Art History Today

The Pursuit & Pleasure of Art in Eighteenth-Century Europe. Slides

Slides

1. Canaletto, The Stonemason’s Yard, about 1725, oil on canvas, 123.8×162.9 cms, National Gallery, London.

2. G. B. Tiepolo, Kaisersaal, Würzburg Residence, 1749-1751.

3. Nicolas Loir, Allegory of the Foundation of the Academy of Painting and Sculpture, 1666, oil on canvas, 141×185 cm, Chateau de Versailles.

4. Pietro Antonio Martini, The Salon of 1787, 1787, engraving.

5. Gabriel Jacques de Saint-Aubin, View of the Salon of 1753, graphite, ink, and watercolour on paper, 24×46,7 cms, Musée du Louvre.

6. Gabriel Jacques de Saint-Aubin, Staircase at the Salon, 1753, etching.

7. Charles Brandoin, engraved by Richard Earlom, The Exhibition of the Royal Academy in the Year 1771.

8. Simon Gribelin, after John Closterman, Third Earl of Shaftesbury, line engraving, published 1723 (circa 1700-1701) 7 in. x 3 7/8 in. (179 mm x 98 mm) paper size, National Portrait Gallery, London.

9. Sir Godfrey Kneller, the philosopher John Locke, 1697, oil on canvas, 76 × 64 cm, Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg.

10. John Closterman, Anthony Ashley-Cooper with his brother Maurice, 1702, oil on canvas, 95 3/4 in. x 67 1/4 in National Portrait Gallery, London.

11. Paolo de Matteis, The Choice of Hercules, oil on canvas, 198×256 cm, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.

12. Paolo de Matteis, Self-portrait, while painting the peace of Rastadt, oil on canvas, 170×118 cm, location unknown.

13. William Hogarth, The Industrious and Idle Apprentice, plate 11, “The Idle Apprentice executed at Tyburn,”1747, engraving.

14. The Industrious and Idle Apprentice, plate 12, “The Industrious Apprentice becomes Lord Mayor of London, “1747, engraving.

15. Thomas Rowlandson, The Coffee House, c. 1790, Tate Gallery, London.

16. Sir Godfrey Kneller, Joseph Addison, 1703-1712, oil on canvas, 88.9 × 67.3 cm, National Portrait Gallery.

17. Sir Godfrey Kneller, Sir Richard Steele, 1711, oil on canvas, 36 in. x 28 in, National Portrait Gallery, London.

18. Francis Hayman, The See-Saw, oil on canvas, 1741-2, oil on canvas, Tate Gallery, London.

19. Jean Honoré Fragonard, The Swing, 1767, oil on canvas, 81×64.2 cm, The Wallace Collection, London.

20. Samuel Wale, The Inside of the Elegant Music Room in Vauxhall Gardens, engraved by H. Roberts, 1752, Guildhall Library, Corporation of London.

21. Francis Hayman, Jonathan Tyers and his Family, 1740, 30 5/8 in. x 41 3/4 in. (778 mm x 1062 mm), National Portrait Gallery, London.

22. Sir Martin Arthur Shee, Anna Larpent, oil on canvas, 76.3×63.5 cm, oil on canvas, London Art Market.

23. Robert Dignam, Death and Life Contested, 1784, two prints, watercolour and pen, brown ink on paper,, 336 x 256 mm (13 1/4 x 10 1/16 in.), San Francisco Museum of Art.

24. Jean Baptiste Pigalle, Bust of Portrait of Denis Diderot, 1777, brass, Musée du Louvre, Paris.

25. Same: inscription.

26. Anonymous, Sir Rowland Winn and Lady Winn at Nostell Priory, 1770, oil on canvas, 100.5×125.5 cm, National Trust, Nostell Priory, West Yorkshire.

27. Winn portrait in situ at Nostell Priory.

28. Jean Honoré Fragonard, Abbé de Saint-Non (Fanciful Figure), 1769, oil on canvas, 80×65 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris.

29. William Hogarth, The Rake’s Progress, plate 2, “The Levée,” 1735, engraving.

30. Pietro Longhi, Masked Figures with Fruit Seller, 1750, oil on canvas, 1750, Museo Correr, Venice.

31. Pietro Longhi, The Rhinoceros, 1751, oil on canvas, 62×50 cm, Museo del Settecento Veneziano, Ca' Rezzonico, Venice.

32. Luis Paret y Alcazar, The Trinket Shop, oil on panel, 50×58 cms, 1772, Museo Lázaro Galdiano, Madrid.

33. Antoine Watteau, L'Enseigne de Gersaint, or "The Shop Sign of Gersaint, 1720-1721, oil on canvas, 163×308 cm, Charlottenberg Palace, Berlin.

