, which directly links up
to the Revolutionary period --
this idea that people have more knowledge. They feel
more open to the ideas of democracy. The idea of divine right goes away -- this idea
that
and God has given the ruler power. People stop believing that and think
"actually, the people give the ruler power." So, in this case, you start seeing more scientific ideas
being incorporated into art.
We've seen previously ideas of the anatomy being studied,
but even more in this case, we're seeing more knowledge, ideas of knowledge and science
ending up in art. So, more rational thought -- moving away from religion,
beginnings of industrialization. We have important individuals like Isaac
Newton
around this time. So one of the works that's often seen as
connected to these ideas of the Enlightenment in this period
is the work of Joseph Wright of Derby, who was an English painter. And so we see "A
Philosopher giving a Lecture
at the Orrery," and you can see that this was created
in the 18th century. And you have a philosopher
here, and then you see a variety of people listening, and it's done
very much in a "Caravaggesque" style , right? So you have the tenebrism. You have
the dark shadows, and the bright light. But in this case, it's not a divine light.
It''s not the light of Christ or the light of God. In this case, it's more the light of
knowledge -- literally in this case at the orrery,
there's a lamp in the middle that represent the sun, and so they're studying
the movements in the solar system --
that's what he's giving a lecture about. But if you think more symbolically, it's
more
a case of knowledge spreading and that's what the light
can represent. So I think this is a great image showing that transition to the
Enlightenment, as we're moving away from
religion, as being essential focus in art, and moving more toward
interest in knowledge.
I also think it's interesting there are all these books in the background -- this idea that
more and more people are becoming literate,
and more and more people are starting to collect books. They're becoming a little
bit cheaper with more
printing technology developing. Okay,
so next we have this Neoclassical style. "Neo" means new, and so we're
returning to an interest in classical style --
that is the style of ancient Greece and Rome. And I know you're probably thinking:
"Didn't we just do this in
Renaissance?" -- but, yet again, they're returning to an interest in
the classical period, but it's a little bit different this time,
so you have the discovery of Herculaneum and Pompeii.
They are starting to do more and more archaeology in these areas, although it's not
very
scientifically done. And a renewed interest in some of
the subject matter that especially relates to republics
and ideas of democracy, and the importance of the state.
So, that's very key. One of these artists is actually a female artist. We see the
work of Angelica Kauffmann,
and her work is very sweet. It relates to women here, so that was probably
deemed appropriate for
a female artist, but also has a very nice Neoclassical
subject. This idea of family -- an important moral message -- that was really key.
So, this is called "Cornelia presenting her children as her Treasures,"
and so you see a woman here presenting the jewels that she owns,
so she's showing off all of her jewelry as her most important possessions,
however, Cornelia is showing off her three children, saying
"you know, you may have these material objects, but I have these children and
they're my most important
possessions" -- and these children will actually go on to do great things for the
city of Rome,
and, of course, Rome and the study of Rome was really important for the development of
this Neoclassical style. So,
it's a very sweet image in terms of a women's most valuable
possessions being her children, but the theme and the moral message fits really
well
in what some the goals were for Neoclassical painting. You can see the lines
are very strict, very crisp and clean,
the interiors are not overly done --
we are moving really far away from that Rococo style.
And this is what Neoclassical artists will favor. It's a really different
interpretation
of the antique or the classical period than what we saw in the
Renaissance.
And so that's a key idea as well.
And the artists are really looking to Poussin for most of their inspiration,
as this style is developing. So, the most important work from the
Neoclassical period -- or one of the most important --
is the "Oath of the Horatii" by Jacques-Louis David, who has
important roles before the [French] Revolution, during the revolution,
during the time of Napoleon, so he is very important throughout
this period French painting. And so in 1784, this work was actually done
for the King, and it becomes really a symbol of a lot of the ideals of the
revolution.
So you have these three Horatii brothers, who are going to fight
three other individuals from another family, the Curatii
in Alba. So they've actually nominated
three against three, so that the whole cities don't have to go to war.
And so these brothers are going to do it. They're taking the oath -- this idea of
city
over all else -- the idea of city over family
because in particular one would know because this was a well-known story at
the time,
that one of his sisters was married to one of Curatii -- so knowing
that
you were going to have to go kill basically their brother-in-law if they were
to win.
And so these brothers will go off and do that. They actually are victorious. One
brother
returns. The sister ends up being very sad because she's lost her husband,
and so he kills his own sister. So this idea that all sacrifices must be made
in order to achieve what's necessary for the state.
So this is the three brothers, the Horatii. This is their father. They're
taking the oath, and these are the women.
They're are some clear gender differentiation here -- just in terms of color, but also in
line.
The men are
strictly defined very tall and straight. The women are very curved
over. You also have this definition of the arches
over here, dividing the composition into three parts. You have that very austere
Neoclassical interior, the Doric simple
column, and a really nice perspective scheme. And this is really a blockbuster of a
painting. People waited in line to see it. People really want to see this work, so
it
became very, very famous not only
in France, but also in Italy. So, just a few notes, about the [French] Revolution.
This "Age of Revolution" is a forty-year period from 1775 to
1815. It's a huge period of social
and political upheaval. So, you have the American Revolution, and then you have the French Revolution.
Eventually, Napoleon actually comes in as well,
filling the power vacuum in France,
after the chaos of the revolution. The reign of Louis XVI [the 16th!] begins in
1774,
and then have the American War of Independence,
you have abolition of feudalism in France, you have the abolition
of the nobility. Then you start using this guillotine , which is a quick way to start killing
some of these nobles, and you eventually have both Louis XVI and [his wife]
Marie Antoinette executed. So, that's a big change,
obviously! So this reveals how bloody
the system had become at that time. We have "The Death
of Marat" and Marat was an important figure in the Revolution. He actually
with killed by a woman who was loyal to the Crown.
Her name was Charlotte Corday, and so he would take these long baths for his skin diseases.
And so we can see him here. He was in his bath doing his work.
And this is a work dedicated to his death and
that he was killed by this woman. So it's by David, and he's
saying that this is to Marat, from David in year two
because they restarted the calendar after the revolution.
And he looks very much like a Christ-like figure.
The Neoclassical style was also picked up in America, and we can see it with George
Washington here,
standing in contrapposto pose. He's wearing
his everyday clothes, so we're seeing him
not as a man of war here because he only took up war
when absolutely necessary [see medal of the Society of Cinncinati]. And he didn't want to wear a toga
or anything that made him look to classical. He wanted to look like an everyday
figure. That's where we will end!
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