Looked back to the painter Nicolas Poussin for inspiration

Believed that art should be cerebral, not sensual and that strong drawing was rational, and therefore morally better

No evidence of brushstrokes

On the brink of the French Revolution

Continued connection to the classical tradition

Clarity of form, sober colors, shallow space, strong horizontals and verticals

Almost at the same time as Romanticism

Characteristics of Neoclassical Art:

Planarity

Linearity

Tight brushwork

Even lighting

Sculptural forms

Classical figures, dress, and themes

Serious, moralistic subjects

Austerity

Traditional hero figures

Rational

Court portraits vs. personal works

Social criticism

Horrors of War

Elevation of landscape painting

The Sublime: the combination of terror and elation one experiences in relation to the vastness of nature

The Picturesque by humans but not the same as the sublime: the concept of nature as it is, nature unspoiled

The Pastoral: nature that has been tamed

Nationalism

Longing for the past/nostalgia

Man vs. Nature (and the futility of empire building)

Man vs. Man (slavery)

Hope

Spirituality in Nature

Cycles in Nature and/or Civilization

Painting local landscape (Constable)

Nostalgia

"Three aesthetic concepts established during the Romantic era divided the natural world into categories: the Pastoral, the Picturesque, and the Sublime. The first two represent Nature as a comforting source of physical and spiritual sustenance. The last, as articulated by Edmund Burke in his Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757), refers to the thrill and danger of confronting untamed Nature and its overwhelming forces, such as thunderstorms and deep chasms. Whereas the Pastoral and Picturesque reference mankind’s ability to control the natural world, the Sublime is a humbling reminder that humanity is not all-powerful"

Elevation of landscape painting

The Sublime

Spirituality in Nature

Cycles in Nature/cycles of human life

Hope

Symbolic landscapes and portraiture

Gesamtkunstwerk (total work of art): an artwork that incorporates a lot of different things

Nationalism: American wilderness as its national heritage

The Sublime

The Picturesque

The Pastoral

Longing for the past/nostalgia

Hope

Spirituality in Nature

Cycles in Nature and/or Civilization

Art’s role in the formation of national parks

Intimacy, spirituality, color, yearning for the infinite

Characterized by loose, flowing brushstrokes and brilliant colors

“romanticism lies neither in the subjects that an artist chooses nor in his exact copying of truth, but in the way he feels.” - Baudelaire

Orientalism:

• a Western European view of the Middle East, North Africa, and Asia

• Possibly as a ploy to control the "East" by creating a distinction

• Allowed them to misrepresent these places

• they depict an “exotic” and therefore racialized, feminized, and often sexualized culture from a distant land

• simultaneously claim to be an authentic glimpse of a location and its inhabitants

• objectified the otherness of non-Western peoples, cultures, and practices.

Art as propaganda

Art as social criticism

Art that asks questions

Art based on literature

Human struggle and emotion

Exoticism

The sublime power of animals

Painting locally and outside (Corot, Rousseau)

Realism vs. Naturalism

Realism = Real Life

Naturalism = Style

Sought truth through ordinary, everyday, modern experience; neither idealized nor dramatized

Championed laborers and common people (Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels)

New tin tubes of oil paint

Started having individual art exhibits (independent of art academies)

Intimate

Secret society formed in 1848 by 3 students at the London Royal Academy: William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, and Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Wanted to reform ills of the Industrial Revolution through spirituality and art

Looked to Early Renaissance and Gothic art (art before Raphael) as pure, genuine art. Called them "the primitives"

Wanted to depict “truth” by close observation of nature and details

Work is characterized by rich, pure color on a white ground; also included symbolism

Looked to literature for subject matter, especially Shakespeare, the Bible, and Arthurian legends

Simplicity of line and large flat areas of brilliant color

Mature style had beautiful colors and detail orientation

All the Academy was teaching was Renaissance rules, they wanted to go back to earlier times

John Ruskin writer, artist championed PRB and urged creation of beautifully designed, hand crafted objects that workers could take pride in producing over mass-produced products;

Morris started company that manufactured beautifully crafted fabrics, wallpaper, tapestries, carpets, tiles, furniture, and stained glass; he designed most of the wallpaper and fabrics

Emphasized truth and quality: no disguising materials, no pre-fabricated materials, no cheap materials

Launched Arts and Crafts movement, which soon spread to the US

Morris painted with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

Shared their love of nature and their fear of the industrial revolution

Wanted to go back to having guilds and craftsmen creating goods

Interest in capturing: everyday subjects on-the-spot outdoor scenes (en plein air) fleeting moments, impermanence atmosphere, light, colored shadow modern urban life, leisure activities upper middle class/nouveau riche times of day/year

Interest in color theories: optical blending and juxtaposition of complementary colors

Independent art shows (8)

Japan had just opened up to trade, people were collecting many things from Japan

Interest in Japanese woodblock prints (ukiyo-e):

• Flat shapes 

• Sharp contours

• Compressed space 

• Cropping 

• Oblique angles

• Asymmetry

• Unusual points of view

• Very near/very far

• Everyday life

• Different weather conditions, seasons

• Travel

• City scenes

• Entertainment

The Impressionists worked together on a regular basis

"Like the Realists, the Impressionists believed that they were conveying 'truth in painting,' but instead of emphasizing social and political "truth," the Impressionists aimed to achieve optical reality, that is, a visual "truth"— what the eye actually sees."

Influences:

• Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot

• Gustave Courbet (emphasis on real life)

• Edouard Manet (everyday people, brushstrokes)

• James Abbot McNeill Whistler

Women were included in the shows regularly

Women mostly painted people they knew, painted indoors because they didn't have the same freedom that men had

Freedom of brushstroke from Impressionism

Continued influence from Japanese prints

Escape from modern life (except Seurat)

Different points of view (Cezanne)

Emphasis on the flat picture plane (Cezanne)

Interest in scientific color theory (Seurat)

Divisionism/Pointillism/Neo-Impressionism (Seurat, Signac)

Symbolic use of color rather than naturalistic (Gauguin)

Interest in non-western art traditions (Gauguin)

Search for primitive, pure society (Gauguin)

Expressive brushstroke and color (Van Gogh)

Art as advertisement (Toulouse-Lautrec)

Seedier side of Paris entertainment (Toulouse-Lautrec)

Dissatisfaction with modernity

Emphasis on inner world of dreams, moods, and fears

Literary Connection (Redon)

Primitive/naïve painter (Rousseau)

Influence of Byzantine art, Egyptian art, Greek and Minoan art, and Japanese art (Klimt)

Impressionistic “brushstrokes” in sculpture (Rodin)

Break from heroic tradition of sculpture (Rodin)

"The prophets"

Emphasis on pattern

Emphasis on the canvas as a flat surface

Continued influence of Japanese prints

Completely new style of decoration rather than trying to copy historical styles

"French Art Nouveau was linked to government-supported efforts to expand the decorative arts and associated craft industries"

Cast iron was a modern building material used during the art nouveau period. It is both stronger and more flexible than wood or stone and allows for much thinner supports

International style

Inspired by Arts and Crafts Movement

Mostly architecture and decorative arts

Characterized by stylized organic shapes, strong outlines, curvilinear nature

Scene from the Iliad

The original is lost

More neoclassical in style

Not the most flattering painting

Goya paints himself in the portrait (the man in the back left corner)

Emphasizes the divine right to rule

King has medals and a sash

Loose brush stroke

Compare to Las Meninas, Diego Velazquez

Goya's easel is seen on the left

Possibly painted as a reflection in a mirror

Outlines around a lot of the people

God is reaching out to Adam, personally putting the soul of Adam into his body

Wings are symbolic of power

Adam is shown growing out of the earth, Elohim holds a piece of that earth with His left hand and Adam with His right

Blake believed that the God of the Old Testament was a false god

Believed the fall of man happened at the creation, not in the Garden of Eden. This was when man was pulled from the spiritual world and made human

Etching and watercolor print

Artist is credited with bringing Romanticism to Germany

Primal quality makes them seem close to nature

Influenced by Rousseau

We see the world from their point of view

Baby looks really wild

Reflects his romantic ideas of childhood

Children that look like children

New view that childhood is an important stage and they don't have to be little adults

Shows the Romantic fascination with youth and human origins

"Authentic children in their natural habitat"

Childhood and nature are connected in this piece

Dramatized story of a shark attack

Terror

Naked and vulnerable

Tale of salvation

Harpooner looks like a modern version of Saint Michael defeating the devil or Saint George fighting the dragon

The shark represents evil, open jaws look like the gaping mouth of hell

Boat seems to be modeled after earlier paintings of the story of the fisherman in the New Testament

The allusions to religion help solidify this piece, although seemingly minor and contemporary, into a fitting piece for history painting

Gros was taught by David

At that time Jaffa was in Syria, modern day Israel

Propaganda: counteracts bad publicity but also shown as a heroic figure

Napoleon touches the plague bubo against his doctor's advice, whose hand is on his shoulder

References paintings of Christ healing the sick

Spectrum of death and dying to the heroic, unaffected Napoleon

Christian iconography used as a tool to suggest Napoleon's "divinity"

Exotic to French people

French flag in the background, place that is in control of France

Man on lower left looks like Damned Man from Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel

Planar, stage-like setting

Monumental

Contemporary subject

Christ on the cross in the background

Uncle's funeral

Genre piece submitted as a history piece

"An epic can only be produced by its own artist"

The dog was controversial because it held no meaning. Ordinary day, a dog could have wandered in