34. Detail.

35. Detail.

36. Francisco Goya, Nobody Knows Himself, (from Los Capricchos), 1799, etching and burnished aquatint.

37. Johan Joseph Zoffany, The Tribuna of the Uffizi 1772-77, oil on canvas, oil on canvas | 123.5×155.0, Royal Collection.

38. Anonymous, At the Cafe Royal d’ Alexandre, The Burning of the Coiffures, print.

39. Daniel Chodowiecki, Natural and Affected Behaviour, (second series), 1779, whole set, etchings.

40. Selections: Nature, Affection, Gout.

41. Thomas Gainsborough, Mr and Mrs William Hallett (The Morning Walk), c. 1785, oil on canvas, 236.2×179.1 cm, National Gallery, London.

42. Elizabeth Vigée- Le Brun, Self-Portrait in a Straw Hat, (in the guise of Rubens’s wife), after 1782, oil on canvas, 97.8×70.5 cm, National Gallery, London.

43. Jacques Louis David, Marie Antoinette on the way to the Gullotine, drawing, 1793, pen and ink, 150×100 mm, Musée du Louvre, Paris.

44. Carl Gustaf Pilo, The Coronation of King Gustav III of Sweden. Uncompleted, 1782-1793, oil on canvas, 115.35 in x 17.42 ft, National Museum, Stockholm.

45. Bernardo Bellotto, Architectural Capriccio with a Self-Portrait, c. 1765, oil on canvas, 155×112 cm, Private collection.

46. Detail: Bellotto.

47. Bernardo Bellotto, The Kreuzkirche in Dresden, 1747-56, oil on canvas, 197×187 cm, he Hermitage, St. Petersburg.

48. G.B. Tiepolo, The Marriage of Emperor Frederick II and Beatrix of Burgundy, Würzburg Residence, 1749-1751.

49. Ceiling above main staircase, with portraits of Tiepolo and his son.

50. Jean Baptiste Greuze, The White Hat, 1780, oil on canvas, 56.8 × 46.4 cm, MFA, Boston.

51. Pompeo Batoni, Sir Gregory Page-Turner, 1768, oil on canvas, 135×99 cm, Private collection.

52. Thomas Patch, British Gentlemen at Sir Horace Mann's Home in Florence, 1763-65, oil on canvas, measurements unknown, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven.

53. Jean-Baptiste Siméon Chardin, A Lady Taking Tea, 1735, oil on canvas, 81×99 cms, Hunterian Museum, University of Glasgow.

54. Joseph Highmore, Conversation Piece, oil on canvas, measurements unknown, Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

55. Joseph Highmore, Self-Portrait, 1744, oil on canvas, 126.4×101 cms, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne.

56. Joseph Wright, A Philosopher Lecturing on the Orrery, or the full title, A Philosopher giving a Lecture on the Orrery in which a lamp is put in place of the Sun, c. 1766, oil on canvas, 147×203 cms, Derby Museum and Art Gallery.

57. Giuseppe Baldrighi, Self-Portrait with his Wife, c. 1760, oil on canvas, 160×125 cms, National Gallery of Parma.

58. Daniel Chodowiecki, Self-Portrait with Family at the Table, 1771, etching, 180×230 mm, Private collection.

59. Thomas Rowlandson, The Chamber of Genius, 1805-1810, pen and watercolour over pencil, 22.1×28.1 cms, Royal Collection.

60. Philip Runge, The Artist’s Parents, 1806, oil on canvas, 196×131 cm, Kunsthalle, Hamburg.

61. Henry Fuseli, Self-Portrait, c. 1779, location unknown.

62. Francisco Goya, Self-Portrait from Los Caprichos, 1799, no. 1

63. J.M.W Turner, The Field of Waterloo, watercolour, 1817, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.

The Pursuit & Pleasure of Art in Eighteenth-Century Europe. 8

From Domesticity to the Romantic Heroism.

