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| The Enlightenment and Its Legacy: Art Of the Late 18th Century through the Mid-19th Century |
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| Rococo: The French Taste :: The Enlightenment: Philosophy and Society :: The Enlightenment: Science and Technology :: Voltaire Versus Rousseau: Science Versus the Taste For the "Natural" :: The Revival of Interest in Classicism :: From Neoclassicism to Romanticism :: The Rise of Romanticism :: Imagination and Mood in Landscape Painting :: Various Revivalist Styles in Architecture :: The Beginnings of Photography |
Images courtesy of Saskia Ltd. |
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| VOLTAIRE VERSUS ROUSSEAU: SCIENCE VERSUS THE TASTE FOR THE "NATURAL" While Voltaire thought the salvation of humanity was in science's advancement and in society's rational improvement, Jean-Jacques Rousseau believed that the arts, sciences, society, and civilization in general had corrupted "natural man" and that humanity's only salvation was to return to its original condition. The "Natural" Landscape The eighteenth century developed a taste for depictions by artists of "natural" landscapes. Growing travel opportunities, including the "Grand Tour," also increased interest in the depiction of particular places and geographic settings. The taste for the "natural" in France: Rousseau placed feelings above reason as the most "natural" of human expressions and called for the cultivation of sincere, sympathetic, and tender emotions. Because of this belief, he exalted as a model for imitation the unsullied emotions and the simple, honest, uncorrupt "natural" life of the peasant. The Sentimentality of Rural Romance: The expression of sentiment is apparent in Jean-Baptiste Greuze's much-admired painting of The Village Bride, which shows a peasant family in a rustic interior. |
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| 28-11: JEAN-BAPTISTE GREUZE, The Village Bride, 1761. Oil on canvas, 3' x 3' 10 1/2 . Louvre, Paris. The charm of the ordinary: Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin's Grace at Table, which shows an unpretentious urban, middle-class mother and two daughters at table giving thanks to God before a meal, satisfied a taste for paintings that taught moral lessons and upheld middle-class values. |
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| 28-12: JEAN-BAPTISTE-SIMÉON CHARDIN, Grace at Table, 1740. Oil on canvas, 1' 7" x 1' 3". Louvre, Paris. Portrait of a woman artist: Élisabeth Louise Vigée-Lebrun's naturalistic Self-Portrait shows the self-confident artist in a light-hearted mood. |
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| 28-13: ÉLISABETH LOUISE VIGÉE-LEBRUN, Self-Portrait, 1790. Oil on canvas, 8' 4" x 6' 9". Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence. The taste for the "natural" in England: Visualizing Morality through Satire: William Hogarth expresses the taste of the newly prosperous and confident middle class in England in his moralizing satires of contemporary life. In his carefully detailed painting of the Breakfast Scene from Marriage à la Mode, Hogarth comments on the social evil of the arranged marriage. 28-14: WILLIAM HOGARTH, Breakfast Scene, from Marriage à la Mode, ca. 1745. Oil on canvas, approx. 2' 4" x 3'. National Gallery, London. Grand manner portraiture: Thomas Gainsborough's portrait, painted in a soft-hued light and with feathery brushwork, shows Mrs. Richard Brinsley Sheridan dressed informally and seated in a rustic natural landscape of unspoiled beauty. Gainsborough's painting is also an example of "Grand Manner portraiture," in which the sitter is elevated and the refinement and elegance of her class is communicated through the large scale of the figure relative to the canvas, the controlled pose, the "arcadian" landscape setting, and the low horizon line. 28-15: THOMAS GAINSBOROUGH, Mrs. Richard Brinsley Sheridan, 1787. Oil on canvas, approx. 7' 2 5/8 x 5' 5/8 . National Gallery of Art, Washington (Andrew W. Mellon Collection).
Honor, valor, courage, resolution, self-sacrifice, and patriotism were included among the "natural" virtues that produced great people and great deeds. Defending Gibraltar: Sir Joshua Reynolds's painting shows an honest English officer who was honored for his heroic defense of Gibraltar with the title Baron Heathfield of Gibraltar. 28-16: SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS, Lord Heathfield, 1787. Oil on canvas, approx. 4' 8" x 3' 9". National Gallery, London. The taste for the "natural" in Colonial America: General Wolfe's heroic death: Benjamin West's The Death of General Wolfe shows a contemporary historical subject with realistic figures in modern costume, but in a composition arranged in the complex and theatrically ordered manner of the grand tradition of history painting, which West uses to transform the heroic battlefield death into a martyrdom charged with religious emotions. 28-17: BENJAMIN WEST, The Death of General Wolfe, 1771. Oil on canvas, approx. 5' x 7' National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (gift of the Duke of Westminster, 1918).
A sense of directness and faithfulness to visual fact is conveyed in John Singleton Copley's Portrait of Paul Revere, which shows the figure informally posed in a plain setting with clear lighting. 28-18: JOHN SINGLETON COPLEY, Portrait of Paul Revere, ca. 1768-1770. Oil on canvas, 2' 11 1/8 x 2' 4". Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (gift of Joseph W., William B., and Edward H. R. Revere). The taste for the natural in Italy Picturesque Venice: Antonio Canaletto's veduta paintings of Venice were acquired by English tourists as pictorial souvenirs. He often used a camera obscura to help make his on-site drawings more true to life. |
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| 28-19: ANTONIO CANALETTO, Basin of San Marco from San Giorgio Maggiore, ca. 1740. Oil on canvas. The Wallace Collection, London. |
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| Rococo: The French Taste :: The Enlightenment: Philosophy and Society :: The Enlightenment: Science and Technology :: Voltaire Versus Rousseau: Science Versus the Taste For the "Natural" :: The Revival of Interest in Classicism :: From Neoclassicism to Romanticism :: The Rise of Romanticism :: Imagination and Mood in Landscape Painting :: Various Revivalist Styles in Architecture :: The Beginnings of Photography |
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