Grave makes you feel like you are there

Dignity in the common man

Democracy in painting

Many people evenly spaced on the same plane, all the same

Around the same time as photography is being used: people are cut off at the edges like they would be in a photograph

Wanted to strip away the traditions of painting since the Renaissance

Christ as a child, has hurt Himself

Foreshadows the crucifixion

Not idealized environment, rather shows Him in an ordinary setting

Viewers felt that the artist was undermining the spirituality of the figures

Almost like turning the light on a Caravaggio painting

Talks about expectations of what art in the 19th century should be, rather turns away from those expectations

Linear hardness similar to 15th century Flemish painting

Ordinary objects can be imbued with symbolism

Carpenter's triangle symbolizes trinity

Ladder references descent from the cross

Dove references Holy Spirit

St. John the Baptist on the right carrying water, foreshadows baptism

The wood foreshadows the wood of the cross

The English art critic John Ruskin said that the influx of cheap, factory made goods had a negative effect on both the people making and the people using the products

Soulless objects that lacked aesthetic value made subpar citizens

The home was considered to be a morally uplifting respite from the negative influences of city life

Morris was strongly influenced by Ruskin

Nature inspired

Emphasis on craftmanship

Medieval influences

Green and gold

"Ars Longa, Vita Brevis" (Life is short, art is forever)

William Morris and Company: designed wallpaper, tile, furniture, etc. Everything is meant to go together

Attention to nature

References to Gothic art

Emphasis on workmanship and truth to materials

"Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful"

Even though he wanted his works to be available to everyone, the reality was that the lower class couldn't afford them

Camille, Monet's model, partner, and future wife

Looking back from an island in the Seine

Painted at a low point in Monet's life

The only surviving painting from their time in Gloton

One of his earliest river scenes

The artist's viewpoint is channeled through the gaze of Camille

Some buildings are only seen through their watery reflection

Possibly an experimental piece

While other Impressionist artist were mainly concerned with light and color, Cezanne still valued form

Used color as a tool with which to construct form and space

Still life was considered the lowliest painting subject by the French Royal Academy

"Painting from nature is not copying the object, it is realizing one's sensations."

No sense of illusion

Multiple points of view

Perspective is nonsensical

Redon believed in the superiority of the imagination over the observation of nature

Personal artistic vision

Inspired by Edgar Allen Poe and Gustave Flaubert

Artist was from the Czech Republic

Advertisements created for a play titled Gismonda

Idealized and allegorical figure

Influenced by Japanese woodcuts

Hair and dresses are inspired by nature

Red poppies in her hair

Created under the guidance of Gauguin

Pont-Aven was the location of an artist's colony

Artist received formal training in Paris

Pure, flat colors not meant to be a visual representation of the scene, rather the visual sensations of the painter

When Sérusier brought the painting back to Paris, many of his classmates made fun of it. Several did not however and instead were very enthusiastic about it.

They gave the painting the name The Talisman and made it the emblem for their new movement

Originally intended to be a sketch for a future work but he decided not to change it

"Remember that a painting, before it is a horse in battle, a nude woman or a sort of anecdote, is essentially a flat surface covered with colors assembled in a certain order."

Calling for liberty and a new moral order

Artist simplified the painting to greater reflect the story

Based on the story of the Horatii and the Curiatii, two sets of triplets representing Rome and Alba Longa

Stoic

Committed to Roman victory

Simplicity of the background and the stability of the Doric columns echoes the stoicism of the male figures and echoes the triumphant arches of ancient Rome

The women and children are anguished at the prospect of the loss of the three men

Men: assertive diagonals, willing to embrace death

Women: curvilinear forms, realistic fatalism

The woman on the far right is Camilla, the sister of the Horatii and is betrothed to one of the Curiatii. For her, the outcome can only be tragedy

Depicts the assassination of Marat (a Jacobin) by an aristocrat

Box says "To Marat", signed David with the year

Portrayed as a political martyr

Deposition pose

Marat is idealized: shown without the skin sores he suffered from

Light is used as a tool to show moral and intellectual virtue

Head covering is reminiscent of a halo

Appears to be sleeping rather than dead

Living martyr to the cause of freedom

A series of five equestrian portraits

An idealized image of Napoleon's crossing of the Alps

Napoleon decided to take his troops through the St. Bernard Pass in an effort to surprise the Austrians and retake the territory seized by them in past years

Napoleon did not sit for this painting because he believed that the painting should be a representation of his character rather than his physical appearance

Political iconography

Napoleon wanted to "return to the pure Greek"

Twenty by thirty feet

Marks the transition from republic to empire in France

Piers and arches echo the grandeur of ancient Rome

Verticals created by candlesticks signify moral rectitude as well as order and stability

Suggests that putting Napoleon in power was the reason for that stability

At the coronation, the pope was supposed to place the crown on his head, in the painting it is Napoleon who does that

In reality, the pope sat for the ceremony

In an effort to downplay Napoleon's narcissism, David shows the moment Napoleon crowns his wife

Diagonal created by Josephine's pose and he long train

Roman profile and laurel wreath adds authority

Gold fleurs-de-lys (a symbol of French royalty) on the pillow next to Josephine also proclaims her right to rule

His pose is similar to Deposition of Christ paintings

Martyr

Native American man is in the same pose as a Roman emperor

Even though West was bornin the United States, he studied in Europe and lived there until the end of his life. He was even a founding member of the Royal Academy of Art in London

At this time, most history paintings were from the Bible or the classical past, this was more contemporary

"Depicts an event from the Seven Years’ War (known as the French and Indian War in North America), the moment when Major-General James Wolfe was mortally wounded on the Plains of Abraham outside Quebec."

It was recommended to West to paint the figures in togas to make them seem timeless, he refused and said “the same truth that guides the pen of the historian should govern the pencil [paintbrush] of the artist.”

West took artistic License, this is not very realistic

Dramatic

West wanted to paint a picture of the North American scene

"If Christ was innocent, pure, and died for a worthwhile cause—that is, the salvation of mankind—then Wolfe too was innocent, pure, and died for a worthwhile cause; the advancement of the British position in North America."

Instead of just being a war hero, General Wolfe is transformed into a heroic martyr

Bride's mother and sister are sad to see her go but are happy that she has found love

The French middle-class appreciated this painting for its humble simplicity

This painting was attempting to highlight the "natural state" where emotion was respected and compassion could replace tyranny

Idea of the "natural man" idealized peasant life

Peasants were thought to be closer to the earth, to live more simply, and to have avoided the corrupting forces of elite society

The artist adjusted reality to produce an immortal image

Natural, domestic quality

Energized

Lower back seat and bulkier robe add to greater monumentality

Danish

"Thorvaldson didn't have the gospel as did Joseph Smith, but he had the spirit"

Part of a series of 13 statues including Jesus and hHis 12 disciples

Inscription in the base reads "Kommer til mig" or "Come unto me"

Reworks the School of Athens

Classical ideal

He sought to learn directly from the Renaissance and Greek art periods

Brought together figures that lived in different eras and places

Raphael celebrates Greek intellectuals while Ingres also includes artists

Composition somewhat functions as a family tree

Homer is framed with historical and allegorical figures

Ionic temple represents the classical ideals of rational measure and balance

He is being crowned by Nike, the goddess of victory

The two figures below Homer represent his two epic poems, The Odyssey (the figure in green who is holding an oar) and The Illiad (the seated figure in red with the sword)

Other important figures:

• Dante

• Phidias (an ancient sculptor)

• Raphael

• Poussin

• Michelangelo

Bought and modified by Brook Bridge's soon, William

Rebuilt into a two story red brick building with stone quoins, large sash windows, hipped roof, triangular pediment

Changed ownership many times, underwent many changes

From 1764-79, Robert Adams was hired to create the house that stands today

Influenced by ancient Rome

Housed soldiers during WWII

Many people are turning away from the light

People are grieving in different ways, element of time

Triangular composition as well as intersecting diagonals

 Socrates was executed in 399 BC for behavior that offended the gods. They also accused him of corrupting his students. When Socrates refused to deny his beliefs, he was executed. However, he died willingly, orating on how the soul is immortal while drinking the poison. The painting itself shows Socrates in the middle of his discourse while his young followers mourned his death

Tight brushstrokes

Intersecting diagonals

Looks like a stage

Hobgoblins were creatures that were believed to have joined Satan when he was cast out of Heaven. However, they inhabited the human world rather than being thrust into hell

Etched lines create 3-dimensional elements

Ambiguity

Not clear if he is in favor or against

His most scathing political commentary of the series

Criticizing a greedy and powerful clergy

Hiding the wine

Creature on the left is dipping bread in the wine, cannibalizing the church for his own gain

Hand is huge because it's big enough to take

The creature in the middle symbolizes a priest and is the most subhuman

"The grotesque quality of this scene and the character of the figures imply that a greedy clergy was cannibalizing Spain at a time when the Church was the wealthiest institution in the country"

The dark vision of humanity

The viewer is forced to be an active participant in the image, we are also threatened by the monsters

A significant shift from his earlier work

Many prints in the series are critical of certain pre-enlightenment aspects of Spanish government and culture such as a powerful clergy, arranged marriages, etc.

Goya's manifesto and possibly a self-portrait

The creatures are associated with mystery and evil

Without reason, evil and corruption prevail

Transitional between the end of the Age of Enlightenment and the beginning of Romanticism

Warns that we should not be governed by reason alone—an idea central to Romanticism’s reaction against Enlightenment doctrine.