In art historical writing on the evolution of art and aesthetics in the eighteenth-century there is a frequently cited account: this is about the change in the attitude and psychology of artists who become more individualistic in the latter part of the century; this new disposition results in a corresponding departure from scenes of cosy, bourgeois domesticity found, for example, in Baldrighi, Chodowiecki, Hogarth, Highmore, and many other artists. What influenced this rejection of an artist’s orderly life when work was firmly set aside to allow the painter to be with his family? Scholars have argued that the reason one sees more of a chaotic image of the artist at work- rather than the peaceful image of them with their families- is due to ideas associated with the impending romantic era; the images of domestic comfort suggest the desire of the artist to show themselves as professionals, eager to get on in life and earn a place in the social hierarchy- the opposite of romanticism. But towards the end of the eighteenth-century, more eccentric images of artists appear, especially in Germany where the notion of artistic genius cannot sacrifice itself on the altar of what the Germans call bürgerlich, or a middle-class existence. For artists working in the Romantic era, to opt for a protective, homely status, or to portray themselves within such a situation- was unacceptable; they sought instead to represent themselves as gloomy, introspective beings, as in the Swiss artist Henry Fuseli’s manic Self-Portrait of 1779, a study of obsessional neurotic genius. With the disruption of the social order of the French Revolution, and its impact on the rest of Europe, artists could never simply accept the attitudes of progress, equality and social cohesion etched upon the mind of the eighteenth-century. Instead many artists preferred to show themselves as lonely artistic non-conformers, rather than appendages of a declining social body. Nevertheless, the era of the outsider artist had arrived, and in temperament it was far from the Enlightenment doctrine of social improvement. Artists like Fuseli (above) did not even want to hear about this philosophical optimism spread by enlightenment intellectuals like William Godwin (1756= 1836), let alone debate its relevance- or lack of it- to the Romantic era of the heroic artist.¹

1Barrell, The Political Theory of Painting, 259.

The Pursuit & Pleasure of Art in Eighteenth-Century Europe. 7

From Petersburg to Naples: The Cosmopolitanism of the Art Scene.

Traditionally, art history of this period has focused mainly on Britain and France, and occasionally Italy. But most countries in eighteenth-century Europe were affiliated to the visual arts. And the experience of the period’s art is far from European: Americans like John Singleton Copley (1738-1815) and Benjamin West (1738-1820) came to Europe; meanwhile, European artists journeyed eastwards to St Petersburg. Despite being the era of nation-building, the intellectual culture of eighteenth-century Europe was cosmopolitan in outlook. For those artists eager to secure a job with the courts, heading eastwards was the best option. Thus, the Venetian G. B. Tiepolo and his family worked at the episcopal place at Würzburg having been sent by Lorenz Jakob Mehling, a merchant, after the painter Giuseppe Visconti had failed at the task. Another Venetian, Bernardo Bellotto (1720/1- 1780) (above) travelled eastwards to a number of courts at Dresden, Vienna, and finally Warsaw where his view painting was much appreciated. Further north in Sweden, we have painters such as Carl Gustaf Pilo (1711-1793) who worked for King Frederick V of Denmark, though due to xenophobia, Pilo returned to Sweden where he became Director of the Swedish Academy; he was subsequently asked to paint the large picture (unfinished) of the coronation of King Gustaf III. However, the most populous centres during the eighteenth-century were found further south; the most populous cities were London, Paris and Naples. In London, one would find artists of different nationalities such as the French sculptor Louis François RoubilIiac (1702/5-1762), a friend of Hogarth, who carved a portrait of the English artist and his dog “Trump,” as well as a famous sculpture of another European, Handel. Paris was, of course, one of the leading art centres of the world; Naples became the residence of English diplomats and lords, like the previously mentioned Third Earl of Shaftesbury, and Sir William Hamilton, along with his trophy wife, Emma Hamilton.

The Pursuit & Pleasure of Art in Eighteenth-Century Europe. 6

Artifice & Authenticity in Eighteenth- Century Visual Art.

Anybody inspecting the art of the eighteenth-century could be forgiven for mistaking it as a gigantic fashion parade. Wigs, coiffures, masks, masquerades appear incessantly in the figurative painting of the time. All these could be regarded as the symbols not only of fashion, but of artifice. The quality of artifice might be seen as the antipole of authenticity; but the problem was that authenticity and artifice could become so intertwined that only a discerning individual might be able to distinguish between the two. Scholars have connected this problem to the rise of consumer society, and more appropriately for the visual arts, the culture of illusion and deceit that accompanied the rise of the arts in the eighteenth-century.¹ Artists across Europe such as Hogarth, Goya, Longhi, Zoffany, and Chodowiecki, in their images of well-dressed people did not hesitate to lampoon elegant society, and thus morally alert their viewers to the duplicity concealed behind the garments of wealth and prestige. Hogarth showed satiric images of London scenes (above); Goya savagely criticised Spanish society; Longhi exposed the theatricality of rich Venetians involved with the convention of the masquerade; Zoffany hinted at the erotic drives upholding European connoisseurship in his depictions of connoisseurs in Florence; and the Polish Chodowiecki showed couples on a scale ranging from the natural to the affected in a series of etchings. This moral exposure in art has been seen as an expression of the bourgeoise values of “industrious moral decorum.”² As for the aristocracy, who seamlessly mixed dress and ideology, the writing was on the wall. Complaining of the lack of elegance swept away by the French Revolution, present in her paintings of Marie-Antoinette and other members of the aristocracy, Elizabeth Vigée-Lebrun fled to Italy, and thence onwards to Russia. One of the most potent symbols of the hubris awaiting those who camouflaged social ambition and unbridled arrogance behind an elegant exterior is David’s memorable and slightly pitiful drawing of the shabbily-dressed French queen being taken to the guillotine.

