Online Study Guide

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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FROM NEOCLASSICISM TO ROMANTICISM

Jacques-Louis David's stature and prominence as an artist and his commitment to classicism attracted numerous students, including Antoine-Jean Gros, Anne-Louis Girodet-Trioson, and Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. Although they were deeply influenced by David, these artists also moved beyond the somewhat structured confines of Neoclassicism in their exploration of the exotic and the erotic and in the use of fictional narratives for the subjects of their paintings.

Napoleon among the sick:

Antoine-Jean Gros's painting of Napoleon at the Pesthouse at Jaffa presents an exalted public image of Napoleon as a compassionate and fearless leader by showing him touching, as if capable of miraculously healing, the sores of a plague victim. The mosque courtyard with its Moorish arcades in the background reveals Gros's fascination with the exoticism of the Near East.

28-34: ANTOINE-JEAN GROS, Napoleon at the Pesthouse at Jaffa, 1804. Oil on canvas, approx. 17' 5 x 23. Louvre, Paris.

A tragic suicide in Louisiana:

Based on Chateaubriand's novel, The Genius of Christianity, Anne-Louis Girodet-Trioson's The Burial of Atala concerns the tragic love story of two Native Americans in the wilderness of Louisiana. The exotic locale and the erotic passion of the story appealed to the public's fascination with what it perceived as the primitivism of Native American tribal life.

28-35: ANNE-LOUIS GIRODET-TRIOSON, The Burial of Atala, 1808. Oil on canvas, approx. 6' 11" x 8' 9". Louvre, Paris.

Summarizing Neoclassical principles:

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres adopted what he believed to be a truer and purer Greek style than that employed by David. His conservative Neoclassical taste and strict adherence to the doctrine of ideal form is seen in the Apotheosis of Homer, which is a catalogue of painters, sculptors, poets, philosophers, writers, and playwrights who since ancient times had remained loyal to classicism.

28-36: JEAN-AUGUSTE-DOMINIQUE INGRES, Apotheosis of Homer, 1827. Oil on canvas, approx. 12' 8" x 16' 10 3/4 . Louvre, Paris.

Both classical and exotic:

However, Ingres also departed from Neoclassicism. A Romantic taste for the exotic and erotic is seen in his Grande Odalisque, which shows a languidly reclining, nude odalisque.

28-37: JEAN-AUGUSTE-DOMINIQUE INGRES, Grande Odalisque, 1814. Oil on canvas, approx. 2' 11" x 5' 4". Louvre, Paris.