Aquatint

Created the series to protest the French occupation of Spain by Napoleon

Shows the consequences of the conflict

Critiques the contemporary world

The horrors of war

About a story of the women of Madrid who fought in the war, defending their homes and their children

Woman on the left looks like deposition poses

Compare to the massacre of the innocents

About the initial uprisings in Spain after Napoleon took over

Christ figure

Sometimes called the first modern painting

Compare to The Oath of the Horatii

• Innocent victims vs. willing volunteers

• Mourning figures and heroic figures

• Defending their land vs. an invasion of their land

Extreme contrast between light and dark

The contrast between the machine-like firing squad and the humanity of the victims

There are stigmata in the hands of the martyr

Compare to paintings of Christ on the cross

How is the illusion of space created?

• receding diagonal

• foreground is brighter and clearer

• shifts in scale

A lust for power

Part of his black paintings

By the time he painted this he was deaf due to a serious illness which left him very depressed

He didn't intend for anyone to see this

Emotional

Depicts the Greek myth of the Titan Cronus (or Saturn) and his fear that he would be overthrown by one of his children. He ate every child upon their birth to prevent this prophecy from coming to pass

May have been inspired by Peter Paul Rubens’ painting of the same name

The feeling of hurting someone we love

Reminder that this is an allegory for what was happening in Spain at this time: power and the way that power treats those below them

Possible that Saturn knows how terrible this is but feels that he must do it anyways

Goya's reflection of the world he saw

Georgian architecture

symmetry

Very large

114 columns on the front

Park on property that he wanted to be part of the architecture

Back of the building looks almost like a neighborhood

Trained in the Neoclassical style

Got into the Academy of Art in Madrid

Heavily influenced by Velazquez

Court painter for the royal family

Goya was very critical of many aspects of Spanish culture such as a powerful clergy, superstition, arranged marriages, and the divine rule of kings

Dark, irrational forces

First displayed at the annual Royal Academy exhibition where it shocked viewers

"Unlike many of the paintings that were then popular and successful at the Royal Academy exhibitions, Fuseli’s The Nightmare has no moralizing subject."

From Fuseli's imagination

Has many interpretations

Suggestive but not explicit

Her dream takes on a frightening physical form

The horse was an evil spirit that tortures humans while they sleep

Chiaroscuro used to heighten drama

Shortened foreground suggests theatricality

Comes from the story of Thor when he used an ox's head to bait the serpent

Top left shows Odin

Grandeur, drama

Possibly influenced by the political upheavals in France

Fuseli was a supporter of the French Revolution

Six feet wide, unusual size for landscapes during this time period

Radical

Landscape painting was one of the lowliest subjects

Large scale made it seem more important

Mundane

A place close to where he grew up

What is Constable heroicizing?

During this time, there was fear that machines were taking jobs away

Subtle political undercurrent

Finding beauty in the most lowly place

Personal, emotional

"Painting is another word for feeling"

Even though it's about his personal experience, it is also about this time period. Nature isn't a part of everyone's lives

Lack of finish, see the hand of the artist

A painting he did in London from oil sketches he did of the property

"I should paint my own places best"

Very different than other landscape paintings of the day

Not sublime, an ordinary day

Very different subject matter

Why is this romantic?

• Themes of nationalism

• Pastoral

• Spirituality in nature

• Nostalgia

Scale of the painting was more akin to historical painting rather than lowly landscape painting

The details make you feel like you're there

The church makes this feel very timeless

Nostalgia for an England that was disappearing

Dramatic, scary

The sublime

Nature is something to be feared

Depicts Hannibal's army in their attempt to cross the Alps in 218 BC

Avalanche

AN elephant (who might be carrying Hannibal) is dwarfed by the storm and the mountains

Parallels between Hannibal and Napoleon

Turner's response to Jacques-Louis David's portrait of Napoleon Crossing the Alps

Full title reads Slave Ship (Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying, Typhoon Coming On)

When Turner painted this, he had read a book titled The History and the Abolition of Slave Trade

Slavery had been abolished in England at this point

First presented at an anti-slavery convention

Depicting the story of the throwing of slaves off a boat in order to receive insurance money (couldn't if they got sick and died)

Happened in the 1700s

Artists like Claude Monet studied Turner and his work

Mixture of the beauty and power of nature with a horrific human act

Divine retribution seen in the coming of the storm

Nature is completely indifferent to the human endeavors

The railway was beginning to crisscross the British landscape

Symbol of industrialization

Nostalgia for what's lost

Atmospheric

The rain creates a unity and eliminates hard form

It's about the act of painting itself as well as about the relationship between man and nature

Fairy painting was popular in painting at this time

Doesn't come from a recognizable story

Oberon and Titania are pictured (the king and queen of the fairies in A Midsummer's Night Dream)

Extremely detailed

All the characters are very individual

Artist was supposed to be a very successful painter but he suffered from schizophrenia and murdered his father and was institutionalized

There was supposed to also be poetry and music in the room they would be displayed in

You would be surrounded by the paintings

Gesamtkunstwerk

Colors are symbolic: God the Father (blue), Jesus Christ (red), and the Holy Ghost (yellow)

The little bird represents new birth, hope

Mixing mythology with Christianity

Aroura, who brings in the new day

He died before his vision could come to pass

Early Renaissance symmetry

Looks like an illuminated manuscript

Gothic influence, classical influence

Putti from the Renaissance

Because the figure is so small, we become the figure

Pared down image

The sky is the most important part of the painting

Ocean looks very cold

Questions of the spiritual

He is below the horizon line (earthly) but he is aware of the spiritual realm (the sky)

The sublime

Confronting the presence of God in our world

The 19th century was about trying to conquer nature, this is reminding them that nature can't be conquered

Meant to be seen with The Abbey in the Oak Wood

The monk is thought to be the figure that is carried in the coffin in that painting

Somber

He used landscape to convey the follies of human life

The transience of human existence

Dead of winter

Forlorn

All that's left is the futility of human nature and experience but nature is eternal

The oak trees represent the pre-christian traditions

Witnesses

The moon represents what is permanent

It is the dead of winter, but spring will come

Emphasis on renewal, rebirth, resurrection

Not plein air, rather it is a studio work based on sketches he had made

Landscape is meant to convey deeper meaning

Tree seems to struggle as it gets higher off the ground

Lone sentinel

Seems very old

Ephemeral state of the shepherd as opposed to the thousands of years old tree

Church rising above a small town, the hcurch is tiny in comparison to nature, this is something eternal, older than human religion

The tree is the main protagonist of the painting rather than a supporting figure

Shepherd and his flock finding shelter under this tree

Loose cruciform

picturesque

Friedrich's wife, Caroline

View is from his studio window overlooking the Elbe river in Dresden

Rückenfigur: or a figure seen from behind

The woman is a surrogate for the viewer to experience what they are witnessing

Sense of yearning

Moment in time

The spectator is also “in a position of exile from, and longing for, what we can always only partially see.”

She is separated from the landscape

Prayer like posture

Cross shape in window-frame

Depicts a shipwreck in the Arctic

Darkness is not typical for the time

Spiritual

The sublime

Mankind at the mercy of nature

Humanity's place within an indifferent environment

Message of death

Around him, nature is dying

The large oak trees in the background carry the massage of life

The waxing moon symbolizes rebirth and Christ

Dark, brooding, melancholic

Emphasis on the supernatural

Artist was captivated by the ruins of ancient Rome

Tree looks like it's lived a long and arduous life

Ravens

Elijah is sent into the wilderness by God and is fed by ravens

More a landscape than a biblical story

A narrative

In the United States, they don't have these massive cathedrals, instead they have nature

Moral, serious story in a wild landscape

Conflict between wanting to create something serious and meaningful and the needs of a practical American culture

Hudson River School painting

Cole was credited with founding landscape painting

America valued landscape painting more than Europeans

Something big is hidden here

Transformation, time, metamorphosis

America and what it is about to become

The sublime vs. the pastoral

The contrast between the sublimity of nature and the settling of the land

Indicating the belief that settling the land is the will of God

Manifest destiny

The artist has painted himself

Chair is also a cross

Wilderness transformed into a paradise that has been created

The passage of time

The shape on the hill might be the Hebrew word for God, saying that God is looking down at the land, manifest destiny

Pastoralism was seen as the ideal phase of civilization, believed that an empire would lead to the destruction of mankind

Depicts the growth and fall of a city

A boulder is seen in every painting: meant to symbolize the transience of man with the unchangingness of nature

The Savage State, or The Commencement of Empire:

• Valley from the opposite shore of the crag

• Clouds and mist suggest an uncertain future

• References Native American life

• Depicts the ideal state of the natural world, unchanged by humanity

The Arcadian or Pastoral State:

• Sky has cleared and it is the morning of a day in spring or summer

• Seen from further up the river

• Cultivated land and agriculture

• Temple has been built

• Represents pre-urban Archaic Greece

• Humanity at peace with the land

• Warship and child sketching a soldier imply that there are emerging imperial ambitions

The Consummation of Empire:

• Viewpoint is the opposite shore

• Colonnaded marble buildings

• Triumphant procession

• The height of Ancient Rome

• Decadence seen foreshadows the fall of the city

Destruction:

• Viewer has stepped back some

• The sack and destruction of the city

• In the foreground, the statue is headless, still walking toward an uncertain future

Desolation:

• Shows the city decades later

• The remains of the city are bathed in the fading light of a dying day

• Instead of sunrise, such as in the first painting, there is a moonrise

• Possible future where humanity destroys itself

Depicts the four stages of human life: Childhood, Youth, Manhood, and Old Age as a voyager travelling by boat on a river in the American wilderness