1Crask,Art in Europe, 145f.

2Ibid, 162.

The Pursuit & Pleasure of Art in Eighteenth-Century Europe. 5

Politeness, Society & the Arts.

Another important concept that is foregrounded in the eighteenth- century is that of politeness; this idea clearly relates to fashion, dress and the visual aspect of the eighteenth-century individual; the century mixed ideology and costume like no other- see below. However, the notion of politeness, though an essential ingredient of a civilised society was regarded with suspicion in some quarters. For one thing, politeness was automatically connected with the French, the natural enemies of the English. Essentially, politeness conjures up ideas of etiquette; it is a way of smoothing over social relations, even if they are not essential to the nature of society.¹ However, as Brewer points out, politeness had greater depth in the eighteenth-century. Politeness was thought to express what the character of a true gentleman, or gentlewoman (above) should be. Conversation formed part of this, as the ability to be witty and interesting was a requirement of being socially acceptable. What one should never be was pedantic or learned; that would would characterise you as an insufferable bore rather than a gentleman. Naturally, artists of ambition could not ignore this well-mannered culture. In some cases, there was no option as they had to present a respectable house and noble appearance if they were to attract wealthy clients. Politeness should not be connected with the “conversation piece” which in its later meaning referred to objects that were perceived to be interesting enough to spark conversation about them, thus opening the gates of conversation.² The original pictorial “conversation pieces” sometimes depicted a group united in conversation about an object, which would typically be an item linked to science or scholarship, as in Joseph Wright’s Analysis of an Airpump. These pictures became known as “conversation pieces,” though unlike the scientific and academic pictures, there were informal group portraits by artists such as Hogarth, Arthur Devis (1712-1787), Johann Zoffany (1733-1810), and Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792) which in a broader sense imply general social communication of the period. Some humorists including Hogarth with his A Midnight Modern Conversation (1732) satirically showed polite conversation degenerating into incoherent drunkenness.

1Ibid, 101-102. Solkin (Painting for Money, 25) suggests that Shaftesbury thought that politeness amounted to civilisation itself. Quoting the Earl in his Characteristics II, 241: “All politeness is owing to liberty. We polish one another, and rub off our corners and rough sides by a sort of amicable collision.”

2“the conversation piece, which may be defined as a comparatively informal, small-scale portrait group, of a kind introduced to England by Philip Mercier (1689?- 1760), Robin Simon, The Portrait in Britain and America, (G.K. Hall and Son, Boston, 1987), 14.

The Pursuit & Pleasure of Art in Eighteenth-Century Europe. 4

Luxury and Civil Society

"It was said of Socrates, that he brought Philosophy down from Heaven, to inhabit among Men;and I shall be ambitious to have it said of me, that I have brought Philosophy out of Closets and Libraries, Schools and Colleges, to dwell in Clubs and Assemblies, at Tea-Tables, and Coffee-Houses."¹ Third Earl of Shaftesbury.