Accompanied by a guardian angel

Each landscape depicts a different season

As a youth, the boy takes control of the boat and aims for a shining castle in the sky. In manhood, the adult relies on prayer and religious faith to sustain him through rough waters and a threatening landscape. Finally, the man becomes old and the angel guides him to heaven across the waters of eternity

Childhood:

• Cave represents earthly origin

• Smooth and narrow river represents being sheltered in childhood

Youth:

• Life experience is widened

• The young man holds the tiller as the angel watches from the side of the river, allowing him to take control of his life

• Building in the background represents the dreams and ambitions of humanity

Manhood:

• Trials of adult life

• Storm clouds darken the sky, the water is rough

• Hope of better times ahead

• Angel watches from the heavens

Old Age:

• Image of death

• Waters have calmed and the river flows toward eternity

• Landscape is gone, only a few rocks tie him to an earthly world

Depicts one of the turning points of the Revolutionary War

Monumental

Many different types of soldiers: militia, uniformed, Scotsman, farmers, and an African American

All inclusive Colonial cause in the Revolutionary War

Very little historical accuracy

Supposed to glorify Washington, rather than accurately portray a historical event

Lighting is similar to religious paintings

Movement

Artist was actually German, and painted this in Germany

This was painted in a time where there were many revolutions that failed, the artist was sympathetic of revolutionary causes

Suggests that unity is possible, even with how fractured the United States was at this time

Niagara Falls was considered to be the nation's greatest natural wonder as well as a symbol of its youthfulness, grandeur, and expansionism

Panoramic

He brings the viewer into the space by eliminating the foreground and pushing the plane of the falls nearest to us downward

Taught by Thomas Cole

Improved the European view of American art

Church did many watercolor and sketches to prepare for this painting

Monumental

Church went to Ecuador and Colombia financed by a businessman who wanted to use his paintings to attract investors to his businesses in South America

Evidence of people in the path, hamlet, and church

Picturesque

The sublime

Quiet, still moment

Luminous

Calm, tranquility

Contemplative

Peaceful

Love of his native landscape

Light is the main protagonist

Within the same valley of Yosemite

The valley is gone now due to the damming of the river

We're watching Americans develop the land and create industry while also watching them destroy the natural world

God's cathedral

The west as an idea emerged after the civil war

The East was an area of conflict and the West was an area of promise and escape

Softness of form in contrast to detail

The figure may be a symbol of the country looking west

The idea of what could be lost was very clear in the public's eye due to this painting

This painting was instrumental in convincing Congress to preserve the painting as a national park

Idealized

Even though it seems to show a place untouched by man, we see four figures in the foreground

Commissioned by Horace Walpole

Private residence and retreat

Extensive collection of artworks and artifacts

Gothic style details

Stained glass windows

Prefigured the later developments of the nineteenth century gothic revival

Asymmetrical layout

Gloomth (opposite of warmth)

Napoleon not only as an emperor but as a divine ruler

Compare to God the Father, Jan van Eyck, Ghent Altarpiece which was in the Musée Napoléon (now the Louvre) at this time

Armrests have imperial eagles and ivory spheres

Scales of justice on the rug

On the back wall over his shoulder is seen the crest of Italy and the Papal States, tying Napoleon, since 1805, as the King of Italy

Gilded laurel wreath is sign of rule

Holds rod topped with the hand of justice, in his other hand he has the scepter of Charlemagne

Jewel encrusted coronation sword

Compare to statue of Zeus, comparing Napoleon to Greek gods

8'6" x 5'4"

Low eye level makes it seem like the viewer is kneeling before him

Objects around him suggest imperialism

Wife of a successful banker

Pose comes from Roman murals

Classical in many ways

Tight brushstroke

The exotic objects around her are what makes it Romantic

While everything in the painting is carefully rendered, the people themselves are very idealized

No evidence of brushstroke

She looks very alive

Lack of modeling, very soft shading

Her anatomy is shifted to create an ideal of beauty

Longer neck, bigger eyes, etc.

Movement and sculpture

Similar to David's Napoleon Crossing the Alps

Diagonal composition

Tension

Horse is turning away from an unseen attacker

Turning figure on rearing horse is based on Rubens' Saint George

Massive painting, large paintings were saved for heroic painting

Gruesome subject, had taken place 3 years earlier

Ship ran aground in the open ocean, there weren't enough life boats so the ship's carpenter created a raft from the ship's lumber

Rafts supposed to be towed, when the raft slowed lifeboat down, captain cut the rope, abandoning 150 people at sea

Resorted to murder, starvation, and cannibalism

Bodies based on ancient Greek and Roman sculptures

Anti-heroic painting that is still in the visual language of the Academy

Captain of the ship was appointed by the king: anti-monarchic

Raft is tipped into our space, meant to draw us in

Contrast between despair and hope

People are dying because of incompetence: in contrast to the Neoclassical idea of heroicism in death

Romantic ideas:

• Human emotion

• Fluid brushwork

• Energized composition

• Emphasis on diagonals and movement

Romantic artists are looking back to Rubens, instead of ancient Greece and Rome

Power of nature

Only five have survived: A Woman Addicted to Gambling, A Child Snatcher, A Woman Suffering from Obsessive Envy, A Kleptomaniac; and A Man Suffering from Delusions of Military Command.

Gericault suffered a mental breakdown after the completion of his masterpiece, these paintings might have been a form of art therapy, as a thanks to the doctor who treated him, or to assist in studies of mental illness

Sitters of the portraits are only defined by their illnesses, rather than their names

Pose typical of formal, honorific portraits

Somber

Clothing gives them a degree of personal dignity

Helps us look on these patients with a more human gaze

Contemporary subject instead of a heroic event (which was normally saved for large canvases)

Depicts the attack by Ottoman forces on the Greek island of Chios where tens of thousands of Greeks were killed and enslaved

Greece seen as the best of Europe while the Ottomans were seen as foreign and dangerous

Indecency and horror

Despair

Unique use of color

He was the first artist to include color his shadows

Breaks every classical rule

Anti-hero

Story of an Assyrian king who is being vanquished in battle but chooses to burn himself and everything he loves rather than surrender

Space is filled up

The forms look like flames in their curving and colors

Writhing movement in contrast to the stillness of the king

Scene of death and destruction

Revolution that ousted the king

This is a moment where the outcome is not sure

Notre Dame in the background is a symbol of the monarchy

Liberty is an allegorical figure

Reference to ancient Greek sculpture: the birth of democracy

Call by liberty to overcome the barricade and fight for the cause

Two men on the left: someone from the lower class with someone from the middle class

Different classes coming together to defeat the monarchy

Figures of the dead and the dying are in our space

Violence in an unidealized way

Loose brushstrokes

Art in the 19th century in France was extremely politicized

Separation between the women and the viewer

Orientalist

Inspired many impressionists

Wearing very lavish clothing and jewels

Black woman is a slave

Attempted ethnographical depiction

Even though they are in a harem, they are not as objectified as other paintings (such as The Grand Odalisque)

Subtler version of the fantasy woman

Fictional image that of the European orientalist idea

Stereotypical motifs such as the narghile pipe, charcoal burner, and odalisques pose

They look like French women dressed in different clothing

Romantic in its loose brushstrokes

Pastoral

Use of light

Classical (view of Rome)

Interest in specific times of day

How do we know it was painted outside? Shadows, reflection, specific moment in time

Tranquil

Idealized while also remaining realistic

Very impressionistic

Focus on light, tight brushstrokes

He was not painting from life, rather this is based off his studies of light on the water

Priest travelling on horseback

Last light of setting sun

An idealized landscape

Fleetingness of time

Landscape is painted in an ordinary way

Picturesque

Not composing something, just sowing nature in its imperfections and its flaws

Gavial: crocodile native to India

Artist studied anatomy in the Paris zoo

Animal vs. animal

Exoticism

Tigers don't attack gavials, this was completely imagined

Bas relief on the Arc de Triomphe

Arc de Triomphe was inspired by the ancient Romans

This was the sculpture that everyone liked

Commemorates the Battle of Valmy when the French defended the Republic against an attack from Austro-Prussian forces

La Marseillaise is the title of the French national anthem

Captures the energy of the new republic

Bilateral symmetry: there is a vertical and a horizontal axis

Propaganda

Movement

People associated this with the anthem

Artist's father was one of the volunteers

Original was destroyed in WWII

Depicts ordinary people

No hero figure

Ordinary , non-idealized person and what their lifestyle is

Human struggle in the everyday sense

Brushstrokes mirror the roughness of the rocks

They are rough like the rocks

Tattered clothing

Only a small bit of sky visible: economically trapped

The young man will be doing this work everyday until he dies, signified by the older man

He's meeting a gentleman and a servant

How the artist saw himself

Championing the laborer

Heavily inspired Van Gogh

Social critique

Working class

Criticized by the upper and middle class because they felt that it was a stab at them

Emerging from the revolution, the classes felt threatened by each other

The upper class felt threatened by the large number of lower class

Has been associated with the biblical story of Ruth

Gleaning is going back after the harvest and picking up what's left

Frugality

Doing all you can down to the last detail

In Millet's childhood, his grandparents taught him to always say his prayers in the morning

Church in the background

Stopped to pray

Prayer is about the annunciation

Man and women pray together and then say Hail Mary's

A more subtle religious piece

Regular people

Originally called "A Prayer over Potato Crops"

Speculation about their relationship

Intimate

Light filled

Nivernais is both region and the oxen

Her father was an artist and she was encouraged from a young age

One year after the revolution, moving away from the city

Here is the strength of France

Nationalistic idea of French country side, France will survive and thrive

Plowing has gone on long before any of the tumultuous politics of the day

Depth, atmospheric perspective

Warmth of sunlight

The oxen are a reflection of the earth: permanence

Desire to turn back to the basic truths in the face of industrialization

A woman painting at the level of a professional

Nationalistic

Realism focuses on the stories of ordinary people

She was a very accomplished artist

Didn't get accepted into the salon

Napoleon III opened up a new Salon to give rejected artists an opportunity to still show their work

Scandalous

Nude woman with clothed men

She was a recognizable woman

The issue wasn't that there was a nude woman, it was that she wasn't softly modeled, tight brushstroke, turning away, etc. She confronts us with her nudity

They weren't appreciating the beauty of the naked form, instead they were being confronted by a nude woman in the park

Not entirely naturalistic, woman in the back is too big. Manet loved to play with perspective

People felt that it didn't look finished

Outstretched arm is reminiscent of The Creation of Adam by Michelangelo as well as Judgement of Paris by Raphael

He's not doing anything new, there were many paintings in the nude that had clothed men and naked women

A popular bar in Paris

Extravagant

Woman seems trapped

We see what she sees but she's not really apart of it

Man is approaching her, she looks displeased

Not super naturalistic, the mirror is incorrect

A place for middle class entertainment

Should a painting be a mirror of reality?