As the art historian John Barrell has explained, Paolo di Matteis’s Hercules at the Crossroads is not simply a representation of Hercules’s choice between between virtue and pleasure “in a loose and general sense” but a choice between “civic, public virtue and private vice” which positions the viewer of the picture as somebody who also has to make the choice between public virtue and vice or pleasure.² Since the age of the Reformation of the Stuarts (under Charles II) there was an evolving debate about pleasure and luxury which significantly impacted upon all the arts. This discussion was to continue in the new century in the intellectual culture of the coffee houses and clubs mentioned by Shaftesbury in the epigram above, with writers and commentators such as the writer Joseph Addison (1672-1719) who with his friend the Irish playwright Sir Richard Steele (1672-1729) founded the Tatler magazine in 1709. Addison and Steele were the leading members of the Kit-Kat Club, whose associates were painted by Sir Godfrey Kneller, thus naming this kind of portrait a “Kit-Kat” type.³ Charles II had tried unsuccessfully to close down the coffee-houses, as they were considered subversive to the crown; they were filled with Whig intellectuals who opposed absolute monarchism, and had engineered the “Glorious Revolution” of 1688. It was Addison who had coined the phrase “the pleasures of the imagination,”⁴ though these coffee house intellectuals did not disparage this new culture; they observed however that this emerging pleasure-loving society also had to acknowledge the responsibilities that lay with the delight of life.⁵ The Kit-Kat intellectuals response to the debate about pleasure and the arts was found in the pages of the Tatler; but luxury was attacked more vigorously in the writings of churchmen. One of the most famous protestors was the Church of England priest William Law (1686-1761) whose Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life (1728), together with its predecessor, A Practical Treatise Upon Christian Perfection (1726) attacked the concept of luxury; it was considered a distraction from God and the importance of the Church. This moralistic approach towards the growth of urban literary, artistic and theatre culture is also seen in a moderated form in much of the writing of the period, such as the Journal of Anna Larpent (1758-1832), a middle-class, informed wife who read books, reviewed plays, and visited art galleries on which she dutifully commented in her journal.⁶ In visual art, we see a number of moralistic images that clearly prove the influence of religious influence on the new, consumerist culture, as in Dighton’s illustrations (above) on the vanity of life compared with mundane distractions. These graphically and wittily capture the religious opposition towards luxury in the arts.

1Addison, Spectator No. 10 (March 12, 1711).

2Barrell’s argument is too complex to summarise here, but he analyses civic humanism within the writings of a number of leading 18^th century English artists and critics: The Political Theory of Painting: From Reynolds to Hazlitt (Yale University Press, 1986), 31. As a shorthand, Craske (Art in Europe, 1997, 17) defines “civic humanist ideology” as “the strong conviction that artists should set out to enhance the moral condition of life.”

3The title “Kit-Kat” was named after a pastry cook famed for his mutton pies, Solkin, Painting for Money, 29.

4This concept seems to adumbrate later theories of the picturesque and the sublime: “If we consider the works of nature and art as they are qualified to entertain the imagination, we shall find the last very defective in comparison of the former, for though they may sometimes appear as beautiful or strange, they can have nothing in them of that vastness and immensity which afford so great an entertainment to the mind of the beholder.” Addison quoted in The Restoration and the Eighteenth-Century (Oxford Anthology of English Literature, ed Martin Price, 1973, 634.

5The best introduction to luxury and the “pleasures of the imagination” is John Brewer’s cultural history, The Pleasures of the Imagination: English Culture in the Eighteenth-Century, (Fontana, 1997), 56-122.

6Larpent’s Journal is owned by the Huntingdon Library in California; she appears frequently in Brewer, The Pleasures of the Imagination.

The Pursuit & Pleasure of Art in Eighteenth-Century Europe. 3

The Choice of Hercules & The Earl of Shaftesbury.

The question of class and visual art in eighteenth-century England is of immense importance, though it is more difficult to map it out since the situation was more obscure due to the neglect, and indeed invisibility, of the fine arts- especially history painting- in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth- centuries. As London, and some of the provincial towns like Bristol and Manchester flourished, interest in the fine arts increased, though this was due more to artists, scholars and philanthropists than the court who did not know how to promote visual art to it- and the public’s- advantage. Of course British painters welcomed the new climate of “the pleasures of the imagination” as it offered great opportunities for their career, as in the case of William Hogarth (1697-1764) and a team of artists who decorated the Vauxhall Gardens. However, there were notable moral exceptions to the new pleasures of the arts; in one important case, it might be significant that the painting was not British, but the work of a Neapolitan painter who served an aristocratic English patron. The artist was Paolo di Matteis (1662- 1728); the patron was Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713) who associated luxury with the decline of the visual arts, a common complaint from the historians of art.¹ Due to medical advice, Shaftesbury had retired to Naples where he mixed in intellectual company, bought pictures for his English friends, and drew up ideas on aesthetic theory; thus he applied his moral philosophy to the visual arts.² Shaftesbury gave detailed instructions to Paolo di Matteis (later published) for a painting of Hercules at the Crossroads between Vice and Virtue (above). Struggling to realise the Earl’s philosophical vision (Shaftesbury had himself painted as a Platonic philosopher by the English artist John Closterman) the Italian artist could hardly convey the complex thought of the aristocratic thinker. However, Shaftesbury was pleased with the result, possibly because di Matteis’s picture is executed in a “severe” or dry style; the Earl commissioned the artist to paint another philosophically themed picture, but despite giving the orders, Shaftesbury died within a month, and so the picture was lost to posterity.

1In Lawrence E. Klein’s Shaftesbury and the Culture of Politeness: Moral Discourse and Cultural Politics in Early Eighteenth-Century England (CUP, 1994, 188), states “Following Pliny on painting in imperial Rome, Shaftesbury asserted that the fundamental value of painting was "severity," which defined the art's materials, the lives of its master practitioners, its formal properties, and its effects. Roman painting declined on account of the rise of the opposing principle, namely, luxury. For Shaftesbury, the ideal society was ancient Greece which was occasionally contrasted with ancient Rome.

2Francis Haskell, Patrons and Painters: Art and Society in Baroque Italy (Yale University Press, 1980, 2^nd printing 1986198.

The Pursuit & Pleasure of Art in Eighteenth-Century Europe. 2

The Public & the Machine of Art.

Perhaps the defining idea behind eighteenth-century visual art was the appearance of a public, largely composed of various classes, that subsequently became both observers and consumers of art. Imagine yourself as a visitor to one of the public exhibitions (salons) held in Paris (above) in the middle of the century. Whatever your financial or social status, your profession or gender, you would be allowed to visit the exhibition between 9.00 am and late afternoon; entry would be free, though you could purchase a guide book (livret) for 12 sous on the staircase to the galleries.¹ The official salon dates from 1737, but from 1746, paintings were hung against a green tapestry background; the pictures would be placed close together; the largest ones would be hung at the top.² This last arrangement was known as the hierarchy of the genres; the Academy that organised these yearly shows believed that the gigantic history pictures relayed moral content to the spectator, and they should therefore should be placed physically higher; other genres such as portraiture and landscape, habitually downgraded were hung nearer the ground. In effect, the hierarchy of genres “were valued in proportion to their tendency to promote public virtue.”³ The French were in the habit of calling their gigantic history paintings grandes machines since these productions were composed of intricate parts, like a mechanical device.⁴ That analogy could be extended to the hierarchy of genres as a whole, since in a “Newtonian” manner the hierarchy of art induces the idea of a cosmos of planetary bodies held in place by the laws of celestial mechanics, solidly formulated, but not unchallengeable, as with Newton’s theories. This was much the same for the rules of art and the notion of the public. As scholars have shown through analyses of literature on the exhibitions, such ideas as “virtue” and “nobility,” historically associated with higher social classes, do not fit comfortably with the model of the hierarchy of genres, as previously thought.⁵

1 Robert W Berger, Public Access to Art in Paris: A Documentary History from the Middle Ages to 1800, (Penn State University Press, 1999), 166.

2Ibid.

3This phrase is used by John Barrell in The Political Theory of Painting: From Reynolds to Hazlitt (Yale University Press, 1986), 50. He does compare attitudes to art theory between Britain and France, but he stresses the lack of republican feeling in France, an absolutist state, before the Salon was re-instituted in 1737.

4The origin of the phrase grandes machines is intriguing. According to Craske (Art in Europe, 103) the English critic Hazlitt compared French painting to “[a] modern system of communication,” though Craske himself thought that grandes machines derived from de Julien Offray de La Mettrie’ s L'homme machine (Machine Man) published in 1748.

5The best analysis for the French situation is Thomas E. Crow, Painters and Public Life in Eighteenth-Century Paris (Yale University Press, 1985).

The Pursuit & Pleasure of Art in Eighteenth-Century Europe. 1

Art & 18^th Century Europe.

Last term we looked at the whole of Europe through many periods; by contrast, this term focuses entirely on Europe during the eighteenth-century, which historically we can define as the end of the Restoration period of Charles II (1630-1685) up to the fall and death of Napoleon in 1821. On the issue of European art, the eighteenth-century may be the most appropriate period for understanding this, as the internationalism of art first began to appear during this period that saw the growing of nations and “supra-nations” at a time of great economic progress and intellectual advancement, commonly called the European Enlightenment.¹ During this period such great artists as Canaletto (1697-1768),above,  G.B. Tiepolo (1696-1770) and others travelled across Europe painting for courts or private patrons. One of the Enlightenment’s aims was to create a universal culture whose ideas did not observe national boundaries, which had momentous implications for the art world. And as the century matured, it became obvious that to be considered part of a European civilisation, cities would have to possess art institutions that disseminated art theory, suitable for the instructions of students by trained tutors. Within this context visual art was created, guided by art theory, though conditions were very different from the previous century when art institutions were used- primarily- to produce imperialist propaganda for the acclaim of courts and high level patrons, most famously, the French Academy of Painting and Sculpture (est 1648) before and during the reign of Louis XIV (1638-1715).