Unreadable expression is typical of Manet

Where do we, the viewer stand?

We can't fit this woman into a certain category

Sensual

The bar separates us from the woman

People in the background suggest a dynamism and energy that is seen in the "new" Paris

The orchestra pit of the Salle Le Peletier, the home of the Paris Opera

Somewhere between a portrait and a genre piece

Viewed as though you are a member of the audience

Cropping is similar to that of a photograph

The viewpoint of someone who is distracted from the ballet

Movement both of the figures and the spectator's eyes as if during a random glance

A family travelling with a baby

The baby is the center of this family's attention

Playful

Seems uncomposed, a single snapshot

We are used to this because we are used to photography, the cropping and informality was revolutionary for the time

Lacks depth

A wetnurse

Different classes are seen here

Horseracing was a very privileged sport

Modern upper-class leisure

During this time period, ballet dancers were very famous

Showing them backstage was really controversial

Exaggerated perspective

Asymmetrical composition

Show them in their state of awkwardness

Floor seems very steep

Intimate, informal

Wasn't shown in the official Exhibition

Outrageous at the time

The city of performance and leisure

No self-contained, clear narrative

Breaks all compositional and narrative rules at the time

Asymmetrical

Painted his hero: a rowing champion in an everyday scene

Painted himself in a nearby boat

Inspired by American Realism

Diagonal composition

He did many many studies from life

This is different from photography, art isn't dead

Tranquil, still, solemn

Meant to commemorate a rower's victory in a race

Rather than show him in a heroic way, Eakins shows him during a late afternoon practice session

Influenced by Velazquez

"Eakins is domesticating an exotic genre, that of Orientalist river scenes by artists such as Gérôme and Frederick Arthur Bridgman."

Light is shining on his head, implying that he is smart

Inspired by Baroque Painting The Anatomy Lesson

Surgery

A great surgeon and his medical class at Jefferson Medical College

Eakins attended those classes

He was an innovator in surgical techniques

Portrait of Dr. Gross

He seems very godlike

Halo of hair, bright forehead suggest intelligence

The horrified woman represents us

Contrasts the competence of the doctors

Eakins is seen in the far left as a way to establish his credibility in the painting

American

Symbolic of America trying to reunify after the Civil War

Youth, innocence: Can we start over? Can we be a youthful nation again?

Homer was drawn to rural simplicity in the wake of the more complicated problems of the post Civil War world

Bare feet symbolize childhood freedom while suspenders symbolize the responsibilities of manhood

The boys range from hanging on to each other, to trying to stay connected, to running in perfect harmony, to falling away

All the possible scenarios for men after the Civil War

Nostalgia

Little boy represents him

Wishes he can see art through a kid's eyes again and forget the art academy

References one of Michelangelo's paintings: The Judgement

Man on the far right is a poet and is supposed to represent Satan, goes on to inspire the Symbolist movement

People on the left represent the saints, the holy

Napoleon the third is pictured

Left: art figures, hungry, poor, Jews

Right: real people, position of the damned

Art was democratized a bit more

Christ figure

Why realism? Shift towards truth

The woman is not idealized. A muse but also a real woman

Based on Shakespeare's play Measure for Measure

She is left by her fiancé for many years, doing her embroidery until he returns

Sacrament off to the side

Waiting a long time

Dowry had been lost

Leaves represent the passage of time

Jewel like tones

Woman is eventually reunited with her husband

Melancholy

Heroism of emotion itself as a subject that can be painted

This painting is based on the moment of waiting

We see what she sees

Her life is between prayer and meditative work of embroidery

As she stretches her back, she wants to move out into the world, the sense of longing

Direct observation rather than idealized form

Tension between nature and art

Yearning for more

Inspired by Shakespeare

The moment in Hamlet when Ophelia drowns herself as a response to Hamlet murdering her father

Shows off his technical skill and artistic vision

Hands are a pose of submission, accepting her fate

Surrounded by summer flowers and other botanicals

Some flowers have symbolic meanings

Violets around her neck are a symbol of faithfulness and can also refer to chastity and death

Painted outdoors

Close observation of nature

Melancholy

Combines the ideals of the Pre-Raphaelites with Victorian culture and Millais excels

Fennel: strength

Pansy: love

Calamine: gratitude, courage, love, folly

Daisies: innocence, hope

Everything is new in the painting, suggests a falseness

Concerns of Victorian culture and their distrust of new things

A kept woman with her lover

He has bought all these things for her so he can have a place to escape to

She is most likely from a lower class

He is playing a song that reminds her of her childhood

She remembers her past experiences and spiritual awakening

Fallen woman at a moment of redemption

An artificial place where nothing is real

She is looking towards the outside

Nature and light represents spiritual and moral

Artist was a very religious person

Spiritual transformation

The man is holding her back, she will have to break past her immorality

The same person who is the source of your sinfulness can unwittingly cause your redemption or your awakening

A spiritual story that isn't showing a biblical story

Everything in the room has symbolic value

Cat has caught a bird, represents the man and woman

Using art history to show contemporary issues

Many different social classes present

Even though the artist wasn't an official member of the PRB, he adopted many of their stylistic tendencies such as bright colors and attention to detail

In contrast to other artists in the PRB, he was more interested in painting contemporary scenes

Painted on the street to capture all the details

A group of working class navvies: neatly dressed and diligently going about their tasks

Children represent the lowest of the lower classes, they are orphans

The two ladies represent the upper class

Riders on horseback are the upper class who have no need to work

About the role of "work" and its relationship to Victorian class structure

The manual laborer is the hero

The two men on the right make their living with their minds, not their bodies

Two dogs: upper class, middle class, and upper class

Everyday life in the city

The real heroes of Victorian London were these anonymous working men

Immigrant family leaving England

Truth to nature

He painted portions of it outdoors

Wave of immigrations in the 1840s and 1850s, many people immigrated to America, Australia, etc.

Right after times of hardship

You can see a child under her shawl

Reminscent of paintings of the Holy Family

Concentric circles around the woman's head

How men and women differently experience the world

Husband is the strength of the family

Gender roles

Commentary on the problems faced by the artists during this time

People of different social classes are brought together

Image is unified despite all the chaos

Pre-Raphaelite style focused on painting as things were

They are trying to protect themselves from this stormy weather in the same way that they are protecting themselves from the economic storm

The Annunciation

Artist was interested in the relationship between the past and the present

"Ecce Ancilla Domini" means "Behold the Handmaiden of the Lord"

Artist came from a very religious upbringing

He believed that European art had lost value since the renaissance

INspired by Van Eyck and Memling

Pure, bright colors

Lily symbolizes purity

Flame in the oil lamp symbolizes the presence of the Holy Spirit

Gabriel's angel status is shown by flames around his feet rather than with wings

Window represents Heaven

Simple composition

"This pared down, economical style avoids academic techniques, such as chiaroscuro, used to create pictorial drama and signal spatial recession."

Lack of linear perspective

Psychosexual undertones

Looking out the window while actually looking in

Prostitute thinking about her past life as a virtuous woman

Social problem

Her problem is because of the size of the city

Hay is being brought to the city from the country to be sold, just like she was

Red hair is reminiscent of early Renaissance paintings of Mary Magdalene, who is also traditionally thought of as a redeemed prostitute

We're not sure what her future holds as she thinks about her past

Plants are stretching up to get to the sun, they are dying

Violets have been discarded, just like she has been

Jewelry looks cheap

Man's walking stick and glove

17 year old poet

Super poor, dying of starvation

Decides to take his own life

Poet was from the 1700s

Papers shredded next to him, tears up all his writing

His room is very small and cramped

He was well known among romantic writers

He was well published but underpaid

The misunderstood and underpaid artist appealed to Romantic artists

Candle burnt down: symbolizes the end of his life

Precise handling of every element in the room

Pose of a pieta, artist's martyr

In this time period, art was another commodity. What does that mean for a creative genius?