1Matthew Craske’s Art in Europe 1700-1830, (OUP, 1997), considers the issue of “European art” and “European culture” in great detail.

Breaking with Tradition: The Origins of Modern Art in Europe. Slides

Slides.

1. James A. McNeil Whistler, Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket, c. 1872-1877, oil on canvas, 60.3 cm × 46.6 cm, Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit.

2. Alfred H. Barr’s chart of the evolution of modern art.

3. George Frederick Watts, Hope, c. 1886, oil on canvas, 142.2 cm × 111.8 cm, Tate Gallery, London.

4. Elihu Vedder, Memory, 1870, oil on mahogany panel, 51.2×37.5 cm, Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

5. Paul Gauguin, The Yellow Christ, 1889, oil on canvas, 91.1 cm × 73.4 cm, Albright-Knox Art Gallery.

6. Edvard Munch, Spring, 1889, oil on canvas, 169.5×263.5 cm, National Gallery of Norway.

7. Vincent Van Gogh, Sunflowers, fourth version: yellow background, oil on canvas, 92.1 × 73 cm, National Gallery, London, England.

8. Odilon Redon, Guardian Spirit of the Waters, 1878, various charcoals, with touches of black chalk, stumping, erasing, incising, and subtractive sponge work, heightened with traces of white chalk, on cream wove paper altered to a golden tone, 466×376 mm, Art Institute of Chicago.

9. Cover J. K. Huysmans A rebours (Against Nature), first published 1884.

10. Gustave Moreau, Salome, (L'Apparition), 1876, watercolour, Musée d’ Orsay, Paris.

11. Odilon Redon, Silence, 1911, pastel on paper, 54.6×54 cm, MOMA, New York.

12. Odilon Redon, Cactus Man, 1882, charcoal on paper, 46.5×31.5 cm, Private Collection, U.S.A.

13. Eugene Carrière, Woman Leaning on a Table, c. 1893, oil on canvas, 65×54.3 cm, Hermitage, St Petersburg.

14. Fernand Khnopff, Listening to Schubert,, oil on canvas, 101,5×116,5, Royal Museum of Art, Brussels.

15. James Ensor, Le Dame sombre, 1881, oil on canvas, 100×80 cm, Royal Museum of Art, Brussels.

16. Fernand Khnopff, Portrait of his Sister, Marguerita, 1887, Royal Museum of Belgium, Brussels.

17. Fernand Khnopff, Memories, pastel on paper mounted on canvas, 127×200 cm, Royal Museum of Belgium, Brussels.

18. Fernand Khnopff, “I lock my door upon myself,” 1891, oil on canvas, 72×140 cm, Neue Pinakothek, Munich.

19. Paul Gauguin, The Sleeping Child, Portrait of Clovis Gauguin, 1884, oil on canvas, Private Collection.

20. Paul Gauguin, Self-Portrait (Les Miserables), 1888, oil on canvas, 45×56 cm, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.

21. Paul Gauguin, Still Life with Portrait of Laval, 1886, oil on canvas, 46.04 cm × 38 cm, Indianapolis Museum of Art,

22. Charles Laval, Self Portrait, 1888, oil on canvas, 50×60 cm Van Gogh Museum Amsterdam.

23. Paul Gauguin, Vision after the Sermon, 1888, 72.2 cm × 91 cm, National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh.

24. Paul Gauguin, Seascape with Cow on the Edge of a Cliff, 1888, oil on canvas, Musée de Arts Decoratifs, Paris.

25. Paul Serusier, The Talisman, 1888, oil on wood, 27×21.5 cm, Musée d’ Orsay, Paris.

26. Odilon Redon, Portrait of Violette Heymann, 1910, pastel, 72×92 cm, Cleveland Museum of Art.

27. Maurice Denis, Homage to Cézanne, 1900, oil on canvas, 24×21 cm, Musée d’Orsay, Paris.

28. Maurice Denis, Spots of Sunlight on the Terrace, 1900, oil on cardboard, 24×20.5 cm, location unknown.

29. Charles Filiger, Landscape at Le Pouldhu, 1890, gouache on paper, 26×38.5 cm, Musée dews Beaux Arts, Quimper.

30. Georges Lacomb, Vorhor, Grey Wave, 1893-1894, egg tempera on canvas, 81×61 cm, Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis.