Proverbs 12:13 the wealth of the rich

Novel about a woman who tries unsuccessfully to sell her paintings multiple times to save her father from financial ruin

Another artist agrees to buy her painting

She was deeply concerned with the issue of educational and employment opportunities for women

Anxious pose, seems to be guarding herself against the dealer's criticism

All the men in the piece are engaged in looking

"The title carries a quotation from the Biblical Book of Proverbs: “The rich man’s wealth is his strong city: the destruction of the poor is their poverty” (10:15)"

The "strong city" of London was experiencing the expansion of the Industrial Revolution: this was a fruitful time for some

In the lower classes however, the living conditions were some of the worst they had ever been and there was no welfare

If one lost their fortune they could end up nameless and friendless but also homeless and penniless

Single, middle-class women were among the most vulnerable

The quotation of scripture encourages the audience to look at the painting universally rather than just as a painting of a struggling woman artist

Looser brushstroke than other paintings by the PRB

Lady of Shalott

River winding through fields, woman in a tower on an island

Has a curse that she has to keep weaving and can never look down to Camelot

Sir Lancelot comes around, she sees him, stops weaving, gets in a boat, and dies on her way to Camelot

Three candles are on the boat, two of them are burnt out, symbolizes the fact that her life is coming to an end

Technique is more impressionist

Part of Napoleon III's renovation of Paris

Sewers, wider streets, etc. Baron Haussmann hired to redo the city

Opulent

Second Empire style

Chandeliers, columns, arches, etc

The front of the building is a social space, its own stage

Degas showed us the back stage which was really controversial at the time because everything happened in the front of the opera house

Separate bourgeoisie experience: all the walls in the boxes separate them

A place to see and to be seen

Influenced by Goya

Dramatic use of light and shadow

Sense of truthfulness

He new all of these people

Unity while also having separation

Pyramidal composition

Primarily three separate colors

Views are in different directions

Everything they are holding points towards the center

Referred to as the presidential mansion

Design contest

Neoclassical

Influenced by Irish parliament building, Venice architecture

Took 8 years to build

Built by slaves and immigrants

Burnt down during the war of 1812

National Heritage Site

Design selected by George Washington

Used for Presidential Inaugurations

Many different offices

Plans were changed many times

Dome is cast iron painted to look like marble

Neoclassical

Partially burnt down during the War of 1812

Purpose is running the US Government

Based on a poem by John Keats

Girl who was the sister of some wealthy Florentine merchants

Falls in love with one of the employees

Has dream about him being dead, digs him up, plants his head in a pot of basil and waters it with tears

Basil represents hatred, possibly luck

Intense detail

Considered the first Pre-Raphaelite painting

About what he thinks art should be

Lovers are framed by this view of the sky: something natural rather than evil

Foreboding

Dishware has an image of David beheading Goliath

Hawk is pulling at a white feather: the last sign of a dove. Evil is overcoming peace

During this time period, there was rapid industrialization. Poem points to the cost of rampant industrialism/capitalism

PRB is seen on the leg of the chair

Detailed rather than fluid

Two people named Isabella and Claudio he is in prison for getting his fiancé pregnant

Sister of him is a nun and tries to get Claudio out of prison

Told that she has to sleep with the judge to get her brother free

The King is lower than her, he submits to her

Feeling of a stained glass window

Love conquers all

Beautiful maid

King kneels down and swears an oath that this beggar maid will be queen

Art for Art’s Sake

Emphasis on formal qualities over storytelling, moral lessons

Comparison of visual art to music

Believed that beauty was the most important element in life

Beauty in every aspect from literature, to home decorating, to fashion

Rejected by the Salon in Paris and the Royal Academy in London

Too unique for Victorian audiences who tried to connect it to some literary source

Almost looks like a prop on a stage

No overarching mood or personality

"The White Girl is less a faithful portrait painting and more an experimentation in color, pattern, and texture."

Tries to balance the realist components of his pieces with a need for abstraction

Took the elements he wanted from the real world and reorganized them in a controlled, harmonious way

Whistler's mother

The Victorian audience didn't accept that it was an "arrangement" which is why the title got changed to Portrait of the Artist's Mother

Not meant to be viewed as a "portrait"

Communicates a specific meaning

Fireworks in the evening on the river Thames

Ephemeral

Not a historical or mythological subject

Nocturne comes from musical compositions about night

During this time period, people could see well at night for the first time in human history

Many artists turned to the night as a subject because their concept of night was changing

Modernist: aligning with the experience of modern industrial life

Rhythm, notes, and texture of music creates beauty, no need for a moral or a figurative story

Can color, tone, shape, etc. be enough to evoke feeling?

Paintings are the product of a philosophical inquiry

Influenced by Japanese printmaking

Art for art's sake

Commissioned by Frederick Richards Leyland

Brilliant blue-greens with over-glazing and metallic gold leaf

Considered one of the greatest surviving Aesthetic interiors

Inspired by Japanese art

Originally decorated by someone else but when an illness caused him to abandon the project, Whistler took over

The original artist said he could make minor revisions but Whistler took artistic liberties and completely redid it

Leyland didn't like the "improvements" and him and Whistler argued so much about the room and the compensation that their relationship was severed

Whistler gained access to the house and painted two fighting peacocks which were meant to represent him and Leyland and titled it Art and Money: or, The Story of the Room

Considered scandalous and immoral when it debuted at the Paris Salon in 1884

Gown's plunging neckline was considered too provocative

Combination of the Gilded Age idea of portraying status and wealth in portraiture with a seductive aesthetic

Looking away from the viewer in a very classical pose

Details that point towards classical art such as her hairstyle (ancient Greece) and the diamond crescent she wears (the huntress Diana)

He wanted the portrait to establish his reputation

Bought by the MET in 1916 where it was met with backlash, even though it is celebrated today.

Most of an art piece's initial reception is based on the ideals of the time it was created, oftentimes paintings will be celebrated much later, such as this one

What really defines an artworks' popularity, legacy, and fame?

That moment at twilight when artificial light starts to overpower natural light

Haunting

Repetition of the title reflects the repetition of form and light in the painting

Curving arabesque formed by lanterns

Reads like a piece of music

Movement

Decorative surface

Lanterns illuminated against the dusk

Influenced by Japanese prints: flatness,

small flowers at the bottom that get bigger as they move up the canvas is opposite of how it would normally be

Emphasis on background

No real subject, except for the quality of light, color harmony

Emphasis on formal qualities

Painted plein air

Lush

Commissioned as a wedding gift

It was originally supposed to just be her with a Great Dane by her side. When the dog became unavailable, her husband "offered to assume the role of the Great Dane in the picture"

Considered his most famous double portrait

Life sized

The girls are highly individualized

Focused on the interplay between light and shadow, clarity and obscurity

Asymmetrical composition

Lots of empty space

Figures are very isolated

Influenced by Velázquez's Las Meninas

Fishing boats and the suggestion of a dock are seen in the distance

Material, technique, and subject matter reflects the influence of modernity on the art world

Influenced by Japanese prints, especially Utagawa Hiroshige's Sudden Shower over Shin-Ōhashi Bridge and Atake

Not only portraying the changing effects of light and color, also reflects a "changing world of industry and global exchange in 19th-century France"

En Plein Air

Painted shortly after Monet returned to Paris from London (where he moved to avoid the Franco-Prussian War)

The fleeting effect of sunrise on the water

Painterly brushstrokes

Doesn't use atmospheric perspective

The shadowy dock is the only thing separating the sky from the water

Diagonal composition

Three boats create the illusion of space

The port was being reconstructed when he painted this piece. He showed the industrial progress through the cranes silhouetted against the morning sky

One of the most notable pieces in the first Impressionist exhibition

Exhibition marked a rejection of the traditional Salon

Didn't reflect the traditional characteristics for high art

Flattened composition

"Not a landscape, but the sensation produced by a landscape"

Large train station in Paris

In the late 19th century, large trains stations were a new concept

Modern subject: modern train station, new apartments

Paris had just been rebuilt

Drenched with steam, light and smoke, almost dissolves

Prism of color

Monet is interested in pure light and color

Optical experience of light and atmosphere

The human figure was very important to academic painters, here the human figure is less important than the atmosphere

Light and color are the main subjects

No atmospheric perspective

New visual language for a new, modern world

Monet would paint on many different canvases at once so that he could capture the way the light changed

Analyzing visual perception of changing light, atmosphere, and weather

Wheat stacked in this way was typical of French farmers and became symbolic of the strength of France's rural communities and agriculture

Painting appears to shimmer

Each brushstroke is a "a notation of light"

Over 30 canvases

He rented a space across from the cathedral

Several canvases at once, showing the light at many different times of day and with different weather conditions

He wanted to capture the ephemeral quality of light

In the rendering of Monet, the cathedral loses its solid quality

Medieval cathedrals were centered around light

Nationalistic, poignant

Taking that grand history and understanding it through the lens of the 19th century

The building is shaped and reshaped by the way the light hits it

The Theatre Box

Young couple in a box at the Paris theatre

Accepted into the Salon where reactions were mixed

Modern subject

Unconventional tightly cropped composition

Woman has lowered her opera glasses and the man has raised his to look at someone in the audience

Reflects traditional gender roles: the woman is to be looked at while the man is the one doing the looking

Theatre box subjects were common in French fashion magazines where they showed women modelling the latest evening wear

They were also commonly used as satire to make fun of the occupants romantic and social practices

This painting is both reflecting contemporary fashion and satire

A fleeting visual moment

Leisure

Beer hall: outdoor place where people gathered after work.