31. Armand Seguin, Les Fleurs du Mal, 1892, oil on canvas, 53×37.5 cm, Private Collection.

32. Maurice Denis, Offering to the Calvary, 1890, oil on canvas, 32×24.6 cm, Private Collection.

33. Pierre Bonnard, Self-Portrait, 1889, oil on canvas, 21.5×15.8 cm, Private Collection

34. Pierre Bonnard, Woman with an Umbrella, 1894, two-colour lithograph, 32.2×25.1, MOMA, New York.

35. Edmond Vuillard, Woman in a Striped Dress, 1895, oil on canvas, 65.7×58.7 cm, National Gallery of Art, Washington.

36. Vincent van Gogh, Portrait of Eugene Bloch, 1888, oil on canvas, 60×44 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris.

37. Vincent van Gogh, Night Cafe, 1888, oil on canvas, 70×80 cm, Yale University Art gallery.

38. Vincent van Gogh, The Starry Night, 1889, oil on canvas, 73 × 92 cm, MOMA, New York.

39. Vincent van Gogh, Road with Cypresses and Star, 1890, oil on canvas, Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands.

40. Edvard Munch, The Sick Child, (fourth version), 1885-1886, oil on canvas, 137×139 cm, Tate, London.

41. Edvard Munch, Inger on the Beach: (Summer Night), 1889, oil on canvas, 126.4×161.7 cm, Rasmus Meyers Samlinger, Bergen.

42. Edvard Munch, Despair: Sick Mood at Sunset, Sick Mood at Sunset, Despair, 1892, oil on canvas, 36 1/4 × 26 3/8 inches, Thielska Galleriet, Sweden.

43. Edvard Munch, Evening on Karl Johan Street, 1893, oil on canvas, 114.9×121.0 cm, Private Collection, Bergen.

44. Edvard Munch, The Dance of Life, 1899-1900, oil on canvas, 124.5×190.5 cm, National Gallery, Oslo.

45. Auguste Rodin, The Gates of Hell, 1880-90 (cast 1926-28), bronze, 635×400×85 cm, Musée Rodin, Paris.

46. Detail.

47. Paul Gauguin, Where do we come from? Who are we? Where are we going?, 1897-1898, oil on canvas, 139 cm × 375 cm, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

48. Edvard Munch, The Scream, (The Scream of Nature), 1893, oil, tempera, pastel and crayon on cardboard, 91 cm × 73.5 cm, National Gallery and Munch Museum, Oslo, Norway.

49. Eugene Jansson, Self-Portrait, 1901, oil on canvas, 101.0×144.0 cm, Thielska Galleriet, Stockholm.

50. August Strindberg, Flower by the Shore, 1892, oil on zinc, 24×43 cm, Malmo Art Museum.

51. Edvard Munch, The Sun, c. 1911-12, oil on canvas, 455 cm x 780 cm, The Oslo University, Oslo, Norway.

52. The Sun at Oslo University.

53. Fritz Mackensen, 1895, Prayers in the Moor, 1895, oil on canvas, 235×430 cm, Museum am Hofen Ufer, Hannover.

54. Heinrich Vogeler, Der Barkenhoff, Worpswede, 1904, oil on canvas, 45,5×60,5 cm, Private Collection.

55. Heinrich Vogeler, First Summer, 1902, oil on canvas, 160×132 cm, Kuntshalle, Bremen.

56. Paula Modersohn-Becker, Poorhouse Woman in the Garden, 1906, oil on canvas, 90×80 cm, Bottcherstrasse Sammlung, Bremen.

57. Paula Modersohn Becker, Mother and Child, 1907, oil on canvas, 113×74 cm, National Gallery, Berlin.

58. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Bathers at Moritsburg, 1909, reworked 1926, oil on canvas, 151×199 cm, Tate, London.

59. Lovis Corinth, Matinee, 1905, oil on canvas, 75×62 cm, Saarlandmuseum, Saarbrucken.

60. Max Liebermann, The Artist’s Studio, 1902, oil on canvas, St Gallen Museum of Art, Switzerland.

61. Erich Heckel, Portrait of Frederick Nietzsche, 1905, woodcut, Brűcke Museum, Berlin.

62. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Bathers in a Room, 1909-1911, oil on canvas, Saarlandmuseum, Saarbrucken.

63. Henri Matisse, The Joy of Living, 1905-1906, oil on canvas, 176.5×240.7 cm, Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia.

64. Henri Derain, The Dance, 1906, oil on canvas, 185×209 cm, location unknown.

65. Eugene Jansson, Cold Bath, 1911, oil on canvas, 200×300 cm, Peter and Renate Nahum, London.

66. Verne Thom, Bathing Boys, 1910, oil on canvas, 108.5×130cm, Ateneum Art Museum, Finnish National Gallery, Helsinki.

67. Franz Marc, Red Woman, 1912, oil on canvas, 100.5×70 cm, Leicester Art Gallery.