The middle-class

Love of interaction, intimacy

Many little vignettes of people

All over painting

Our eye isn't drawn to any single place

Radical, there wasn't a strong focus created by the composition

Broke many rules of academic painting

Asymmetrical composition

Fleeting, dappled sunlight coming through the trees

Painted entirely outdoors

Feels like we can enter this space and join the figures in the painting

The light is dancing like the people

Stepping away from the early Impressionist interest in cityscapes

Suburbs

A boating party that has stopped for lunch

Scene of leisure

Open brushwork

More three-dimensional than his earlier work

We feel like we are outdoors

Weight and counterweight of the figures

The people are all looking in different directions

Gentle chaos

Movement and change are central to Impressionism and the experience of modern life

Less flat/choppy than Moulin de Gallette

Pyramidal composition

More of a sense of space than early Impressionism

Feeling of realism (especially in girl with the glass to her mouth)

Hats represented different social classes

• Top hats = upper class

• Boating hats = middle class

Perspective is slightly skewed

"Caillebotte's originality lays in his attempt to combine the careful drawing, modeling and exact tonal values encouraged by the Académie with vivid colors, bold perspectives, keen sense of natural light and modern subject matter of the Impressionist movement."

Shows his interest in perspective and everyday life

Tilted heads suggest conversation between the figures

One of the first paintings of the urban working class

Modernizes the subject of the heroic male nude: instead of the heroes of antiquity, these are everyday heroes

Rejected by the Salon because of its depiction of partly undressed members of the working class

The subtlety of light in the city after a rainstorm

Strong sense of line and contour

A sense of massiveness

Nothing is dissolving into light or brushstrokes

This painting is still about light: reflectivity, shadow, the way that light can define form in a solid way

Different social classes seen

This is a painting about intersections

Fragment of time

Not a snapshot, a very defined, planned painting

Divided into quadrants

Stability and balance despite asymmetricality

He collected the works of his impressionist friends

Hoarfrost: fog that freezes on everything

Like Monet, Pissarro isn't giving us very much atmospheric perspective

Emphasis on the surface of the canvas

Very little sense of depth because of the overall pattern

Flattened surface

Very different from any other landscapes

Touches of paint and broad palette-knife applications

Multiple viewpoints: up the path, down through the trees, and across the buildings

Complex treatment of space and form

Unified his compositions through color and tone

Meant to show his perception of reality as it changed over time

Even though there is a woman in the painting, the main subject is the fog itself

"It is not the thick London fog that Sisley and Monet knew on the banks of the Thames, but a subtle harmony, a silent poem."

Visual sensation is shifted by the weather

Sisley contributed five paintings to the first Impressionist exhibition

While she was highly respected in the world of the Impressionists, she chose different subject matters than then men: domestic scenes rather than modern city life

Men were free to go wherever they pleased while women had to be accompanied by an escort

Women often painted domestic scenes because that is what they had access to, and they painted people they knew because they weren't allowed to hire models

Some people thought it looked unfinished

White apron tied around her waist indicates that she is a maid

The table with fruit is similar to a small still life

Streakiness creates movement

Curiosity about who the woman really is

Morisot had just had her first child and would walk in the park with her nurse and her baby. When she started painting again, she didn't want to leave her child alone with the nanny for long periods of time so she would bring her models with her to the park so she could both paint and spend time with her child

Fleeting impression created with the light on the water as well as with the carriage with horses speeding past in the background

Very planned out

Clear background, middle ground, and foreground

Irregular texture of paint

Emphasis on femininity

The women are the main subject of the painting, as well as the light

The opera house was the center of the new modern Paris

There was a focus on the social spaces for opera goers where they could see and be seen

She is engaged in looking

Most likely during intermission, she is taking the opportunity to look across the stage at a fellow audience member

The male figure is staring at her

We are looking at her as much as she is

Looking was very important to the impressionists

As a woman, Cassatt couldn't engage in the freedom of the city in the same way the male impressionists could

The opera house was one of the few places she could exist

A space that was socially accessible to her

This woman has real agency, she is equal to the man in this way

Tension about the power of a woman and her gaze

Visual technology was enhancing the way we could se

The culture of looking

Part of a group of 10 colored prints that she included in her first independent exhibition

All the works showed women engaging in everyday activities

Travelers riding a bus over a bridge

They seem to be isolated from the crowded public scene

Influence of Japanese woodblock prints seen through the use of flat color and depiction of a domestic scene

Nanny's attention remains focused on the baby while the woman seems to be distracted and gazes at the view outside

We rarely see the subject of a mother and a daughter

Intimacy

Brings back memories of your own children/childhood

The mother seems to be speaking to her

Their attention is focused on each other and we are drawn into that experience

Unusual angle used to show things the way we really see them

Compressed composition

Patterns flatten the space and are reminiscent of Japanese prints

French government was encouraging people to take more baths at this time

Focus on light

Flatter perspective

Vibrancy

Complementary  

Textural

Lots of complementary/arbitrary color in the shadows

Liked painting landscapes

Fuzzy people

Series

Interested in color theory

Valued painting outdoors

Blocky and thicker brush strokes

Underpainting often shines through, but he uses a lot of layers 

Scratchy and sketchy brushstrokes later

People are secondary to the landscape

Atmospheric

Fuzzy, soft, broken, brush strokes, small

Bold complementary colors next to each other

Figures in later paintings are more rendered/have hard edges

Liked to paint social life and people more

His trees have a lot more small leaves 

Cooler more saturated colors

Hats! 

Light, steady strokes

People are first and foremost, more important than landscape

Leisure scenes

Warm in color and feeling 

Very soft edges

Smooth skies

Not a lot of arbitrary color - the colors of real life

Painted people working 

Rural landscapes

Finer brushstrokes

Painted more developed nature

Structure and paths to follow

Delicate, 

Often of people at home or working in the garden - depicts women and children 

Used a lot of blacks and grays  

Opera scenes

Painted indoors- many women did

vivid colors 

bold perspectives 

keen sense of natural light

modern subject matter of the Impressionists

Rendered!-

Very smooth, clarity of form

More similar to realism

Figure central paintings

Strong line

High viewpoint

strong colors

energetic brushwork

She did aquatint 

Painted women, especially in domestic scenes

Extreme angles

Very influenced by Japanese prints

Influenced by Manet

Asymmetrical compositions

"Women should be someone and not something"

-Cassatt

Strong Contrast 

Bold colors 

“Pure Color” 

A Lot of his figures look at you ( so does renoir so keep that in mind)

Dark darks

Still lifes weren't as common before this time

The first impressionist still life, not rendered

Loose brushstroke

Thick black line outlines objects

Perspective is nonsensical

He was looking at it from many different angles and was trying to portray many different angles

"What can I do that a camera can't?"

The father of Cubism

Traditional landscape: wide angle, atmospheric perspective

Even more simplified than the impressionists

Less concerned about light and shadow, more interested in the shape

Very blocky colors

"Curtain of paint"

Makes it look like a landscape by pushing things back while simultaneously flattening it with differing brushstrokes and heavy pattern

He painted this mountain over and over again as well as painting the painting itself over a long period of time

Began his career by exhibiting in the Impressionist shows

Feels unfinished

If we look too closely at any elements, they seem to fall apart

Tension between the two-dimensionality of the surface with the spatial quality of the scene

Even though the viewer is closer to the mountain than in the previous painting, we are more separated because of the abyss created by the quarry

The mountain is comparable to a heroic sculpture

The peak can almost be comparable to a human face with its shape

All elements in the painting are a similar level of finish, nothing is more detailed than anything else

Real Parisian people at a specific place

Working class

Very large painting, figures are larger than life-size

How do we know they are working class?

• Bowler hat

• Straw hat

• Informality

Industrial scene in the background, not very picturesque

People in the background in the boat are upper class

Reducing these figures but we know who they are by what they're wearing and how they're sitting

Rejecting the spontaneity and informality of Impressionism

Planned out

Opposite side of the river from his other river scene

He wasn't necessarily a painting created for an audience, rather, it was meant to be a critique of the 19th century social structures

Making social structures obvious

Reflects the new concept of leisure time

You could work in those factories down the river and then clock out and do an activity, new concept

Mostly little cross-hatchings: complex color

Optical mixture

Brings thoughtfulness to the ideas of light

Trying to create a timelessness, not just the ancients that could have beauty, also present day people

Caused a stir at the last Impressionist show

"Some say they see poetry in my paintings, I see only science"

Wanted to bring science to the ideas of Impressionism

Color theory: helps painting seem more luminous, brighter

Dividing color into its components

Mixing color creates muddiness, putting pure colors next to each other so your eyes mix the colors (optical mixing)

Strong sense of sunlight

Impressionism elements: leisure, painting of the outdoors

Not like Impressionism: not plein air, many sketches, more illusion of space, figures have contours/modeling

Wanted his figures to have a kind of solemnity that was found in the sculptures of the friezes of the Parthenon

Wanted to bring a sense of timelessness and classicism to the art of Impressionism

Receding diagonal line

Our eye is drawn to the surface of the canvas

This side of the river is frequented by middle and upper class

Ambiguity of class, cities mixed classes

Clothing and fashion blurred class

Serious, monumental, classical, and thoughtful

Real sense of a very late night

Paris after dark

Moulin Rouge was a very popular nightclub

Toulouse-Lautrec is seen in the background

The middle-class would enter these clubs at night, despite it being in a rough part of town

We are divided from the group by the balustrade, we want to be there

Woman at the right is a famous performer

Artificial light had recently been introduced to the club: otherworldly/artificial feeling

Sense of humanity

Rhythm

He's telling us that we're going to have this energy if we go there

Doesn't idealize

Heavily inspired by Japanese prints: Dark colors, strong outlines

Tilted floor

Tous les soirs: every night

The yellow shapes are the gas lamps

Lithograph

The full title is Vision after the Sermon (Jacob Wrestling with the Angel)

Influenced by Japanese prints

Separation between real and spiritual

Not meant to be a religious printing, a painting about people experiencing a spiritual event

Inspired by frescoes, symbolism

In his early career, Gauguin primarily painted landscapes en plein air but he changed his style to better suit his interest in the mystical

He was interested in interpreting religious subjects in a highly personal way

Non naturalistic landscape

Distorted shapes and features

Many human, animal, and symbolic figures arranged across an island landscape

Where are we going? refers to the manifesto he created while he was living in Tahiti

He went from being a painter in his spare time to it being his full time career (after abandoning his wife and children)

Where did we come from: the child

What are we: the standing figure

Where are we going: elderly woman

The white bird holding the lizard represents "the futility of words"

Painting is supposed to be read from left to right

Compare to frescoes or icons painted on a gold background

Figures are meant to appear out of proportion to each other and like they are floating in space

"The painting is a deliberate mixture of universal meaning—the questions asked in the title are fundamental ones that address the very root of human existence—and esoteric mystery."

Cultural appropriation/fetishization of a non-western culture

Before he went to Paris

Inspired by Rembrandt (he was living in Holland at the time)

Intentionally dark

Narrow tonal range

Traditional peasant painting

Browns and darkness reflects meagerness of people who are bound to the earth

Potatoes are all they have to eat

Close relationship between their labor and their food

Perspective/anatomy skewed

Authentic relationship between roughness of the paint and the subject

The human conditions

van Gogh aspires downward rather than upward

Family was very wealthy but he wanted to be more like the peasants

Creating a contained, closely knit family environment, wants to recreate the family that he feels estranged from

Compare to Courbet's The Stone Breakers

Van Gogh said he strove to paint the faces "the color of a good, dusty potato, unpeeled naturally," and to convey the idea that these people had "used the same hands with which they now take food from the plate to did the earth ... and had thus earned their meal honestly."

The landlord is standing in the room facing the viewer

The five customers have been described as "three drunks and derelicts in a large public room . . . huddled down in sleep or stupor."

Commonly had prostitutes and other members of low class

Contrasting colors

Tilted perspective

He wrote that "it is color not locally true from the point of view of the stereoscopic realist, but color to suggest the emotion of an ardent temperament"

Formal elements:

• Low impact color contrast (seeking for universal harmony)

• Deliberately skewed harmony

• Strong sense of line

• Impasto

Inviting you into his space

Inspired by Japanese prints

He was trying to make a plea to his doctors that he was just fine

Created while he was spending time with Gauguin

Arbitrary color

Closed color palette

In the background, there is a canvas on his easel as well as a Japanese woodblock print titles Geishas in a Landscape by Satō Torakiyo

Van Gogh had hoped to set up "a community of artists, with himself and Gauguin, the founding fathers, all working in harmony with nature and, as he hoped, with each other."

He and Gauguin had lived together for some time at this point. When Gauguin threatened to leave during an argument, Van Gogh cut off his ear

This painting was created 2 weeks after the incident

Could be interpreted as a farewell to the dream of the artist's commune

This painting was partly to convince his doctors that he didn't need to be admitted into the insane asylum

"Created the utopia he always dreamed of inhabiting"

Celestial bodies and village are connected through the cypress tree

In all of Van Gogh's pieces he has created a world for himself where he can find that harmony and peace that he couldn't find in his world but invites us to live there

Foreground has the giant, undulating form of a cypress tree

Only light is from the moon and the stars

Village seems humble yet embraced by the mountains behind it

Landscape seems protected at the same time that it is threatened by the sky

Exposed canvas in some places

Dynamism, energy

The heavens are alive

Cypress trees symbolize death: the linking of the earthly and the heavenly

Both the tree and the steeple are reaching up to the heavens

Chalk pastels

Compare to Millais' Ophelia

He never actually saw the jungle, instead he went to the zoo as well as conservatories to paint his jungle scenes

Doesn't really make sense the way the tiger is in the grass but it doesn't matter because this is a dream world

Inspired by the work of Gauguin

Compare to Gauguin's Te Raau Rahi (They are literally the same)

The tiger itself is inspired by a motif found in the drawings and paintings of Eugene Delacroix

The tiger's prey is off the side of the canvas so it is up to the viewer to decide what the outcome will be

Rousseau was a postman and as an adult he decided to paint

Had no training, self-taught

Very flat, almost looks like paper cut outs

Dream world

Child-like lack of formal training inspired Picasso

The lion comes across the sleeping woman but merely examines her

Lighting doesn't make sense

“With its flat planes of pure color, simple geometric forms, dreamlike atmosphere, and exotic subject, The Sleeping Gypsy at once conjures a desire for a preindustrial past and asserts its status as a new kind of modern art”

Tipped perspective of Degas

Artist is from Norway

The Krakatoa volcano erupted that year and drastically altered weather patterns

Oil paint and pastel

His body is almost like a flame

"I was walking along the road with two friends—the sun went down—I felt a gust of melancholy—suddenly the sky turned a bloody red. I stopped, leaned against the railing, tired to death—as the flaming skies hung like blood and sword over the blue-black fjord and the city—My friends went on—I stood there trembling with anxiety and I felt a vast infinite scream [tear] through nature.” -Edvard Munch

Munch was interested in relationships, life, death, and dread

Screaming figure is linked to the natural realm

"The Scream is a work of remembered sensation rather than perceived reality"

Woodcut

Reducing and getting to the essence of this idea of the couple being one

"He rejected the Impressionist practice of studying effects of light on the external world and instead looked inward to explore themes of love and jealousy, loneliness and anxiety, and sickness and death."

Takes complex emotions and portrays them using universal symbols

Inspired by Munch's piece of the same name

Reminiscent of a religious icon

A modern icon

Suggests a sense of transcendence

Pattern becomes a halo

Gold circles rise off the surface of the canvas and catch the light

Rectilinear patterns of the male figure contradict the circular patterns of the female figure

The figures are being dissipated into the cosmos

Removed from the everyday world

Vienna has been transformed into a modern city in recent years, this is something that remains constant

Covering the sensuality with the decorative patterning

Deep interior feeling

A truth that has a degree of absolute permanence

Influenced by Munch as well as the Byzantine Era

Also known as The Lady in Gold or The Woman in Gold

Stolen by the Nazis during WWII

Considered the final and most fully representative work of Klimt's golden phase

Klimt studied Byzantine mosaics in preparation for the piece

Rectilinear forms

She is meant to transcend the earthly plane

Looks more like a religious icon than a secular portrait

"The gold is like that in Byzantine mosaics; the eyes on the dress are Egyptian, the repeated coils and whorls Mycenaean, while other decorative devices, based on the initial letters of the sitter's name, are vaguely Greek"

Unfinished when Rodin died

Refers back to Dante, he is at the top

Dante is gazing into hell

Intended to be for a building

Most figures are standalone sculptures

Figures emerge from the doors

Figures rising and then falling

The figures in the doors are people Dante meets in hell

Arms of the shades pull our eyes down into the gates

Modern reinvention of sculpture

Suffering, sin, emotion, power of the body

Influenced by Michelangelo's Sistine chapel ceiling

"In a real sense, The Thinker is Rodin. Brutishly muscled yet engrossed in thought, coiled in tension yet loose in repose, the sculpture, according to one early twentieth-century critic, embodies both 'dream and action.'"

Part of his work The Gates of Hell

Its original name was The Poet

Possibly meant to be Dante himself at the gates of Hell, contemplating his own poem

Possibly a self-portrait

Tense, muscular, and internalized

Rodin was commissioned by the city of Calais to commemorate a man named Eustache de Saint-pierre, a prominent citizen during the Hundred Years' War between England and France beginning in 1337

Each man is a burgher, or city councilman

None of them are looking at each other

"They are drawn together not through physical or verbal contact, but by their slumped shoulders, bare feet, and an expression of utter anguish"

The story of these 6 men who gave up their lives so their city would be saved from the British

Their lives would eventually be spared

Circular composition of the figures means that no one figure is the focal point and the sculpture can be viewed in the round

Fabric of their clothing appears very heavy and almost as if it is fused to the ground. This might indicate that there is conflict between their desire to live and their desire to save their city

Wanted the figures to be seen eye to eye, more personal

Originally made as an in-house calendar

Decorative panel

Slavic dress

The halo is a symbol of universal harmony

One of the earliest examples of Art Nouveau style

The repeated organic curving lines are often called whiplash lines

Design is unified throughout floor tiles, wall painting, ironwork, and the structure of the staircase itself

Design is very focused on natural light

Materials used on the inside were purposefully visible

All elements of the interior design were designed by Horta which led to a very cohesive effect

Cast iron painted green to look like bronze

Meant to be done cheaply

Manufactured in a modular system

Art for everybody

Something beautiful created for the masses, beauty wasn't only for the rich

Instead of looking back at those older styles, they instead created a new style that better suited a new industrial culture

Inspired by plants

Not a representation of nature, a stylization of the quality of growth

Looks like the frond of a fern before it uncurls: organic in motion

Architect was looking for materials that were going to last

This is his wife

Inspired by Japanese prints

Heavy use of pattern flattens the composition

Domestic scene

Emphasized the patterns of their fabrics, really abstracted things

Intimate scene

Inspired by Japanese prints

Dreamlike quality

He felt that art could help people contemplate God in their everyday lives

Exhibited along with two of his other paintings at the 8th Salon des Indépendants - October Night and July to make up a series titled Poetic Subjects (four panels for the decoration of a girl's room)

Seasons cycle